Wednesday, January 1, 2020

LA RAZA SUPREMACIST GAVIN NEWSOM EXPANDS WELFARE FOR THOSE UNLAWFULLY IN CALIFORNIA - Will that keep the illegals voting Democrat for more?

CALIFORNIA ALREADY HAS THE LARGEST MEXICAN WELFARE STATE IN AMERICA.
PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, KAMALA HARRIS AND GAVIN NEWSOM'S VISION OF AMERICA IS 49 MORE MEXIFORNIAS
Central American migrants arrive in Tijuana, Mexico, on Thursday. (Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images)
Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images
JUDICIAL WATCH:

America builds the La Raza “The Race” Mexican welfare state

Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. Taxpayers a Stunning $134.9 Billion a Year



THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S LA RAZA WELFARE STATE ON OUR BACKS… Not one Legal voted for it!
Who's coming in and getting that instant customer service legal immigrants don't get? Well, people like Mirian Zelaya Gomez, a single mom with two kids and a fondness for Instagram luxury-life glamour shots who got her name in the news as "Lady Frijoles," the Honduran caravan migrant who disdained donated Mexican food in Tijuana, and who told the press she was migrating to the states to get free medical care for her kids. She's since been arrested for assaulting a relative who had given her housing in Dallas.
MEXIFORNIA: Where La Raza Loots First and by Invitation of the Democrat Party!
Where To Go When Your Local Emergency Room Goes Bankrupt?"


During the past ten years 84 California hospitals have declared bankruptcy and closed their Emergency Rooms forever.  Financially crippled by legislative and judicial mandates to treat illegal aliens have bankrupted hospitals!   In 2010, in Los Angeles County alone, over 2 million illegal aliens recorded visits to county emergency rooms for both routine and emergency care.  Per official figures, the cost is $1,000 dollars for every taxpayer in Los Angeles County.   

Nothing Says 'Happy New Year' Quite Like Giving Taxpayer-Funded Health Care to Illegal Aliens



Now that it is officially 2020, illegal alien adults in California are now eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's health care system for low-income families. Starting January 1 – today – Medi-Cal is now extended to illegal aliens ages 19 to 26. Before today those under the age of 19 were able to receive Medi-Cal benefits, the Modesto Bee reported.
Before the new legislation took effect, quite a few illegal aliens were receiving limited Medi-Cal benefits (basically emergency services). Now they are able to receive full-scope Medi-Cal benefits, which include preventative and primary care on top of emergency services.
Those who were in the system receiving limited scope benefits received letters saying that, at the start of the new year, they would have full access to Medi-Cal benefits. Lucky them, right?
Officials in the state estimate that roughly 138,000 illegal alien adults will receive full-scope benefits under the medical plan. What that actually translates to can vary once coverage begins.
Before the Medi-Cal expansion kicked in, once an illegal alien turned 19, they would lose their benefits. Now that is extended until they are 26.
Legislators in California allocated $98 million to provide health care to illegal aliens. But that budget is only for fiscal year 2020. It will be interesting to see how much money the Golden State spends on this. 
BLOG: THE REAL NUMBER OF ILLEGALS IN MEXIFORNIA IS 15 MILLION. NOW DO THE MATH!
According to a 2019 health policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, 2.2 million people in the state are illegal aliens. And guess what? Those between 19 and 26 – the very age demographic these benefits are geared towards – make up seven percent of the low-income, illegal alien population. Those between the ages of 0 and 18 make up 12 percent of the population. That means that California is going to spend millions providing health care for 19 percent of the low-income, illegal alien population.
The largest demographic of the state's illegal aliens – 56 percent – are those aged 26 to through 55. And you know it is only a matter of time before liberals in the state decide those folks need taxpayer-funded health care too.
Congratulations, California. You are the first state in the nation to extend even greater health care benefits to illegal aliens (as if they should be given any to begin with). And just more proof that your legislators are willing to put illegal aliens before actual Americans.
It really is sad to think about it. I have friends and family members who still live in California and they suffer under the state's ridiculous laws. They are expected to pay a crap ton of taxes, pay for their own health insurance and for what? To be told that someone who should not even be in America can get "free" health care (translation: they can essentially take money from an American citizen to use for their own health care). And people like Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) cannot possibly understand why people flock to our southern border en masse. It is because they know they can get benefits like this.
JUDICIAL WATCH:

America builds the La Raza “The Race” Mexican welfare state

Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. Taxpayers a Stunning $134.9 Billion a Year



THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S LA RAZA WELFARE STATE ON OUR BACKS… Not one Legal voted for it!
Who's coming in and getting that instant customer service legal immigrants don't get? Well, people like Mirian Zelaya Gomez, a single mom with two kids and a fondness for Instagram luxury-life glamour shots who got her name in the news as "Lady Frijoles," the Honduran caravan migrant who disdained donated Mexican food in Tijuana, and who told the press she was migrating to the states to get free medical care for her kids. She's since been arrested for assaulting a relative who had given her housing in Dallas.
MEXIFORNIA: Where La Raza Loots First and by Invitation of the Democrat Party!
Where To Go When Your Local Emergency Room Goes Bankrupt?"

During the past ten years 84 California hospitals have declared bankruptcy and closed their Emergency Rooms forever.  Financially crippled by legislative and judicial mandates to treat illegal aliens have bankrupted hospitals!   In 2010, in Los Angeles County alone, over 2 million illegal aliens recorded visits to county emergency rooms for both routine and emergency care.  Per official figures, the cost is $1,000 dollars for every taxpayer in Los Angeles County.   

 

OTHER FACTS ON MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST CITY OF LOS ANGELES:

 

93% OF THE MURDERS ARE BY MEXICANS.

 

THE TAX-FREE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY IS ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $2 BILLION YEARLY.

 

Los Angeles County Pays Over a Billion in Welfare to Illegal Aliens Over Two Years

 

In 2015 and 2016, Los Angeles County paid nearly $1.3 billion in welfare funds to illegal aliens and their families. That figure amounts to 25 percent of the total spent on the county’s entire needy population, according to Fox News.
The state of California is home to more illegal aliens than any other state in the country. Approximately one in five illegal aliens lives in California, Pew reported.
Approximately a quarter of California’s 4 million illegal immigrants reside in Los Angeles County. The county allows illegal immigrant parents with children born in the United States to seek welfare and food stamp benefits.
The welfare benefits data acquired by Fox News comes from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services and shows welfare and food stamp costs for the county’s entire population were $3.1 billion in 2015, $2.9 billion in 2016.
The data also shows that during the first five months of 2017, more than 60,000 families received a total of $181 million.
Over 58,000 families received a total of $602 million in benefits in 2015 and more than 64,000 families received a total of $675 million in 2016.
Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow who studies poverty and illegal immigration, told Fox the costs represent “the tip of the iceberg.”
“They get $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend,” Rector said. It can cost the government a total of $24,000 per year per family to pay for things like education, police, fire, medical, and subsidized housing.
In February of 2019, the Los Angeles city council signed a resolution making it a sanctuary city. The resolution did not provide any new legal protections to their immigrants, but instead solidified existing policies.
In October 2017, former California governor Jerry Brown signed SB 54 into law. This bill made California, in Brown’s own words, a “sanctuary state.” The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the State of California over the law. A federal judge dismissed that suit in July. SB 54 took effect on Jan. 1, 2018.
According to Center for Immigration Studies, “The new law does many things: It forbids all localities from cooperating with ICE detainer notices, it bars any law enforcement officer from participating in the popular 287(g) program, and it prevents state and local police from inquiring about individuals’ immigration status.”
Some counties in California have protested its implementation and joined the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state.
California’s campaign to provide public services to illegal immigrants did not end with the exit of Jerry Brown. His successor, Gavin Newsom, is just as focused as Brown in funding programs for illegal residents at the expense of California taxpayers.
California’s budget earmarks millions of dollars annually to the One California program, which provides free legal assistance to all aliens, including those facing deportation, and makes California’s public universities easier for illegal-alien students to attend.
According to the Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers 2017 report, for the estimated 12.5 million illegal immigrants living in the country, the resulting cost is a $116 billion burden on the national economy and taxpayers each year, after deducting the $19 billion in taxes paid by some of those illegal immigrants.
BLOG: MOST FIGURES PUT THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS IN THE U.S. AT ABOUT 40 MILLION. WHEN THESE PEOPLE ARE HANDED AMNESTY, THEY ARE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO BRING UP THE REST OF THEIR FAMILY EFFECTIVELY LEAVING MEXICO DESERTED.

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that more than 22 million non-citizens now live in the United States.

“The figures show that the majority of California's growth will be in the Latino population, said Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at USC, adding that "68% of the growth this decade will be Latino, 75% next and 80% after that.

"When we hear stories about the homelessness in California and elsewhere, why don't we hear how illegal aliens contribute to the problem?  They take jobs and affordable housing, yet instead of discouraging illegal aliens from breaking the law, politicians encourage them to come by lavishing free stuff on them with confiscated dollars from this and future generations."  JACK HELLNER

“Extensive research by economists like George Borjas and analyst Steven Camarota reveals that the country’s current mass legal immigration system burdens U.S. taxpayers and America’s working and middle class while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth every year to major employers and newly arrived immigrants. Similarly, research has revealed how Americans’ wages are crushed by the country’s high immigration levels.”  JOHN BINDER

CALIFORNIA'S POPULATION TO DOUBLE 

from ILLEGALS along with their CRIME 

RATES!

Times Staff Writers

Over the next half-century, California's 

population will explode by nearly 75%, and 

Riverside will surpass its bigger neighbors to 

become the second most populous county after 

Los Angeles, according to state Department of 

Finance projections released Monday.

