An explosive new report in The Guardian claims the Chicago police are operating a secret compound for detentions and interrogations, often with abusive methods. According to The Guardian, detainees as young as 15 years old have been taken to a nondescript warehouse known as Homan Square. Some are calling it the domestic equivalent of a CIA "black site" overseas. Prisoners were denied access to their attorneys, beaten and held for up to 24 hours without any official record of their detention. Two former senior officials in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are calling on their colleagues to launch a probe into allegations of excessive use of force, denial of right to counsel and coercive interrogations. We speak to Spencer Ackerman, national security editor at The Guardian. We are also joined by Victoria Suter, who was held at Homan Square after being arrested at the NATO protests in Chicago in 2012.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
The History Of Lynchings In America. STUDY Released
"On Tuesday, the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., released a report on the history of lynchings in the United States, the result of five years of research and 160 visits to sites around the South. The authors of the report compiled an inventory of 3,959 victims of “racial terror lynchings” in 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950.
Next comes the process of selecting lynching sites where the organization plans to erect markers and memorials, which will involve significant fund-raising, negotiations with distrustful landowners and, almost undoubtedly, intense controversy.
The process is intended, Mr. Stevenson said, to force people to reckon with the narrative through-line of the country’s vicious racial history, rather than thinking of that history in a short-range, piecemeal way.
“Lynching and the terror era shaped the geography, politics, economics and social characteristics of being black in America during the 20th century,” Mr. Stevenson said, arguing that many participants in the great migration from the South should be thought of as refugees fleeing terrorism rather than people simply seeking work.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Unarmed Black Carpenter Shot 8 Times By California Police Awarded $2.5 Million In Settlement
The state of California agreed Tuesday to pay $2.5 million to settle an excessive-force lawsuit filed by an African-American carpenter who was shot at least eight times by a white CHP rookie during a traffic stop.
The state offered the settlement on the first day of trial in federal court, after the officer who shot James Henry Ligon Jr. in 2012 testified that Ligon stepped out of his car and charged directly at him, shouting threats. The problem with CHP officer Joe Lafauci’s account was it did not match the physical evidence in the case, said Ligon’s lawyers, Jaime Leanos and Nelson McElmurry. Ligon was shot four times in the back, suggesting he was not coming at the officer.
“Officer Lafauci immediately went for his gun, unlike his more experienced partner, who got out of the patrol car without even taking out his gun,” just his Taser, McElmurry said.
Lafauci had only 14 months on the job when he emptied his service pistol of 12 rounds, at least eight of which hit Ligon.
Ligon, now 37, said he had stepped out of his car after leading the CHP on a high-speed chase for three miles because he couldn’t hear what the officers were yelling and to show them he was unarmed.
Details surrounding what led to the high speed chase reveal that Mr. Ligon was suspected of drunk driving at the time of the incident.
According to Sunnyvale police, which investigated Ligon’s shooting, Lafauci and fellow CHP officer Cory Walczak tried to stop Ligon in a gold Toyota Corolla about 1:30 a.m. on southbound Highway 101 near Ellis Street, suspecting he was driving drunk. It was later determined he had an estimated blood-alcohol level of .25-.32, at least three times above the legal limit of .08. He was on probation at the time for possession of mushrooms for sale.
Ligon did not pull over and instead drove onto city streets in Sunnyvale for about three miles to the 200 block of Alturas Avenue, near where his mother lived. He was driving her car and did not want it to be impounded, Leanos said. Ligon pleaded no contest to felony evading and misdemeanor DUI charges, after prosecutors dropped a felony resisting arrest charge.
This case serves as a great example for how these types of incidents SHOULD be handled. No one is advocating that people breaking the law should get off scott-free (drunk driving and evading police is certainly a punishable offense) however, police officers shooting to kill should NEVER be the first course of action without consequence when a suspect makes it clear that he is unarmed.
Retired St. Louis Cop: White Officers View Black People As “Something To Practice On To Get Their Skills Straight”
As police officers across the country continue to show little to no regard for black lives, one retired St. Louis police officer sat down with the Atlanta Blackstar to shed some light on the ugly truth behind the badge for many of his white former-peers.
It was frustration with the racism he felt from the police officers who frequently pulled him over in his late-model vehicle that compelled Glenn Rogers to become a police officer in the St. Louis area 25 years ago. And it is still racism in the police force that is pushing Rogers to speak out now in anger and frustration, seven years after his retirement.
Rogers, 64, is a former police officer and undercover detective for several municipalities in St. Louis County and was a police chief for a short time in southwestern Illinois and a police chaplain in three different departments. He has watched the events transpiring in Ferguson with the unique perspective of someone who understands what it’s like on both sides of the badge.
From the first days after he joined the police force of a town in St. Louis County in 1990—a place that, like Ferguson, had an overwhelmingly white police department in a majority Black town—Rogers was stunned by the obvious contempt his white colleagues had for the Black citizens they were paid to serve and protect.
