This blog stays updated with cases of Police Brutality against Black Men and the Black Community. These are just the cases that we are fortunate enough to hear about. But, there are several "unsung victims" whose story has never been told or videotaped. Infamous cases such as Rodney King and Oscar Grant are not isolated incidents. They exist amongst a corrupt system of impunity. Who am I? I am a “Concerned Member of the Black Community.”
Why do BLACK Americans keep expecting WHITES assign BLACKS on juries on Court Cases like these. After 498 years BLACKS must understand that here in North America they perhaps will never serve on JURIES in EQUAL numbers as WHITES!
Therefore, a new direction must be implemented in our own community when it comes to receiving justice in an unjust JUSTICE system that were NEVER designed to be equal for BLACKS and their CHILDREN! And history has proven this fact over and over again for all the world to see!
Only Blacks continue to seek justice; equality and acceptance here in our beloved nation in 2014. But I am 100% certain that eventually the God of our people will make us victorious of all wicked as written in the volume of sacred law.
David Billings, antiracist historian, speaks to the social arrangement that taught white men to deeply internalize fear of the black man and to defend themselves, their family and communities.
HOURS AFTER PORTLAND’s mayor sacked his police chief, officers killed a young black man — stopped at random — during the evening rush hour.
Keaton Otis died in his mother’s Toyota Corolla barely one hundred yards off two of Portland’s busiest streets at just after 6:20pm. Three officers had each tazed him twice. He was then shot 23 times in a seven-second barrage by three other officers. Nine further shots missed, one ricocheting into a Radioshack two blocks away.
Keaton Otis
Keaton Otis (right) had been stopped at Portland’s NE Halsey and NE 6th less than three minutes previously.
Keaton Otis had no criminal record. There was no contraband in his car. There were no drugs or alcohol in his blood. He was a recluse who suffered from depression. He was stopped, officers later claimed, because he failed to signal a turn 100 feet in advance.
They admitted it was nothing more than an excuse, a pretext.
The officers also said: “He was wearing a hoodie… He kind of looks like he could be a gangster.”,
The public lynching was recorded on the iphone of a witness.
Seven officers of the Hot Spot Enforcement Team (HEAT)³ shot Keaton Otis in a military-style, premeditated assassination of an innocent. Other known and notorious officers colluded in the organized cover-up.
HEAT was under the direct control of the chief-of-police Rosie Sizer sacked that morning by the city’s mayor Sam Adams.
It was just weeks after an Officer had shot, in the back, an African-American man who was walking backwards under police command, with his hands on his head… the man was distraught and suicidal following the death of his brother. Portland city was forced to re-instate the officer last year, together with $160,000 in back pay.
And the city was still angered by the death of a local schizophrenic musician with 16 broken ribs in the back of a police car… after being arrested for allegedly urinating in public. Several hundred police had marched in defense of the accused officer, who had a consistent record of violence, after he also bean-bagged a 12-year-old girl.
The message to Portland’s political and civil authority from Keaton Otis‘s killers was immediate and blunt: Significant numbers of Portland’s police would not be accountable to the people of Portland. They would continue to behave like a rogue gang… acting with impunity… and contempt for civil authority in Portland. And get away with it.
And they have. The officers involved still patrol Portland’s streets. Portland’s police remain beyond the control of the city’s civil authority.
Portland’s political and police leadership remains intimidated and cowed into silence over the killing of Keaton Otis. They continue to block attempts to find justice for Keaton Otis.
The HEAT officers claim they saw Keaton Otis at just before 6:20pm as he drove north along Portland’s busy four-lane Grand Avenue, as they were leaving the Starbucks they daily used⁸. The radio conversation between their four cars was not recorded. We do not know what they said or what happened before they called a full code 3 alert on the police network for all cars to converge on a terrified Keaton Otis… we only know what they say they said and what they claim happened.
“He kind of looks like he could be a gangster,” they later claimed, “he’s got his hood up over his head,” and he had “some scruffy, scruffy facial hair.”
By 6:25pm Keaton Otis was dying. The iphone video records Keaton Otis screaming he has his hands up. An officer shouts, “let’s do it!” as three officers opened fire.