California will near the 60-million mark in 2050, the study found, raising questions about how the state will look and function and where all the people and their cars will go. Dueling visions pit the iconic California building block of ranch house, big yard and two-car garage against more dense, high-rise development. But whether sprawl or skyscrapers win the day, the Golden State will probably be a far different and more complex place than it is today, as people live longer and Latinos become the dominant ethnic group, eclipsing all others combined. Some critics forecast disaster if gridlock and environmental impacts are not averted. Others see a possible economic boon, particularly for retailers and service industries with an eye on the state as a burgeoning market. "It's opportunity with baggage," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., in "a country masquerading as a state. "Other demographers argue that the huge population increase the state predicts will occur only if officials complete major improvements to roads and other public infrastructure. Without that investment, they say, some Californians would flee the state. If the finance department's calculations hold, California's population will rise from 34.1 million in 2000 to 59.5 million at the mid-century point, about the same number of people as Italy has today. And its projected growth rate in those 50 years will outstrip the national rate — nearly 75% compared with less than 50% projected by the federal government. That could translate to increased political clout in Washington, D.C. Southern California's population is projected to grow at a rate of more than 60%, according to the new state figures, reaching 31.6 million by mid-century. That's an increase of 12.1 million over just seven counties. L.A. County alone will top 13 million by 2050, an increase of almost 3.5 million residents. And Riverside County — long among the fastest-growing in the state — will triple in population to 4.7 million by mid-century. Riverside County will add 3.1 million people, according to the new state figures, eclipsing Orange and San Diego to become the second most populous in the state. With less expensive housing than the coast, Riverside County has grown by more than 472,000 residents since 2000, according to state estimates. No matter how much local governments build in the way of public works and how many new jobs are attracted to the region — minimizing the need for long commutes — Housing figures that growth will still overwhelm the area's roads. USC Professor Genevieve Giuliano, an expert on land use and transportation, would probably agree. Such massive growth, if it occurs, she said, will require huge investment in the state's highways, schools, and energy and sewer systems at a "very formidable cost."If those things aren't built, Giuliano questioned whether the projected population increases will occur. "Sooner or later, the region will not be competitive and the growth is not going to happen," she said.If major problems like traffic congestion and housing costs aren't addressed, Giuliano warned, the middle class is going to exit California, leaving behind very high-income and very low-income residents. "It's a political question," said Martin Wachs, a transportation expert at the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica. "Do we have the will, the consensus, the willingness to pay? If we did, I think we could manage the growth. "The numbers released Monday underscore most demographers' view that the state's population is pushing east, from both Los Angeles and the Bay Area, to counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino as well as half a dozen or so smaller Central Valley counties. Sutter County, for example, is expected to be the fastest-growing on a percentage basis between 2000 and 2050, jumping 255% to a population of 282,894 , the state said. Kern County is expected to see its population more than triple to 2.1 million by mid-century. In Southern California, San Diego County is projected to grow by almost 1.7 million residents and Orange County by 1.1 million. Even Ventura County — where voters have imposed some limits on urban sprawl — will see its population jump 62% to more than 1.2 million if the projections hold. The Department of Finance releases long-term population projections every three years. Between the last two reports, number crunchers have taken a more detailed look at California's statistics and taken into account the likelihood that people will live longer, said chief demographer Mary Heim. The result? The latest numbers figure the state will be much more crowded than earlier estimates (by nearly 5 million) and that it will take a bit longer than previously thought for Latinos to become the majority of California's population: 2042, not 2038. The figures show that the majority

of California's growth will be in the Latino population, said

Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography

at USC, adding that "68% of the growth this decade will be

Latino, 75% next and 80% after that."That should be a wake-up call for voting Californians, Myers said, pointing out a critical disparity. Though the state's growth is young and Latino, the majority of voters will be older and white — at least for the next decade." The future of the state is Latino growth," Myers said. "We'd sure better invest in them and get them up to speed. Older white voters don't see it that way. They don't realize that someone has to replace them in the work force, pay for their benefits and buy their house."


MULTI-CULTURALISM and the creation of a one-party globalist country to serve the rich in America’s open borders.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/12/em-cadwaladr-impending-death-of.html

“Open border advocates, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the CIS has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegals were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, CA, with its 2.6 million illegals, would be booming.” STEVE BALDWIN – AMERICAN SPECTATOR

 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
What will America stand for in 2050?
The US should think long and hard about the high number of Latino immigrants.
By Lawrence Harrison
It's not just a short-run issue of immigrants competing with citizens for jobs as unemployment approaches 10 percent or the number of uninsured straining the quality of healthcare. Heavy immigration from Latin America threatens our cohesiveness as a nation.
MEXICO WILL DOUBLE U.S. POPULATION
By Tom Barrett 
At the current rate of invasion (mostly through Mexico, but also through Canada) the United States will be completely over run with illegal aliens by the year 2025. I’m not talking about legal immigrants who follow US law to become citizens. In less than 20 years, if we do not stop the invasion, ILLEGAL aliens and their offspring will be the dominant population in the United States. 

FINISHING AMERICA OFF: THE FOREIGN INVASION FOR “CHEAP” LABOR

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-fall-of-america-by-invitation-tens.html

Open the floodgates of our welfare state to the uneducated, impoverished, and unskilled masses of the world and in a generation or three America, as we know it, will be gone. JOHN BINDER

But many less-skilled migrants play their largest role by simply shifting small slices of wealth from person to person, for example, by competing up rents in their neighborhood or by competing down wages in their workplace. The crudest examples can be seen in agriculture.

Overall, the Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via immigration shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white-collar and blue-collar foreign labor.

"Critics argue that giving amnesty to 12 to 30 million illegal aliens in the U.S. would have an immediate negative impact on America’s working and middle class — specifically black Americans and the white working class — who would be in direct competition for blue-collar jobs with the largely low-skilled illegal alien population." JOHN BINDER

 

The U.S.-born baby is, of course, a U.S. citizen, whose illegal alien parents are eligible to receive, on the baby’s behalf, food stamps, nutrition from the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, and numerous tax benefits, including the EITC.
Most importantly, the newborn is deportation insurance for its parents. Illegal aliens facing deportation can argue that to deport one or more parents would create an “extreme hardship” for the new baby. If an immigration officer agrees, we’ve added a new adult to the nation’s population. At age 21 the former birthright citizen baby can formally apply for green cards for parents and siblings, and they, in turn, can start their own immigration chains.

 

US now has more Spanish speakers than Spain – only Mexico has more

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/29/us-second-biggest-spanish-speaking-country

 

·         US has 41 million native speakers plus 11 million who are bilingual
·         New Mexico, California, Texas and Arizona have highest concentrations



COP CRIMES IN AMERICA - THUG COP MICHAEL J. REYNOLDS GOT ONLY 15 DAYS - IF NO ONE WAS LOOKING HE WOULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN THAT!!!


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."
An Officer Admitted Making a Racist Threat. He Still Has a Job.

More than 10,000 people signed a petition demanding the New York City officer’s ouster after he broke into a black woman’s home.

Michael J. Reynolds, a New York City police officer, landed in Nashville on a Sunday morning in July 2018, court records show. He and six other men, two of whom he later identified as New York City officers, were on what was supposed to be a three-night bachelor-party junket.
About 18 hours later, Officer Reynolds, who is white, kicked in a black woman’s door in a drunken rage, threatening her and her sons with a racist slur and obscenities.
“I’ll break every bone in your neck,” he said in a rant that included two expletives. He then fled to his nearby Airbnb rental just before the police arrived.
This month, he was sentenced to 15 days in jail and three years’ probation after pleading no contest to four misdemeanors as a result of the episode, court records show.

As of Monday, though, he remained an officer, stirring a growing backlash against the New York Police Department. More than 10,000 people signed an online petition demanding his dismissal and supporting the woman whose home he invaded, Conese Halliburton.
“Michael Reynolds is a violent and dangerous racist who has no business carrying either a badge or a gun,” her lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, said via email. “Ms. Halliburton wants the N.Y.P.D. to fire him immediately so that he can’t hurt anyone else.”

Image
Credit...Metropolitan Nashville Police Department
The Police Department said last week that Officer Reynolds was on “modified duty” and that the disciplinary process was awaiting the Nashville case’s conclusion. Asked about the matter again on Monday, a top department official said the process “was moving forward and questioning will take place imminently.”
Officer Reynolds, 26, apologized in court for the episode and claimed that he had no memory of it because he had been drinking heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he testified. “I made a mistake. I consumed too much alcohol.”
Edward Yarbrough, Officer Reynolds’s lawyer, said in an interview that because of the jail time, “We think his job is in jeopardy.” Mr. Yarbrough had sought a sentence that could have allowed his client to keep his job and have his record expunged in several years.
The case of Officer Reynolds is again focusing scrutiny on the pace of the Police Department’s disciplinary process. In a prominent example of how it can drag on, five years passed before Officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose use of a prohibited chokehold contributed to the 2014 death in police custody of Eric Garner, was fired and stripped of his pension benefits in August.
The police commissioner has the ultimate say over firings, but police unions typically fight such moves. Officers who are ousted sometimes sue to try to get back their jobs and benefits, as Mr. Pantaleo is doing.
Officer Reynolds’s crimes did not occur in the line of duty, nor did he cause physical injuries. But Ms. Halliburton testified that he had done significant psychological damage.
“My kids want to move,” she said at the sentencing on Dec. 6. “They don’t want to be in that house anymore. We don’t have peace. To know that you’ve been living somewhere all your life, and you don’t have that anymore, and where would you go, it’s not fair.”
In court, Ms. Halliburton, the prosecutor, the judge and his own lawyer all used the same term — terrorize — to describe what Officer Reynolds had done to her family that night.
The episode, some of which, including audio of Officer Reynolds’s ranting, was captured by a neighbor’s security cameras, began shortly after 2:30 a.m. on July 9, 2018.
At the time, Ms. Halliburton testified, she was lying in bed talking with her youngest son in her house in Nashville’s 12 South section.
“I could hear, like, someone, like, yelling,” she said.
Looking out a window, her son saw a man who turned out to be Officer Reynolds in the yard. Ms. Halliburton called 911. While she was on the phone, she said, she heard “like a boom, boom, boom.”
“It sounds like he’s trying to come in my house,” she recalled telling the 911 operator.
Moments later, she said, Officer Reynolds was inside. Her two dogs ran to protect her, barking and biting at his shorts. He tried to fight them off.
“He just kept coming down the hallway,” she said.
Ms. Halliburton said that her two eldest sons, who were 17 and 20 at the time, tried to stop him from coming any farther into the house. He did not budge.
“He was in the house for, like, seven, eight minutes,” Ms. Halliburton testified.
It was during this time that security cameras captured Officer Reynolds screaming a racist slur at Ms. Halliburton and her family and threatening them with violence.
He left, she said, after appearing to comprehend that the police were coming.
When officers arrived, she described the intruder to them and suggested they talk to the men staying at the Airbnb two doors away.
Before storming into Ms. Halliburton’s house, Officer Reynolds testified, he and his friends had been drinking in Nashville’s Lower Broadway area. He said he did not know how much alcohol he had consumed.

The only thing he remembered, he testified, was identifying himself as a police officer when speaking to a Nashville officer who answered Ms. Halliburton’s call. He said he learned about what he had done from his friends later.
Ms. Halliburton and two neighbors confronted Officer Reynolds and his friends later that day in the street.
Ms. Halliburton and the neighbors testified that the men, including Officer Reynolds and a man he identified as a fellow New York City officer, apologized.
Officer Reynolds said he had gone into the home by mistake, thinking that it was their rental.
But Ms. Halliburton and the neighbors also testified that the officers were laughing at the same time, saying that they had “immunity” because they were law enforcement officers.
Nashville detectives later tracked down Officer Reynolds, and Ms. Halliburton and her sons identified him from a photo array.
After being charged with aggravated burglary and assault, he pleaded no contest in September to aggravated criminal trespassing and three counts of assault. He is to report to jail on Jan. 15 if he does not appeal his sentence before then.
In arguing that Officer Reynolds, a five-year Police Department veteran previously assigned to the 33rd Precinct in Upper Manhattan, deserved jail time, Brian Ewald, the prosecutor, said Officer Reynolds and his friends had tried to “bully their way through this or out of this.”
“Keep quiet, don’t tell anybody a thing and we’ll get out of this,” Mr. Ewald said in describing the men’s attitude. “You know, we went, we cut up in another city, what happens in Nashville stays in Nashville, let’s get out of town early and live our lives.”


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."