“As I began to see how Black people got talked to, treated, grabbed, arrested, how they got dealt with when being incarcerated, to me it looked like something off a slave boat when you actually saw the booking process and the handcuffing process,” Rogers, 64, told Atlanta Blackstar in an exclusive interview. “It was just a long lineup of Black people. I don’t think in the first year I saw more than one or two white people arrested. And those were usually for failure to appear for tickets.”
Rogers also went on to describe the mentality that he observed first-hand for of many of his white counterparts during his time as an officer.
Over the next few years, Rogers said he could not believe how much heartlessness and hostility white officers brought into encounters with Black people. Rogers calls this the “human element”—the part of the job where officers get to use their discretion in deciding how to respond to any given situation.
These are the situations where Black people often met danger.
“The human element has got to be put in check,” said Rogers, who has served as a police advisor to six different mayors in the St. Louis area. “There is an area of discretion involved in every job and the same with law enforcement. The human element has to decipher and make a decision when it’s not clearcut by law or by what is apparent before you. When they say cops have split seconds to make decisions, it is not a lie. The main goal of a police officer—as I told the new officers I trained—is to go home at night. You can’t trust anybody on the street because you don’t know what they’re going to do. But with that, you also have an obligation to be humane, to only use what is necessary to accomplish your job and go home at night. I found that many times white officers do things knowing that Black people don’t stick together, knowing you can always do something to a Black person and 95 percent of the time you will come out unscathed and it will go away and you can continue as usual.”
Former officer Rogers later made a disturbing revelation about many white officers viewing black people as good to “practice on” to perfect their skillset because blacks often don’t stick together and don’t know the law.
Rogers said the white officers knew Black people weren’t likely to know how the system worked, or to understand their rights, so it was easy to make them run afoul of the law.
“They saw Black people in my opinion as the people you could practice on and get your skills straight,” he said. “They were the people who didn’t know how to deal with the system, so therefore they would make all the mistakes that needed to be made for officers to do to them the things they do to people who make those mistakes. This is why I saw it is intentional that the public is never taught the real mechanics of the law.
If you do so, you will eliminate hundreds of thousands if not millions of incidents where they encounter the police or are candidates for arrest.
Philadelphia Cops Arrested After Video Proves They Lied About Assault On Unarmed Black Man
(VIDEO OF INCIDENT BELOW)
SMH. Yet another case of men in blue severely injuring a black man and lying about it has emerged.
The Philadelphia Police Department called a press conference this week to address new surveillance video that revealed the corrupt and brutal actions of two of their own two years ago. The incident involved Officers Kevin Robinson and Sean McKnight who have been arrested charged with Aggravated Assault, Simple Assault, Criminal Conspiracy, Recklessly Endangering Another Person, Tampering with Public Records or Information, False Reports to Law Enforcement Authorities, Obstructing Administration of Law, and Official Oppression.
Via ABC6 reports:
In a Thursday morning press conference, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said the two officers were seen on video beating 23-year-old Najee Rivera.
Around 10:00 p.m. on May 29, 2013, near North 7th and Somerset streets, McKnight, a seven year veteran of the force, and Robinson, a six year veteran of the force, both of the 25th Police District pulled over Rivera on his motor scooter.
Robinson and McKnight said Rivera was injured after falling off his scooter and hitting the pavement.
In the officers’ story, they said Rivera resisted arrest, tried to grab a police baton, and that’s when one of the officers hit him in the face.
Police charged Rivera with resisting arrest and aggravated assault. However, prior to the case going to court, a surveillance video emerged from a nearby store.
Rivera’s girlfriend had been searching for video that captured the incident.
SMH… The lies they tell. Good thing Rivera’s girlfriend was persistent. That video put all the lies to bed.
Williams said Rivera didn’t just fall off his scooter, but one of the officers can be seen on the video reaching out the window of the patrol car and clubbing Rivera in the head.
The patrol car, without sirens or lights flashing, bumped the scooter and Rivera fell to the ground.
Both officers got out of the vehicle, Williams said, and repeatedly struck Rivera with their fists and baton.
“He never resisted. He never struck them. He never fought back. They just started hitting him,” Williams said.
Williams said Rivera can be heard screaming for help on the video.
After the beating, the D.A. says Rivera was handcuffed and for several minutes they kept him there while he was bleeding.
Rivera received a fractured orbital bone and numerous lacerations to his head.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey says Robinson and McKnight have been suspended for 30 days with intent to dismiss from the force.
They were removed from street duty in 2013 when Ramsey became aware of the new facts.
Rivera filed a lawsuit in federal court and won a $200,000 settlement from the city. Thank God for his girlfriend going after that video. She’s a good one Najee, you might want to wife her!
Friday, February 6, 2015
William Wingate, 70, Arrested July 9, 2014 in Seattle Using Golf Club as Weapon
Via Raw Story:
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) has launched an investigation into an incident in which an officer arrested an elderly veteran who was using a golf club as a walking stick.
