Police misconduct 2

[Vashta Nerada]

You gave the ol' "applause sign" to a person I consider to be what's wrong with sincere activism. IMO, fear mongering and hostility to authority without any sense of balance makes someone a propagandist in that area--not an activist.

No, this is propaganda:

http://www.fox23.com/news/news/local/drug-task-force-stop-trafficking/nkDgz 

Oh, yeah, this is the week they are going to eliminate drugs. 
Been waiting for that, but I have to ask, what were you doing with all the millions of dollars we gave you since the 1960's?

Its mindless lies told by people sick enough to believe their own lies, parroted and cheered on by naive people who should instead be asking questions and holding governments feet to the fire.

These days it's more important for crime reporters to get to ride in a police tank, than to demand to know why those are there in the first place.

[Hoss]

I'm sure many of you won't be able to spend the requisite 15 minutes watching this.  Keep in mind this was from August, when still pretty fresh.  John does a pretty good job in his research.

[patric]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A

I'm sure many of you won't be able to spend the requisite 15 minutes watching this.  Keep in mind this was from August, when still pretty fresh.  John does a pretty good job in his research.

Among other things, that clip certainly answers Guido's question  /\ /\.

[Breadburner]

I think your fluid levels need addressed--immediately.

He could use a Knobber.....Turkey Mountain......!!!!

[Vashta Nerada]

It's like so many other things that have been happening with the 24 hour new cycle, and now instant video, it's reported on more frequently, but the frequency of the events are about the same.

Um, no.



Annual number of people fatally shot by Oklahoma law enforcement officers has tripled since 2009:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/state/fatal-police-shootings-in-oklahoma-since-ruled-justified/article_53d7764e-8a4b-5b7f-9561-572bb728f081.html

...and these numbers dont even reflect the huge spike since the 2 NYPD cops were shot.


For every one duty-related death of American policemen (including shootings, traffic accidents, suicides),
25 American citizens are killed by police (including shootings, beatings, asphyxiation, Tasering).
"More than drugs, more than terrorism," she said. "1100 Americans die each year simply by coming in contact with police."  



Now the Feds weigh in:


Washington (CNN)  FBI Director James Comey took on the issue of police and race relations Thursday challenging police to avoid "lazy mental short-cuts" that can lead to bias in the way they treat blacks and other minorities.

He blamed problems with bias on "lazy mental short-cuts" that cops sometimes take. "Police officers on patrol in our nation's cities often work in environments where a hugely disproportionate percentage of street crime is committed by young men of color. Something happens to people of good will working in that environment," Comey said.

As a result, he said, officers often treat young black men, who may look like others they have locked up, differently from young white men walking down the same street.
"We need to come to grips with the fact that this behavior complicates the relationship between police and communities they serve," Comey said.

Comey suggested some fixes to the help the relationship.
For one, he said, police departments need to report all shootings by officers so the FBI can produce reliable nationwide statistics. He noted that while he can check Amazon.com to see exactly how many copies a book title has sold, "It's ridiculous I can't tell how many people were shot by police."



OTOH....


White privilege didn't protect John Geer.
18 months ago John Geer was shot by police while standing at his front door with his hands raised

That's not to say he didn't have it. As a middle-class kitchen designer living in the pleasant Washington suburb of Fairfax, Va., he had nothing whatsoever in common with the impoverished black men killed by police in Missouri and Brooklyn last year.

Those deaths triggered riots, marches and demonstrations across America, and interventions by the White House.

But Geer, pierced 18 months ago by a police bullet as he stood inside the screen door of his own home, his hands raised, begging not to be shot, simply disappeared into the emotional mixing bowl of American news and political priorities.

That should not have happened. The killing of John Geer is probably the clearest and most compelling example of what amounts to police impunity in recent American history.

He committed no crime the day he was killed. Even the officer who shot him acknowledges that. There was no struggle. The details are not murky.

But because no one was marching in the streets on behalf of John Geer, because he was absent from national headlines, the system was able to make his outrageous death go away by the simple expedient of doing nothing and refusing to discuss it.

Here are the facts:

In August 2013, Geer's common law wife, who was breaking up with him and moving out, called police to report he was angrily throwing her possessions onto his front lawn.

Asked whether Geer had weapons, the woman answered yes, but they were legally owned and secured. No, he hadn't been drinking.

Two squad cars — four officers —  initially responded. Geer, on seeing them, retreated into his home, refusing to answer questions.

A few minutes later, Officer Rodney Barnes, a trained police negotiator, arrived, and as the four other policemen stood close behind him with weapons drawn, he began trying to coax John Geer out onto the porch.