 

Fort Worth, Texas police officer charged with murder after shooting woman in her home

 
Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean, 34, was charged with murder Monday, two days after he shot and killed 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson through the window of her home while she was babysitting her eight-year-old nephew early Saturday morning. The police killing early Saturday morning sparked outrage across the city and the US.
The Fort Worth Police Department, in an effort to quell an immediate outpouring of anger at the latest state-sanctioned murder of an innocent worker, quickly released the 911 emergency phone call recording and the body-cam footage extracted from officer Dean’s camera that night, which showed that he opened fire less than a second after announcing himself. Both pieces of evidence clearly show that Jefferson, a young African-American woman who was studying in hopes of entering medical school, posed absolutely no threat to Dean.
Atatiana Jefferson with her nephew
With the cop clearly unable to present the typical defense that he felt threatened or fired in self-defense, the officer resigned from the force and was jailed on murder charges Monday.
Seething anger was expressed in Fort Worth, as thousands of angry residents, family members and friends gathered at community centers and churches Saturday afternoon into Sunday, demanding action. A Saturday morning police press conference had provided no answers.
Immediately following the murder, the police had attempted to shift the blame onto the victim by releasing a photo of a handgun that was allegedly found at the home. The police chief later expressed “regret” over this, admitting that Jefferson was legally entitled to have a gun in her own bedroom.
While pastors, newspaper editorials and “civic leaders” sought to channel simmering tensions towards empty promises of “reform” and a third-party investigation, likely to be headed up by the Texas Rangers, thousands instead chose to march Sunday through downtown Fort Worth before being dispersed by police late in the evening. This was the context in which the authorities moved, after a two-day delay, to arrest Dean on Monday.
The deadly encounter had been set in motion when a concerned neighbor of Jefferson’s, James Smith, who had lived on that same Texas street for fifty years, made a call to the non-emergency services line at 2:23 a.m on Saturday morning. Smith had been alerted by a family member that Jefferson’s front wooden door was still open while the lights were on, which was not typical for her, especially so late in the evening.
Smith made the call after walking over to the house, where Jefferson and her nephew were inside playing video games. Smith approached the door and peered inside, through the still-closed storm door. Smith did not hear or see anyone, yet he also didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. In the recorded call to the dispatcher he noted that it was odd that the door was open, but that his neighbors’ cars were still in the driveway. Smith reiterated to the dispatcher that he just wanted to make sure that his neighbor was fine.
Within five minutes after placing the call, Smith observed multiple vehicles approach silently up the street in a “tactical manner.” Smith was struck by the SWAT-like maneuvers the officers were engaged in for a simple check that nothing was amiss, especially since Smith had not reported any suspicious behavior or weapons.
Smith didn’t hear any of the officers announce their presence as they descended on the residence with their guns drawn and quickly surrounded the perimeter of the house. Officer Dean’s body cam footage shows him using his flashlight to peer into Johnson’s car before unlocking the wooden gate to the backyard. As Dean and his fellow officers continue to trespass on the residence he turns to the left and shines his flashlight into the back window of the residence.
A still frame from a body cam showing the moment before Dean opened fire killing Atatiana Jefferson (Fort Worth Police Department via AP)
After shining his light through the window, and presumably seeing Johnson standing there, perplexed as to why someone was shining a bright light through her window at nearly 2:30 in the morning, Dean quickly raised his pistol and shouted, “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” Not one second passed before Dean fired a single shot through the house window, striking and killing Jefferson.
The Fort Worth police killing comes less than two weeks after the conviction of police officer Amber Guyger of the neighboring city of Dallas, in the shooting of Botham Jean in his own home two years ago. Guyger said she had mistakenly thought the apartment was her own. She was sentenced to ten years in prison, a light sentence for a murder conviction.
Attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing Jefferson’s family, issued a statement declaring, “I want to go ahead and dispel the myth that this is somehow a one-off—that this was just a bad-luck incident from an otherwise sound department. The Fort Worth Police Department is on pace to be one of the deadliest police departments in the United States.”
Fort Worth, however, as workers around the country can attest, is by no means unique. Every single year without fail the police claim well over 1,000 victims across the US. These killings come after years in which local police departments have been equipped with massive surplus equipment following the invasion of Iraq. The equipping and training of the police to operate as occupation armies in working class neighborhoods around the country has proceeded and escalated under both Democratic and Republican administrations, under both Obama and now Trump.
Trump, with his daily fascistic rants and his campaign rallies around the country, seeking support especially from within the police, army and border patrol, is creating the climate, not only for mass shootings, but also for killings by individual cops.

Baltimore prosecutor wants 790 'tainted' convictions erased


Associated PressOctober 4, 2019

BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore's top prosecutor has begun asking judges to throw out nearly 800 convictions that she said were tainted by officers linked to a corruption scandal.
The Baltimore Sun reported Friday that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's review found 790 criminal cases handled by 25 city officers whom she says she has reason to distrust. Mosby updated the number of officers being scrutinized on Friday, saying it could fluctuate as her office investigates.
Eight members of the Gun Trace Task Force were convicted of racketeering crimes and sentenced to prison. Many of the other 17 officers cited by Mosby's office were named in testimony during the federal trial, though not necessarily charged with crimes. Mosby's office hasn't disclosed all of their names because of ongoing federal investigations.
The newspaper said three of the additional officers remain on the force, including a detective and two sergeants, citing confirmation from a department spokesman. One of the three has been suspended.
The police department didn't immediately respond to an email Friday from the Associated Press seeking comment on the officers who remain on the force.
Mosby said in an email to the newspaper that "our legal and ethical obligation in the pursuit of justice leaves us no other recourse but to 'right the wrongs' of unjust convictions associated with corrupt police officers."
Of the eight Baltimore officers sentenced to prison for racketeering charges, six accepted plea deals and two were convicted. Officers admitted to stealing money from people, lying in police paperwork and claiming unearned overtime pay. Officers found guilty also testified about potential wrongdoing by additional police officers who haven't been charged.
Prosecutors spent more than a year reviewing thousands of arrests by the task force and identified the 790, most of which are older cases in which the defendants have already been released.
With expanded authorities under a new state law, Mosby's staff will file 200 cases a week, with judges holding daily hearings to consider erasing bad convictions.
"It is still very early in the process, and we are hopeful for the swift vacatur of all of the many tainted convictions," said Melissa Rothstein, spokeswoman for the Baltimore public defender's office.
City Solicitor Andre Davis has said he's concerned that many defendants could file lawsuits against the city.
___
Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com

 

 

Detective who raped victim while investigating her case gets 3 years in prison

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Detective-who-raped-victim-while-investigating-14300498.php

 Published 7:30 am PDT, Tuesday, August 13, 2019
·          
A Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective has been sentenced to prison for raping a 15-year-old girl he met while investigating her report of being sexually assaulted.
Neil Kimball, 46, of Agoura was given three years on Thursday. He pleaded guilty last month to unlawful sexual intercourse and committing a lewd act with a child. The crimes occurred in Ventura County.
Prosecutors say Kimball befriended the girl in 2017 after she reported being sexually assaulted in neighboring Los Angeles County.
According to The New York Times, Kimball was originally charged with raping the victim while she was tied or bound. Kimball was also accused of “witness intimidation by threat of force.”

 

 

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office hit with corruption probe over concealed weapons permits

Santa Clara County agency again scrutinized over alleged political favoritism in issuing of scarce gun permits

 

By ROBERT SALONGA | rsalonga@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: August 7, 2019 at 5:35 pm | UPDATED: August 8, 2019 at 9:15 am
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office served a search warrant at the Sheriff’s Office as part of an apparent corruption probe into alleged political favoritism in the agency’s issuing of concealed weapons permits, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
“The DA’s Office retrieved certain items from the Sheriff’s Office pursuant to a search warrant signed by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge,” reads an official statement from prosecutors. “The retrieved items are part of an ongoing investigation, and therefore, nothing more can be said at this time.”
The investigation is being conducted by the DA’s Public Integrity Unit, which on its websitestates that it “supervises the investigation of cases involving corruption of public officials and employees in their official capacities or in the performance of their duties and initiates criminal charges when appropriate.”
Little else has been formally revealed about the investigation, first reported by San Jose Inside, other than agencies including the Sheriff’s Office itself, acknowledging it.
“The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office is aware of the District Attorney’s investigation and we are fully cooperating,” reads an agency statement. “Due to the fact this is an ongoing investigation, we are not going to disclose any additional information at this time. The Sheriff’s Office has made extensive efforts to increase transparency and trust with the communities we serve and will continue these efforts going forward.”
The County Counsel’s Office, which functions as the attorney for the Sheriff’s Office, declined comment and referred an inquiry to the DA’s office.
Sources confirmed that the investigation involves an alleged “quid pro quo” between political supporters and donations for six-term Sheriff Laurie Smith and those who have been able to obtain concealed-weapons permits from her office, which has been historically stingy about issuing the privilege. The sources also said the probe, while public surfacing over the past few days, had been in the works for far longer and is focused on some of Smith’s trusted advisers in the agency.
The issue has long been a source of criticism for the Sheriff’s Office, and dogged Smith each time she ran for re-election in the past decade. An investigation by this news organization in 2011, spurred by a federal lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office, found that out-of-county residents and other questionably qualified applicants received the permits. Some political donors of Smith also got them, but the county at the time denied any connection between that support and the permits.
Check back later for updates to this story.

Editorial: Records expose revolving door for bad California cops

 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/23/editorial-records-expose-revolving-door-for-bad-california-cops/

 

South and East Bay cases highlight questionable police department hires of officers canned elsewhere


Screen shot from a police video camera after a San Jose State officer beat a man in a university library. (Video screen shot)
PUBLISHED: July 23, 2019 at 5:10 am | UPDATED: July 23, 2019 at 5:16 am
A San Jose State cop fired in 2017 for beating a man in the library then reinstated over the university’s objections went to work in September for the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department. On Friday, after this news organization revealed his troubled past, he abruptly resigned.
An Alameda County deputy sheriff fired in 2015 for soliciting prostitution and dishonestyafter he filed a false police report related to his divorce was later hired by the Pinole Police Department.
The two cases, recently disclosed under a new state law, raise serious questions about the revolving door for troubled cops and the hiring practices of California police departments that employ officers who have been canned elsewhere.
Not only might members of the communities have concerns about the police patrolling their streets, there’s another large question about whether the cops can be effective in their jobs — especially when called to testify in criminal cases.
Before this year, these cases probably would never have seen the light of day. But a new state law, created by last year’s approval of Senate Bill 1421, requires police agencies to release documents pertaining to cops’ discharge of firearms, use of major force, sexual assault and dishonesty.
As we noted earlier this month, the information in the records has been disturbing: Stolen drugs and bullets. A potentially deadly chokeholdFalsified reports. A person’s face smashed into the floorSexual assault in jail. Cavorting with sex workersDomestic violence complaints against an officer ignored.
Equally disturbing is the police foot-dragging on release of the records. When it comes to transparency, a majority of the agencies across California responsible for enforcing the law are defying it.
Now come these two new cases that raise another key issue: The revolving door means that police departments are hiring cops who, because of their past behavior, cannot fully perform their jobs.
That’s because, under a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must disclose to defense attorneys any evidence that could help them defend their clients. That includes information about past dishonesty or other bad behavior of the cops involved in the case.
It’s only fair. After all, if an officer has been fired for lying or misconduct, it goes to the heart of his or her credibility. The jury should know about it. And, from a practical perspective, a cop who can’t testify can’t carry out a critical part of the job.
District attorney offices across the state keep “Brady lists” of officers who have been identified as potentially problematic witnesses. But they’re not always complete. And they can miss cops who were hired after past jobs in other counties.
The new state law should help, making available some of the same records to not only police agencies, prosecutors and defense attorneys, but also to the public. Not surprisingly, in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno, residents who saw the disturbing video of the San Jose State library beating were not happy that the cop was working in their city.
In that case, Officer Johnathon Silva was first cleared by the university’s police chief at the time, Peter Decena, who decided the use of force was not excessive. But after the beating victim, who suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung, filed a claim against the university, it launched an independent investigation that found differently.
San Jose State fired Silva and settled the case for $950,000. But Silva appealed to the state personnel board, which ordered him reinstated. He nevertheless resigned and was subsequently hired by Los Gatos-Monte Sereno, where Decena had taken a job as chief. No reason was given for why Silva quit his latest job on Friday.
In the East Bay case, records released under the new state law and contained in the divorce proceedings of Officer Josh Shavies show that he was fired for soliciting prostitution and dishonesty after filing a false police report related to his divorce.
He also was accused in the divorce proceedings of abusing his wife and whipping his children with belts. His ex-wife says now that she exaggerated the abuse allegations, but her attorney says they were completely truthful.
These cases raise questions not only about the temperament and effectiveness of the cops but also about the potential liability for taxpayers. These sorts of cases are yet another reason why the transparency law was so desperately needed — and why more departments need to start complying with it.



