Tag: police brutality

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Politics

South Carolina Police Officer Arrested for Murdering Unarmed Black Man – Video

CNN is reporting that a  South Carolina officer has been charged with murder after a video surfaced that appears to show him shooting an unarmed man who was running away.

Michael Slager, an officer with the North Charleston Police Department, was arrested Tuesday, according to a statement from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED. If found guilty of murder, he could face up to life in prison or death.

The shooting took place Saturday morning after a traffic stop, SLED said. Video obtained by The New York Times shows what happened.

A black man, identified as 50-year-old Walter Scott, breaks away from the white officer. Something falls, and the officer fires eight shots at the man as he runs away. Scott, who appears to be unarmed, drops to the ground.

“I can tell you that as the result of that video and the bad decision made by our officer, he will be charged with murder,” North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey told reporters Tuesday. “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And if you make a bad decision — don’t care if you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street — you have to live by that decision.”

Categories
Politics Racial profiling

Detroit’s “Serve and Protect” Gang Members Almost Beat Another Civilian to Death – Video

Floyd Dent

It’s as if we’re all guilty and must be proven innocent in the courts.

What other reason would there be for police officers to pull a man out of his car and beat him, with one officer throwing the man to the ground, applying a chokehold to the man, then punching the man 16 times in his head? Why is this thuggish behavior considered “serving and protecting?”

And then, when the rest of his backup arrived, they too get in the act of serving and protecting. One officer takes out his taser and tased the breeding man while the other members of the serve and protect gang slap handcuffs on the man, his face and head bloodied by the 16 blows he received to his head. And then when the man was finally taken away to the safety of a hospital room, one of the officers can be seen on camera pulling a bag out of his pocket and planting drugs in the man’s car.

The man – I must say – is black and yes, all the responding officers were white. But should that apparent crime of being the wrong color caused the man to be choked, beaten and almost killed by the “serve and protect” gang? Don’t blacks have the same constitutionally projected rights as everyone else? And why shouldn’t black people be expected to go home to their families, like this man was attempting to do before the gang intervened?

And of course you already know what happened next. The officers were not changed with any wrong-doing. But the man, a 57-year-old auto worker from Detroit named Floyd Dent, has a court date to answer for the drugs the Detroit Police gang members planted in his car.

Serving and Protecting… the only way they know how…

ps. No drugs were found in Mr. Dent’s system when he was examined at the hospital.

Video

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Featured shooting

Georgia Police Kills Naked, Obviously Unarmed Man

He was naked and obviously unarmed. But Anthony Hill, a 27 year old black man in Georgia is dead, killed by a police officer who felt threatened and wanted to go home to his family.

According to reports, DeKalb County police officer and resident white man, Robert Olsen, shot and killed Hill on Monday when he responded to a call of a naked man crawling around and knocking on doors in a residential complex. The scared officer said Hill ran towards him and refused to stop until the bullet was introduced into the equation.

Hill had served more than four years in the U.S. Air Force when he was medically discharged a few years ago, his girlfriend, Bridget Anderson, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. He was being treated by a VA doctor for bipolar disorder but stopped taking the medication a week or two ago because he didn’t like the side effects, including stiffening in his jaw, she said.

Anderson, 22, said she didn’t notice any changes in Hill after he stopped taking his medication and she’d never known him to behave strangely.

Anderson had been planning to go to Hill’s place Monday evening to cook together and celebrate their three-year anniversary. Instead, she got a call that he had been shot dead by police.

“My heart just tore out of my chest,” she said. “I started screaming his name and saying it couldn’t be true that he was gone.”

Demonstrators remembered Hill as a talented musician who loved the color purple and struggled with mental illness. They marched through the streets for about an hour chanting, singing and occasionally stopping at intersections to sit down and listen to a speaker while police cars blocked traffic.

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Politics

NYPD Cop Indicted for Stomping Subdued Suspect In The Head – Video

And he did stomped on the suspect’s hand for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The suspect was already subdued by other cops and then here comes the stomper with a badge and a gun, walks up to the man on the ground and kicked him in the head.

All in the name of protecting and serving I guess.