Witnesses say Keaton Otis appealed for help — “don't leave… they're gonna kill me”¹ — as officers lined up along one side of his car.
Witnesses tell of him being punched in the face through the car window, of the officers not letting him out of the car. Video of the killing shows cars and a motorcyclist still driving by just feet away after the seven-second-long barrage.
Within minutes Portland’s most notorious police officers — with prior, proven histories of violence against innocent, mostly black, Portlanders — and close associates of the HEAT officers have converged on the scene, taking control of the car, the body and evidence… and arguing to keep out the rival Strategic Emergency Response Team.
Later they claim Keaton Otis had opened fire first and shot an officer in the thigh. An hour after all the mayhem, a gun — stolen in 2006 but never reported — was found sitting on the driver’s seat. No bullet cases from the two shots Keaton Otis allegedly fired were found.
Keaton Otis‘s body was sprawled out of the passenger door. His watch was found beneath the car. But the gun was sitting in the middle of the driver’s seat. None of the independent witnesses report seeing Keaton Otis fire a gun. None of the officers who shot Keaton Otis saw the gun… indeed, they all specifically denied seeing any gun.
No evidence has been presented that Keaton Otis ever had any link to the gun¹⁶.
The Grand Jury prosecuted Keaton Otis‘s guilt and defended the officers’ story. Without question. The witness who shot the iphone video was asked to leave the Grand Jury when the DA showed the police-edited version of her video. That version has since been removed from the DA’s website. Witnesses whose testimony was favorable to Keaton Otis were either not called, or were discredited as hostile witnesses by the DAs.
The Portland Police Review Board found the officers’ actions “within policy” and stated HEAT radio communications should remain unrecorded.
The parameters of a recent report by the US department of Justice into excessive force by the Portland police avoided any examination of the police killing of Keaton Otis.
Keaton Otis was aged 25 when he was executed by Portland police officers on Wednesday 12 May 2010 at just before 6:30pm on the busy streets of rush-hour Portland… on the same day the mayor sacked the police chief.
Keaton Otis still awaits justice. The people of Portland still await a police force that they can trust.
—
The 15-minute i-phone video of the killing can be viewed here.
A 21-second enhanced version of the video with time stamp and sub-titles can be viewed here.
For links to publicly-available documents, including the Grand Jury transcript and transcripts of police interviews with witnesses and officers, officer biographies, press reports, statements and maps click here.
On December 9, 2013 an inmate was brought to the Rutherford County (TN) Sheriff's Office jail facility on a charge of "Resisting" and "Hold - Other Department". The inmate was placed into a restraint chair in the sally port, which binds your wrists and ankles into restraints, as well as various straps to limit movement.
Upon being brought into Holding Cell #133, a strap that goes across the inmate's legs to keep movement limited came loose. According to department records, this strap had been malfunctioning for several months prior.
Deputy James Vanderveer, who was re-hired after being forced to resign due to a DUI arrest, and is the nephew of Sheriff Robert Arnold, enters the holding cell and begins to re-secure the strap. The inmate's ankles and wrists are still securely in their restraints and he is unable to move his legs or arms more than an inch or two.
There appears to be no struggle taking place when Deputy Vanderveer sprays pepper spray into the gap in his spit shield. The spit shield remains in place for ten minutes before being removed.
For one hour and fifteen minutes, the inmate receives no medical attention and can be seen convulsing, yelling for help, and struggling.
Deputy Vanderveer stated in a subsequent incident report that the inmate was combative and that his legs had come lose, which is contradictory to video evidence.
Jail supervisors later documented that they informed him that "he better write a good report and ... hoped he could justify spraying someone while they were restrained in a restraint chair." Deputy Vanderveer later received a written reprimand for "Disproportionate Use of Force" and is still employed as a sheriff's deputy.
Sources: RCSO Incident #33690, RCSO Complaint #13120964007, RCSO Booking #329368, Report of Action from Cpt. Derrell Cagle Re: James Vanderveer on 12/12/13
This happened on Friday January 24th in Down town Troy, NY next to I Love Pizza at Kokopelis night club you can clearly see where he was willing to co-operate but was still beaten down by and hit by the police even after he was down on the floor with his hands behind his back!!!! suffered multiple bruise and a laceration to the back of he head. For absolutely nothing.
