According to Killedbypolice.net, at least 808 people have been killed by
police so far this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and
they ALL GET AWAY WITH IT!
"Police in the United States are trained to see
the working class and poor as a hostile enemy.
Anything less than complete submissiveness
is grounds for officers to unleash deadly force
on their victims. In some instances, even the
most casual encounters with police have
proven to be deadly."
police so far this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and
they ALL GET AWAY WITH IT!
Horrifying video shows California cop shooting man SEVEN TIMES outside a 7-Eleven after suspect grabbed the officer's magazine
- The shooting happened at a 7-Eleven in Huntington Beach on Friday morning
- The cop and the unidentified man wrestled on the ground before he opened fire
- After six rounds, the man was still on his feet and the cop fired a seventh shot
- The man was taken to hospital where he later died on his injuries
- Witnesses say he grabbed the cop's magazine from his belt, prompting him to open fire
- It is not clear why police were initially called to the convenience store
Horrifying footage has emerged of a cop shooting a man seven times outside a 7-Eleven in California on Friday morning.
The unidentified man died in hospital shortly after being wounded by the Huntington Beach Police Officer at around 9.30am.
Witnesses say the officer opened fire after the man grabbed the gun magazine from his belt.
Video taken immediately before he opened fire shows the pair wrestling on the ground.
Scroll down for video
The moment a Huntington Beach Police Officer shot a man seven times outside a 7-Eleven on Friday after he grabbed his magazine from his belt
The man, who had long, black hair and was dressed all in black, appeared to grab at the officers belt then rise to his feet suddenly. It is not known if he was armed at the time.
The officer fired six shots in quick succession, wounding the man who shuddered but still remained on his feet.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4911564/Cop-shoots-man-multiple-times-California-7-Eleven.html#ixzz4tRz1usMs
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Brutal video depicts Huntington Beach, California officer killing Navy veteran
By John Burton
25 September 2017
Outside a 7-Eleven convenience store Friday morning in Huntington Beach, California, a police officer shot unarmed Dillan Tabares, a white, 27-year-old veteran of the United States Navy. Later that day Chief of Police Robert Handy defended the brutal killing despite the posting of a bystander video on YouTube that clearly shows Tabares unarmed and not threatening the officer when he was shot seven times.
As of this writing important details remain unknown, including the name of the officer, a two-and-a-half-year veteran. The event was witnessed by multiple high-school students arriving at Marina High School directly across the street, where Tabares graduated in 2008 before enlisting and becoming an information systems technician stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.
“That was actually basically seeing a person die. It’s not like the movies,” student Carmella Marshall told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s really real.”
According to preliminary information from his family, after being discharged from the Navy, Tabares lost his security clearance due to a positive marijuana test and had developed profound depression, which he self-medicated.
Some accounts have characterized him as “transient.” There seems to be no question that he was emotionally disturbed and in need of treatment.
A second bystander video, which starts about 15 seconds earlier than the first, shows Tabares advancing quickly toward the officer who, while backing up, fires a Taser that seemed to have no effect.
The video vividly illustrates a little-known fact about the Taser—a barbaric weapon designed to impale half-inch electrified darts into human beings—that it is useless to counter an aggressive person advancing on an officer. Taser darts fired into the chest generally have little effect outside of occasionally triggering cardiac arrest through electrocution.
In any event, Tabares clearly swings at the officer a few times, and the two fall to the ground fighting. That is where the second video begins, providing a far better perspective on the shooting.
There was no call for service at the convenience store, and the reason for the officer’s initial contact with Tabares is unknown, though the 27-year-old acted as though provoked.
During the altercation on the asphalt parking lot, the officer put Tabares in a headlock and punched him repeatedly. Tabares removed a small black object from the officer’s equipment belt, perhaps an extra ammunition clip, but his hand was never near the officer’s gun. The officer unholstered his weapon as the two men separated and moved apart.
When shot, Tabares was standing straight up, unarmed and moving back from the officer. The officer appears in the videos to be at least 10 feet away when he fired without giving any commands or warning.
