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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

LA Sheriff's Dept. Unlawfully Targeted Blacks, According To DOJ




LOS ANGELES -- Sheriff's deputies in two desert cities northeast of Los Angeles unlawfully targeted blacks living in public housing, subjecting them to unnecessary stops and seizures and using unnecessary force even when people were handcuffed, the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday after a two-year investigation.

Federal authorities released the findings of a two-year investigation into the Sheriff's Department's Lancaster and Palmdale stations in Mojave Desert, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. The report was in response to complaints made by some minority residents who moved to the area and said they were met with discrimination by law enforcement and government officials.

The report found the nation's largest sheriff's department engaged in a "pattern of unreasonable force" and investigated only one misconduct complaint out of 180 made by residents over a one-year period. Despite the findings, federal officials were encouraged by the response from Sheriff Lee Baca.

"While our investigation showed significant problems in LASD's Antelope Valley stations, we are confident that we will be able to reach an agreement that will provide meaningful and sustainable reform," said Roy Austin Jr., deputy assistant attorney general.

Baca disagrees with the report's conclusions, but has instituted reforms to improve the department, said Steve Whitmore, a department spokesman.

"We stand resolute that we have not discriminated against members of the public," Whitmore said. "We haven't seen any racial profiling."

The discrimination issue in the Antelope Valley has been simmering for years as the demographics shifted from primarily white to black and Latino. Blacks and Hispanics account for more than two-thirds of the city of Palmdale's roughly 150,000 residents, according to census statistics. The Antelope Valley also had the highest rate of hate crimes of any other area in Los Angeles County as of 2010, federal officials said.

Federal officials said black and Latino residents were more likely to be stopped and searched than other ethnicities, but were often released without being cited. Sheriff's deputies also unnecessarily put African-Americans in the backseat of their patrol cars for minor offenses, a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

In one instance, a domestic violence victim was placed in a patrol car, which agitated the suspect and let to both a physical struggle between the man and deputies and the victim getting pepper-sprayed because she also grew upset.


"Unjustified backseat detentions contribute to tension and diminished trust between Antelope Valley deputies and the community," federal officials wrote.

Sheriff's deputies also harassed and intimidated blacks and others during enforcement of a housing voucher program. Sometimes as many as nine deputies would accompany housing investigators during checks and would often have their guns drawn, federal officials said.

"The sheer number of armed, uniformed deputies who participated in many of the compliance checks call into question whether voucher holders were able to give meaningful consent," to inspections, according to the report.

The government and Los Angeles County have reached preliminary agreements to make broad changes to policing in the Antelope Valley and to enforcement of the housing voucher plan. Some of the reforms include revising training and use-of-force policies as well as participating in community meetings to gauge feedback from residents.

Whitmore said the department now has an exhaustive process to determine whether deputies need to come out during inspections. Deputies also carry complaint forms when they are on patrol. The forms are also available at the front desk of the two stations.

Baca has served four terms as sheriff and was named as the nation's Sheriff of the Year earlier this year by the National Sheriff's Association. Baca has been criticized for alleged misconduct by his deputies in the jails. The FBI is investigating.

The department's actions in the Antelope Valley have been scrutinized before. A July 2010 report by the nonprofit Police Assessment Resource Center found deputies were more likely to use force against minorities during an obstruction arrest than against whites.

The NAACP and the Community Action League also filed a lawsuit in 2011 accusing the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster of racial discrimination at low-income housing projects.

Black Victim Says Police Officers Begged Her Not To Prosecute White Burglary Suspect


Via Breaking Brown reports:

A black woman says she awoke to find a white man bleeding in her living room after having broken through her window to enter the home. She says she called 911 and expected police to do their job and arrest the suspect, but instead, she alleges officers minimized the break-in and encouraged her not to file charges against the white suspect.

Vivica Keyes, 54, says Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies minimized the seriousness of the January 23rd break in. Keyes says the responding officer told her that the assailant didn’t mean any harm and that Keyes should just let it go.

“[Officer Royo] told me that it was not a burglary because he hadn’t stolen anything, it was not a forced entry because he was spooked, she put it, and it was not an assault and battery because, in her opinion, I wasn’t hurt,” Keyes said in a statement, according to CBS Los Angeles.

Keyes said that the officers even went so far as to bring the assailant’s parents to her home so that they could beg her not to prosecute their son.

