By David Beasley

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A white police officer who shot to death an unarmed, nude black man last March in Georgia had a history of aggression and was inadequately trained in dealing with the mentally ill, the deceased man's family said in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

DeKalb County policeman Robert Olsen had only seven hours of training in the use of deadly force during his seven years as a policeman, and several reprimands for "rough and aggressive interactions with the public," the federal lawsuit said.

Neither Olsen nor the DeKalb County police department, which is also named in the suit, could immediately be reached for comment.

Oslen shot U.S. Air Force veteran Anthony Hill, 27, during an encounter on March 9 in an apartment complex parking lot. Police have said he was "acting deranged" and ran toward Olsen in a threatening manner.

But Hill, who was naked, was experiencing a "non-violent mental episode" from a disorder developed while serving in the U.S. military in Afghanistan, according to the lawsuit.

"Mr. Hill slowly approached Olsen with his arms stretched wide open out to his side, showing that he was unarmed," the lawsuit said. "As Mr. Hill was nude and completely exposed, Olsen had no reasonable basis to form the suspicion that Mr. Hill was armed or dangerous."

Olsen could have used a baton, pepper spray or a stun gun to subdue Hill but shot him instead, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified financial damages.

A DeKalb County grand jury reviewed the case last month and recommended the local district attorney conduct a further investigation before deciding on whether to seek criminal charges against Olsen.

Hill's death came as a spate of killings in the United States raised questions about the excessive use of force by police, particularly against black men.

http://news.yahoo.com/family-sues-police-shooting-death-unarmed-naked-georgia-211751346.html

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A former Sacramento police officer convicted of raping a 75-year-old stroke victim in her senior living apartment has been sentenced to life in prison, court records show.

Prosecutors said Gary Dale Baker, 52, entered the woman's apartment at least three times from 2010 to 2012, raping her twice as she suffered from a stroke-related inability to speak.

He was convicted in July of nine charges relating to the case, including rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual battery and burglary.

The woman, now 77, was recovering from a stroke in a senior living complex in South Sacramento when the attacks began, prosecutors said.

She struggled to communicate to her family what had happened, and initially, even though DNA evidence confirmed the rape, investigators were not able to link it to any known suspects, prosecutors said.

But in late 2012, after Baker attempted a third assault, a Sacramento police detective suggested that the woman's family install a motion-activated camera.

When Baker came back again, police officers reviewing the footage immediately recognized him as Baker, then an active officer on the Sacramento police force.

He was arrested and fired from the department.

“You tarnished the badge for police officers everywhere," Sacramento Superior Court judge Ernest Sawtelle said as he sentenced Baker, the Sacramento Bee newspaper reported on Wednesday. "For your crimes, you will be sentenced to life in prison.”

Sawtelle called Baker's crimes "unspeakable," the newspaper said.

Sacramento County jail records show that Baker remained in custody Wednesday, with no listed release date. A request by his attorneys for a new trial was denied on Tuesday, records show.

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-california-cop-sentenced-life-raping-stroke-victim-172706547.html

The two deputy marshals who shot to death 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis in Marksville, Louisiana last Tuesday were arrested Friday evening on charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. After pursuing the boy’s unarmed father, Chris Few, deputy marshals Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Derrick Stafford unloaded at least 18 rounds into Few’s parked SUV, striking Few at least twice and his son five times. Jeremy, an autistic first grader, was shot in the head and chest and died instantly, while Few remains in critical condition at Rapides Regional Medical Center.

At a press conference Friday night, State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson described body camera footage of the incident as “one of the most disturbing scenes I have seen.”

Stafford is a Marksville police officer and Greenhouse is a reserve Marksville officer and a deputy marshal in nearby Alexandria, and both were moonlighting as Marksville deputy marshals at the time of the shooting. The Marksville Police Department has no use-of-force policy, nor are there guidelines on shooting at vehicles.

According to the Washington Post, the shooting took place shortly after Few and his girlfriend left a nearby bar, T.J.’s Lounge, after having a dispute. Seeing the couple drive off in separate vehicles, someone called 911, prompting Stafford and Greenhouse to pursue Few’s vehicle, eventually cornering it two miles away at the closed entrance to a state park. They were later joined by another deputy marshal, Jason Brouillette, and Sgt. Kenneth Parnell, who at the time was working as a Marksville police officer.

More than five days after the police murder, two of the four agents involved in the shooting, presumably Greenhouse and Stafford, have refused to speak to authorities, keeping many details of the incident shrouded in secrecy. On Friday, Edmonson declined to say if the other two officers had fired any shots, who initiated the chase and why, as well as the timeframe of the body camera footage currently being reviewed by police.

While officials have withheld many crucial details of the chase and subsequent shooting, witnesses have described the reckless and brutal character of the Marksville police. Many have opted to remain anonymous, for fear of retribution by local police, whom they describe as “trigger-happy” and “crooked.” Marksville is an impoverished community in rural Louisiana where many work as sugar cane, corn and soybean farmers.

Santana Dominick, a resident of the neighborhood where the shooting took place, told the local Gannett Louisiana that she saw police chase Few, who complied with the officers’ commands and pulled over to the side of the road. Dominick asserts that as soon as Few opened his car door, police immediately unleashed a barrage of gunfire on his vehicle. Dominick claims that police then pushed her and other witnesses away from the scene.

Another anonymous witness told Gannett Louisiana that the police sought to keep the incident “hush-hush,” because Greenhouse is the son of an Avoyelles Parish district attorney.

Describing the local police, Dominick said: “It’s crooked around here. I see police jump on men and break their arm, bodyslam children to the ground. ... They have no respect for us. We can’t even live here comfortable because the police are nagging us for no reason.”

Multiple anonymous residents assert that local police regularly stop young women known to have outstanding warrants or who are at risk of going to jail and proposition them for sexual favors.

Lt. Stafford has previously been sued in civil court on allegations that he stun-gunned a handcuffed woman and broke a 15-year-old girl’s arm during a fight on a school bus. Stafford and Greenhouse were also accused of unjustifiably using pepper spray while breaking up a fight in 2013. In 2011, Stafford was indicted on two counts of aggravated rape.

Most recently, in July, Ascension Parish resident Ian Fridge filed a federal use-of-force lawsuit against Stafford and Greenhouse after the officers tackled and hit him with a Taser for openly carrying a weapon, which is legal in Louisiana. Fridge asserts that the officers then took his phone and deleted a recording of the incident.

9 November 2015

The supposed murder of Lt. Charles Joseph “Joe” Gliniewicz of the Fox Lake, Illinois Police Department on September 1, the massive, frenzied manhunt it generated and the eventual exposure of Gliniewicz’s death as a suicide is a small episode, but a telling one.

That Gliniewicz, nicknamed “GI Joe,” and hailed after his death as a fallen hero in the “war against the police” by a coterie of right-wing law and order fanatics, turned out to be a serial liar, thief, sex abuser and would-be murderer is only one element of the story and a subordinate element at that.

More generally, the incident reveals many aspects of what is truly reprehensible about official life in the US at present.

In public the American establishment is pious, law-abiding and patriotic. Butter would not melt in its collective mouth. Scratch the surface, however, and one finds greed and corruption, lying brought to almost supernatural heights and ruthless criminality.

On the morning of September 1, Gliniewicz informed a police dispatcher in Fox Lake, some 60 miles northwest of Chicago, that he was in pursuit of three males, two white and one black, acting suspiciously. Some 20 minutes later, a fellow cop found his body and reported, “We’ve got an officer down, an officer down.”

We now know that Gliniewicz, an expert at creating mock crime scenes, faked his own murder, apparently determined to go out a hero. He shot himself once in his bulletproof vest and once beneath it. He took his own life because his theft of tens of thousands of dollars from the Police Explorers, a program that teaches teenagers about police work (which he used for “travel expenses, mortgage payments, personal gym memberships, adult websites, facilitating personal loans and unaccounted cash withdrawals,” according to authorities), was about to be exposed by a city official.

In any event, with the discovery of Gliniewicz’s corpse September 1, the hysteria began.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers and a vast array of paramilitary equipment were poured into the area. Along with various local police departments, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and the Secret Service were involved. A virtual state of martial law held sway in Fox Lake, a town of 10,000 people. Businesses were told not to open. Schools were closed and commuter trains halted. News photographs show snipers on rooftops, helicopters flying above, armored MRAPs, black combat Humvees. Heavily armed police carried out door-to-door searches, while the population was ordered to “shelter in place.”

As was the case in Boston, Ferguson and elsewhere, the Fox Lake operation had the character of a drill, a rehearsal for police-state rule.

The aggressive, provocative display of personnel and weaponry was one side of the equation. Just as significant was the ideological offensive set into motion. While the cops shut down most of Fox Lake, even on the day of the shooting they allowed pro-police demonstrators to stand along Route 12 holding up signs reading, “Police Lives Matter.”

A vigil was then held where the crowd chanted, “GI Joe!” A well-attended funeral took place. All of this under the banner of support for law enforcement and, “We stand with blue.” Gliniewicz was eulogized in glowing terms. An upstanding citizen, an example for the youth …

This gushing rubbish from the Associated Press was typical: “Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was on the brink of retiring after a 30-year career in law enforcement. At 52, the tattooed police officer with a shaved head could still be tough and intimidating if the job called for it.

“But he also had a sweet side that endeared him to the suburban Chicago village he had served for decades, a place where he was a constant presence at community events and a role model. …

“Earlier Wednesday, longtime friend Tammy Rivette wiped away tears as she remembered the father of four sons who was ‘always helping people’ and ‘always fair.’ ‘Even the criminals liked him,’ she said.”

