Former Fort Worth Officer Charged With Murder In Fatal Shooting Of Woman In Her Home
Like a lot of young women her age, 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson had a date Friday night — but unlike many of her peers, Jefferson's date was with her 8-year-old nephew. They were enjoying a heated video game that went into the early hours of Saturday when police arrived at the house Jefferson shared with her mother.
Officers were responding to a nonemergency call from James Smith, a neighbor who knew Jefferson's mother was not well. (Jefferson, a pre-med graduate of Xavier University, had moved home to care for her ailing parent, who was in the hospital recovering from unspecified injuries.) Smith was worried when he saw doors to the Jefferson home wide open late at night.
Despite the nonemergency nature of the call, two police officers crept up to the house unannounced, their flashlights sweeping the yard. Then one spotted Jefferson peering out of a window.
Like a lot of young women her age, 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson had a date Friday night — but unlike many of her peers, Jefferson's date was with her 8-year-old nephew. They were enjoying a heated video game that went into the early hours of Saturday when police arrived at the house Jefferson shared with her mother.
Officers were responding to a nonemergency call from James Smith, a neighbor who knew Jefferson's mother was not well. (Jefferson, a pre-med graduate of Xavier University, had moved home to care for her ailing parent, who was in the hospital recovering from unspecified injuries.) Smith was worried when he saw doors to the Jefferson home wide open late at night.
Despite the nonemergency nature of the call, two police officers crept up to the house unannounced, their flashlights sweeping the yard. Then one spotted Jefferson peering out of a window.
LAW
Fort Worth Officer Kills Woman In Her Bedroom In Response To 'Open Structure Call'
In body camera footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department, an officer can be heard shouting, "Put your hands up! Show me your hands!" That was probably the last thing Jefferson heard.
Within two seconds of that warning, Officer Aaron Dean shot through Jefferson's bedroom window. She died in her home; her nephew was in the same room, watching in shock.
On Monday, Dean, who is white, resigned from the police department. Several hours later he was arrested and charged with murder.
Jefferson's death within the supposedly safe confines of her home at the hands of a uniformed police officer sparked instant fear and outrage in many of Texas' black communities.
Only two weeks ago, an off-duty Dallas police officer, Amber Guyger, had been found guilty of murdering her neighbor, 26-year-old Botham Jean, in his apartment. Guyger later told authorities she'd mistaken Jean's apartment for her own, one floor below his.
The long lead-up to her trial polarized not just the city, but also the country, and kept the issue of police violence in communities of color just under the boiling point.
Promising a "thorough, transparent and speedy" investigation
The fact that the officers in both of these cases are white and both victims are African American has not gone unnoticed. But where the city of Dallas was, for many, too slow to investigate Guyger's case and bring it to trial, things are unfolding differently in Fort Worth.
Dean, the officer who killed Jefferson, was placed on detached duty Sunday and stripped of his badge and gun, according to Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus.
Kraus said he intended to fire Dean on Monday, but then Dean handed in his resignation. "Had the officer not resigned," the chief said, "I would have fired him for violations of several policies including our use-of-force policy, our de-escalation policy and unprofessional conduct."
Kraus promised a "thorough, transparent and speedy" investigation into Jefferson's death, and said he hopes to rebuild trust in a community that is deeply suspicious of its police force.
At the family's news conference hours earlier, Jefferson's brother, Adarius Carr, said he's been a Navy man for a dozen years. He said in the Navy there are consequences for not following procedure — and there should be here as well.
"When you don't do it the way you've been trained — the way you've been taught — you have to answer for that," Carr said.
"I want to go on and dispel the myth that this is somehow a one-off," said attorney S. Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer who represents Jefferson's family. Merritt was also one of the attorneys who represented Botham Jean's family.
The fact that Jefferson was killed by a police officer in her home is not, Merritt said, "just a bad luck incident from an otherwise sound department. They're in need of serious systematic reform."
Pushing for an independent inquiry
Jefferson's family, civic activists and Merritt are demanding an investigation from an independent, outside agency. While the police department will launch an internal investigation, Merritt said he and Jefferson's family hope the main probe will be handled "by someone other than the Fort Worth Police Department" so that the police are not investigating themselves.