Officer Joel Edouard, 36, appeared in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge and an official misconduct charge, according to NBC. The incident happened during an arrest in Brooklyn on July 23, last year, when police on patrol saw the suspect, Jahmiel Cuffee, allegedly rolling a joint outside a residential building, which he then threw away when he saw authorities.

In the amateur video caught by a bystander, you can hear Cuffee plead “help me!” as several cops hold him down. Edouard can be seen briefly pulling out a gun, then putting it back in his holster. He walks away, returns and appears to kick Cuffee in the head, prompting another cop to push him away and the crowd to gasp.

He was indicted today on a misdemeanor charge.

Categories
Featured

Police Officer Aims His Gun at Kids at a Snowball Fight – Video

Who would have thought that a snowball fight by a bunch of young people would result in a police officer pointing his gun at them? The conclusion I came up with is that snowballs are apparently lethal weapons, and this police officer was apparently scared for his life. I guess he really wanted to go home to his family after witnessing this snowball fight by a group of teenagers.

When he pulled his gun, the officer is heard saying, “Don’t f*cking move, guys.”

“They were having a snowball fight,” said the woman who filmed the incident on her cellphone. “This group of guys was having a snowball fight and now a cop has a gun on them.”

The incident happened Westchester New York last week. The police department did not issue an official statement on the incident.

 

Categories
Featured

Seattle Police Issues Apology to 69 Year Old Black Vet for Arresting Him For No Reason

Officer Cynthia Whitlatch

And it’s all caught on tape.

In the video, the officer is driving her patrol car with the dashboard camera recording. After a few seconds of driving, she pulls up on the man standing on the corner waiting to cross the street. The officer exited her vehicle and began telling the 69 year old to drop his weapon – a golf club he used as a cane.

The police officer accused the 70 year old of threatening her with a golf club. On the recording the officer, Cynthia Whitlatch, is seen pulling up to the man standing on a corner. She then demands the man to drop his golf club.

“You just swung that golf club at me,” Whitlatch yells.

“No, I did not!” exclaims the shocked pedestrian.

Whitlatch is heard telling the man that he is being recorded and videotaped, but review of that recording led the Seattle police department to issue the apology, as no threats were ever made to the officer.

The arrest took place in 2014 and the man, William Wingate – a black man and a veteran with no criminal record – tried telling the officer that he had done nothing wrong, except standing on the sidewalk. He was eventually arrested and pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge of unlawful use of a weapon in exchange for a two years probation which was dismissed.

Officer Whitlatch received “counseling” for her actions. According to reports, officer Whitlatch is also one of 123 Seattle police officers who filed suit to block federally mandated reforms to stop unnecessary police brutality.

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Featured shooting Texas

Texas Police Gun Down 17 Year Old Girl in Police Station

Police said she entered the police station “brandishing a weapon,” so that apparently meant the three grown men with guns felt threatened enough to gun down the 17 year old mentally challenged girl in the lobby of the police station.

Police said that Kristiana Coignard entered Longview’s police station at 6.30pm on Thursday and asked to speak with an officer through the lobby courtesy phone. The teenager was still in the lobby of the police station when, according to police, she threatened the officers while wielding a weapon — reportedly a knife — and was shot “multiple times,” according to a local official.

Exactly what led three male officers to shoot Coignard dead is still unclear. The Longview police department has not released any further statements on the events.

Kristie Brian, spokeswoman for Longview Police, said that footage of the incident does exist, but is not available to the public, nor are records of the brief call Coignard made from the police department’s lobby. Brian did not confirm what type of weapon Coignard was allegedly threatening the officers with.

Heather Robertson, Coignard’s aunt, told ThinkProgress that her niece, who was living with her in Longview, had mental illness issues since her mother died when she was four. Robertson added that Coignard attempted suicide various times, but was taking medications, and that she did not have a criminal record or a history of violent behavior toward others.

“I think it was a cry for help,” Robertson said. “I think they could have done something. They are grown men. I think there is something they are not telling us.”

Categories
Featured shooting

Police Killed John Crawford in Walmart, Now Crawford’s Girlfriend Dies in Car Crash

Talk about a stroke of bad luck.

You remember John Crawford III, the man went to shop at Walmart in Ohio in 2014, picked up one of the guns the store was selling and was later shot and killed by police as he talked to his girlfriend on his cell phone. It was later revealed that police took his girlfriend to the precinct and interrogated her for 90 mins about how her boyfriend got the gun before telling her that her that Crawford, father of her child, was shot dead.