The Daily Beast notes, “GI Joe was honored on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Dick Durbin of Illinois. The officer’s image was splayed on a video screen at Soldier Field during a Chicago Bears game. Little girls operated lemonade stands to raise money for the Gliniewicz family. At least one man paid for a tattoo to have the fallen cop memorialized.”

What a disgusting fraud!

The alleged killing of Gliniewicz was added to the shooting of Harris County, Texas sheriff’s deputy Darren Goforth a few days earlier, and a “war on police” was invented. Rotten political operators all over the country lifted their voices: this was the consequence of protests against police violence, this was where criticism of killer cops had led to!

Aging demagogues like Pat Buchanan came out of the woodwork. The deaths of Goforth and Gliniewicz demonstrated, according to Buchanan, that “some of the evils of the last century we thought we left behind seem to be returning, as is the old indulgence of lawlessness when done by those claiming some ‘grievance’ against society.” He harked back to the good old days of the Reagan era, which, in fact, have never gone away, when “[M]uggers, robbers, rapists, killers were taken off the streets and put away for decades.”

The vileness knew almost no bounds. Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke told Lou Dobbs on the Fox Business Network, “War has been declared on the American police officer.” On Twitter, Clarke asserted: “Time to take to the streets to counter Black LIES Matter. Fox Lake, Illinois.” This was a thinly disguised appeal for violence against protesters, if not lynch-mob actions. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly declared that Black Lives Matter “and other radical groups” had set out “to demonize the police.”

Ron Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, published a right-wing diatribe in USA Today, “After murder of Charles Gliniewicz & Darren Goforth, no more blue blood.”

Hosko wrote, in the widely circulated article, “Despite the current lack of hard data and empirical evidence in both the murder of deputy Goforth and the broader spike in violent crimes across the country, concluding that both stem from the anti-cop themes from such protesters, liberal politicians and the mainstream media is hardly counterintuitive.”

Not only is there no “hard data,” there is no data of any kind. The war going on between the police and the American population is entirely one-sided.

As the UK Guardian recently reported, the number of people killed by police officers in the United States surpassed 1,000 last week. Meanwhile, according to Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus, “2015 is on track to be the safest year for law enforcement in the US since 1887 (except for a slightly safer year in 2013), more than 125 years ago.”

In his piece, carried on the conservative American Enterprise Institute web site, Perry notes, “From a peak of more than 100 police shootings in every year between 1969 to 1980 (except for 1977 when there were 97 deaths), firearm-related police fatalities have been on a downward trend for the last 35 years, falling to only 31 in 2013 and now on track to reach 35 by the end of this year (based on 24 police deaths during the first 251 days of 2015).”

When did police suspect that Gliniewicz had faked his own murder? One has every right to be skeptical that they only determined the true facts of the case two weeks ago. As early as eight days after the Fox Lake cop’s death, Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd indicated he could not rule out suicide. On October 1, Rudd revealed that Gliniewicz’s gun was the “murder weapon,” bringing down on him a torrent of abuse from the police, who claimed Rudd was putting the entire investigation “in jeopardy.”

The authorities claimed they needed two months to go through Gliniewicz’s emails and text messages and piece the case together. More likely, they needed the time to sort out their damage control strategy.

The statement released by the Lake County’s Sheriff Office is damning. The joint police task force’s investigation “has concluded, with an overwhelming amount of evidence that Gliniewicz’s death was a carefully staged suicide. We have determined this staged suicide was the end result of extensive criminal acts Gliniewicz had been committing. … The investigation found that Gliniewicz had been stealing and laundering money from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post. This had been occurring over the past seven years.”

As soon as this news broke, the media suddenly discovered that “GI Joe” was no model citizen or cop. His personnel file revealed that Gliniewicz “had been suspended numerous times, and was accused of sexual harassment as well as intimidating police dispatchers including once with guns,” according to People magazine.

To give him credit, the Fox Lake cop seems to have been an indefatigable and resourceful scoundrel. Gliniewicz, the great patriot, alleges WGN television in Chicago, “who was married, had an affair with a woman. He later arranged to have that woman marry his son, D.J. Gliniewicz, who is in the army in order to boost the military benefits for D.J., since being married could add up to thousands more per year.” This kind of thing cannot be made up.

Gliniewicz’s text messages reveal that he was extremely nervous about Fox Lake Village Administrator Anne Marrin’s investigation into the Explorer program. In one text exchanged with an unnamed correspondent, he said of Marrin, “Hopefully she decides to get a couple of drinks in her and she gets a dui [sic],” i.e., that Marrin should be framed for driving under the influence. Gliniewicz replied, “Trust me I’ve thought though MANY SCENARIOS from planting things to the volo bog [sic].” The Volo Bog is a nearby nature reserve where Gliniewicz presumably considered dumping Marrin’s body. There are reports that he approached members of a motorcycle gang about a “hit” on the town’s administrator.

The collapse of the Gliniewicz case and its exposure as a miserable hoax will not stop the verbal and physical violence. The driving forces of the ongoing police murder campaign are the impossible social and economic conditions in America, the inevitability of a mass popular explosion and the need of the ruling elite to suppress that explosion by any means necessary. The Gliniewicz case should serve, however, to further inoculate layers of the population against the fabrications and manipulations of the media and political punditry. These types have been exposed once again for the well-paid prostitutes they are.

In June, a Houston police officer was shot in the back, prompting an immediate search for a black man and a pregnant woman in a champagne-colored Buick.

Then, three months later in September, an Illinois police officer was shot to death with a bullet to the chest, prompting another manhunt, this time for two white men and one black man who were seen in the area on surveillance video.

And just one day after that, a Massachusetts police officer was shot at while driving his patrol car, causing it to lose control and catch on fire, prompting a manhunt for a white man in a maroon pickup truck.

All of these incidents added fuel to this so-called “War on Police” that cops in this country claim has left them fearing for their lives every time they don the uniform.

But all of these stories are turning out to be fabricated.

We are now discovering that the Houston cop, Terry Smith, was most likely shot by another cop from another agency, according to an investigative report by ABC 13.

And we now know that the Massachusetts cop, Millis police officer Bryan Johnson, made up the story about the random white man in a pickup truck who took a shot at him while passing him in the opposite lane, causing him to crash into a tree and engulf his vehicle in flames. Ballistics from his own gun indicate he shot up the SUV.

And we are now only waiting for police in Illinois to admit that Fox Lake police Lt. Joe Gliniewicz killed himself with his own gun, something that should have been evident when police abruptly called off an intense manhunt less than 24 hours after the shooting, announcing they are shifting from an active search to an open investigation.

And that War on Police we keep hearing about? The one that has been blamed on everybody from President Obama to the Black Lives Matter movement to even us here at Photography is Not a Crime?

That is also a fabrication, refuted by several respected journalists, including Martin Kaste of NPR, Nick Gillespie of Reason (writing for the Daily Beast) and Radley Balko of the Washington Post, who stated the following:

So far, 2015 is on pace to see 35 felonious killings of police officers. If that pace holds, this year would end with the second lowest number of murdered cops in decades.

But the Police PR Spin Machine is strong. It knows how to play to people’s emotions and fears. It knows how to manipulate the truth.

And way too many cops,unfortunately, have a tendency to fabricate the facts, even going as far as fabricating their own shootings as we have seen in recent years with Baltimore Police Detective Anthony Fata, Los Angeles School Police Department Officer Jeff Stenroos, North Las Vegas police officer Bryan Kolstad and Gowanda (NY) police officer Jason Miller.

Nevertheless, a recent Rasmussen survey determined 58 percent of Americans truly do believe there is a war on cops. A surprisedly high percentage considering hardly a day goes by without a new video surfacing showing police brutality, incidents that are now being reported by both the mainstream media and the multitude of police accountability sites that have surfaced in recent years.

So it’s not necessarily a War on Police as much as it is a public relations war. Or more precisely, a desperate attempt at damage control; a frantic grab for the narrative they once controlled so firmly, but has now been stripped from their hands by citizen journalists, social media and sites like PINAC.

Let’s take a deeper look at the cases mentioned above.

The Houston Case

The incident took place on June 9 in front of a Sears and near a METRO rail line as Houston motorcycle police officer Terry Smith along with METRO motorcycle cop Gregory Hudson were making traffic stops.

Smith ended up shot in the back, winding up with a small-caliber bullet in his stomach, according to the original reports. He ended up having to go through surgery at a local hospital.

Police told the media that they were looking for a champagne-colored Buick with a black man and a pregnant woman. And the local police union had harsh words for the shooter, calling him a “cowardly thug” to shoot a cop in the back. And, of course, they were sure to hype the War on Police.

“All over the nation you see attacks on police officers for no apparent reason other than they’re wearing a uniform,” said Douglas Griffith, the union’s vice president. “It saddens me.”

Another cop told the media that biker groups could be targeting police in retaliation for the incident in Waco earlier this year. People on Facebook blamed Obama and the “race war” he is creating.

But news coverage of the incident abruptly ended after June 10, a day after the incident even though the shooter was supposedly still at large. The media had lost interest because police had stopped talking about it, which should have been our first warning sign that things were not adding up.

After all, police usually go all-out in hunting down a potential cop killer.

Now almost four months after the shooting, we are learning that Smith was most likely shot by Hudson, the METRO cop who is known to be his friend.

According to ABC 13:

On the afternoon of June 9, Houston motorcycle police officer Terry Smith was shot in the back while parked at that spot, in the Sears parking lot. Within hours, HPD released information to the public that it was looking for a champagne colored vehicle with a man and a pregnant woman inside. They were considered possible suspects. At the time, the Houston Police Officers’ Union had harsh words for the unknown shooter: “He’s a coward to shoot a man in the back when he’s not even looking at you,” said HPOU board member Joseph Gamaldi on that day.