Kraus has asked the Texas state police to investigate; the agency has yet to agree, and may not, as the Rangers usually start work at the very beginning of a case. The chief said authorities also have presented the case to the FBI because of possible civil rights violations.
Meanwhile, the city's top representatives, from the mayor to the city manager to Kraus, have apologized profusely and empathized with the Jefferson family's torment.
"We are all heartbroken today," the city's mayor, Betsy Price, told the media on Monday. "The entire city is in pain. As a mother, a grandmother, a sister, I can't imagine anything worse. And I'm so sorry on behalf of the entire city of Fort Worth."
As sincere as the apologies are, the mayor also said, "Sorry doesn't cut it," and that "The entire city needs to surround [Jefferson's nephew] with prayer, support and anything that his family needs."
Price hoped that trust between Fort Worth's citizens and its police would eventually be rebuilt but warned that it will take time and lots of incremental steps.
That cause wasn't helped by the photo the Fort Worth Police Department released on Saturday showing a legal firearm that was found inside Jefferson's bedroom.
"In hindsight ... it was a bad thing to do," Kraus said, adding that there is nothing unusual in Texas about a homeowner keeping a gun for protection.
At Monday's news conference, the mayor insisted the gun was irrelevant.
"We will not stand down on this one"
Not everyone was ready to heal, though.
Community activist Malikk Ed is a member of the Brotherhood Movement. He remembers the riveting video two weeks ago when, at Amber Guyger's sentencing, Botham Jean's younger brother, Brandt Jean, told Guyger he forgave her and they exchanged a long, tearful hug. Then presiding judge Tammy Kemp left the courtroom and returned with her Bible. She gave it to Guyger and also hugged her.
While there were many wet eyes in the courtroom (and behind some news desks, to judge from the coverage), Ed is having none of it.
"We will not stand down on this one," he said. "There's no 'Kumbaya' for this one. There's no forgiveness for this one. There's no judge-hugging officer for this one."
Dean has been charged with murder, but that doesn't mean he will be convicted. In fact, most police officers who are tried for killing citizens aren't convicted.
And no matter what happens to Dean, there may be mistrust that cannot be fixed.
James Smith, who called the police to Jefferson's home out of concern for his neighbor, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Jefferson's death will make some people think twice about calling the police when they need them.
"If you don't feel safe with the police department," he asks, "then who do you feel safe with?"
In body camera footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department, an officer can be heard shouting, "Put your hands up! Show me your hands!" That was probably the last thing Jefferson heard.
Within two seconds of that warning, Officer Aaron Dean shot through Jefferson's bedroom window. She died in her home; her nephew was in the same room, watching in shock.
On Monday, Dean, who is white, resigned from the police department. Several hours later he was arrested and charged with murder.
Jefferson's death within the supposedly safe confines of her home at the hands of a uniformed police officer sparked instant fear and outrage in many of Texas' black communities.
Only two weeks ago, an off-duty Dallas police officer, Amber Guyger, had been found guilty of murdering her neighbor, 26-year-old Botham Jean, in his apartment. Guyger later told authorities she'd mistaken Jean's apartment for her own, one floor below his.
The long lead-up to her trial polarized not just the city, but also the country, and kept the issue of police violence in communities of color just under the boiling point.
Promising a "thorough, transparent and speedy" investigation
The fact that the officers in both of these cases are white and both victims are African American has not gone unnoticed. But where the city of Dallas was, for many, too slow to investigate Guyger's case and bring it to trial, things are unfolding differently in Fort Worth.
Dean, the officer who killed Jefferson, was placed on detached duty Sunday and stripped of his badge and gun, according to Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus.
Kraus said he intended to fire Dean on Monday, but then Dean handed in his resignation. "Had the officer not resigned," the chief said, "I would have fired him for violations of several policies including our use-of-force policy, our de-escalation policy and unprofessional conduct."
Kraus promised a "thorough, transparent and speedy" investigation into Jefferson's death, and said he hopes to rebuild trust in a community that is deeply suspicious of its police force.
At the family's news conference hours earlier, Jefferson's brother, Adarius Carr, said he's been a Navy man for a dozen years. He said in the Navy there are consequences for not following procedure — and there should be here as well.