Crawford was seen on the store surveillance cameras walking with the store sold gun while he talked on his cell phone. Seconds after the police is seen on the video, Crawford was shot dead.

Well now the sad and unfortunate news from Ohio’s ABC 22 is that the girlfriend, Tasha Thomas, was killed in a high speed car crash on New Years day!

Categories
Georgia Politics

Georgia Police Chief ‘Accidentally’ Shoots His Wife… “Twice!”

Yea, she was shot twice “by accident” according to what the police chief told the 911 dispatcher, but he was only placed on “administrative leave.” In other works, there’s nothing to see here, just keep it moving!

Peachtree City Police responded to the home of Chief William McCollom at approximately 4:17 a.m. ET, Lt. Mark Brown said in a news conference. McCollom called 911 saying he accidentally shot his wife, Margaret McCollom, with his service weapon, according to Sherry Lang, a Georgia Bureau of Investigations spokeswoman. The victim was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center after officers arrived, according to Brown.

McCollom reportedly told a 911 dispatcher he had shot his wife twice. However, investigators found the woman to have been shot only once, Lang stated. Investigators would not say where the victim was struck. McCollom has been placed on administrative leave. He has served for a year as chief of the police department, Brown said. McCollom is a “well-liked, well-loved chief,” Brown said. Peachtree City, a city of 35,000, is about 30 miles southwest of Atlanta.

Categories
Featured Racial profiling

Man Gets Accosted and Assaulted By NYPD for… Dancing – Video

Dancing. Yes, dancing. That was all it took for the NYPD to “protect and serve” this man, who committed the unthinkable crime of dancing on a public New York street.

The man, a YouTuber named Alexander BOK, took up the #DanceDares challenge by TV personality Ellen Degeneres, who dares ordinary people to dance behind a perfect stranger without touching them. After accepting his challenge, Alexander BOK did his criminal dance routine behind a New York police officer. That is when all hell broke loose!

Video

Categories
Featured Police Shooting Racial profiling

Autopsy Reveals – LAPD Police Shot Black Man in The Back “Execution” Style

The shooting is being called an execution by the victim’s family. And according to eye witnesses, the victim, Ezell Ford, was laying face down when police pumped a bullet into his back. The autopsy reveals that his bullet was shot at close range.

The autopsy stated that the shot to Ezell Ford’s back and another to his abdomen were fatal, according to the TV station. The wound on his back revealed a muzzle imprint from the gun, suggesting the shot was fired at close range, the station reported.

Several witnesses said Ford was face down on the ground when he was shot, the station reported. But police said he was killed while resisting arrest and had “grabbed the officer’s handgun and attempted to remove the gun from its holster.”

“The officer yelled out to his partner that Mr. Ford had his gun. The officer’s partner then fired two rounds striking Mr. Ford,” the LAPD said in a statement, as quoted by KABC. “At about the same time, the officer on the ground while on his back grabbed his backup weapon, reached around Mr. Ford and fired one shot at close range striking Mr. Ford in the back.”

The Ford family’s lawyer called it an execution.

“I dare say that this is criminal, I think they executed this poor young man, mentally incompetent man,” said attorney Steven Lerman, according to the news station.

Categories
Politics

Disrespect – NY Police Used Officer’s Funeral to Make Political Statement – PIC

Okay, while I understand and respect that police are upset at the murder of two of their own last Saturday in Brooklyn New York, blaming the mayor or anyone else for the actions of a crazy lunatic is in itself, lunacy. And that is the blame game the police union has been involved in since the killing of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

Since word spread that two officers were killed, the politics began as Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, blamed mayor De Blasio for the killing. Call it a negotiation gimmick and a way to turn the entire police department against the mayor – the man who the union will eventually negotiate with for their new contract.

So like the faithful followers they are, the police officers followed their union leaders and began wallowing in the politics of the moment, using the unfortunate events surrounding the murder of their co-workers to gain grounds at the negotiating table.

And now this. A sign of ultimate disrespect as hundreds of officers used the funeral of one of the fallen to make a political statement by turning their backs on the mayor. I guess this is what slain officer would want.

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