“A 29-year-old person was allowed to get his parents to my home within an hour of the incident,” said Keyes. “So my question is, who called him and how did they get to my house that quickly?”

Keyes continued: “The parents come up and just immediately start asking me not to press charges. And saying, you know, my son has never done anything like this.”

Keyes also says she believes the way officers handled the case was racial.

We don’t doubt that race may have been a factor and maybe the key factor in the police officer’s behavior, but we would be curious to know if the officers may have known the suspect and/or his family on a personal level.

Race Matters: Black Officer & Father Of 7 Gunned Down By Racist White Customer In Georgia Waffle House


Police Officer Gunned Down By Racist White Customer At Waffle House

A Georgia couple is set to face felony murder charges for the fatal shooting of an off-duty police officer that took place at a Georgia Waffle House over the weekend. The couple, along with another friend, were reportedly heard shouting racial slurs before one of them gunned down the officer as he was trying make an arrest.


A 43-year-old Griffin police officer and father of seven was only doing his job when he was shot and killed outside of a Waffle House early this morning while working an off-duty security job in full uniform, his brother said.

Raymond Jordan was there when Griffin police say Michael D. Bowman, 30, shot Officer Kevin Jordan multiple times. Raymond Jordan ultimately shot Bowman, who is in stable condition at Atlanta Medical Center.

“I don’t want to be bitter,” Raymond Jordan told Channel 2 Action News. “But the only regret I have is that I didn’t kill him.”

He told the television station that Bowman, Chantell Mixon and Tyler Taylor were drunk when they came to the Waffle House at 1702 North Expressway. He claimed the trio used racial slurs and did not respect his brother, an ex-Marine who had been with the Griffin Police Department for four years.

In a statement, Griffin police only said that Bowman, Mixon and Taylor caused a disturbance and were asked to leave the restaurant around 2:20 a.m. Saturday. An altercation spilled into the parking lot, where Officer Kevin Jordan tried to arrest Mixon, Officer Mike Richardson with the Griffin Police Department said. Mixon is Bowman’s 28-year-old girlfriend, according to Channel 2.

Officer Kevin Jordan was on the ground trying to restrain Mixon when police say Bowman “maliciously shot” him multiple times in the back, Richardson said.

Raymond Jordan was in the parking lot when the gunfire erupted and grabbed his own gun, Richardson said. A civilian, he had a permit to carry a gun and was at the restaurant to visit his brother, who often worked there on weekends, police said. Raymond Jordan was not charged Saturday in Bowman’s shooting, and police offered no explanation.

Bowman and Mixon were charged with felony murder in Officer Kevin Jordan’s shooting death.


Obama Mannequin Lynched Over A Bridge In Racist Missouri County


Yahoo News reports

A fully clothed mannequin wearing a President Barack Obama mask was discovered hanging by a rope from a highway overpass in the Kansas City area on Monday, police said.

Interstate 70 was closed down briefly while a bomb squad investigated because sheriff’s deputies saw a suspicious device attached to the mannequin, said Sergeant Ronda Montgomery of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

No explosives were found on the mannequin, which was discovered on a bridge about 25 miles (40 km) east of Kansas City, Montgomery said. The mannequin was reported to the authorities around daybreak and it is unclear how long it had been hanging from the structure, she said.

A rope was used to string up the mannequin but authorities were not releasing specific details, Montgomery said, adding that the incident was still under investigation.

“We are trying to put pieces of the puzzle together, but it’s early,” Montgomery said.

Fair Or Foul?? Baltimore Passes 9PM Curfew For “Urban” Kids Under 17 To Reduce Chicago-Like Summer Crime


Baltimore’s city council has passed a much-debated curfew law that means young people will be required to be off the streets by as early as 9 p.m.

Via The Grio reports:

The existing curfew law allows kids under 17 to stay out until 11 p.m. during the week and midnight on weekends, but the new law pushes those times earlier by two hours in some cases.

“There’s already a huge amount of police brutality, with adults being targeted, but now police are going to have the green light to do the exact same thing to young people,” said opponent Colleen Davidson, a youth organizer of a group called Fist.

Supporters, including the mayor, said the main job for the connection center is to connect kids and their families to support and services.

“This is about taking them out of harm’s way before a situation materializes where their being on the street becomes a law enforcement concern,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.

Do you think the curfew will reduce crime or just something new to target Black kids?