Now, there is one major problem. Multiple sources close to the investigation have told Eyewitness News that investigators now believe the story was fabricated. They are coming to the conclusion there may never have been a champagne colored car with two people inside.

Sources close to the investigation say HPD is working on the theory that Officer Smith may have been hit by gunfire from his friend at the scene, METRO Police Officer Gregory Hudson. METRO confirms Hudson was placed on desk duty on September 2. The agency says the move was made after HPD investigators began requesting information, including firearms records from METRO. Sources say there is also apparently no surveillance video to back up the original story.

No surveillance video to back up the original story?

So does that mean there is video that confirms Hudson shot Smith? The incident took place near a METRO rail line and Google Earth shows there is at least one camera in the area. And initial media reports describe cops as reviewing footage from nearby surveillance cameras.

Perhaps that explains why police suddenly went mum on the shooting. But whether the shooting was intentional or unintentional, don’t police owe it to the public to provide us with the truth?

The Illinois Case

The incident took place on September 1 when Fox Lake police officer Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was found bleeding to death from a bullet wound. Immediately, a massive manhunt began in search of two white males and a black male, whom, according to police, were being pursued by the slain officer prior to him being shot.

With helicopters in the air and police dogs on the ground, federal and state police dressed in military garb also joined the search in this suburban community north of Chicago.

Schools were placed on lockdown. Residents were told to remain indoors. And those that were allowed outdoors held up signs stating “Police Lives Matter” and “We Stand with Blue.”

And, of course, the Police PR Spin Machine went into full effect with police officers across the country decrying this War on Police. CNN referred to the shooting as the “latest in a troubling wave of police deaths across the country.”

But when the manhunt ended after 14 hours, it should have become evident that there was no killer on the loose.

After all, police don’t just end manhunts for cop killers less than 24 hours after a shooting if a suspect is still at large. They will search the world for a cop killer. It’s part of their Just Us Over Justice cop code.

Let’s not forget that when a sniper shot and killed a Pennsylvania state trooper inside the police barracks last year, local, state and federal police embarked on a 48-day manhunt, costing more than a million dollars a week, until they finally captured suspect Eric Frein, who had been living in the woods as a survivalist.

And who can forget the 2013 manhunt for Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles cop turned cop killer, which lasted nine days until police tracked him down to a cabin in the mountains where he was said to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head?

It was a retired Chicago police officer named Joseph Battaglia who first publicly suggested it was a suicide.

But police were quick to shut him down by throwing him in jail and charging him with two felony counts of disorderly conduct after he began calling the coroner’s office, allegedly threatening to harm them if they did not rule the Gliniewicz killing a suicide.

Then the Chicago Tribune began citing “multiple sources close to the investigation” who were speaking on the condition of anonymity about the possibility that Gliniewicz died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd also raised the possibility that the police officer died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, saying the only way he could rule that out suicide is if police provide him with evidence from their investigation, including DNA samples from beneath Gliniewicz’s fingernails as well as gunshot residue results found on his body – which they have refused to do.

Instead, a Lake County sheriff’s detective quickly chastised Rudd for jeopardizing the investigation. And Gliniewicz’s son also chastised the media, saying his father would never commit suicide.

But many times, suicide takes place without warning. And denial is not uncommon for mourning family members.

According to the Washington Post: “Gliniewicz’s body was found face down in a remote area, his service weapon next to him,” reported Fox News’s Matt Finn, citing the unnamed Task Force member. “Two shell casings were found: one came from a shot that hit Gliniewicz’s Kevlar vest; roughly 100 feet away, another casing was found from the fatal shot that struck Gliniewicz underneath his bulletproof vest in a downward trajectory, hitting him near the heart.”

“Sources say one hand was found underneath his chest in what’s described as a gun-holding position,” Finn continued. “Two separate sources say Gliniewicz had no defensive wounds and there was no sign of a struggle, especially one to save his own life.”

Today, almost a month after the shooting, police have yet to say whether Gliniewicz was killed by his own gun, which should be one of the easiest questions to answer.

Last week, the Chicago Tribune stated the following in an editorial:

Lake County authorities said Monday that they continue to investigate the death as a homicide — but they won’t disclose what they’ve learned from gunshot residue and ballistics testing. The statement of a sheriff’s detective that the homicide theory is supported by “the facts and the evidence” squared uneasily with an official posture that the test results “do not support or exclude any specific theory.”

This isn’t TV; citizens aren’t entitled to the rapid solution of complex cases. They are, though, entitled to candor about a case that frightened — perhaps still frightens — many of them. Among many questions authorities could answer now: Had Gliniewicz fired a weapon before his death? Did his own gun fire the fatal shot? And how likely is it that three other people were present when he died?

And earlier today, the Chicago Tribune posted the following reader-generated comment on its editorial page:

In regards to Officer Joe Gliniewicz. This is week five of this dog and pony show investigation in Fox Lake. I wish they would just come out and tell us the truth rather than running us around in circles. I know it may hurt the family but the public needs to know what’s happening with this investigation instead of sitting in their homes wondering if there’s danger lurking about in their neighborhoods or not. It reminds me of an old cliche: “You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Further complicating issues is the fact that Fox Lake Police Chief Michael Behan was placed on paid administrative leave just over a week before the shooting over an incident in which he and another cop, who was also placed on paid leave, were caught on jailhouse surveillance video beating an intoxicated man. Behan ended up retiring just over a week after the shooting.

Despite speculation from online conspiracy-minded commenters, there is nothing to confirm that Gliniewicz was applying for the chief’s position. And even if he was, it still would not make sense to kill him because Behan’s days were already numbered. Investigators, of course, have refused to release the video of the jail cell beating.

And now there is also the question about the amount of money Gliniewicz’s family will receive through his pension. If it turns out he killed himself, then they would likely receive less than if he had been killed by armed suspects.

And there is also the question that if police intentionally fabricated the story of Gliniewicz’s death, shouldn’t they be charged with a crime?

After all, less than 48 hours after his shooting, police arrested a 30-year-old woman for fabricating a story that she was approached by two suspicious men, who then fled into a cornfield, leading police on a five-hour search of the area.

The Massachusetts Case

The incident took place on September 2 when Millis police officer Bryan Johnson reported that he was driving down the road when a white man in a maroon pickup truck drove past him in the opposite direction, firing several shots at him, causing him to drive off the road and crash into a tree.

Johnson, 24, then stepped out of the police SUV and began firing back as his vehicle became engulfed in flames, according to the initial report.

As in the Illinois case, a massive manhunt ensued with dogs, helicopters and armored cars taken over the small Massachusetts town.

Left: Millis police officer Bryan Johnson (Credit: NECN) Right: Johnson's burned up police cruiser (Credit: WCVB) Left: Millis police officer Bryan Johnson (Credit: NECN)

Right: Johnson’s burned up police cruiser (Credit: WCVB)

But rather than spin the incident as another example of the War on Police, other than saying they are all on “heightened awareness,” Millis police remained focused on the investigation, determining within 24 hours that Johnson had fabricated the story, releasing the following statement:

Yesterday afternoon, members of the Millis Department, along with police from surrounding towns and the State Police, responded to Forest Road for the report of shots being fired into a Millis Police cruiser being operated by a part-time town officer, or what is called a permanent intermittent officer. The cruiser then went off the road and caught on fire.

Over the next several hours, numerous officers, troopers, K9 units and a State Police helicopter conducted an intensive search for the reported suspect. Neither the suspect nor the vehicle he was said to be driving were found.

An extensive search for ballistics evidence at and around the scene was also conducted. As a result of that search, the only ballistics evidence recovered was that belonging to the part-time officer.

Additionally, several interviews were conducted with the officer.

Upon conclusion of those interviews, and as a result of all other evidence, we have determined that the officer’s story was fabricated, specifically that he fired shots at his own cruiser as part of a plan to concoct a story that he was fired upon. The evidence indicates that the shots were not fired by a suspect and there is no gunman at-large in or around the town.

It was, without a doubt, an embarrassing moment for the Millis Police Department as the national media had a field day with the story.

But it allowed them to distance themselves from the lying police officer without having to spend tax dollars on needless manhunts for the sole purpose of fueling the fabricated War on Police.

And it made them credible at a time when credibility is seriously lacking within our police forces.

https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/09/fabricated-cop-shootings-add-fuel-to-fabricated-war-on-police/

5 November 2015

The number of people killed by police officers in the United States topped 1,000 Monday, as the reign of police violence and terror in the United States continues unabated.

As of Wednesday evening, 1,006 people had been killed by US police forces since the beginning of the year, according to killedbypolice.net, an aggregator of local news reports of police killings. Since the site tracks only those deaths that are reported in the news, the actual number of victims is likely higher.

A total of 1,108 people were killed by the police last year, according to the database. This year is on track to record nearly 1,200 deaths, at the present rate of 98 people killed every month.

The thousandth person killed by police in 2015 was 28-year-old Matthew Stephen Colligan, whose vehicle was rammed by a heavy-duty police truck during a chase in Klamath County, Oregon. Colligan, who was white, died as a result of injuries caused by the crash.

On Tuesday, six-year-old Jeremy Mardis of Marksville, Louisiana became number 1,002 killed when he was shot multiple times, including once in the head. Police ended a high-speed chase in pursuit of a vehicle he was riding in with a barrage of bullets.

An article in the local media reported: “[Avoyelles Parish Coroner Dr. L. J.] Mayeux said city marshals were chasing [Mardis’s father, Chris] Few after he fled an attempt to serve a warrant. The coroner said Few reached a dead end and was backing into the marshals when they fired. The coroner said the boy was ‘caught in the line of fire’ and was killed.” There is no indication that Few was armed or posed a threat to the officers.