///
The shitbag cop was Zachary Wester  

A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter.

Meagan Flynn
The meth seemed to appear out of thin air.
Benjamin Bowling couldn’t figure it out. He had been clean ever since his release from prison on a DUI conviction, but now a Jackson County, Fla., sheriff’s deputy was accusing him of possessing a minuscule amount of methamphetamine.
It was October 2017 and Bowling was on his way to the store to pick up diapers with his friend Shelly Smith when they saw the flashing lights swirl in the rearview mirror. He had been out of prison for less than a year, doing everything he could to get his life back on track. He passed all his drug tests. He had recently been awarded custody of his daughter. But deputy Zachary Wester was escalating a traffic stop for swerving over a white line into a search for illicit drugs.
Bowling and Smith, confident they had nothing to hide, told Wester to go ahead and search the car after he claimed to smell marijuana, assuring him he wouldn’t find any.
He emerged with meth.
Now, nearly two years after Bowling lost custody of the daughter he had just gotten back, after he was convicted of felony meth possession, he knows exactly how it got there. Wester, state investigators now say, planted it himself — and Bowling was far from the only victim.
Wester, who was fired last September, was arrested Wednesday and charged with 52 counts of racketeering, false imprisonment, official misconduct, fabricating evidence and possession of controlled substances, among other charges. He’s accused of indiscriminately targeting innocent drivers and hauling them off to jail after planting meth or marijuana in their vehicles while feigning a “search."
“There is no question that Wester’s crimes were deliberate and that his actions put innocent people in jail,” Chris Williams, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s assistant special agent in charge, said in a news release.
Bowling, who has since been cleared, is just one of 11 known victims named in the affidavit, although the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Wednesday that there may be more victims who have not yet been identified, and the case remains under investigation. At least 119 cases involving Wester have been dropped, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. In addition to the dropped charges, Circuit Judge Christopher Patterson ordered at least eight inmates released from correctional facilities last fall, as 263 cases remained under review.
Investigators said at a news conference Wednesday that there did not appear to be any rhyme or reason to the drivers Wester, 26, singled out for false arrests on drug possession. Some were parents with a diaper bag in the back seat. Others were young men and women, some crying as they insisted they had never touched drugs, let alone meth, in their lives.
Asked by reporters why Wester would do this, State Attorney William “Bill” Eddins of Florida’s 1st Judicial Circuit said that was a good question. Investigators were still trying to figure it out themselves, he said.
“You’re never certain of what lies in the heart of man,” he said.
Eddins said he does not plan to offer a plea bargain, and that Wester faces up to 30 years in prison. Wester’s defense attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Wester, who joined the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in 2016, fell under suspicion last year after a prosecutor noticed inconsistencies in what Wester wrote in his reports and what was captured on his body camera — if he turned it on. The problem was he seemed to leave the device off most of the time, conveniently only recording after drugs were already “found” in a vehicle. In most cases, as in Bowling’s, he typically pulled someone over for a minor traffic infraction before asking if he smelled marijuana.
Yet, even after reporting on affidavits that he smelled or even thought he saw marijuana, he typically emerged finding meth. According to the affidavit, meth, marijuana and 42 pieces of drug paraphernalia were found in Wester’s trunk.
One case, that of Teresa Odom, was illuminating — appearing to capture Wester holding an unknown object in his left hand shortly before “discovering” meth in her truck, in the rare case his body camera was left on.
“Hi, how are you?” Wester asked her in a friendly voice as he rolled up to her window, according to footage released to the news media. “The reason for is, um, your brake lights: They work one minute, and then the next minute they don’t work.”
He took her license, left momentarily, and returned to ask if he could search her vehicle. She said it was no problem with a shrug, as long as she could take her phone with her. “Hang tight, Ms. Odom,” He grabbed a pair of gloves from his cruiser — then appears to be holding a tiny plastic baggie inside his left hand, according to the video and affidavit.
The affidavit describes it like a magician’s sleight of hand: “Without putting on the glove, Deputy Wester’s left hand dropped out of view, down toward the front of the driver’s seat, and after a brief pause, reappeared empty.”
Shortly thereafter, Wester pulls a tiny plastic bag out of Odom’s purse: “Oh, Ms. Odom, how about this?” Wester asked, confronting Odom with the drugs.
“That is not mine,” she said. “No, sir. No, sir. What is it?” As another deputy who arrived for backup teased her that she was about to go to jail, she responded tersely: “It damn sure ain’t mine.”
It wasn’t. The Democrat reported that Odom wept at the news conference Wednesday announcing, saying she felt “overwhelmed."
In a few cases, some drivers were already suspected of other crimes, such as driving with a suspended license or having an outstanding warrant, or even admitting to having marijuana in the car — and yet Wester still planted meth on them, according to the affidavit.
But mostly the drivers were guilty of nothing. Erika Helms — whose brother, Lance Sellers, has sued the sheriff’s department alleging false arrest — told the Democrat that Wester “ruined lives.” Sellers, she said, had to spend a year in residential rehab after his arrest for possession of meth. The charges were later dropped. In addition to Sellers, more than a dozen people have filed notices of intent to sue, the Democrat reported.
“People are losing their lives, their freedom, their children, their marriages — all because of this one man,” Helms told the Democrat. “It’s not just innocent men. It’s innocent children. It goes a lot deeper than everyone realizes.”
It’s unclear if Bowling regained custody of his daughter since his arrest, or whether other parents faced the same fate.
At least one innocent mother feared she would, according to the affidavit.
Kimberly Hazelwood and her husband, Jeremy, were pulled over in June 2018 with their small children in the back seat, as Wester alleged that the Hazelwoods’ car insurance had lapsed. Wester zeroed in on a bottle of Excedrin he saw in her possession. He told the couple that he was calling in the K-9 unit to search the vehicle.
Soon enough, Wester claimed the Excedrin pill bottle contained methamphetamine, pulling Jeremy aside to tell him that he was going to arrest his wife for possession. “Jeremy appeared shocked and said Kimberly had never done drugs a day in her life,” the affidavit says.
Wester told the distraught father that he could tell Kimberly used meth “by the way her face was sunk and her teeth . . . Jeremy stated his wife has always been like that."
On the way to jail, Kimberly cried in the back of Wester’s cruiser, asking whether she was going to lose custody of her children.
It’s unclear whether she did. According to the affidavit, months later, Wester pulled over Jeremy again, asking where Kimberly was this time. “This upset Jeremy,” the affidavit says, “and he told Deputy Wester that it was none of his business."
Wester let him go.

 

 

Social media investigations unearth hundreds of police officers in the US involved in fascist or racist groups