Barnes would later recall that Geer was polite, but reluctant to leave his home, saying repeatedly he was frightened of being killed.

He said "I don't want anybody to get hurt," the negotiator told investigators a few months later. "I don't want to get shot."
'I know I can get shot'

Barnes asked Geer if he owned a pistol. Geer said yes, and fetched it. He held it up, holstered, for Barnes to see and set it aside, raising his hands again. He offered to let Barnes come into the house and retrieve the weapon.

He asked for permission to scratch his nose, Barnes said, and did it slowly, then raised his hands again. He asked to reach into his pocket for his phone; Barnes asked him not to, and he obeyed.

"He said 'I know if I reach down or drop my hands I can get shot," Barnes told detectives later. "I said, hey, nobody's going to shoot you..."

But Geer pointed to one nearby officer in particular: Adam Torres, who kept raising his Sig Sauer pistol from the "ready" position (pointed at Geer's legs) to aim at Geer's chest.

Please ask him not to point his gun at me, Geer begged Barnes.  Geer even offered to come out and be handcuffed voluntarily if Torres and the other patrolmen would agree to move "way back."

Then he asked to scratch his nose again. Barnes consented. And Torres fired.

Geer, grabbing his wound, screamed in pain and stepped back, slamming his door.

"And I'm like, who the f uck shot?" Barnes told detectives later. "I kinda got a little pissed."

Torres acknowledged it had been him, and began muttering how he was sorry, and that his wrist was hurting. Then, unbidden, he told Barnes how he'd had a fight over the phone with his wife just before arriving on the scene.

Asked by Barnes why he'd fired, Torres said Geer had dropped his hands to his waist suddenly, that he appeared to be going for a weapon.

"I said I didn't see that," said Barnes later. "You know, and I never took my eye off him (Geer)."

The other three officers who'd been present told investigators the same thing. So did two civilian witnesses.
But prosecutors and police commanders and county officials buried the case.

Fairfax County's top prosecutor declared a conflict of interest and referred the shooting to federal authorities.

The police department stonewalled reporters.
Federal investigators did investigate, and have reported to the U.S. attorney in Virginia, who has done nothing.

And all this was done under a cloak of secrecy, until, earlier this month, a judge finally ordered disclosure of nearly 11,000 documents, containing interviews with nearly everyone involved.

Torres, it turns out, stuck to his story that the other four officers were wrong.
Does he regret having shot Geer? "I don't feel sorry for shooting the guy at all."

Why did he tell Barnes immediately afterward he was sorry? He was concerned about having upset Barnes by shooting, he said.
Why did he talk about his wrist hurting? He doesn't remember. Why did he immediately say he'd just had a fight with his wife? "I don't know why."
The judge's disclosure order has created a bizarre situation: Nearly all the available evidence, including audio of the witness statements, is now available on the Fairfax County website.

According to those official documents, the shooter — a cop with significant anger issues (he once screamed and cursed at prosecutors in open court) — is contradicted by four fellow officers and two civilian witnesses. That sort of rank-breaking is practically unheard of.

And yet there has been no judicial action, and almost no public uproar. Most politicians have remained silent. Those who have marched against police shootings in the past have been largely uninterested.
A protest at Fairfax police headquarters drew a couple of dozen people. Only the Washington Post has taken a serious interest in the case.

But the killing of John Geer should frighten everyone. It is the best example yet that while police often target minorities disproportionately, their basic and overriding demand is total and unquestioning submission to their authority.

Resist, however peacefully and even in your own home, and heaven help you, no matter what your skin color.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/in-fairfax-va-a-different-no-less-scary-police-shooting-1.2960995

[patric]

Maybe not.  It might all be the same from then to now, it's just with the advent of instant video, instances of brutality are more easily..shall we say...proven, than they were 50 years ago.  But I'm guessing that will garner a witty image or something...

People watching CNN didnt cause in-custody deaths to skyrocket, nor did cell phones result in Mayberry-sized departments being better equipped than troops in Iraq.

I can almost guarantee if 1,100+ Americans a year were dying in Bengazi you would never hear the end of it.

[heironymouspasparagus]

People watching CNN didnt cause in-custody deaths to skyrocket, nor did cell phones result in Mayberry-sized departments being better equipped than troops in Iraq.

I can almost guarantee if 1,100+ Americans a year were dying in Bengazi you would never hear the end of it.

We never hear the end of 4 dying in Benghazi... and never hear anything about the 32 that died in embassy events under the previous regime!!  Lies, distortions, conflation, and just pure outright dishonesty on the behalf of "you-know-who"...  The MurdochianWorldPsychoHoseBeast crazy train!