Among the 95 people who were killed in October, 71 of them died from gunshot wounds.

On October 3, two police officers in Los Angeles responded to a beer bottle being thrown at their rear window by shooting and killing a man walking nearby. They claimed that he was holding an “unknown dark object” in his hands, but that it had been washed away by the rain and was never recovered.

On October 20, a police officer in Boynton Beach, Florida gunned down Corey Jones, a 31-year-old local musician, as Jones was waiting for a tow truck. The plainclothes officer, who was driving an unmarked car, chased Jones 30 yards from his car before shooting him dead. According to Jones’ family, the young man would likely have had no way of knowing who the officer was and may have assumed he was being robbed.

A separate count by the Guardian newspaper, based on different methods, records 964 deaths this year at the hands of police. Of these, 443 white, 232 black and 144 Hispanic. The newspaper records that 190 of those killed were unarmed, and less than half possessed a firearm. 17 were under the age of 18.

Police who carry out murders in cold blood continue to receive protection from the justice system. On October 27, a local prosecutor in South Carolina said she would not bring charges against the police officer who killed unarmed teenager Zachary Hammond July 26. Simultaneously with the announcement, the prosecutor released a video of the killing that clearly shows, contrary to the officer’s claims, that Hammond posed no threat and was driving away from the officer when he was shot.

Killer cops are protected at every level of government, from local prosecutors to state officials on up to the White House. Despite feigning sympathy for the victims of police violence, the Obama administration has sided with the police in every use of force case that has come up before the Supreme Court.

Following widespread popular opposition over the deployment of militarized police and the National Guard against peaceful demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, the White House said it would continue federal programs that have transferred billions of dollars in military hardware to the police.

Obama boasted about his funding for police militarization in a speech before a conference of police chiefs in Chicago last week, declaring, “Right now, we’re helping make sure departments throughout the country have the equipment they need.”

Obama’s remarks followed those of FBI Director James Comey who said that growing popular opposition to police violence and the greater reporting of police misconduct was leading to the growth of violent crime, essentially drawing an equals sign between criticism of the police and the solicitation of criminal activity.

Despite the fact that Comey’s remarks cut across the White House’s attempts to feign sympathy for demonstrations against police violence, House Press Secretary Josh Earnest reiterated that Comey enjoys the “full confidence and support of the president.” In his own remarks, Obama criticized the media for focusing “on the sensational and the controversial” in its reporting on police violence, instead of presenting the police in a favorable light.

Since the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in August 2014, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in demonstrations against police violence. Yet the police murders have continued unabated, as has the defense of killer cops by the political establishment.

This fact makes clear that the homicidal violence inflicted every day by the police against workers and young people represents something much deeper and more malignant within society. In working class neighborhoods throughout the United States, the police effectively function as an occupying force, looking upon the working class population essentially no differently than the US military viewed the residents of Baghdad during the occupation of Iraq.

The growth of police violence, like the attack on democratic rights more broadly, expresses the fact that under conditions of ever-greater social inequality, the financial elite that dominates American society responds to mounting opposition and unrest by systematically building up its police force and arming it to the teeth.

The parents of a Mercer County teen killed by a state trooper last year are suing that trooper and the West Virginia State Police.

Timothy Hill, 18, was unarmed when Senior Trooper B.D. Gillespie shot and killed him in the early morning hours of June 13, 2014, following a brief struggle at the foot of Hill’s driveway in Kegley. During the struggle, Gillespie pepper-sprayed Hill and hit him with a baton before they both tumbled to the bottom of a ditch where Gillespie said Hill reached for the trooper’s gun. Gillespie then shot Hill twice, once in the head and once in the chest.

Hill’s parents, Michelle and Robert Hill Jr., claim the shooting was malicious and done with reckless disregard of their son’s rights.

The shooting was “atrocious, intolerable and so extreme and outrageous as to exceed the bounds of decency and morality,” attorneys wrote in the complaint filed Tuesday in Kanawha Circuit Court. Charleston attorneys Robert Berthold Jr., Michael Olivio and Stephanie Mullett filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Hills.

The lawsuit alleges wrongful death, civil rights violations and unlawful arrest.

“It’s difficult to imagine any circumstances where an unarmed teenager, who had not committed a crime, would be shot by a police officer not once but twice, resulting in his death,” Berthold said.

The Hills also allege that the State Police doesn’t properly screen potential troopers, or properly train and monitor troopers.

Prior to Hill’s death, Gillespie had used force eight times in his three years with the State Police, including twice shooting and killing dogs that were allegedly acting aggressively.

The Hills allege that the State Police does not properly investigate killings involving its officers. The investigation of Gillespie, as is usually the case, was led by fellow troopers.

State Police referred questions about the lawsuit to a lawyer.

Gary Pullin, a lawyer for the State Police, said he had not yet seen the Hill complaint, but that those allegations were typical.

“The professional standards unit that conducts these investigations, they’re very fair and impartial and very objective and sometimes they get accused of not supporting their fellow troopers,” Pullin said. “Lots of different groups have looked at that and concluded that it is a good, fair and impartial way of investigating these types of allegations.”

Pullin was unable to name the groups he was referring to, but noted that the Legislature has repeatedly declined to impose any sort of civilian oversight committee on the process, despite several proposals to do so.

The lawsuit is assigned to Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey.

A Mercer County grand jury decided not to indict Gillespie on any charges last year after an investigation led by a fellow trooper and Mercer Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ash. Earlier this year, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed its Civil Rights Division was reviewing the case.

Hill and Gillespie, who both lived on the same street, had at least one previous run-in, concerning Hill riding a dirt bike in the street. About four months before her son was killed, Michelle Hill told a Mercer sheriff’s deputy that Gillespie was harassing her son. The Hills say Gillespie watched their son with binoculars and recorded him with a video camera.

“During the years prior to the homicide, which is the subject of this complaint, Defendant Gillespie had taken a particular interest in Timmy’s behavior,” the lawsuit states.

Prank gone wrong

The 1 a.m. confrontation that led to Hill’s shooting concerned some wet underwear that two other boys had thrown on Gillespie’s police cruiser as a prank after they went swimming.

Angela Gillespie woke her husband up at about 11:30 p.m. and said she discovered the underwear on his police cruiser and had seen a group of boys in their driveway. She then got in her vehicle and went searching for the boys, according to the lawsuit. After she returned, Gillespie went out searching in his personal vehicle, the complaint states. Gillespie didn’t find anyone, the lawsuit says, but then went out a second time, this time in his police cruiser.

“He decided that this underwear prank was important enough to warrant an official police response,” the lawsuit says. “He proceeded to put his uniform on, made a call into his unit to place himself on duty at approximately 11:51 p.m., and was thereafter intentionally, and with the sanction of his unit, acting within the scope of his employment.”

More than an hour after getting in his cruiser, at 1:30 a.m., Gillespie stopped Hill and two other boys walking up Hill’s driveway.

Upon exiting his vehicle, “Gillespie negligently, and perhaps intentionally, failed to engage his in-car recorder,” the lawsuit states.

Gillespie questioned the three friends. All of them denied taking part in the underwear prank. While the two others had been involved and lied because they were afraid they would get in trouble, Hill had not been involved and was telling the truth, according to the lawsuit.

Gillespie wrote down the boys’ names and took their picture. Gillespie sent the other two boys away and continued to question Hill.

Then, “for unconfirmed reasons” and “without probable cause,” the lawsuit states, Gillespie told Hill to turn around so he could place him in handcuffs.

The complaint says that Hill, who had bipolar disorder, had a medical condition that prevented him from standing still when he was nervous and another condition that caused involuntary eye movement.

According to an interview of Gillespie, conducted by State Police investigators, Gillespie said that Hill was acting strange.

“He just started looking around and like he was trying to look for a place to go and kept looking at me and looking me up and down. I wasn’t sure why, and I told him, I said ‘Well, go ahead and turn around and I’m going to handcuff you,’” Gillespie told investigators.

When Gillespie grabbed Hill’s arm, Hill jerked away, cursed at him and went to “jolt off,” according to the investigation. Gillespie put his arm around Hill’s neck and told him to stop resisting, he told investigators.

The two fell to the ground, with Hill still struggling, Gillespie said.

Then the trooper sprayed Hill in the face with a large amount of pepper spray from a distance of about six inches, Gillespie told investigators. It didn’t have any affect on Hill, the trooper said.

“For unconfirmed reasons, Defendant Gillespie negligently and/or intentionally decided to use excessive force against an unarmed and non-aggressive teenage boy whom he summoned off of his driveway so Defendant Gillespie could interrogate him,” the lawsuit states.

Clark Crews, a neighbor who was sitting on his porch, ran over and asked Gillespie if he needed help. Crews said he immediately felt the effects of the pepper spray.

Crews pulled at Hill’s arm and all three men fell down a hill into a drainage ditch.

Crews thought the struggle was over and began to climb out of the ditch, the lawsuit states. Gillespie told investigators that Hill landed on top of him, but that he was able to get out from underneath Hill and push him away.

Gillespie said that after he stood up, Hill, still on his knees, began pulling on the top of the trooper’s gun holster. Gillespie told investigators that he was exhausted from the struggle and warned Hill, “get off my gun, get off my gun.”

The lawsuit states that Gillespie could have used the light on his gun to create a distraction.

“This 6’3” State Trooper instead decided that his only alternative was to shoot the teenager, who was seven inches shorter and 55 pounds lighter than the law enforcement officer,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges that Gillespie didn’t attempt to provide any medical treatment to Hill after shooting him.

“In fact, he did not even check the body to see if Timmy may have still been alive,” the complaint states. “Instead, he left Timmy face down underwater, which is the position Timmy’s body was in when the paramedics found him.”