Despite the volley of six shots, Tabares remained standing, a gruesome image. The officer ordered him to get down as he fired a seventh round, and then Tabares collapsed against the side of the store. At least one bullet went through a window and into the store, where a worker was injured either by a bullet graze or shard of glass.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, a notoriously corrupt agency, implicated recently in the cover-up of widespread constitutional violations by planting informants at its jail, will supposedly investigate the case.
This is the seventh police shooting in Huntington Beach this year, and the second human fatality. One dog has been killed.
Earlier this month, two Huntington Beach officers shot and wounded each other, along with a man they suspected of slashing tires. There were two shootings in March and three during one 25-hour span in January. None of the shootings involved a civilian with a firearm.
Huntington Beach is the fourth largest city in Orange County, with a population slightly less than 200,000. Predominately white and middle-class, Huntington Beach is known for miles of wide, sandy beaches and its annual surfing contest.
The fact that the national epidemic of police violence is now appearing with such virulence in communities such as Huntington Beach demonstrates that the fundamental causes are far deeper than racial discrimination. The historically unprecedented growth of social inequality domestically, coupled with imperialist aggression abroad, has increased the militarization of police agencies throughout the United States, and fomented homicidal behaviors among the “bodies of armed men” paid to maintain the capitalist order.
Oklahoma City police shoot and kill deaf man
By Matthew Taylor
22 September 2017
Magdiel Sanchez, 35, was sitting on his porch Tuesday night when he was approached by Lieutenant Matthew Lindsey of the Oklahoma City Police Department. Lindsey had received reports that a vehicle driven by Sanchez’s father had been involved in a hit-and-run accident earlier that night and had arrived at that address.
Lindsey claims that Sanchez, who is deaf and does not speak, was holding a two-foot length of metal pipe in his hand. Neighbors later told the media that Sanchez often carries the pipe to protect himself from the many stray dogs in the neighborhood.
A second police officer, Sergeant Christopher Barnes, arrived on the scene shortly after Lindsey. Together the two officers approached Sanchez. As the deaf man approached the officers to communicate with them they shouted at Sanchez to drop the pipe and lay on the ground, an order he obviously did not hear due to his disability.
Nearby neighbors who witnessed the confrontation yelled at the two cops that Sanchez was deaf and could not understand their orders.
At a reported distance of 15 feet, Lindsey shot
Sanchez with a Taser, while Barnes opened
fire with his gun, hitting Sanchez five to six
times, according to witnesses.
Sanchez died on the scene. Lindsey and
Barnes are white, Sanchez was Hispanic.
In a press release Wednesday, Captain Bo Matthews of the Oklahoma City Police told the media that the officers could not hear the neighbors shouting that Sanchez was deaf. Sanchez had no criminal record and was not in the vehicle with his father during the alleged hit-and-run, which police acknowledged was not serious and did not involve a pedestrian.
Julio Rayos, a neighbor of Sanchez’s who witnessed the shooting, told the Oklahoman what transpired: “As the police pulled up a couple of neighbors, me and my wife and my daughter were outside screaming at the cops not to shoot, because he was deaf, and they proceeded in doing what they did.
“The guy does movements, he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t hear, mainly it is hand movements. That’s how he communicates. I believe he was frustrated trying to tell them what was going on,” Rayos explained.
“As they got out of the car they drew their weapons. Myself and my daughter were screaming at the officers that he was deaf, that he could not hear anything, and they proceeded on, shooting him.”
Rayos disputed the police claims that they could not hear his neighbors’ pleas, “I believe they did hear me because one of them turned around and looked at me and they also had a neighbor who lived right across the street who was screaming at them. Also, I was approximately 25 to 30 feet away from them.”
Barnes has been put on paid leave but has not been charged with any crime. The killing of Sanchez is the fifth police shooting in Oklahoma City this year.
According to a database maintained by the Washington Post, Sanchez’s death marks the 712th police killing of 2017.