And we have been into the celebration of just about every war, battle, conflict, etc that has occurred in this country and we have been involved in around the world.  Countless war movies.  Holocaust movies.  Slavery and racial segregation.  But NO Native American movies unless they are centered around - you guessed it - white man's 'revenge' against heathen transgressions.  (Except Dances With Wolves - and the Indians really deserved it then, too, didn't they...?)


How is it that American cinema industry has never made a movie about the "Trail of Tears"...

"Build a fire under them. When it gets hot enough, they'll go." – Andrew Jackson

[Vashta Nerada]

When the public reads or listens to stories that document egregious police abuses, it is rare to encounter any members of the police community who express alarm, or champion reforms, or denounce the bad apples, or articulate why they have a different view than the conventional wisdom. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/This-american-life-cops-see-it-differently/385874/

[DolfanBob]

And it only took them 9 years to figure this guy out. Now at a cost of over a Million to the City. Hmm, we better take a look at this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2969901/Denver-police-admit-failed-officer-dozens-unpunished-complaints-soon-cost-city-1M-settlements.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

When the public reads or listens to stories that document egregious police abuses, it is rare to encounter any members of the police community who express alarm, or champion reforms, or denounce the bad apples, or articulate why they have a different view than the conventional wisdom. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/This-american-life-cops-see-it-differently/385874/

We hear a lot of carp with people bashing Islam, one reason being that "none of the good Muslims" are standing up to denounce the radicals like ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. 

I just wonder why "good" cops aren't standing up to denounce the radicals that are giving cops a bad name by just this kind of stuff??  Does that actually mean there are no good cops??  I don't believe that, but it is suspicious in exactly the same way.

[patric]

I see a Tulsa police cruiser parked down the street from my brother every day I'm over there.  My brother lives in Broken Arrow.  And not BA close to Tulsa city limits either, he lives in the middle of BA.
I thought TPD changed policy on this some years ago...

The "police cars parked in neighborhoods make them safer" argument has been flatline for some time now:


OWASSO, Oklahoma - Police said vandals targeted officer patrol units and private vehicles in Owasso. They said whoever did it, didn't try hard to fly under the radar.
Police said the vandals most likely did their damage in broad daylight, between 2:00 and 4:00 Tuesday afternoon.
They hit cars in a lot right behind the police station and also a city neighborhood full of families.
Deputy Chief Jason Woodruff said the vandals damaged more than ten Owasso patrol units and the officers' personal vehicles Tuesday.
"It is concerning when you have someone that appears to intentionally be targeting police officers," he said.
The Owasso officer who had his patrol car vandalized was off duty and had it parked outside his home. He said he doesn't feel he was intentionally targeted and neither does the police department.
"We don't have anything at this point that these officers were targeted because of who they were. It is more likely just because their cars were sitting there," Woodruff said.
Police are leaning towards teenagers because of the time of day and since they used eggs to damage some of the vehicles.
http://www.newson6.com/story/28204856/owasso-police-suspect-teens-responsible-for-patrol-car-vandalism

[Vashta Nerada]

And it only took them 9 years to figure this guy out. Now at a cost of over a Million to the City. Hmm, we better take a look at this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2969901/Denver-police-admit-failed-officer-dozens-unpunished-complaints-soon-cost-city-1M-settlements.html

Thats chicken feed:


The family of slain Bronx teen Ramarley Graham agreed Friday to accept $3.9 million from New York City to settle their wrongful death lawsuit, the Daily News reports.

"This was a tragic case," City Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci told the News. "After evaluating all the facts, and consulting with key stakeholders such as the NYPD, it was determined that settling the matter was in the best interest of the City."

NYPD Officer Richard Haste, who fired the fatal shot after chasing Graham, 18, from the street into his home, was initially indicted by a Bronx grand jury on a charge of manslaughter, but a judge threw out the case on a legal technicality, the News writes. A second grand jury declined to indict the officer, who said he fired because he thought the teen had a gun.


...but in NY, its all automatic anyway:

New York City agrees to $25.75M in settlements before any lawsuit filed
http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/scott-stringer-nyc-comptroller-agrees-to-25-75m-in-settlements-before-any-lawsuit-filed-1.9964328

[patric]

Graphic, and NSFW language:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1009126519115252

[Breadburner]

Thats what happens when you grab the cops gun......

[DolfanBob]

A Black man yelling at a Black Officer. That he's a "Sell Out" for shooting another Black man. No racism there.