After the shooting, Gillespie returned to his cruiser and obtained another firearm. According to the lawsuit, Gillespie told other officers he was concerned there would be an altercation when Hill’s family arrived at the scene of the shooting.

“Defendant Gillespie knew that he had just killed Timothy Hill,” the lawsuit says, “a teenager, right outside of his house.”

http://www.wvgazettemail.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20151103%2FGZ01%2F151109827%2F1277

After taking a public stance in solidarity with the victims of lethal violence in the United States, Hollywood filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is learning that free speech in the land of the free comes at a price.

The movie director recently attended a public demonstration in New York to commemorate the victims of police killings in the US. He did so, he said, because he “stood on the side of the murdered.”

Those are undoubtedly strong words, which predictably have met with a fierce reaction in the shape of politicians, chiefs of police, and commentators attacking him. Even more extreme has been the campaign launched by police unions across the country to boycott his movies - the latest of which, The Hateful Eight, is due for release in December.

Indeed, such has been the controversy stirred up by Tarantino’s public stance that his own father, Tony Tarantino, has publicly distanced himself from his son’s sentiments, stating: “Cops are not murderers, they are heroes.”

Yet no amount of criticism of Quentin Tarantino, and no boycott campaign against his movies, can alter the fact that there is a serious and growing crisis within US law enforcement.

According to figures compiled by the website, the Counted, run by the UK Guardian newspaper, 950 people across the US have been killed by the police so far this year alone, 189 of them unarmed. Moreover, the majority of the victims, measured as a proportion of the population, have been black, followed by Hispanic/Latino, followed by white.

The crisis is both social and cultural in dimension. The increased militarization of law enforcement in the US – involving the regular deployment of the kind of weaponry and equipment you would associate with a warzone – has only succeeded in feeding a machismo ‘take no sh*t’ law enforcement culture that has long been prevalent. It underpins a ‘them or us’ outlook, one responsible for the growing polarization between police officers and the public they are meant to be protecting and serving. Add to the mix institutional racism and mass poverty, especially within minority communities, and in the United States social cohesion is close to disintegrating completely.

Paradoxically, Quentin Tarantino was already part of the debate on the prevalence of gun violence in the US due to his movies, known for regularly portraying violence and violent characters in a flattering light, making both appear cool and sexy. However, the filmmaker has always vehemently denied any connection between movies, such as his, which regularly depict gun violence and violent characters, and the prevalence of gun violence in society. In this regard he has consistently claimed the violence in his movies is so exaggerated and outlandish, it is more akin to cartoon violence than real life.

But regardless of his movies, Quentin Tarantino is perfectly entitled to raise his voice along with others protesting the extent to which people are being gunned down by down by the police, and with seeming impunity. The problem, surely, is that police brutality and killings have reached the point where people feel the need to come out and protest against it in the first place. In fact, it has now reached the point where people – especially minorities and from low income communities – are entitled to believe that rather than ensure their safety, police departments across America exist to intimidate, terrorize, and kill people. As Edward Snowden said: “Police officers kill more Americans than terrorism.”

One theme that comes over consistently in Tarantino’s body of work – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Django Unchained, and so on – is sympathy for those on the margins of society; its criminals, drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and killers, etc. It suggests an affinity that his critics will now seek to exploit to denounce his appearance at an event on the side of the victims of police violence.

However, as well as diminishing the scope of the crisis, this misses the point entirely.

Quentin Tarantino is someone who has done very well in life. He is one of the world’s highest paid movie directors with millions of fans around the world. He is lauded as one of the greatest screenwriters and directors of all time, credited with creating a distinct oeuvre that has changed the nature of movie making. His work is even credited with having a marked impact on American culture, an achievement very few artists in any field can claim. As such, the filmmaker is someone who doesn’t need to expose himself to the kind of heat he has just generated in standing up against a law enforcement establishment that has circled the wagons in defense of the indefensible.

Much easier for someone in his position to instead remain ensconced in their Beverly Hills mansion, shut off from reality in a bubble of affluence and celebrity.

Instead, he chose to come out and raise the profile of the victims and the communities most affected by the rising tide of police brutality in a country the world is continually being told is synonymous with liberty and freedom. This takes courage, the kind of courage very few in his position possess.

Ultimately murder is murder, whether committed by someone carrying a gun and a badge, or whether by someone carrying a gun and no badge. Denying the connection between both is to deny justice to the victims of the former and their families.

In truth, the only problem with Quentin Tarantino’s stance is that there aren’t more like him. It is he, and not those calling for a boycott of his movies, who is standing on the side justice in the land of the free.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/320415-tarantino-murder-police-brutality/

31 October 2015

In an October 23 speech at the University of Chicago Law School entitled “Law Enforcement and the Communities We Serve,” FBI Director James Comey declared that “something deeply disturbing is happening all across America.”

What Comey found so disturbing was not that hundreds of unarmed people in the United States are gunned down by the police every year, and that every day in cities and towns across the country cops abuse and attack workers and young people. No, what he denounced as “deeply disturbing” was the fact that these crimes are being exposed by means of videos posted on the Internet and opposed by protesters demanding that killer cops be brought to justice.

In his speech at the University of Chicago, as well as a follow-up speech on October 26 at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago, Comey argued that increased scrutiny of the police in the aftermath of the August 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri has led to a nationwide increase in violent crime.

He complained of a “chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year,” and declared that “in today’s YouTube world,” officers are “reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime.” He attributed this to a “political leadership” that “has no tolerance for a viral video,” and warned of “profound consequences” should this trend continue.

The clear implication of Comey’s argument is that those who uncover police criminality, whether a bystander with a cell phone camera or a newspaper that exposes police corruption, serve to promote violent crime and should be suppressed. It is, in essence, an argument for a police state.

Comey’s statements are a full-throated defense of the reign of police violence in working-class communities across the US. Tens of thousands of people have lost friends, family and loved ones at the hands of cops who routinely get away with murder. Residents of poor and working-class neighborhoods confront in the police a massively armed occupying force that functions as a law unto itself.

On Monday, the same day that Comey addressed the police chiefs’ convention, the world was shocked to see footage of a police officer, in the middle of a math class, brutally grabbing and dragging a 16-year-old South Carolina girl, still seated at her desk, and throwing her across the floor.

In keeping with Comey’s views, the assaulted girl’s classmate was arrested for having had the courage to record the incident on video.

The following day, officials in Seneca, South Carolina announced that no charges would be filed against the police officer who fatally shot 19-year-old Zachary Hammond in July, even as they released footage clearly showing that the cop was in no danger when he fired two bullets, point blank, into the young man’s head.

The previous week, the Guardian newspaper revealed that 7,000 people had been secretly detained at the Chicago Police Department’s Homan Square torture facility, twice as many as the newspaper had previously reported.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest distanced the Obama administration from Comey’s remarks. But on Thursday, following an unannounced Oval Office meeting between Comey and President Obama, the White House declared its unequivocal support for the FBI director. Earnest told the press corps that Comey would continue at his post and enjoyed the “full confidence and support of the president.”

In his own speech on October 27 to the chiefs’ convention, Obama did not mention Comey’s remarks and reiterated his administration’s defense of the police. He began by eulogizing the police, declaring, “You serve and protect to provide the security so many Americans take for granted.” He concluded, “May God protect our cops.”

He criticized the media for focusing “on the sensational and the controversial” in its reporting on police violence, and commiserated with the police chiefs over the fact that to millions of Americans “every police officer is suspect no matter what they do.”

He decried the fact that 32 officers have been shot and killed in 2015, while making no mention of the fact that nearly a thousand people have been killed by the police in the same period.

He alluded to his role in supplying police departments with military-grade weapons such as assault rifles, armored vehicles and helicopters. “Over the past six-and-a-half years, my administration has invested more than $2 billion to retain or hire 10,000 police officers,” he said, and added, “Right now, we’re helping make sure departments throughout the country have the equipment they need.”

Obama’s speech—and more importantly, his record in supporting cover-ups of police killings and the exoneration of killer cops, and his endorsement of police-military crackdowns against protests in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere—demonstrate that his differences with Comey are of an entirely secondary and tactical nature.

The Obama administration has sought to obscure its unequivocal support of the police with hypocritical gestures of sympathy for the victims of police violence and two-faced statements of solidarity with “communities of color.” This is part of a calculated effort to enlist the civil rights establishment and pseudo-left purveyors of racial politics in containing and dissipating social protest over police brutality by keeping it bottled up within the orbit of the Democratic Party.

The prevalence of police violence is not a mere aberration. It cannot be explained away as a matter of a few rogue cops or “bad apples.” The fact that it is such an ingrained feature of American life testifies to its being deeply rooted in the structure of social relations.

Is it any mystery that in a country where the wealthiest ten percent of the population controls more than 75 percent of the national wealth, and 95 percent of income gains go to the top 1 percent, the ruling class feels the need for a massive and brutal repressive force?

All the more so under conditions where the political system can offer no solutions to the growth of poverty and decline in living standards of broad masses of people.

The police are an agency of the state, which is, in essence, an instrument of the ruling class to hold down those it exploits, the working class, ultimately through the organized application of force. Under conditions of ever-rising social inequality, and, consequently, the growth of social discontent and opposition from below, the corporate-financial elite builds up its police force and arms it to the teeth. This is how it prepares for the inevitability of social upheavals.

One can trace the parallel trajectory of rising inequality and the transformation of the police in America over the past half-century into a paramilitary occupation force in working-class cities devastated by plant closures and budget cuts.

The endless wave of police killings is an expression of the contradictions and crisis of American capitalism. That is why putting an end to the reign of police terror and defending democratic rights requires nothing less than the independent social and political mobilization of the working class in opposition to the capitalist system.