Roshawon Donley was one of at least a half dozen patrons of African descent of the nightclub, Kokopellis on 4th Street in downtown Troy, New York, who were aggressively attacked by Troy PD officers and beaten with nightsticks. Extensive, multi-angle security camera and cell phone camera footage documenting the incident show several officers as aggressors against completely nonviolent people.
Donley received numerous head wounds requiring emergency hospital treatment. The police chief and Mayor Rosamilia immediately responded that the use of force was lawful and appropriate before any official investigation could even begin.
The Community Alliance Against Police Violence, the Troy African American Pastoral Alliance, and City Council President Rodney Wiltshire have independently called for an external investigation, recognizing an inability and unwillingness for existing institutions to proceed fairly and justly.
Supreme Court pass the law that Police Brutality is okay and police can force Strip-Searches you anytime and Police has already started harassment people. the Supreme Court says you can be strip searched even if you are arrested for not wearing a seatbelt. Or you didn't leash your pooch. Or you forgot to use your turn signal. Or your muffler is too noisy.
Video showing Black Cyclist D'Paris Williams, a.k.a. DJ, after being beaten by San Francisco Police Officers last Friday, November 15. Warning very graphic
Valencia Gardens Apartments, Mission District, San Francisco, CA - Photographer Travis Jensen reports that 21-year-old D'Paris Williams, a.k.a. "DJ," a City College student, was assaulted Friday afternoon for what appears to be no reason:
Yesterday afternoon, while riding his bicycle home from the Make A Wish Foundation's "Bat Kid" happenings, DJ was confronted by two undercover police officers in an unmarked vehicle at the Valencia Gardens Apartments in the City's Mission District. Apparently, the officers said something to DJ about riding his bicycle on the sidewalk as he was pulling up to his home in the complex.
It is unclear whether the officers identified themselves or not, but did proceed to get out of their car, grab DJ from behind as he was entering the home and beat him for no apparent reason.
A police search uncovered a cupcake and juice that DJ had just purchased from the corner store.
Nobody has spoken to DJ since the incident occurred as he was immediately taken to S.F. General Hospital for treatment, and then to the 850 Bryant police station. So far, it appears no charges have been made against DJ either.
There is building video surveillance footage of DJ's confrontation w/ police, but it has yet to be released by housing authority. Furthermore, three residents came to DJ's aid when they saw officers beating him up, only to find themselves also under attack by officers. By this time, uniformed backup had arrived on the scene. Including DJ, a total of four individuals were beaten and arrested by officers. As mentioned, after DJ was assaulted and taken to SF General, the Valencia Garden community spilled out into the street in protest of the violence.
Residents began filming and soon captured footage of officers attacking protesters.
Around 1:30, an officer can be seen punching a detained man on the ground.That man, who can also be seen earlier in the video trying to pull an aggravated man away from officers and then being attack, was later seen with his face bloodied.
We’re told that the scene unfolded right as DJ was entering his house. As he was questioned by undercover narcotic agents, the officer in the black baseball hat (pictured above) grabbed DJ and shoved his head into his front door. DJ’s sister, who was holding a newborn baby, was witness to the entire scene. When she approached the door where DJ was being assaulted, a second officer pushed her.
They then dragged DJ into the street and punched him in the head until he was knocked out. Others in lock-up with DJ report that he blacked out and has no recollection of what happened. DJ is still in custody and not being allowed to speak to anyone; however, criminal charges are yet to be filed.
Currently two of the other three men who were arrested have been released.
We’re told man seen holding the cane in the video is a gay, HIV-positive man who needs his cane because of medical complications. The police are continuing to hold him in custody, allegedly because his cane is being considered a “deadly weapon.”
Orlando (last name unknown), who had his face bloodied after pulling the man with the cane away from officers, was released “a few hours ago,” according to Travis Jensen.
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=129_1384775019#gBbjaMLEPVPSiI7K.99