Officer who shot Georgia Tech student had no training in how to handle individuals with mental illness
The Georgia Bureau of investigation acknowledged Wednesday that the campus police officer who fired the fatal shot that killed a white 21-year-old Georgia Tech student, Scout Schultz, had not received any training on how to handle suspects with mental illness.
In a widely-viewed video, Schultz can be seen standing outside a parking garage on the university surrounded by several officers. Schultz, who identified as neither male nor female, has their hands at their sides and can be heard multiple times shouting at the officers, “Shoot me!” Schultz is seen slowly walking back and forth as police order the student to “drop the knife.”
As Schultz turned, Georgia Tech Police officer Tyler Beck, who is also white, opened fire, killing the young student with a single bullet to the heart.
In another video taken from the scene after the shooting, the alleged knife, a Leatherman-style multi-tool, can be seen on the ground. The blade of the tool is not extended, but fully folded into its casing.
The Washington Post reports that the 911 call that led to the killing was placed by Schultz. In the call Schultz told police there was “ a white male, with long blond hair, white T-shirt and blue jeans who is possibly intoxicated, holding a knife and possibly armed with a gun on his hip.”
Three suicide notes were found in the student’s room. Schultz, who had previously attempted suicide by hanging two years ago, had long suffered from anxiety and depression and had undergone counseling.
According to the Washington Post mental illness is a factor in approximately one-quarter of all police shootings. So far, at least 159 people with mental illness have been shot and killed by police in 2017.
Pittsburgh police caught on video
beating restrained man
A video widely-circulated on Facebook shows
police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
savagely beating a restrained man.
The officers claim that they were arresting another man on forgery charges at the time, when the man in question, Daniel Adelman, allegedly tried to interfere.
In the video, five police officers are surrounding the two men, who are both on their stomachs lying on the ground. Two police officers can be seen restraining Adelman, who is covering the back of his head with both hands, while a third officer assaults him. The officer punches Adelman eight times, slams his face into the ground three times, and then punches him another seven to eight times before handcuffing him.
Adelman was charged with obstructing the administration of law, resisting arrest and public drunkenness. The 47-year-old man suffered a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder, and a possible concussion.
After being released, Adelman told the media that he witnessed the arrest of the other man, David Jones, outside of a concert and tried to assist the police. “I was smoking a cigarette and I see an officer with a suit on and then I see this other guy and I thought the officer in the suit was in trouble, so I went down there and, you know, and then all hell broke loose.”
The policeman seen striking the blows, Andrew Jacobs, has been placed on desk duty pending an investigation. The other four officers involved in the incident remain on active duty.
According to Killedbypolice.net, at least 808 people have been killed by
police so far this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and
they ALL GET AWAY WITH IT!
By Genevieve Leigh and George Gallanis reporting from St. Louis
By Genevieve Leigh
According to Killedbypolice.net, at least 808 people have been killed by
police so far this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and
they ALL GET AWAY WITH IT!
"Police in the United States are trained to see
the working class and poor as a hostile enemy.
Anything less than complete submissiveness
is grounds for officers to unleash deadly force
on their victims. In some instances, even the
most casual encounters with police have
proven to be deadly."
Pseudo-left groups push identity politics on seventh day of St. Louis protests
By Genevieve Leigh and George Gallanis reporting from St. Louis
22 September 2017
As police in full riot gear with batons in hand stood by, hundreds of peaceful protesters gathered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri Thursday evening on the seventh day of protests over the acquittal of white police officer Jason Stockley for the 2011 murder of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was African American.
In a marked shift from previous days of protest, Thursday night’s event was dominated by pseudo-left organizations promoting racialist politics. The protest was officially named a “White Allies Only” rally, where white people were asked to come out to support Black Lives Matter.
Nearly four hundred protesters met early in the evening at Kiener Plaza Park in downtown St. Louis for the event. From there, they marched to nearby Busch Stadium where a Billy Joel concert was taking place.