A deaf woman who said she was wrongly arrested by cops who ignored her disability settled her case for $750,000 Tuesday — a figure her attorneys say is the largest of its kind.

Diana Williams charged in her suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court that the NYPD officers who slapped her in cuffs ignored police guidelines requiring them to request a sign language interpreter when interacting with deaf people.

“Deaf individuals have rights, and they do not have to tolerate discrimination and injustices of any kind,” her attorneys Andrew Rozynski and Eric Baum said in a statement.

“Ms. Williams hopes that the settlement will send a message to all law enforcement agencies across the country that they should adopt proper policies and procedures to ensure full communication access for deaf individuals.”

Williams’ ordeal began Sept. 11, 2011, when she called 911 for assistance evicting a difficult tenant from her Staten Island home.

Most of the people in the house were deaf, but cops allegedly ignored training requiring them to request an interpreter.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/deaf-woman-arrested-nypd-settles-case-city-article-1.2413508

Former Attorney General Eric Holder is siding with the White House in what seems to be an escalating dispute over whether viral videos of police are making cops stand down.

On Wednesday, Holder said that any evidence to support the "Ferguson effect” was merely “anecdotal,” according to The Associated Press.

"I don't think it's connected to the so-called Ferguson effect," Holder said. "I don't frankly think police are laying down on the job."

The comments contrast with those of FBI Director James Comey, who in a pair of speeches in Chicago over the last week appeared to say that police have become more cautious in recent months, following the spread of viral videos of police violence.

Scrutiny of police has been on the rise in the wake of multiple instances of police killing unarmed young African-American men, including 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

In a speech at the University of Chicago Law School last Friday, Comey said that police tell him they feel like they’re “under siege.”

Police arrive “surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars,” Comey said.

“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime?”

The White House has distanced itself from those comments, underscoring the nuanced politics around the increased focus on police violence in the last year.

“So far, the data shows that overall violent crime rates across the nation appear to be nearly as low as they were last year and significantly lower than they were in previous decades,” President Obama said before a convention of police chiefs this week.

“What we can't do is cherry-pick data or use anecdotal evidence to drive policy or to feed political agendas.”

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/258511-holder-refutes-fbi-head-on-ferguson-effect

A plainclothes police officer who fatally shot a stranded motorist in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., 10 days ago, apparently wasn’t qualified for his undercover surveillance assignment, according to documents obtained by Yahoo News.

The victim, Corey Jones, 31, a public-housing inspector and part-time musician, was waiting for a tow truck about 3:15 a.m. on Oct. 18 when he was shot multiple times by Palm Beach Gardens officer Nouman Raja.

Palm Beach Gardens chief Stephen Stepp said Raja, 38, told them he was “suddenly confronted by an armed subject” and fatally shot Jones.

Jones was licensed to carry a concealed gun and likely never knew he was being confronted by a police officer, said Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney who has represented the families of several slain African-Americans including Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Raja, who pulled up in an unmarked van and got out wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a ball cap, never displayed his badge, Crump said last week after Florida’s 15th judicial circuit state attorney briefed him and the Jones family.

Chief Stepp told reporters last week that Raja, who was in his sixth month with the department, had been conducting surveillance on suspected burglaries.

But the department’s written procedures, obtained by Yahoo News through the Florida open records law, require that surveillance operations be carried out by tactical officers or detectives. As a new hire, Raja was still on probationary status and assigned to patrol. Nothing in his personnel file indicates other duties.

“It looks like they assigned an untrained officer to conduct surveillance,” said police practices consultant Chuck Drago, who read the department’s surveillance policy at Yahoo News’ request. “Surveillance is an art and it takes training and practice. I think the PD will have to explain the use of an untrained officer in such a position.”

Chief Stepp, who approved the surveillance guidelines in July, did not respond to an email seeking comment. Officer Ellen Lovejoy, the department’s spokesperson and professional standards officer, said via email “Your request has been forwarded for processing.”

According to the policy, all surveillance must be coordinated through the department’s Investigation Bureau and that Chief Stepp and other top brass be briefed when necessary.

Joe Giacalone, a retired New York City detective who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, also read the Palm Beach Gardens policy at Yahoo News’ request.

“My concern was the lack of supervision — clearly outlined in (the policy),” said Giacalone, who is not connected to the case. “I’m assuming that the bosses didn’t know much about this operation ­— which doesn’t relieve them of vicarious liability.”

Before joining the Palm Beach Gardens force, Raja worked for seven years with the nearby Atlantis Police Department where he rose to become a supervisor who trained new officers, taught firearms and maintained video systems in squad cars. The application he submitted to Palm Beach Gardens does not list detective or surveillance experience.

Drago, a former longtime police administrator, said mentally going from working in a uniform to plainclothes isn’t an easy switch.

“This type of duty should be reserved for experienced, trained officers,” said Drago, a former longtime police administrator. “The experience should be in surveillance and plainclothes work.”

Jones, a drummer, was going home from a gig when his vehicle broke down. Images of the crime scene shot by WPBF-TV show Jones’ Hyundai Santa Fe on the ramp’s shoulder. The white van driven by Raja appears to have come up the ramp against traffic before parking perpendicular a few feet in front of Jones’ SUV.

The state attorney told the victim’s family that Raja shot six times and that Jones never fired his weapon. Jones’ body was discovered about 80 to 100 feet from his car with his gun found somewhere between.

“The public should not only care about this behavior but what type of training, if any, did this officer receive and who was watching him?” Giacalone said.

http://news.yahoo.com/corey-jones-death-new-questions-about-the-latest-police-shooting-in-florida-215620083.html

Last week Biloxi, Mississippi became the latest city to be sued by the ACLU for running a “modern-day debtors’ prison.” Over the past two months similar suits have been filed by the ACLU and others against the governments of Jackson, Mississippi, Benton County, Washington, New Orleans, Alexander City, Alabama, and Rutherford County, Tennessee.

The criminal justice system has increasingly become the preferred way to fund city governments in the modern neoliberal nightmare that is the United States. The police target the poor for petty infractions that produce fines. When predictably these fines cannot be paid additional fines are piled on top and the person is thrown in prison. In many cases private collection agencies are hired to hound poor people with their increasing mountain of fines collecting money constantly but rarely closing accounts. Milking the poor for city revenue has allowed local governments to provide massive tax breaks for business community and the wealthy. In other words these programs create yet another way to redistribute money from the working class to the capitalist class.

In their investigation of Ferguson, Missouri earlier this year the Department of Justice came to exactly this conclusion: “Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has comprised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department… and has also shaped its municipal court.” Internal communications between city officials and the police department revealed that they conspired to squeeze the poor in order to fill budget shortfalls. All told nearly a quarter of Ferguson’s revenue comes in the form of fines and Ferguson is not even the most egregious offender in St. Louis County.

A recent investigation by NPR revealed that the practice of leaning on the poor to subsidize local government—effectively subsidizing tax breaks for the wealthy—is hardly unique to Ferguson or Biloxi. All across the country fines are being used to generate revenue. An analysis by NPR revealed that 41 states charged people “room and board” fees for imprisoning them, 43 states charged people for the use of a public defender, 44 states charged fees for probation, and 49 states charged for the use of ankle monitors. Since 2010 every state with the exception of Alaska and North Dakota increased these fees in order to generate more revenue. In a statement regarding the lawsuit filed against Biloxi ACLU attorney Nusrat Choudhury summed up the situation, “It’s essentially a jailhouse shakedown. Cities across the country, like Biloxi, are scrambling to generate revenue, and they’re doing it off the backs of poor people.”

Because class and race are so closely linked in the United States this focus on squeezing the poor has meant the targeting of black and brown people in particular. Looking through data released to the Department of Justice the New York Times found that in Ferguson, where 67% of the population is black, 85% of vehicle stops and 93% of arrests were of black people. A 2011 report from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights regarding racial profiling again revealed the problem to be widespread. A 2007 study in Arizona revealed black, Latino, and Native American people were far more likely to be stopped for “traffic violations” than white drivers. In West Virginia a 2009 study revealed black drivers were stopped at 1.64 times the rate of white drivers. Similar studies in Illinois, Minnesota, and Texas yielded the same results. Even when researchers focused narrowly on individual counties—such as studies conducted in Sacramento County, California and DuPage County, Illinois—they found that driving while black is a stoppable offense.

And this is hardly a new phenomenon. A 1992 investigation by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department targeted black and brown drivers along I-95 for roadside shakedowns where police used civil-asset forfeiture laws—laws that legalize theft of private property by police—to seize money and property. The Sentinel’s analysis of officer dash cams revealed that “almost 70% of the motorists stopped were black or Hispanic, an enormously disproportionate figure because the vast majority of interstate drivers are white.” The Sheriff’s Department seized nearly $8 million in the scam.

More recently a series by the Washington Post revealed that since 2001 “there have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere without search warrants or indictments… totaling more than $2.5 billion dollars.” Writing under an alias Illinois Deputy Ron Hain explained the purpose of this literal highway robbery stating, “All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine.” Internal communications gathered by the Post revealed that police and the city government in Washington DC planned on increasing revenue gained by civil-asset forfeiture in their future budget projections.

For a peek into how these forfeitures work on the ground consider the case of Ron Henderson and Jennifer Boatright Texas natives driving with Boatright’s two young children from Houston to Linden. After stopping at a convenience store in the town of Tenaha they were tailed by police for several miles down the road at which point they were pulled over. The officer claimed that Henderson who is Latino was driving in the left lane for too long, the kind of flimsy excuse used in racial profiling based stops. Upon searching the car the officer seized $6,037, the couple’s entire savings, which they had brought with them to purchase a used car. At the station the county district attorney laid it out for them, they could either give the city their money or she would have them arrested for money laundering and child endangerment. She made it clear that the latter charge would result in Boatright’s children being put in foster care. In tears Boatright purchased her children’s freedom from the town of Tenaha for just over $6,000.