 
Two separate social media investigations completed within the last month have identified hundreds of police and correctional officers that were or are currently members of right-wing extremist groups on Facebook or who have posted violent, racist or fascistic content on the platform. Screenshots compiled in both investigations show officers posting original racist and fascist content on their personal Facebook walls, in private groups such as the Oath Keepers, Confederate Brotherhood or the “NORTH AMERICAN DEFENCE LEAGUE AGAINST ISLAM,” and also on public news posts.
Each research project positively identified active-duty officers in departments throughout the country, leading to over 50 separate investigations. In St. Louis, Missouri, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, over 100 officers have been either put on paid leave, suspended, or relegated to desk duty, pending internal investigations. However, many more departments have chosen to simply ignore the findings.
The Plain View Project (PVP) was the culmination of a nearly two year investigation beginning in the fall of 2017, and conducted by Philadelphia based attorneys. During the summer of 2016 the group of attorneys, led by lawyer Emily Baker-White, became aware of dozens of Facebook posts of current Philadelphia police officers that had endorsed violence, racism and bigotry. The PVP obtained the published rosters of police officers employed by eight departments in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Dallas and Denison, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; York, Pennsylvania; and finally, Twin Falls, Idaho.
Philadelphia Police Headquarters April 2019 [Credit: Wikimedia Commons User “Beyond My Ken”]
Using the lists, the PVP team searched Facebook for the officers’ names and when they could positively link an active account to a police officer the name was added to the PVP database. In many cases officers posted pictures of themselves in uniform, discussing arrests or performing other police related duties. Through this process the PVP verified over 3,500 Facebook accounts and compiled more than 5,000 screenshots with images, posts or comments made by officers that “could undermine public trust and confidence in the police.” Through the PVP website, users are able to search by name, rank, jurisdiction, pay-grade, badge number or specific keywords.
A second research project, conducted by Reveal journalists Will Careless and Michael Corey, sought to discover how many police officers nationwide were members of right-wing “extremist” Facebook groups. Using a list of more than 1,200 extremist groups compiled by Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University, the journalists downloaded the private membership lists of the groups before Facebook disabled this feature in 2018. They then proceeded to download the membership lists of self-identified police groups and loaded the approximately one million names into a database which cross-examined the lists to see which profiles appeared in at least one extremist group and one police group.
This resulted in over 14,000 matches or “hits.” The journalists did not comb through every single match, instead just focusing on “a fraction of the list to vet.” Similar to the PVP, law enforcement officers’ identity and employment was verified by reviewing their biographies, photos or matching names to public police records. The journalists identified nearly 400 users they confirmed are either currently employed as police officers, sheriffs or correctional officers or had previously worked in law enforcement.
The totality of each investigation confirms the vast promotion and acceptance of fascistic ideology within police departments throughout the country.
The officers identified have worked at all levels of law enforcement, from patrolmen to detectives and even several captains. It is not a localized phenomenon, the cops identified work in rural jurisdictions from West Virginia to Washington and in urban cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. Officers in the Reveal investigation were part of several right-wing anti-government militia groups, including over 150 officers who were or are currently members of the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Earlier this week members of the Oath Keepers, in conjunction with the Oregon Republican party, forced the state legislature to shut down following violent threats.
These two groups have been seen at several rallies organized by white supremacist groups, including the 2017 Unite the Right fascist rampage in which 32-year-old Heather Heyer was murdered by neo-Nazi James Fields. Fields, who also injured 35 others when he rammed his vehicle into the crowd of counter-protesters, was sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges on Friday. Fields had pleaded guilty earlier this year to 29 federal hate crime charges to avoid the death penalty. In December 2018, Fields was also convicted on state charges, including first-degree murder, for which a jury recommended that he spend life plus 419 years in state prison.
In addition to anti-government right-wing militias, hundreds of officers belonged to openly Islamophobic groups or frequently posted content denigrating Muslims in general. Several officers were former veterans, who brought their experiences, tactics and state-sanctioned racism to their departments. Others, such as Sgt. Michael Vincent of the Philadelphia Police Dept., badge number 8706, shared memes comparing the refugee crisis caused by imperialist wars and interventions to a fox raiding a chicken coop, extolling his friends and followers to “Stop the invasion of Islam to the free world!”
While both investigations focused primarily on police officers, prison guards and corrections officers were also identified. Geoffrey Crosby, a prison guard at the barbaric Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, belongs to 56 different extremist groups, 45 of which are Confederate in nature, such as “Confederate Resistance,” or “REBELS RULES, the south will rise again .!!” Crosby also claimed membership in anti-Muslim groups such as “Stop Radical Islam in America.” Crosby, who was reached by phone by Reveal, declined to be interviewed but instead advised reporters not to “call me at work again.” The Louisiana Department of Corrections emailed the independent investigative news outlet to state an investigation into Crosby is open and ongoing.
Sheldon Best, a Wisconsin corrections officer at Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, is still a member of a group named “Crusades Against Degeneracy,” which frequently posts racist, Islamophobic, homophobic and anti-Semitic content. In an interview with Reveal, Best admitted that “some people” could view his membership in the hate group as problematic however he stated that he did not hold any prejudiced views. On a 2017 National Public Radio article posted in the group regarding demographic changes within US census results, Best opined that whites will remain the majority of adults in the United States due to “minority on minority homicide.” The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has not responded to Reveal’sinquiries regarding any pending investigation into Best.
Another group which claimed membership from police officers around the country, including officer John Valdez of the Los Angeles Police Department, is the anti-communist “Anti-SJW Pinochet’s Helicopter Pilot Academy.” Members of the group shared helicopter memes depicting the extrajudicial murder of 75 people during the 1973 US backed coup in a positive light and frequently posted violent threats against Democrats, socialists and communists.
The whipping up and promotion of these attitudes within the state police is a stark warning to the working class. The far-right militia movements have been actively infiltrating police departments and prison guard units, and have been allowed to fester and recruit whether the local leadership is white, black, gay or straight, in the Democratic coastal states and the Republican interior. Both parties in the ruling class have overseen the mammoth expansion of repressive federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) while also allowing the transfer of military equipment to departments around the country, which have been used against all members of the working class regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.
Baker-White has said she began PVP with the aim of spurring nationwide reforms in policing. “I hope that police departments make changes to increase accountability, but also to try to shift culture,” she told the Washington Post .
Her call for reforms is misguided at best. The reactionary role of the police stems not from the personal political opinions or racism of individual cops, but the other way around. Their backwardness is the product of their function as defenders of the capitalist status quo of exploitation and record social inequality.
The police are recruited and trained for this purpose. In many cases their experience in the military, and in the Middle East in particular, has encouraged the views they post on Facebook. The adult lives of the current generation of police have been spent while the US has been engaged in a continuous war from the first Persian Gulf War, through to the current preparations for war against Iran, Russia and China.
Undoubtedly the incessant tweets of the fascistic President Donald Trump have also produced a climate in which many of the cops see no particular reason why they should not express themselves in language not that different from that used by the White House.
Far more than Trump is behind this, however. The Democrats’ alternative is calls for the censorship of the internet, targeting left-wing and socialist websites under the guise of combating “Russian meddling.” In response to the unmistakable signs of growing class struggle—strikes involving teachers, auto workers, flight attendants and many others—the ruling class is turning more and more to authoritarian forms of rule, including the unleashing of the police, armed with the weapons of war, against the working class.
This is an international process, as shown by Germany, where the ruling coalition has adopted much of the agenda of the ultra-right Alternative for Germany (AfD); in France, where President Macron has praised the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain while unleashing the police against “yellow vest” protesters; and in the emergence of neo-fascist and dictatorial regimes on every continent.


The Philadelphia Police Department placed 72 officers on desk duty as it investigates offensive social media posts by current and former officers. An advocacy group released thousands of Facebook posts and comments by the officers with racist, violent or Islamophobic themes, among other offensive material.

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."


"In the overwhelming majority of police killings, of which there are more than one thousand every year, no officer is ever charged. In the few cases where charges are brought, most are found not guilty. The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to convict a police officer for murder stating that an officer is permitted to use deadly force as long as he or she believes that either they or others are in danger."
COP MURDERS IN AMERICA   - THOUSANDS SHOT IN THE HEAD. JUDGES GIVE THE THUG COPS A PASS TO DO IT AGAIN!


 

 

A somewhat desperate suggestion to fix corruption in our law enforcement agencies

 


No matter the outcome of the investigations authorized by the new attorney general, William Barr, and the supposedly ongoing investigation by the DOJ inspector general, the basic facts cannot be denied.  Law enforcement at the highest levels in this country has proven to be corrupt.  The faith that the American people once placed in the federal justice system has been lost and may never be regained.  The consequence of this universal distrust is permanent damage to the underlying belief and faith in the entire system and our country. 
The Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, and other domestic intelligence agencies have once again been shown as political weapons to be used against political enemies.  This is not new.  J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI as his personal investigative tool to keep various members of Congress in check and prosecute various enemies of his and the presidents he served during his reign of terror.  Robert (Bobby) Kennedy was John F. Kennedy (the president)'s brother.  Could there have been any undue family influence on how Robert Kennedy carried out his duties?  Strangely, no one at the time in the press seemed to have had a problem with this relationship.  The attorney general and the DOJ are primarily political tools of the president, who appoints the attorney general.  Why would the president appoint an enemy?  But suddenly this has become page one since it involves Trump and his appointees.
Congressional oversight of the activities of the DOJ and its subsidiaries is 100% political.  Facts, truth, and the law have nothing to do with how members of Congress, especially Democrats, carry out their supposed "oversight" functions.  The uproar regarding the Mueller investigation would never have occurred if Hilary Clinton had been elected president.  No investigation of anything would have been initiated.  The attorney general would have been a friend and supporter of Clinton, just as Holder and Lynch were friends and supporters of Obama.  Why is Trump different?  Because the    Democrats hate him for "stealing" their rightful power and control.
True oversight of the Department of Justice can be accomplished only by a separate and distinct investigative unit not under the direct political control of the Congress.
Much of the Judicial Branch of the government is highly politicized.  One need only look at the Ninth Circuit in California or the naked overreach of district judges issuing rulings against this president that have national implications and effect. 
Given the political history of the judicial system, I still suggest that the oversight function of the DOJ and its subsidiaries be vested in the Supreme Court as the least of all evils.  I recognize the dangers inherent in giving nine unelected judges such power.  But history has shown that the present procedures are seriously flawed.  Trusting elected political animals, whose existence depends on the whims of the mobs to which they cater, to behave in a rational, logical, and lawful manner is like asking elephants to walk a tightrope.
A separate Supreme Court–monitoring unit whose function would be akin to the existing inspector general's office of the various agencies with an independent I.G. in each organization reporting to the Court might make more sense.  Another option would be a monitoring unit funded and populated by the states.
Both of these suggestions would be akin to the Civilian Review Boards that exist in many cities to monitor the actions of local police departments.  Members of such commissions or boards could be drawn from the wide spectrum of civic-minded civilian occupations, not just judges or law enforcement people.  The tasks would be so great as to negate the possibility of volunteer members.  This would call for full-time dedicated, honest citizens.  Where are Diogenes and his lamp when so desperately needed?
Certainly, a lot of thought and honest evaluation would have to be given to the exact development, function, makeup, and legality of any such board, but I submit that something must be done to rectify the dangerous situation that now exists.  Neither Congress nor the president will ever agree to this type of monitoring, which would mean giving up some of their political grandstanding activities in front of the TV cameras.  But what is to stop the Court from instituting a parallel monitoring ability on its own?  Inadequate or no funding from Congress?  Where there is a will, there is a way.
Is this another item of change to be considered by the so-called Convention of States? 
Can any republic such as the United States continue to exist when its philosophy of equal justice for all is built on a foundation of shifting political sands?  From fixing speeding tickets to manufacturing evidence to spying on citizens, the trust the people have had in law enforcement at all levels has always been looked upon by the populace with a wink and a nod.  We cannot continue down the path to an equivalent KGB or Gestapo type of justice system.
The existence of corrupt law enforcement agencies and individuals is certainly not unique in history.  One needs only to remember the famous quote of the Roman poet Juvenal: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"  ("Who guards from the guards themselves?")

Police: 80 California High School Students Attack Officers, Cause Lockdown

ALANA MASTRANGELO
28 May 20194,403
2:08

Bear Creek High School in Stockton, California, was placed on lockdown last week after an estimated 80 students attacked police officers who arrived on campus to detain one student for fighting with school staff.

Stockton police estimated that about 80 Bear Creek High School students were involved in a physical altercation with police officers on Friday morning as the officers were detaining one student for fighting with school staff, according to Stockton Record.
Video footage captured the chaotic brawl, which shows scores of students surrounding the officers in what appears to be an attempt to stop them from detaining the student. Moments later, one student in the crowd can be seen throwing a garbage can at the officers while the others jeer and shout.
Watch below:
Stockton police arrived at the high school on Friday morning to detain one student who had been reported for fighting with school staff, but when the student resisted arrest, it spurred around 80 other students to engage in a physical struggle with officers and school staff members, according to police.
“During this detention, officers were struck by several students and a garbage can was thrown at officers and school staff,” said the Stockton Police Department.
The incident resulted in the Lodi Unified School District placing the school on lockdown.
“I don’t know what’s going on with these kids,” said a concerned parent to FOX 40 News, “I don’t know, even with the authority there and they’re still being too much. It’s scary, it’s dangerous.”
“When you go to school, you’re supposed to respect the authority that’s trying to keep you safe while you’re here on campus,” added former Bear Creek High student Kira Elkins.
Stockton police did note, however, that no officers, students or staff members were injured during the physical altercation, adding that the student who had been initially detained was cited for resisting arrest.
It remains unclear whether the other students involved will be charged.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.