At one point in the protest, organizers of the rally requested that all white protesters move to the front of the protest in order to deter possible police confrontations. According to Black Lives Matter, the purpose of “white allies” is to “amplify and recenter the lives of black people while standing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement.”
A leading organizer of the rally was a member of Socialist Alternative who repeatedly led the protesters in chanting “white silence is violence.” Multiple posters carried by protesters bore the statements “Black Lives Matter” and “White Silence = White Violence.” The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) fully endorsed the racialist narrative and promoted the event on their local Facebook page. Their flag was carried by a DSA member and was waved above the protesters throughout the night.
Black Lives Matter representatives and Socialist Alternative members gave speeches throughout the protest during which one female speaker told the crowd of protesters, “Police need to be trained better. Had the St. Louis police department received better training, Smith would not be dead.”
For almost two hours, protesters marched near Busch Stadium and eventually returned to where they began at Kiener Plaza Park. The protest dispersed around 9:00 p.m.
Socialist Alternative, the Democratic Socialists of America, Black Lives Matter, and the many other organizations that operate in the orbit of the Democratic Party insist that the issue of police violence is fundamentally a product of racism. The political conclusions which necessarily flow from this lack of analysis can only be a series of empty reforms: that more officers of color be hired into the police force; that police be “better” trained.
Racism has always been an ideological tool of the ruling class. The renewed efforts from pseudo-left groups to remove the issue of racism from its real social, political and historical context are employed to obscure the fundamental class divisions in society and present racism as something pervasive, ineradicable and deeply embedded in the American psyche. Their real aim is to preempt the development of a broader, deeper and politically independent movement of the working class united across all racial, ethnic and national lines.
With three months still left in the year St. Louis police have already fatally shot eight people in 2017, which is high even for the notorious St. Louis police force. Comparatively, there were five people killed by St. Louis police in all of 2016.
All of those killed this year have been poor and working-class
people, many of whom lived in deeply impoverished parts of
city. Two of the eight were white, and the other six were
African American. One of the victims, Robin White, had
mental health issues and at least two others were killed by
police in their own homes. In addition to those who were
killed, police have shot and wounded seven other people so
far this year.
Police in the United States are trained to see
the working class and poor as a hostile enemy.
Anything less than complete submissiveness
is grounds for officers to unleash deadly force
on their victims. In some instances, even the
most casual encounters with police have
proven to be deadly.
The role racism often plays in any given act of brutality is more fundamentally rooted in the irreconcilable conflict between the interests of the ruling elite and those of the working class. This conflict has intensified alongside the explosion in social inequality throughout the US and the world and a quarter-century of unending US imperialism abroad.
According to Killedbypolice.net, at least 808 people have been killed by police so far this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and they ALL GET AWAY WITH IT!
Over forty arrested in St. Louis as demonstrations continue against acquittal of killer cop
By Genevieve Leigh
18 September 2017
Police intensified their crackdown on protesters in St. Louis, Missouri on Sunday as demonstrations against police violence continued into the third day.
The protests erupted Friday afternoon following the announcement that police officer Jason Stockley was acquitted of first degree murder and armed criminal action in the 2011 killing of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith.
Stockley, who is white, fired five bullets at point-blank range into Smith, who was African-American, while the victim was seated in his car after a three-mile chase. A police car dashcam recorded Stockley telling his partner in advance of the shooting, “We’re killing this motherfucker, don’t you know.” An FBI firearms analyst testified at the trial that one shot was discharged from only six inches away.
After the murder, video recordings show Stockley going into his police car to get a gun, which he then planted in the car of the dead victim. Only Stockley’s DNA was found on the gun.
Considering the precedent upheld across the board by both Democrats and Republicans of blanket immunity for killer cops it is hardly a surprise that Stockley was acquitted. However, the sheer amount of evidence and the blatant murderous character of the event makes his exoneration particularly egregious.