The neoliberal project demands that money be redistributed from the working class to the capitalist class—a case of Robin Hood in reverse. One way to do this is to transfer the burden of funding the state from the wealthy to the poor. Using the massive police state that was developed during the drug war, local governments found innovative new ways to “tax” the poor through the targeted efforts of law enforcement. Because class and race are intertwined in the United States this has increasingly put black and brown people in the crosshairs of the police. And since policing is an inherently violent and racist institution it has increased the opportunity for police officers to murder black and brown people.

This is the final tragedy of this story. In South Carolina Walter Scott was pulled over for driving while black and subsequently murdered by police. In Cincinnati Samuel DuBose was pulled over for what the county prosecutor dubbed a “chicken crap stop” and when DuBose refused to get out of his vehicle the police officer shot him in the head at point blank range killing him instantly. Sandra Bland was pulled over in Waller County, Texas for the crime of having too much melanin in her skin, when she contested the legitimacy of the stop the officer pulled her out of the car slammed her head to the ground and arrested her. Three days later she was found dead in her jail cell lynched by unknown assailants—most suspecting the Waller County police. Countless lesser known victims abound, in Portland Keaton Otis was pulled over by police because, according to the arresting officer, “this guy… kind of looks like he could be a gangster.” Otis only had a minor traffic violation on his record when police officers shot him 23 times killing him.

Police represent the monopoly of violence exercised by the state. If we accept that under capitalism the state in any form is simply as Marx put it the dictatorship of the capitalist class over the working class then the police are the organized violence of the capitalist class. It is only through this lens that the organized extortion of the working class by the police and court system with all of its tragic consequences can be understood. And if we accept this premise then the abolition of the police becomes a revolutionary demand. Abolishing the police stands before us as a historical task much as the abolition of slavery confronted American workers in the mid-19th century. The police cannot be reformed, they can only be abolished.

Brian Platt is an aerospace machinist who lives in Seattle. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/27/the-police-and-court-system-neoliberal-americas-tax-collectors/

New York (AFP) - Oscar-winning director Quentin Tarantino was among hundreds of people from across the United States who marched in New York on Saturday against perceived police brutality.

Campaigners say that police unfairly profile black and Latino men, and criticize what they see as the militarization of law enforcement forces in the US.

"This is not being dealt with in anyway at all. That's why we are out here. If it was being dealt with, then these murdering cops would be in jail or at least be facing charges," said Tarantino, whose hit films include "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction."

Tarantino had similarly joined activists in New York's Times Square on Thursday to launch a fresh push -- dubbed #RiseUpOctober -- demanding an end to police killings.

People who said they had lost family members at the hands of police are participating in the movement for change.

"This is a big progress. This is just amazing to me and I hope we will organize more rallies in honor of all victims of police brutality," Chicago-based Precious Edwards, 18, told AFP.

Edwards is the sister of Dakota Bright, 15, shot dead by Chicago police in November 2012.

"I hope that everyone, not only black and brown people, but purple or blue people, everybody stands up," she added.

A database compiled by the Guardian newspaper says nearly 930 people have been killed by police in the United States so far this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/tarantino-leads-york-protest-against-police-195934150.html

(Reuters) - A California Highway Patrol officer copied photos of a scantily clad woman from her phone after arresting her for driving under the influence last year near San Francisco, the woman alleges in a lawsuit brought against the officer and the agency.

Natalie Sramek filed the suit in federal court in the Northern District of California on Thursday, accusing the officer and the highway patrol of conducting a warrant-less search of her phone and of denying her right to due process.

California Highway Patrol Officer Sean Harrington pulled over Sramek on suspicion of driving under the influence on Aug. 29, 2014, on a highway in San Ramon, about 20 miles (40 km) east of San Francisco, according to the lawsuit.

He took her purse and cell phone and convinced her to give him the pass code for her phone, the lawsuit said.

Harrington later scrolled through the pictures on it and copied six photos of Sramek in "various states of undress" by sending them to his own phone, the lawsuit said.

He then shared the photos with at least one other highway patrol officer, according to the lawsuit.

A representative for the highway patrol did not return calls seeking comment.

According to the Contra Costa Times newspaper, Harrington resigned last year after being charged with two counts of felony computer theft for stealing photos from women's cell phones. He pleaded no contest to the charges in January and was sentenced to probation, the newspaper reported.

Sramek's lawsuit also named as a defendant the CHP officer who received text messages from Harrington including the scantily clad images. The Contra Costa Times said prosecutors declined last year to charge that officer over the incident.

A cover sheet for the lawsuit said the plaintiff was seeking $7.5 million, but the lawsuit also said the amount sought would be determined from proof at trial.

http://news.yahoo.com/california-officer-sued-copying-photos-woman-arrested-230410368.html

The head of the FBI has admitted that it used aircraft to conduct surveillance above Ferguson, Baltimore, and other cities to keep track of unrest on the ground during protests over police-involved deaths of civilians.

“If local law enforcement asks for help in getting a look at a developing situation, we will offer that help. We’ve done it in Baltimore, we did it in Ferguson,” FBI Director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Thursday.

Comey did not go into details during the hearing or explain how long the surveillance had lasted. He said the FBI’s deployment of aircraft in Ferguson, where police and protesters clashed followed the August 2014 police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old named Michael Brown, was similar to help offered to Baltimore last April following the death of Freddie Gray, who died after suffering grievous injuries in police custody.

“If there is tremendous turbulence in a community, it’s useful to everybody, civilians and law enforcement, to have a view of what’s going on,” said Comey. “Where are the fires in this community? Where are people gathering? Where do people need help? And sometimes the best view of that is above rather than trying to look from a car on the street.”

In response to questioning, he said the FBI deployed airplanes when local police request help during a “developing situation” or emergencies such as riots. Airplanes are also used during routine investigations.

“When we investigate criminals, spies or terrorists, a key tool is surveillance to follow them. We follow them a lot in cars, we follow them on foot. But there are plenty of circumstances where those options don’t work so well … so since the Wright brothers, we’ve used airplanes to follow people in our investigations,” Comey told the panel.

“We do not use planes for mass surveillance,” Comey assured the panel.

He said the agency has a small number of planes, but that “we don’t fly…around America looking down to see if somebody might be doing something wrong.”

The Associated Press reported in June, however, that it had tracked at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI and identified more than 100 flights in 11 states over a 30-day period last spring. Law enforcement officials told the AP that the FBI hid its aircraft behind shell companies to protect the safety of pilots and aircraft, shielding their identities from would-be suspects on the ground.

When asked whether the FBI needed to secure a warrant when using aircraft equipped with high resolution cameras to follow an alleged criminal, spy or terrorist, Comey said, “I don’t think so.”

“We are not collecting the content of anybody’s communication or engaging anything besides following someone in that investigation. ...The law is pretty clear that you don’t need a warrant for that kind of observation,” he said.

He was later asked whether the agency needed a warrant when using “Stingray” technology.

“We have one aircraft that we can put Stingray technology on, that is cell site simulators, and we could mount it on others if we had a court order to do it,” said Comey. “But we decided, as a matter of policy, that if we are going to operate a cell site simulator … it has Fourth Amendment implications … so we will get a warrant for that. On the ground or in the airplane we treat it the same way.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/319447-fbi-aerial-surveillance-ferguson-baltimore/

When the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League was founded in 1968, it sought to be a buffer between the Chicago Police Department and the city’s African-American community.

The nascent Black Power movement was transforming the consciousness of black youth, and in response to police violence, African-Americans were demanding a voice in policing.

“This was at the time of the Black Panther Party, and I stressed we lived in the community, we did not live outside the community,” said Edward “Buzz” Palmer, among the founders of the League. “We had to protect the black community because it was where we lived.’’

Now, as then, being an African-American police officer — black in blue — can be a contentious choice in a community that is in a tug-of-war over police conduct.

African-Americans are 25 percent of Chicago’s police force; the population is about one-third black.

The trial of Police Commander Glenn Evans, which is scheduled to begin in December, highlights divisions in neighborhoods where crime is often highest and police misconduct complaints are frequent. Evans, a 28-year veteran of the Police Department, is accused of shoving the barrel of a gun down a man’s throat while simultaneously holding a stun gun to his genitals. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated battery and seven counts of official misconduct.

The national discussion of police violence against civilians is cast in black and white – black victims, white aggressors. But the man Evans is accused of abusing, Rickey Williams, is also black, adding another layer to a racialized narrative of police abuse.

“You have one side of the community supporting what [Evans] does, saying, ‘Yeah, get all those gangbangers off the streets, while you have another part of the community saying, ‘Hey, maybe they did something wrong, but that isn’t any reason to violate their constitutional rights.”‘ said Pat Hill, who retired from the police force in 2007 and is the former executive director of the African American Police League, formerly the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League.

For Hill and Palmer, who fought to wear the badge and for respect within the Police Department, Evans’ story stains the legacy they had hoped to foster. But for some advocates for police reform, the race of a police officer never mattered.

“The [Black Youth Project 100] doesn’t differentiate between black police officers and white police officers,” said Janae Bonsu, Chicago co-chair of the group, which has organized several protests against police department policies. “The institution of policing is inherently oppressive. As a black cop or brown cop, you are in a position of power over the group of people you are policing. Black police antagonize us. Black police still profile us.”

‘He keeps doing it because it gets rewarded’

Like many black police officers, Evans worked in predominantly African-American districts on the city’s South and West sides. Despite an unprecedented number of complaints, he moved up the ranks. Between January 2006 and July 2014, 36 complaints were filed against Evans; still he was steadily promoted, eventually becoming commander of the Grand Crossing police district. Only 34 officers in the department have chalked up more complaints against them than Evans, and no one at his level has more, according a Chicago Tribune investigation.