Horrifying moment Phoenix police point guns at a black family and tell the father they're 'gonna put a f**king cap in your head' after 'his daughter, four, walked out of a store with a $1 Barbie doll'

·         Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops surround Dravon Ames and his family
·         They tell the 22-year-old: 'I'm gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head'
·         His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds
·         The incident is understood to have been sparked by accusations of a $1 theft 
·         Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the shocking encounter 
·         In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters
·         One says: 'You're gonna f***ing get shot' and 'put your f***ing hands up' 
·         The family is now said to be seeking $10 million in damages from the police 
·         Phoenix police say they are now investigating the incident in which neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested
This is the horrifying moment Phoenix police hold a black family - including a pregnant woman and her two little girls - at gunpoint after their four-year-old daughter is said to have walked out of a store with a $1 doll. 
Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops, some with guns drawn, telling 22-year-old Dravon Ames: 'I'm gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head' as they surround him and his loved ones.  
His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds.
She cries: 'I can't put my hands up, I have a baby. I'm pregnant.' 
The incident is understood to have been sparked by accusations one of their young girls walked out of a dollar store with a $1 doll. 
Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the encounter between the young family and cops.  
In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters, telling their parents to 'put your f***ing hands up' . One can be heard saying: 'You're gonna f***ing get shot.'
Ames frantically tells them: 'My hands are up. My hands are up.' 
In a lawsuit they claim police 'grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother's hand'. It adds: 'Island [the couple's 1-year-old child] has been having nightmares and wetting her bed, which she has not done before this incident.'
Video playing bottom right...
Click here to expand to full page
Loaded: 0%
Progress: 0%
0:18
Pause
Unmute
Current Time0:18
/
Duration Time3:24
Fullscreen
ExpandClose
+7
·          
+7
·          
Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops surround Dravon Ames and his family with guns drawn. They tell the 22-year-old: 'I'm gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head'
As Ames is held against a police car his partner desperately tells police she is unable to lift her arms as she is carrying her one-year-old baby. At least one child can be heard crying as they are taken to safety by witnesses. 
The officer screams: 'If I tell you to do something you f***ing do it.' 
Ames replies: 'Yes, sir.' 
In the second clip onlookers call out to ask to take the children away to avoid them from seeing their parents being detained.  
The family is now said to be seeking $10 million in damages from the police with former Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne representing them. 
Ames told The Phoenix New Times: 'We're thinking we're gonna get shot cause he kept threatening, "I'm gonna shoot you in the face". We were so scared.' 
It is understood the parents had just pulled into the parking lot to leave their children with a babysitter when their car was surrounded. 
Ames said: 'A police officer, we don't know who he is, a guy, random guy came up to the door banging on the window with a gun, says he's going to shoot us in our face, telling us to get out of the car. He hasn't alerted us that we're being pulled over anything.
'If you look at the video pretty good I'm snatched out the car and I fly back and that's when he grabs me out the car. My hands were up the whole time.' 
Neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested. 
+7
·          
Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the shocking encounter. In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters
+7
·          
His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds
+7
·          
Reporter Meg O'Connor tweeted about the incident, posting the videos online 
Their claim states: 'The police officers committed battery, unlawful imprisonment, false arrest, infliction of emotional distress, and violation of civil rights under the fifth and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution.
'The first officer grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother's hand. He told her to put the baby on the ground, which she was unwilling to do because the baby could not walk, and the ground consisted of hot pavement.
'The first officer pulled the baby by the arm to get her away from the mother, which injured the arm, in a condition known as 'dead arm.' Island [the couple's 1-year-old child] has been having nightmares and wetting her bed, which she has not done before this incident.'
Arizona senator Martín Quezada has condemned the footage on Twitter, writing: 'This is everything that's wrong with #LawEnforcement today. My #LD29 #Maryvale community deserves better than this type of inexcusable and unjustifiable rage and abuse of power from the @phoenixpolice.' 
Phoenix police say they are now investigating the incident. 
They told KNXV-TV the officer who swore is on a 'non-enforcement assignment.' The other officer who drew his gun is understood to still be on patrol. 

Police murder in Memphis

The brutal murder on Wednesday of 20-year-old Brandon Webber by US federal marshals is the latest eruption of police violence in a country where youth and workers are gunned down on the streets by uniformed killers with numbing regularity.

Webber, the father of three and a student at the University of Memphis, was, according to eyewitnesses, shot up to 20 times after he had been handcuffed and subdued by marshals who had come to his home to serve felony arrest warrants. Webber, an African American, was the third victim of homicidal police violence in Memphis so far this year.
Just two days before, in the far northeastern corner of Tennessee, a young white man was killed by police in a strikingly similar manner. Police went to the home of Terry Frost, 32, in rural Sullivan County to serve him with an arrest warrant. As with Webber, police claim that Frost used his vehicle as a weapon as he attempted to escape. Sheriff’s deputies opened fire and killed him.
Between the killing of Frost on Monday and that of Webber on Wednesday, it was announced Tuesday that the Memphis police officer videotaped last year killing unarmed Terrance Carlton, 25, as he lay on the ground in a fetal position, will face no criminal charges.
On Wednesday evening, heavily armed Memphis riot police attacked several hundred angry residents of the Frayser neighborhood where Webber was killed, firing tear gas into the faces of unarmed youth and workers. Three people were arrested, including one who was charged with inciting a riot.
The media emphasized the claims of the authorities that 25 police officers were injured, none seriously, by rocks and bottles thrown by protesters. Mayor Jim Strickland, a Democrat, told a local television station that a “violent response” to any police shooting was “absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Every year in America, some 1,000 people, overwhelmingly working class, are killed by police. According to a database compiled by the Washington Post, Webber’s death is the 406th police killing so far in 2019.
It is just short of five years since the police chokehold killing of Eric Garner in New York and the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a wave of protests across the country. But in the subsequent years, the toll of police killings has only risen.
The conditions in Memphis, a city of 650,000 people, and particularly in the Frayser neighborhood, exemplify the underlying economic and social conditions behind the reign of police violence in working class communities throughout the United States. In 2011, the Census Bureau declared Memphis “the poorest big city in America.” Median household income in the city is $38,826, and the poverty rate is 26.9 percent.
In Frayser, the poorest neighborhood in Memphis, the corresponding figures are $31,065 and 44.8 percent.
Like scores of US cities, Memphis was hit by factory closures in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving communities such as Frayser economically devastated, with nothing but the toxic waste left behind by shuttered plants to serve as a reminder of vanished jobs.
Police violence is an expression of the acute class contradictions that permeate a society dominated, behind the increasingly tattered trappings of democracy, by a wealthy and criminal corporate-financial oligarchy. The police serve as a front line of state repression in a country where the richest three billionaires have more wealth than the bottom 175 million Americans combined, and where the entire political establishment and both of its major parties are focused on propping up the stock market by pumping trillions more into Wall Street, paid for by slashing jobs, wages, pensions, health care and education.
A quarter-century of endless war abroad, waged to protect the global interests of the oligarchs, has its domestic counterpart in the militarization of the police. Billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware—tanks, helicopters, armored vehicles, drones—has been handed over to state and local police departments in recent decades. Like the redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of society, the process has been presided over by Democrats no less than Republicans.
The Trump administration has formally adopted a policy of preparing for war against America’s “great power” competitors, beginning with China and Russia. The strategists of this policy speak of “total war,” involving centrally the militarization of the home front and suppression of social and political opposition. Hence Trump’s open encouragement of the police to “get tough” and his setting up of concentration camps for immigrants. The Democrats remain virtually silent on the persecution of immigrants, while overwhelmingly voting for massive increases in Pentagon spending.
With the police killing in Memphis and the eruption of protests, the purveyors of racial politics are once again seeking to obscure the fundamental class questions underlying police brutality and present the issue as purely a racial matter. Pamela Moses, founder of Memphis Black Lives Matter and a candidate for mayor, told Time magazine that police “are supposed to be trained to apprehend without deadly force, but when it comes to us, we always have to die.”
As a matter of fact, more whites are killed by police than blacks, although the latter, along with Hispanics, are killed at a disproportionate rate. According to the Washington Post list, of the 181 police killings so far this year in which the race of the deceased is known, 82 were white, 52 were black and 44 Hispanic. Astonishingly, police killings have taken place in 46 of the 50 states, including in such largely rural, sparsely populated and overwhelmingly white states such as Vermont and Wyoming. What the vast majority of victims of police violence have in common is not their race, but that they are working class.
While racism no doubt plays a role in police attacks on minorities, the basic reason that blacks and Hispanics are so frequently victimized is that they make up a disproportionate percentage of the most impoverished and oppressed sections of the working class. With few exceptions, it is not wealthy blacks and Hispanics who are subjected to police terror.
The role of racial and other forms of identity politics is to divert attention from the real source of police violence and repression, as well as poverty, inequality and war, i.e., the capitalist system. Politically, it serves to divide the working class and channel social opposition behind the Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street, the military-intelligence complex and privileged sections of the upper-middle class.
It was the African American, Democratic President Barack Obama who expanded the program of military arms to the police and repeatedly intervened on the side of the police when challenged in court for illegal and unconstitutional violations of civil liberties. Under Obama’s watch, with only the rarest exceptions, killer cops got away with murder without even being charged. Trump bases his naked support for police violence on the foundations laid down by his predecessor.
The police are part of what Engels called the “special bodies of armed men” that comprise the capitalist state. They cannot be reformed by adding more minorities or more civilian oversight. The state is not a neutral body. It is the repressive arm of the ruling class.
Under conditions of mounting economic, social and political crisis of the capitalist system in the US and internationally, and a growing movement of the American and world working class against social inequality, the ruling elite in the US and every other country is turning more and more openly to dictatorial forms of rule.
Youth and workers who want to fight against the plague of police violence and murder must turn to the growing movement of workers of all races and nationalities—to the teachers, health care workers, industrial workers who are striking in the greatest numbers in decades—and fight to unite them on the basis of a struggle for genuine equality and democracy under socialism.

+7
·          
The family is now said to be seeking $10 million in damages from the police who say they are investigating the incident in which neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested
+7
·          
The footage has been condemned online. In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters, telling their parents to 'put your f***ing hands up' . One can be heard saying: 'You're gonna f***ing get shot'
In a statement on their Facebook page police wrote: 'On June 11, 2019, we were provided video of an officer taking two individuals into custody while investigating a shoplifting incident in the area of 3200 East Roosevelt Street. 
'This occurred after the suspect vehicle was stopped a short distance from the scene of the theft. It involved a man and a woman with two small children. Please be advised, there is some language which might be considered offensive. The video is intentionally blurred for redaction purposes.
'The Phoenix Police Department takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and for this reason, this incident is currently being investigated by the Professional Standards Bureau.' 
DailyMail.com has contacted Phoenix police for comment.  

Behind the epidemic of police killings in America: Class, poverty and race

Part two

 

Income and poverty

According to the US Census Bureau, 328 million people reside in the United States. Non-Hispanic whites make up 60.7 percent, black or African American 13.4 percent, and Hispanics or Latino 18.1 percent of the population. The annual median household income (MHI) in 2016 dollars amounts to $55,322 and the percentage of the population living in poverty stands at 12.3 percent. There is wide variation in these figures from state to state. Table 2 below highlights these facts. The table also demonstrates a broadly uniform phenomenon: the areas in which police killings occurred—either the cities and towns, or in the case of rural districts, the counties—almost always have lower median household incomes and more people living in poverty than the statewide average.
In 2017, according to the Washington Post, 987 people were shot and killed by the police. Overwhelmingly, men constituted 95.2 percent of those killed. Racial demographics included 475 white non-Hispanic victims (48.2 percent), 231 black victims (23.4 percent) and 209 Hispanic victims (21.2 percent). Twenty-five Native Americans made up 2.5 percent of those killed though they constitute only 1.3 percent of the population. On the other hand, 19 Asians represented 1.9 percent of those killed though they constitute 5.8 percent of the US population.
Twenty-six people (after the data was cross-referenced with KilledbyPolice.net and news sources) had an unknown race assigned. They made up 2.6 percent of those killed by police.
When this data is standardized to the number killed per 100,000, whites were killed at 0.237 per 100k, blacks at 0.530 per 100k and Hispanics at 0.358 per 100k. The ratio of black death rate to white death rate stands at 2.24 and the ratio of Hispanic death rate to whites death rate at 1.51. This data is consistent with the published literature and often quoted to support the racialist perspective.