Demonstrations erupted immediately following the announcement and attracted as many as one thousand people at their peak. Protests were held outside of police department headquarters and numerous marches took place throughout the city Friday evening. On Saturday, hundreds held demonstrations in West County Center shopping mall in the city of Des Peres, west of St. Louis, and at Chesterfield Mall in the suburb of Chesterfield. Saturday’s demonstrations culminated in a gathering at the home of Democratic mayor, Lyda Krewson, where at least one window was broken after something was thrown at it.
With the memories of the massive upheavals which erupted in Ferguson in 2014--only a 20-minute drive from St. Louis--state and local authorities had anticipated protests over the exoneration of yet another killer cop. Officials spent the past week preparing to impose a virtual lockdown on the city. Barricades were erected around police headquarters and the courthouse, among other sites, and Republican Governor Eric Greitens activated the National Guard on Thursday ahead of the announcement.
As early as 6:30 p.m. on Friday the St. Louis Police Department had determined that the protests were “no longer considered peaceful,” which they announced in a tweet. They claimed that demonstrators were ignoring commands to leave the streets, making all of those in the area subject to arrest.
Reports indicate that at least thirty-three people were arrested during Friday’s protests and an additional nine Saturday night through Sunday morning. According to officials, four of the nine people arrested will face felony destruction of property charges. Among those arrested were two minors and the other seven ranged in age from 22 to 37 years old.
The St. Louis Police Department took to Twitter to justify their actions throughout the weekend.
On Friday they posted pictures of rocks and water bottles that they claimed had been thrown at officers throughout the day adding that “officers showed great restraint.”
These photos stand in sharp contrast to the videos and photos posted by the protesters of hundreds of police officers dressed in riot gear and armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry attacking protesters.
Their “restraint” included firing pepper-spray balls and tear gas against the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrators. In one instance police in riot gear marched over a woman after she was knocked to the ground. When several people rushed to her assistance they were also knocked to the ground by police officers armed with shields and large bats.
Krewson and Geitens were also active on their Twitter accounts throughout the weekend making veiled threats to the protesters and offering their full support for the police force.
Greitens publicly bolstered the law-and-order campaign, tweeting praise of the police actions and posting videos of himself shaking hands with law enforcement. Bragging in a Tweet on Saturday, he wrote “some criminals broke windows & thought they’d get away. They were wrong. Officers caught ‘em, cuffed ‘em, and threw ‘em in Jail.” The video posted along with the tweet shows five officers hauling away a cuffed young man who appears to be unconscious.
The brutal murder of Anthony Lamar Smith and the subsequent violent crackdown on protesters by the political establishment are, in a very direct way, the product of twenty-five years of unending US wars abroad, with the same military gear and tactics being against the working class at home.
The officer responsible for the killing, Stockley, is a West Point graduate who served with the Army in the Iraq war. He carried his personal AK-47-style rifle with him as an officer in St. Louis, and noted in the trial that he felt that his life and the life of his fellow officers “depended on it”--a perspective likely ingrained in him throughout his time around the various military institutions.
Greitens, the most enthusiastic cheerleader of the St. Louis police force through the weekend, comes out of a long career in the military establishment, having served for years as a Navy Seal, the most notoriously brutal arm of the United States military Special Forces.
President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions have been vehement defenders of killer cops and violent police forces. Speaking for police officers in August, Trump encouraged them to be “rough” with those they were arresting. Later that month, he signed an order reinstituting the federal program that supplies military weapons and equipment to local and state police forces.
By Ed Hightower
Authorities withheld DNA evidence in St. Louis police killing
By Ed Hightower
25 September 2017
World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke with attorney Al Watkins in St. Louis last week following the “not guilty” verdict in the criminal case of former police officer Jason Stockley, who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith in December 2011. When Missouri Circuit Court Judge Timothy Wilson released the ruling on September 15, protests swept St. Louis. The ongoing demonstrations have been met with brutal police repression, including the “kettling” and mass arrest of peaceful protesters.
Watkins represented Smith’s family members in a civil rights lawsuit against officer Stockley and the city of St. Louis. The St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners agreed to a $900,000 settlement with the family in 2013, ending the civil lawsuit.