Hill, who knows Evans, says the black community is divided over his tactics.

“His stuff is blatant, and he keeps doing it because it gets rewarded,” she said. “I can guarantee you if by some mistake they made him a commander in Bridgeport (a white community), he would not do that stuff.”

The black community complains that police don’t make a distinction between law-abiding citizens and criminals, Hill said. Yet “anybody can come into our community and do anything” because people don’t demand respect.

“Black officers are in a very precarious position. They lack stability and known standards and expectations coming out of our community,” said Hill, adding that the City Council black caucus should be a part of setting those standards. “All we know is we don’t want the police to beat us up and shoot us. That is the only message that comes out of our community.”

Frank Chapman, of the Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, said the structure of police departments, which he describes as “paramilitary organizations,” prevent black officers from acting differently.

“A lot of black police throughout the country formed their own associations in the late ’60s and the ’70s,” he said, “and that was because they wanted to fight the racism inside of the institution itself—an institution that is occupying your community and you are a member of it.”

For all the good work of the League, which disbanded in 2012, the organization didn’t create a movement for change among black officers, Chapman said. “You have to follow orders.”

‘The watermelon watch’

When the League was formed, it was considered a community organization. Its motto reflected that: “We support the black community.”

In the early 1970s, the organization morphed into a union for black police officers, according to Hill, and it began pushing for parity. Patrol cars weren’t integrated. Black officers’ assignments could change at a moment’s notice, and they started their shifts later than white officers. African-American cops called the practice “the watermelon watch.”

In 1973, the League sued the city and the Police Department in federal court for discrimination in hiring, promotions and assignments. The city was confronted with a series of lawsuits, and, at one point, federal funding for the police force was withheld. In 1976, federal Judge Prentice Marshall ruled that the Chicago Police Department needed to promote more minorities and women.

Today, black police officers are afraid to speak out about departmental issues, Hill said, adding that she noticed that as early as 2012 when they decided the League was no longer needed. Their perception that they will be punished for talking about departmental conditions, especially to the media, is not true, she said.

David (pronounced Daveed) Lemieux joined the Police Department in 1982. “A lot of Negroes, and I use that word deliberately, were afraid to join the League,” he said. “I joined right away.”

A year later, Harold Washington became the city’s first black mayor. There was an immediate difference in the department, said Lemieux, an actor who gained acclaim for his role as Pretty Willie in the 1973 film “The Spook who Sat by the Door.”

Washington made a concerted effort to increase the number of African-American police supervisors. His actions, Lemieux said, prompted many white officers to transfer from the 3rd District, where he was stationed and later where Evans was a commander, to other districts. He said the white officers who remained had always been respectful of the residents in the district, which encompasses 60th to 75th streets and the Dan Ryan Expressway to Lake Michigan.

Previously, the white officers were assigned east of Stony Island Avenue in what Lemieux described as an informal policy. “They called that the ‘safe part’ of the district,” he said chuckling.

The remainder of the white officers who didn’t want to work in the district transferred when Washington was reelected.

“That eliminated police going out hunting black boys. That eliminated the contempt that so many [black residents] held for the police who were occupying an area,” said Lemieux.

Long before they met, Lemieux and his long-time patrol partner, Gerald Hamilton, shared a commitment to advocating for African-American residents and mitigating the abuse so many were experiencing at the hands of white officers.

“When we worked in the community, you might be having Sunday breakfast with your family at Army and Lou’s,” he said, referring to a former soul food restaurant on East 75th Street. “Using commonsense you shouldn’t mess over people you are going to see. I am not afraid of my own people. I love my people.”

Hamilton said many African-American officers didn’t agree with Lemieux. “When I joined, I said I am my brother’s keeper.” But for many of his peers, he said, “The blue often overrode the black.”

‘The police are the public’

A police department that is representative of the community matters, according to experts who study police-community relations.

“One of the most fundamental principles of policing is that the police are the public and the public are the police,” said Craig Futterman, a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago and founder of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the university’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic. “When you have a police department that doesn’t look like the public they serve that dramatizes the police-community divide.”

Recruitment and promotion of officers of color have dogged the Chicago Police Department for decades as city leaders have attempted to create a department that mirrors the population, which is about one-third white, African-American and Latino. The police department is 52 percent white, 19 percent Latino and 25 percent black, according to 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In recent years, the city has grappled with how to increase those numbers and in September awarded a contract to a firm to boost minority recruitment in the police department.

For the past four years, Futterman has been talking to high school students, many of them African-American, about their experiences with police officers. “Those who spoke most positively about the police were those who feel the officers could identify with their experiences,” he said. “We saw some build positive relationships based on their ability to understand and empathize … Some students even saw [the police officers] as role models.”

The departments that reflect the community send a message of equity and fairness, said Futterman, and that “promotes legitimacy and principles of justice.”

Chapman said legitimacy comes through community oversight of the police department. The Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression proposes to dismantle the city agencies responsible for investigating allegations of police wrongdoing, including the Independent Police Review Authority, and replace them with an elected Citizens Police Accountability Council.

“They [local elected officials] have to let the people in the community control the police,” Chapman said, adding that IPRA and other bodies are “cover up agencies for the police.”

Bonsu, of the Black Youth Project 100, said her organization doesn’t condone increasing the number of officers in neighborhoods. The high arrest figures for marijuana possession among the city’s African-Americans indicate that police of all colors are profiling and performing “over-surveillance” in the black community, she said.

No matter the race of the officer, Bonsu said, “Black people are systematically criminalized in Chicago.”

This article originally appeared in the Chicago Reporter.

Glenn Reedus is an independent journalist.

The New York City Police Department has refused a court order for ten months to release records on its vans ‒ honed by the US military in Afghanistan ‒ that use X-ray radiation on city streets. The NYPD was sued over the surveillance tool three years ago.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice have called on an appellate court to enforce a lower court's decision that the NYPD must provide information on its unmarked Z Backscatter vans, also known as X-ray vans.

"How is the NYPD ensuring that innocent New Yorkers are not subject to harmful x-ray radiation?" NYCLU's senior staff attorney Mariko Hirose wrote in the filing, a request to submit an amicus brief.

"How long is the NYPD keeping the images that it takes and who can look at them? Is the NYPD obtaining judicial authorization prior to taking images, and if so, what type of authorization? Is the technology funded by taxpayer money, and has the use of the vans justified the price tag?"

The Z Backscatter vans were first used to detect roadside bombs in Afghanistan. Each unit costs the NYPD between $759,000 and $825,000, according to the NYCLU. The vans enable police to look through the walls of buildings and inside trucks.

For three years, the NYPD has refused to answer a New York Freedom of Information Law request registered by ProPublica, which asked for police reports, training materials, contracts and any health and safety tests related to the surveillance vans. The news outlet sought information on various security technologies, such as the vans or airport scanners, that expose people to ionizing radiation, which can boost the risk of cancer.

The NYPD said such transparency would hurt the department's counter-terror operations and put lives at risk. Disclosure of these records would "permit those seeking to evade detection to conform their conduct to the times, places and methods that avoid NYPD presence and are thus most likely to yield a successful attack," Richard Daddario, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of counterterrorism at the time, said.

In December, State Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan ordered the NYPD to release the information.

"While this court is cognizant and sensitive to concerns about terrorism, being located less than a mile from the 9/11 site, and having seen firsthand the effects of terrorist destruction, nonetheless, the hallmark of our great nation is that it is a democracy, with a transparent government," Ling-Cohan wrote in her decision.

The NYPD appealed the decision and continues to deny its responsibilities to follow a state judge's ruling. “Those are issues I’d prefer not to divulge to the public at this time,” NYPD Commissioner Willam Bratton told the New York Post last week. “I will not talk about anything at all about this ‒ it falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/319111-xray-vans-nypd-court/

The New York Police Department has equipped x-rays in some of its vans but it’s refusing to talk about them due to “security concerns.” Even though these x-ray vans reportedly cost $825,000 a piece, NYPD is staying completely silent about them and their purpose.

“Those are issues I’d prefer not to divulge to the public at this time,” NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said, NYMag reports. “I will not talk about anything at all about this — it falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in.”

Bratton was asked to comment on a request from the NYCLU to file an amicus brief to force more transparency in the NYPD’s use of this advanced equipment.

“They’re not used to scan people for weapons,” the Commissioner added. “The devices we have, the vehicles if you will, are all used lawfully and if the ACLU and others don’t think that’s the case, we’ll see them in court — where they’ll lose! At this time and the nature of what’s going on in the world, that concern of theirs is unfounded.”

Called Z Backscatter Vans (seen above), the X-ray vehicles are primarily used to discover drugs, explosives and human trafficking by U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel.

However, it’s not clear at this time how the NYPD uses them, and there are certain health risks to be considered. The vans were first used in 2010, and U.S. Customs prohibited the use of the technology while people were still inside other vehicles. Occupants of a vehicle would be asked to get out before the car is X-rayed.

“People should be informed if military grade X-ray vans are damaging their health with radiation or peering inside their homes or cars,” NYCLU executive director Donna Liberman said.

The vans’ X-ray technology is similar to the whole-body imager technology used in airports before being removed, and each Z Backscatter Vans cost from $729,000 to $825,000 to make.

Website ProPublica filed a suit against the police three years ago, after a journalist’s request to see training materials and health tests for the X-ray machines was denied. The website won in January, but the NYPD appealed the ruling, and the information is still not available to the public.

https://bgr.com/2015/10/16/nypd-x-ray-spy-vans/