The police killing zone: USA−

However, when we calculated the demographics only for the regions in which a police killing occurred, there was a significant shift in both the demographics and socioeconomic status of this new population. We used the suffix minus (−) to denote the narrower region where a killing occurred. Illinois− would mean only those cities and rural counties in Illinois where police killed civilians. USA− includes only the cities and rural counties throughout the country in which a police killing occurred.
The region designated USA− accounts for 91,526,100 people. In other words, slightly more than one-quarter of the US population lives in a city or county where a police killing took place, and conversely, just under three-quarters live in cities or counties that were free of such killings.
The population of USA− has significantly different demographics from the USA as a whole. Non-Hispanic whites made up 44.5 percent, blacks 18.6 percent and Hispanics 26.7 percent of this region. The median household income is slightly lower at $52,218 per annum, and the percentage in poverty (PP) is much higher, at 19.5 percent.
If one compares the poverty rate of USA− to the poverty rate of the remaining nearly three-quarters of the country, where no police killings took place, the disparity is even more stark. The poverty rate is 19.5 percent in what might be called the police killing zone. It is only 9.5 percent, less than half that rate, in the rest of the country.
While poverty becomes a much more salient factor when considering just USA−, the opposite is true for race. In USA−, non-Hispanic whites experienced 1.169 deaths per 100,000, blacks 1.357 per 100,000 and Hispanics 0.856 per 100,000. The ratio of the black death rate to the white death rate was cut nearly in half, to 1.16, and the Hispanic to white ratio declined by more than half, to 0.73. Though blacks continued to be killed at a higher rate than whites, the differences between them became less profound. Comparing observed to expected, based upon the population living in USA−, 38 more whites (8.6 percent) were killed than expected, 47 more blacks (25.6 percent) were killed than expected but 67 fewer Hispanics (25.5 percent) were killed than expected.
When looking at economic data by race, in USA−, regions where white non-Hispanics were killed, the mean household income was $46,720 and 17.6 percent of the population was living in poverty, for blacks the figures were $47,010 and 20.3 percent, and for Hispanics, $50,070 and 19.1 percent.

Urban and rural differences

Only eighty-two black individuals (35.5 percent of all blacks killed by police) died in rural areas with populations of less than 100,000, excluding suburbs. These represented 8.3 percent of all people killed by police in 2017. The median household income in these regions is $41,661, and the proportion living in poverty stands at 20.9 percent.
Forty-five percent of all blacks killed by police were killed in large urban areas with populations of more than 300,000 (including the suburbs) while 20 percent were killed in smaller urban centers between 100,000 and 300,000, for a combined total of 65 percent of all blacks being killed in urban centers. The median household income and proportion in poverty in the urban centers where blacks were killed were $48,088 and 20.8 percent, respectively. Only seventeen black people were killed in suburbs (7.4 percent of all blacks and 1.7 percent of all people killed by police) where the median household income and proportion in poverty stand at $67,178 and 10.5 percent, respectively.
In contrast, out of 478 whites killed by police, 292 (61.7 percent of all whites killed and 29.6 percent of the people killed by police) were killed in rural areas with less than 100,000 population. The median household income and proportion living in poverty were $42,213 and 18.0 percent, respectively.
This figure is worth pondering. The number of whites killed by police in rural areas, 292, is just about exactly twice the number of blacks killed by police in urban areas, 149. But these white victims of police violence are almost invisible when it comes to reporting in the corporate-controlled media, speeches by Democratic Party politicians, or commentary by the pseudo-left groups. Moreover, the income and poverty rates in the two areas are comparable: both white and black victims of police violence live in lower-income working-class areas characterized by much higher than average poverty rates.
There were 124 (25.9 percent of whites killed) in population centers (excluding suburbs) with more than 100,000. Of these, 66 whites (13.8 percent of whites killed by police and 6.7 percent of all victims) died in large urban centers with more than 300,000 population. The median household income and proportion in poverty were $48,675 and 18.5 percent, respectively. Sixty white people were killed in suburbs, accounting for 12.5 percent of whites killed. These regions have a median household income and proportion in poverty of $69,082 and 8.0 percent, respectively.
The demographics of Hispanics killed by police were closer to those of blacks than whites, in that more were killed in larger urban centers. Rural areas accounted for 40.9 percent of Hispanics killed by police (8.6 percent of all victims) while 59.1 percent of Hispanics (12.5 percent of all victims) were killed in urban centers, including the suburbs and metro areas.

The most dangerous area: rural America

Metropolitan centers denote urban centers with more than one million people. There were ten such centers in which 76 people were killed. This region contributed 28.4 percent of USA− but accounted for only 7.7 percent of those killed. Blacks and Hispanics accounted for 35.5 percent each to those killed while whites were only 27.2 percent. Blacks were over-represented in metropolitan centers, at almost twice their proportion in the population.
Large cities included urban centers between 300,000 to one million people. There were 152 people killed in 46 cities and large suburbs. This region accounted for 27.4 percent of USA− but contributed to 15.4 percent of those killed. Blacks again were over-represented in these regions at nearly twice the expected rate, comprising 40.1 percent of those killed.
Population centers with more than 100,000 people but less than 300,000 included many small cities and exurbs. In these regions, 171 people were killed. Combined, they contributed 22.7 percent of USA- and contributed to 17.3 percent of those killed. The rate of whites killed rose while that for blacks declined to a level more consistent with their population in these regions though blacks continued to be over-represented.
Together these urban centers accounted for 399 killed, making up 40.4 percent of those killed by police in 2017. These areas, however, represented 78.5 percent of the population in USA−, the combined regions where police killings occurred. By contrast, the rural regions, which encompassed 463 small and medium towns, including counties with less than 100,000 people, accounted for only 16.8 percent of USA−. However, they accounted for 50.2 percent of the people killed by police, a remarkable 496 victims.
By comparison to urban centers where death rates are on the order of magnitude less than one killed per 100,000 people, medium-sized cities had a rate for whites of 1.946, blacks 3.564 and Hispanics of 2.259. In small towns and rural areas, these rates climbed to a staggering 12.016 per 100,000 for whites, 15.703 for blacks and 11.755 for Hispanics.



2018 begins with US police reign of terror

While largely ignored by the mass media, the reign of terror by police officers continues to rage across the United States. The entire state apparatus, from local cops to immigration agents, has been unleashed by the Trump administration to beat, maim and kill with impunity.
During a speech to hundreds of uniformed officers last July, Trump urged the police to not be “too nice” and to treat detainees “rough.” The Justice Department has at the same time ended the toothless pretense of federal oversight over a handful of police departments put in place by the Obama administration.
In the year since Trump was sworn in as president, at least 1,223 people have been killed by police. Since the beginning of 2018, according to killedbypolice.net, 3.5 people have been killed on average every day.
Washington Post database reports 78 fatal police shootings so far this year. As in previous years, the figures show that police killings impact every race and ethnicity, with whites comprising the largest share of victims, while African Americans are killed at a rate higher than their overall percentage of the population. In those cases where race or ethnicity has been identified by the Post, 54 percent of victims were white, 25 percent African American, 15 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian and 2 percent Native American.
Among the most recent victims is Donte Shannon, a 26-year-old African American man who was killed by police in Racine, Wisconsin on January 17 after fleeing a traffic stop. According to the police account, Shannon’s initial crime was not having a front license plate on his vehicle. Officials claim the police were forced to unleash a hail of bullets after Shannon pointed a gun at them, though investigators have not reported finding a weapon at the scene.
On the same day, a deputy in Columbus, Ohio shot and killed 16-year-old Joseph Haynes, a white youth, during an altercation after a court hearing. Haynes, who was unarmed, was thrown to the ground and shot once in the abdomen after he confronted a deputy for pushing his mother up against a wall.
In addition to those killed, workers and youth are subjected to police harassment and brutality on a daily basis.
Earlier this month, Louisiana teacher Deyshia Hargrave was removed from a school board meeting and handcuffed by a deputy marshal after she raised questions about school officials awarding themselves raises while denying them to teachers and staff. Former coal miner Gary Michael Hunt was choked by a police officer and removed from a public meeting after demanding clean water for the residents of Martin County, Kentucky.
Not even children are spared, as shown by a report Sunday that a 7-year-old child in Miami, Florida was led away from his school in handcuffs after an altercation with a teacher last week.
The issue of police killings and brutality erupted into national and international prominence with the murder of Michael Brown in August 2014 and the militarized police response to protests. Popular anger over police violence has not gone away. However, over the past three and a half years there has been a systematic effort to smother opposition and channel it behind the Democratic Party.
A critical role has been played by Black Lives Matter (BLM), which was developed and promoted to push the false claim that police violence is a racial rather than a class issue. Along with the various other organizations that promote and support the Democratic Party, BLM sought to cover up the relationship between police violence and the nature of the capitalist state as an instrument of class repression. BLM pushed for various reforms, including body cameras, oversight boards and more minority police officers, as the supposed solution to police violence.
In 2016, the main leaders of BLM threw their support behind Hillary Clinton, the favored candidate of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus. During the election season, the Ford Foundation announced that it would funnel $100 million to a panoply of organizations associated with the BLM movement. This was followed by the announcement of an initiative by BLM to promote “black capitalism,” including the introduction of a Black Lives Matter debit card.
The Democratic Party is fully complicit in the epidemic of police violence. The Obama administration presided over the continued militarization of police forces while ensuring that nothing was done to prosecute officers who perpetrated violence.
Since the election of Trump, the Democrats have entirely ignored the ongoing wave of police killings. They have worked to suppress and divert all manifestations of social opposition to the Trump administration behind a reactionary and militarist agenda of aggression against Russia, a further redistribution of wealth to the rich, and the destruction of democratic rights.
A significant factor in the efforts to censor the Internet, spearheaded by the Democratic Party, is concern that police killings and abuse videotaped on smartphones have become national and international issues through distribution on social media platforms. Facebook is now changing its newsfeed to limit the reach of content from news sources outside the so-called “mainstream,” with the aim of preventing the expression and propagation of opposition to police violence and social inequality.
Opposition to police violence within the United States cannot be separated from opposition to war, social inequality and the capitalist system. With wealth concentration rising to levels without historic precedent, the ruling elite relies on the police to enforce inequality.
And as the Pentagon prepares to wage war abroad on an unprecedented scale, the ruling class is preparing for war at home. The concept of “Total Army” has been coined to embrace the innumerable and growing connections between the police, border patrol, immigration agents and the military—a single apparatus of war and repression.
The ruling class is well aware that it faces its greatest danger within the United States, in the form of the growth of working-class struggle and the development of a mass movement against capitalism. It is only through the building of such a political movement that the reign of police violence can be ended.
Niles Niemuth



COP MURDERS IN AMERICA   - THOUSANDS SHOT IN THE HEAD. JUDGES GIVE THE THUG COPS A PASS TO DO IT AGAIN!