In a stage of the lawsuit known as discovery, Watkins requested that the city provide any DNA evidence involving a revolver allegedly brandished by Smith as well as additional video footage of the killing. Investigative notes by the FBI as part of its federal criminal investigation made reference to both DNA evidence and the video footage that Watkins requested. The city denied that it had either of these pieces of evidence.
Watkins told the WSWS: “During our court-ordered mediation in the civil rights case, the city failed to turn over DNA evidence linking Stockley to the revolver, as well as the additional video footage. It became clear to us during Stockley’s criminal prosecution that the city had had this evidence back when we were in mediation.
“Had we had this evidence prior, it would have increased the settlement value of the family’s claim. I brought this to the attention of the Missouri attorney general who handled Stockley’s defense in the civil case, and his response was, ‘We gave you everything that our office [the attorney general’s office] had in its file.’ That is not the legal standard for discovery. They had a duty to hand over not just what was in their file, but what was in the possession of the city of St. Louis, which they did not do.”
Failure to comply with a discovery request is grounds for disbarment or the permanent removal of an attorney’s license to practice law. It may also have criminal implications.
Watkins continued: “The whole package of justice in this case, not just the criminal case but in the civil remedies, the federal lawsuit, was compromised.”
It is not uncommon for wrongful death lawsuits involving police shootings to result in settlements or verdicts reaching millions of dollars.
Watkins also commented on the 30-page judicial opinion handed down by Judge Wilson on September 15 exonerating Stockley on charges of first degree murder and armed criminal action. The verdict turned both the evidence in the case and the applicable law upside down.
Any objective review of the videos of the police pursuit and subsequent killing of Anthony Smith, which document multiple violations of police department policy, as well as the dash cam audio of Stockley telling his partner, “We’re killing this motherfucker, don’t you know,” shortly before Stockley pumped five bullets into Smith, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, make it clear that the cop committed murder.
Watkins explained: “You have to remember, Smith is ‘on paper,’ on parole, and has an ongoing bad relationship with Stockley. At the beginning of the encounter, Stockley is brandishing his own, personal AK-47 [a semiautomatic rifle with a 30-round magazine].”
A bystander’s video shows Stockley removing his gloves after the shooting, then rummaging in the police car and placing something in the victim’s car. At trial, Stockley claimed that Smith had a gun in his car, but the evidence showed that the only DNA on the weapon was his own.
“He said he went back to get a clot pack, designed to assist, like in combat, the cessation of bleeding,” Watkins said. He explained that this was contrary to police practice. If Smith had a gun, as Stockley claimed, the first task of the officer would have been to secure the gun, not provide first aid.
Most significantly, the footage does not show Stockley with the clot pack or anything else in his hands after he leaves the victim’s car for the second time. Attorney Watkins told the WSWS that the only explanation for this is that Stockley was planting a revolver in the victim’s car to fabricate evidence for his self-defense claim.
Watkins commented as well on the judge’s attempt to downplay Stockley’s recorded death threat. “The judge says, ‘You’ve got to look at subsequent actions to see what was meant in that stressful situation.’ So if you look at subsequent actions, the subsequent action is, quite interestingly, that Stockley shot and killed Smith. We’re not talking about a day later; we’re not talking about a few hours later. We’re talking about maybe, not quite, a minute later. Okay, so let’s look at that subsequent action. And the judge doesn’t. The judge simply dismisses it outright. So the whole concept of intent is, in effect, trashed.”
Watkins continued, “He [Judge Wilson] says that an ‘urban heroin dealer’ who did not carry a gun is ‘an anomaly.’ What does he mean by ‘urban?’ He means black. And the only thing he [Smith] had ever been found guilty of was stealing items from cars.”