"When you don't do it the way you've been trained — the way you've been taught — you have to answer for that," Carr said.
"I want to go on and dispel the myth that this is somehow a one-off," said attorney S. Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer who represents Jefferson's family. Merritt was also one of the attorneys who represented Botham Jean's family.
The fact that Jefferson was killed by a police officer in her home is not, Merritt said, "just a bad luck incident from an otherwise sound department. They're in need of serious systematic reform."
Pushing for an independent inquiry
Jefferson's family, civic activists and Merritt are demanding an investigation from an independent, outside agency. While the police department will launch an internal investigation, Merritt said he and Jefferson's family hope the main probe will be handled "by someone other than the Fort Worth Police Department" so that the police are not investigating themselves.
Kraus has asked the Texas state police to investigate; the agency has yet to agree, and may not, as the Rangers usually start work at the very beginning of a case. The chief said authorities also have presented the case to the FBI because of possible civil rights violations.
Meanwhile, the city's top representatives, from the mayor to the city manager to Kraus, have apologized profusely and empathized with the Jefferson family's torment.
"We are all heartbroken today," the city's mayor, Betsy Price, told the media on Monday. "The entire city is in pain. As a mother, a grandmother, a sister, I can't imagine anything worse. And I'm so sorry on behalf of the entire city of Fort Worth."
As sincere as the apologies are, the mayor also said, "Sorry doesn't cut it," and that "The entire city needs to surround [Jefferson's nephew] with prayer, support and anything that his family needs."
Price hoped that trust between Fort Worth's citizens and its police would eventually be rebuilt but warned that it will take time and lots of incremental steps.
That cause wasn't helped by the photo the Fort Worth Police Department released on Saturday showing a legal firearm that was found inside Jefferson's bedroom.
"In hindsight ... it was a bad thing to do," Kraus said, adding that there is nothing unusual in Texas about a homeowner keeping a gun for protection.
At Monday's news conference, the mayor insisted the gun was irrelevant.
"We will not stand down on this one"
Not everyone was ready to heal, though.
Community activist Malikk Ed is a member of the Brotherhood Movement. He remembers the riveting video two weeks ago when, at Amber Guyger's sentencing, Botham Jean's younger brother, Brandt Jean, told Guyger he forgave her and they exchanged a long, tearful hug. Then presiding judge Tammy Kemp left the courtroom and returned with her Bible. She gave it to Guyger and also hugged her.
While there were many wet eyes in the courtroom (and behind some news desks, to judge from the coverage), Ed is having none of it.
"We will not stand down on this one," he said. "There's no 'Kumbaya' for this one. There's no forgiveness for this one. There's no judge-hugging officer for this one."
Dean has been charged with murder, but that doesn't mean he will be convicted. In fact, most police officers who are tried for killing citizens aren't convicted.
And no matter what happens to Dean, there may be mistrust that cannot be fixed.
James Smith, who called the police to Jefferson's home out of concern for his neighbor, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Jefferson's death will make some people think twice about calling the police when they need them.
"If you don't feel safe with the police department," he asks, "then who do you feel safe with?"
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
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
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
Related
Articles
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
Social media investigations unearth hundreds of police officers in the
US involved in fascist or racist groups
Philadelphia
Police Headquarters April 2019 [Credit: Wikimedia Commons User “Beyond My Ken”]
"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."
A somewhat desperate
suggestion to fix corruption in our law enforcement agencies
Police:
80 California High School Students Attack Officers, Cause Lockdown
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.
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'
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.
Behind the epidemic of police killings in
America: Class, poverty and race
Part two
Income and poverty
The police killing zone: USA−
Urban and rural differences
The most dangerous area: rural America
2018 begins with US police
reign of terror
Police kill over a thousand
for fourth year in a row
Baltimore prosecutor wants 790 'tainted' convictions erased
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.
___
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
·
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
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.
Related
Articles
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 chokehold. Falsified reports. A person’s face smashed into the floor. Sexual assault in jail. Cavorting with sex workers. Domestic 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.
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.
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.'
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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
·
+7
·
+7
·
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 MartÃn 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
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+7
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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.
A 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.
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