 

Police kill over a thousand for fourth year in a row

For the fourth year in a row, police killed over a thousand people in the United States in one year. The four-year bloodbath is a stern warning to the working class in America and across the world. Social inequality is reaching unprecedented levels. Three billionaires own as much wealth as the bottom half of the population of the United States. The killings of thousands by police in the span of few years is an indication of the ruling elite’s fear and hatred of the vast working class majority.
As of this writing, killedbypolice.net reports police killed 1,164 people in 2017. With a few days left in the year, the death count will likely increase, marking 2017 as second deadliest year since 2013, when the web site began tabulating the figures. Last year’s count stands at 1,165.
Other police killing aggregators show similar totals. Mapping Police Violence places the count at 1,049. The Washington Post, which only tracks police shootings as opposed to other forms of police killings, by means of tasering, beatings and the like, places the count at 952 as of December 25.
Murder by police is effectively legal. Police officers can kill anyone, as long as they claim some kind of perceived threat, whether real or not. Hundreds, many of whom are unarmed, are murdered by officers who will never face a trial. According to Mapping Police Violence, in 2015, under the Obama presidency, 99 percent of all police killings did not result in any police officer being convicted of a crime by the so-called justice system. The capitalist state shoots and kills with one hand and washes the blood off with the other.
In November, released video footage showed an unarmed Daniel Shaver murdered by an Arizona police officer after begging for his life on his knees. The officer was acquitted of all charges after claiming he feared for his life. In September, St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was acquitted of murder for the 2011 killing of Anthony Lamar Smith. After shooting Smith six times from close range, Stockley planted a gun on Smith’s dead body. Stockley’s fingerprints were later found on the gun.
Following the verdict, protests erupted in St. Louis. St. Louis police responded, dressed in riot gear, illegally “kettling” protesters and arresting many all the while shouting, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
The protests were largely organized by Black Lives Matters (BLM) and pseudo-left groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Socialist Alternative, who sought to portray the killing by Stockley as an act solely due to racism. Slogans such as “white silence is violence” were heard during the protests.
Three years earlier, in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson, pseudo-left groups put forth the same narrative: the fundamental cause of police violence is racism. Often cited to bolster this argument is the fact that blacks are killed in disproportionately higher numbers compared to whites. According to the Washington Post, African-Americans comprised a quarter of all police killings in 2017. This clearly suggests that racism is an element in police killings, but these statistics only reveal part of the picture. The victims of police killings include all races and ethnicities. As any good doctor will point out, one must not confuse a symptom for the disease, and the disease is class oppression, claiming the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the working class.
The police, along with the state machine as a whole, exist as an instrument in the irreconcilable conflict between the ruling class and the working class. The police are not neutral actors who can be pressured to act in a certain way. They serve the interests of the capitalist class, and carry out its orders. The thousands that lay dead at the hands of the police, regardless of skin color and gender, come almost entirely from the ranks of the working class. Police roam working class and poor neighborhoods hunting perpetrators of petty crimes. If you are stopped by the police, you are de facto guilty. If you fidget or do not follow a command directly, you may very well be shot and die. Whatever part racism plays in these murders, it is ultimately secondary to that of class.
American society is divided by massive inequality, intensified by decades of social counterrevolution. Social tension is palpable, with most working people increasingly angry and moving to the left. There is deep concern within the ruling class that social explosions of revolutionary dimensions are on the horizon. Preparing for such events, police more and more act as an occupying force, carrying the same weapons used overseas in occupied countries by the United States. In 1989, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act. It has made possible the transfer of $5.4 billion worth of military gear to police departments across the United States. A report published by the US Department of Justice in 2015 states that local police departments swelled to 477,000 full-time personnel in 2013, a 35 percent increase since 1987. This three-decade period coincides with a drastic decline in crime, while the forces of “law and order” have been swelled and armed to the teeth.
History demonstrates the real role of the police. In 1937, for example, Chicago police shot and killed 10 striking workers during the Little Steel Strike. During the Detroit Rebellion of 1967, police were given order to ‘shoot to kill,’ claiming 16 victims. In some of the other social explosions of the mid- and late 1960s, the death toll at the hands of the police was even greater.
Under the Trump presidency, the police will operate more openly and ruthlessly. Police violence will grow, accompanied by increased attacks on democratic rights. Social and political opposition will be met with brutal violence, directed not only against individuals but also mass struggles.
The efforts of the proponents of identity politics to place the blame of police violence on racism effectively denies the role of the state and its class character. This serves to create divisions within the working class along ethnic and racial lines. It leads to the counterproductive and reactionary conclusion that the police can be reformed by increasing the number of minority officers, or through such techniques as community policing, racial-sensitivity training and similar nostrums.

Court quashes subpoena of reporter who uncovered Chicago police murder coverup

By George Marlowe

On December 13, a Cook County judge quashed an anti-press subpoena against independent journalist Jamie Kalven that would have forced him to disclose his confidential sources in court. Kalven was the first to bring to light the coverup of the police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014 by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, who faces charges of first-degree murder.
Were it not for Kalven, who works with the independent news organization Invisible Institute, there would have been no exposure of the police murder of McDonald and the subsequent coverup by the Chicago Police Department (CPD), the Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel and the entire political establishment.
Kalven wrote an explosive article in Slate in 2015 entitled “Sixteen Shots” that shattered the official fake news and coverup—promoted by the CPD, the Emanuel administration and the media. In the article, Kalven revealed that McDonald had been shot sixteen times across his entire body, according to the autopsy report he had obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
He also cited an unnamed witness who contradicted the entire official police narrative, which claimed that the teenager was lunging at a police officer with a knife while under the influence drugs. The witness stated instead that McDonald was “shying away” from the police officer when he was shot multiple times. Finally, Kalven revealed that there was a police dashboard-camera video documenting the entire incident, which he learned from an unnamed source.
The subpoena—issued by Van Dyke’s lawyers in an attempt to delay his trial—threatened to undermine basic democratic rights afforded to reporters under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Such rights include a reporter’s constitutional privilege to be protected from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources, critical to reporting freely on matters of public interest. At the same time, attacks on the press have steadily increased over the last few decades by multiple administrations, Democratic and Republican.
Van Dyke’s lead attorney, Daniel Herbert, himself a former police officer, issued the subpoena against Kalven claiming that his reporting influenced witnesses—thereby tainting the investigation. Kalven’s lawyers countered that the witnesses in question had already spoken to law enforcement prior to Kalven’s discussions with them. In reality, the spurious subpoena issued by Herbert is part of a counter-offensive to intimidate and threaten reporters who uncover crimes committed by police officers or other agents of the state.
In demanding the subpoena, Herbert also accused Kalven of being an activist, rather than a neutral reporter of the facts. He argued therefore that Kalven could not make use of his reporter’s privilege to maintain the confidentiality of his sources. While Kalven certainly has taken a point of view in his reporting on police brutality for many years, and has been a partisan for the voices of the poor in Chicago’s south side, he is also a conscientious and objective reporter.
Kalven’s lawyer highlighted the spuriousness of the assault on his rights. Compelling Kalven to testify about his sources, they noted, violated the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege Act—which forbids courts from forcing reporters to disclose the source of information they have obtained (confidential or not), except where no other law can prevent its disclosure, and all other sources of information have been exhausted.
An amicus curiae brief filed by the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press (RCFP) and eighteen other media organizations noted, “When a subpoena demands information about confidential sources, the specter of enforcing that subpoena has a chilling effect on all future sources who may have valuable information about matters of public concern, but need an assurance of confidentiality before sharing it.”
In light of the spuriousness of the charges made by Herbert, Judge Vincent Gaughan was forced to quash the subpoena. Gaughan, however, maintained he did so not because of Kalven’s protected status as a reporter, but because of the inadequacy of the subpoena itself. While the dismissal of the subpoena was a victory for Kalven’s rights as a reporter, the courts have only maintained a qualified and limited assertion of a reporter’s privilege.
After months of legal and court battles, the Emanuel administration released the video of the shooting on a late night in 2014. The video confirmed what the witnesses and autopsy reports showed. Laquan McDonald, an impoverished ward of the state, unknown to the public until his untimely death, was shot sixteen times by Van Dyke as he walked away from the officer. The first few shots took the teenager down. Van Dyke subsequently shot him multiple times as smoke emerged from his shaking, dying body.
The video of McDonald finally released in November 2015 engulfed the Emanuel administration in a full-blown political crisis. Protests ensued nightly and there were widespread calls for Emanuel to resign for his role in the cover-up. Instead, the Democratic Party and the political establishment thereafter began a process of damage control.
Emanuel, who bears chief responsibility for the murder, remains in office and no high-level political figure has been charged. In December of 2015, Emanuel called for the resignation of Superintendent Garry McCarthy, the head of the CPD at the time of McDonald’s death. Van Dyke was then indicted on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct. Multiple officers on the scene were involved in a conspiracy to cover up what happened. The official organs of police oversight, such as the Independent Police Review Authority, sanctioned the false statements of the officers.
The mainstream press, for their part, uncritically reported what CPD officials told them, which was that McDonald had lunged at the officer with a knife. Kalven’s reporting, however, was instrumental in bringing to light the real circumstances of the murder of McDonald and added to the growing public outrage against police brutality.
In the wake of the release of the video, Emanuel also vowed to create a task force for police accountability, in order to cover up his own tracks. Emails released by the Chicago Tribune later revealed the entire administration in City Hall was aware of the video and chose to suppress it. The Justice Department also opened an investigation, which released its report earlier this year. The report revealed a damning pattern of constitutional abuses by the CPD. It detailed a history of police brutality and violence in Chicago, but it only offered mere palliatives and half-measures.
Despite the reporting by Kalven and widespread outrage against police brutality in Chicago, there has been no fundamental change in the course of the CPD and its policies. Far from ushering in an era of “police reform”, as promised by Emanuel in the wake of release of the video footage of the police murder of McDonald, police violence and brutality continue unabated, in Chicago and across the country.
THUG RAPIST COPS SELDOM PROSECUTED…. CORRUPT JUDGES WANT TO MAINTAIN THE STATUSQUO OF JUDGES, THUG COPS AND LAWYERS ARE ALL ABOVE THE LAW!

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."

COP MURDERS IN AMERICA   - THOUSANDS SHOT IN THE HEAD. JUDGES GIVE THE THUG COPS A PASS TO DO IT AGAIN!



Texas Border Cop Accused of Sexually Assaulting Illegal Immigrant

John Moore/Getty Images
10 Jul 2019168
2:24

EDINBURG, Texas – A police officer from the border town of Progreso is accused of arresting a migrant and sexually abusing him inside the municipal jail.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hidalgo County Sheriff’s deputies took 24-year-old Mathew Sepulveda, a police officer in Progreso, before a local justice of the peace who formally charged him with one count of sexual assault and one count of violating the civil rights of a person in custody, jail booking information revealed. The judge set bond at $225,000. Progreso is immediately north of the border from Nuevo Progreso, Tamaulipas.
Sepulveda’s arrest follows a joint investigation between the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. The case was first reported by Dave Hendricks with The Progress Times.
According to the arrest affidavit, Sepulveda pulled over a vehicle on June 28 and arrested the driver, an adult male living in the country illegally. At the jail, Sepulveda allegedly told the man that he had “to do something” or he could not be released. The victim, fearing deportation, went with the officer to an adjacent room where Sepulveda allegedly performed oral sex on him. When the victim’s relatives arrived at the police station to pay any citation needed for his release, the officer told the man that he was free to go. The victim and his family called the sheriff’s office to report the sexual assault.
According to information provided to Breitbart News by the sheriff’s office, investigators began an “official oppression” investigation at the Progreso Police station and asked the FBI for assistance.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Border/Cartel Chronicles. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Border/Cartel Chronicles. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.