By Tom Eley
Pennsylvania police shoot dead 12-year-old girl during home eviction
By Tom Eley
1 February 2016
On Monday morning a Pennsylvania state constable shot dead a 12-year-old girl while enforcing an eviction order on her family in rural Duncannon, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Constable Clarke Steele fired on the girl’s father, Donald Bartho Meyer Jr., 57, who police claim had aimed a rifle at Steele. The bullet passed through the man’s upper arm, shattering his bone, before striking the girl, Ciara Meyer, who was standing behind her father in the doorway. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Donald Meyer was flown to Hershey Medical Center for his wound and is being held on charges of “making terroristic threats,” as well as aggravated assault, simple assault and reckless endangerment. Constable Clarke Steel, who was joined at the eviction by employees of the rental firm, has not been charged, and authorities have made no apology for the girl’s death.
“Unfortunately, the constable was put into a situation where he had to defend himself,” said State Police Trooper Robert T. Hicks. “Unfortunately, that little girl just happened to be behind her father at the time.”
A web site set up in Ciara Meyer’s memory describes her as having been “a loving vibrant 12-year-old.” She attended public school in the Susquenita School District. The school’s superintendent said that counselors would be available to help children and staff deal with the loss.
“Very kind, sweet kid,” a neighbor told ABC 27 News. “Here’s a little girl that doesn’t even have a chance to grow up and live her life, and all because of this senseless act. It’s horrible, absolutely heartbreaking.”
According to court documents, Meyer owed $1,780.85 to his landlord, Pfautz Rental, on monthly $660 rent. The family was first delivered a court complaint on December 3. The court issued an order for possession on December 28, three days after Christmas, and this was served to Meyer at his home on December 30, two days before New Year’s Day.
Constable Steele arrived on Monday morning with the intention of physically removing Meyer and his daughter, who was home sick from school on Monday. He had been sent “numerous times” to warn Meyer, Hicks said.
In his last visit, Steel had given the family a 10 a.m., January 11, move-out deadline. Steele’s “lawful job, because he had a valid court order, was to remove them from the property if they had not already moved,” Hicks added.
According to the police version of events, Constable Steele approached the house in the morning. Donald Meyer closed the door on him and refused to talk. Steele however remained at the door of the house until Meyer returned and “engaged Constable Steele in a brief exchange of words.” Police claim that Meyer then “leveled a loaded .223 caliber rifle, which had been slung and concealed along his body, directly at Constable Steele with a point of aim at his chest.” At this moment Steele fired at Meyer, police say, grazing his arm but striking directly the small child that stood behind him.
Police have not yet claimed that Meyer fired on Constable Steele. A search warrant issued after the Ciara’s killing found Donald Meyer’s gun with a loaded chamber and a magazine clip holding 30 rounds.
Constables are a low-level police force in Pennsylvania, technically under the governor. They receive no salary, but earn money by serving papers and other functions for district courts. Constables are required to take only 80 hours of police training and supply their own equipment, including guns.
The tragedy in rural Pennsylvania combined at least two features of the American social crisis: police killings and home evictions.
Ciara is the 21st person and the first child to be killed by police in the US in the new year, according to a count kept by the Guardian. Twelve hundred Americans were killed by cops in 2014. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 406,000 people in the United States were killed by firearms between 2001 to 2013. Nearly 40 percent of these were homicides.
Evictions of poor and working class families are commonplace in “one of the worst affordable housing crises in generations,” according to Harvard University sociologist Matthew Desmond. In 2013, nearly 60 percent of all renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent alone, and 30 percent of renters spent more than half of their income on rent. One in eight low-income families who rent could not afford to pay their landlords, and a similar number faced the possibility of eviction.
More recent data by real estate information firm Zillow found that the average renter now pays 30 percent or more of their income on rent—the threshold at which housing is considered unaffordable. While real wages continue to stagnate, rents rose by approximately 7 percent in 2014.
Courts dealing with eviction orders have actually shown less mercy to families with children, such as the Meyers.
“Children do not shield families from eviction, but rather they often expose them to it,” Desmond wrote for the November 2015 issue of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. “If a tenant in eviction court lives with children, her or his odds of receiving an eviction judgment almost triple, even after taking into account how much is owed to the landlord, household income, and several other key factors.”
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