The arrest has sparked outrage in the city and calls for the officer, Cynthia Whitlach, to be fired. She has been put on desk duty while the investigation continues.
On Thursday, Mayor Ed Murray discussed the incident with police chief Kathleen O’Toole, who took up her post last summer promising reform.
Officer Whitlatch, who is white, arrested 70-year-old William Wingate, who is black, in the city last July on charges of obstruction, after accusing him of “swinging” the golf club at her. But a video and audio recording of the encounter on the sunny street, captured on the police cruiser’s camera, showed Wingate did nothing of the sort.
(VIDEO OF INCIDENT BELOW)
News of the investigation follows an incident earlier this month , in which a member of the public shot footage of a Seattle police officer pepper-spraying a male teacher and a middle-aged woman who were walking away from a protest march.
In 2011, a US Department of Justice investigation into the SPD found a pattern of excessive force and possible bias . Whitlatch was one of more than 100 officers who filed a lawsuit last year to knock down the agreement between the city and the DoJ , although that lawsuit failed in October .
Whitlatch also made widely reported comments on Facebook about “black racism” and African Americans blaming their problems on whites.
Seattle police released video footage of the encounter between Whitlatch and Wingate. In the video, Whitlatch is seen encountering Wingate on a street corner. He is leaning on the golf club, and the officer can be heard calling from her cruiser for him to put the club down, because it is a weapon.
In a surprised and puzzled tone, Wingate asks “What?”
He then tells Whitlatch he has been using the club as a cane for 20 years. She starts shouting at him to “set down” or “shut down” the club – the audio is not entirely clear.
Wingate is holding a small shopping bag in one hand and the club in the other – he raises his arms in a slight shrug of apparent confusion and irritation. At that point, Whitlatch shouts: “You swung that golf club at me.”
The exchange continues until another officer arrives and an arrest is made.
Wingate spent the night in jail. The case against him was later dismissed; the police have apologised.
William Wingate, 70, was arrested last summer for "walking in Seattle while black
In November, Wingate’s attorney, Susan Mindenbergs, filed a claim against the city. The claim, which seeks at least $750,000 in damages, says Wingate’s civil rights were violated and his only crime was “walking in Seattle while black”.
The Seattle King County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People said the actions by the SPD were “too little, too late”. It has called for Whitlatch to be fired.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2015
Dashcam Footage Proves Seattle Cop Lied To Arrest Elderly Man
William Wingate had been standing on a busy Seattle street corner in July, leaning on a golf club he uses as a cane, when a police cruiser pulled up and the officer inside yelled at Wingate to “put that down.”
The resulting exchange — in which the officer claims that Wingate swung the club at her after she asked him to “shut it down” before she arrested him – was captured on the cruiser’s dashboard camera, the footage of which Seattle Police released this week as it apologized for the 2014 incident.
The response to that video prompted Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole to announce Wednesday that she was ordering a comprehensive review of the officer’s performance during Wingate’s arrest and another incident. A department spokesperson identified the officer as Cynthia Whitlatch
Update:Police Arrest Public Defender For Refusing To Allow Police IntimiThe San Francisco deputy public defender who was arrested at the Hall of Justice for allegedly obstructing police filed a misconduct complaint Thursday against the city officers who handcuffed her when she questioned why they were photographing one of her clients outside a courtroom. Attorney Jami Tillotson took her case to the civilian Office of Citizen Complaints after Police Chief Greg Suhr told the Police Commission late Wednesday that the department will not pursue charges against her. Suhr apologized “for any distress Ms. Tillotson suffered as a result of her detention,” but he stood by the actions of Sgt. Brian Stansbury and the other officers who arrested the lawyer. Suhr’s announcement came at the same meeting in which the American Civil Liberties Union called for a review of police policy, saying last week’s courthouse incident, which was filmed and viewed on YouTube millions of times, raised serious questions about tactics and racial profiling. Tillotson’s client is black. “While I appreciate Chief Suhr’s apology, I am concerned that he continues to support Sgt. Brian Stansbury’s actions,” Tillotson said in a statement Thursday. “My client, a young African American man, was left without the benefit of advice of counsel. The right to counsel is not a formality. It is a shield that protects ordinary people against intimidation, bullying, and overreach by law enforcement.”
The San Francisco deputy public defender who was arrested at the Hall of Justice for allegedly obstructing police filed a misconduct complaint Thursday against the city officers who handcuffed her when she questioned why they were photographing one of her clients outside a courtroom.
Attorney Jami Tillotson took her case to the civilian Office of Citizen Complaints after Police Chief Greg Suhr told the Police Commission late Wednesday that the department will not pursue charges against her. Suhr apologized “for any distress Ms. Tillotson suffered as a result of her detention,” but he stood by the actions of Sgt. Brian Stansbury and the other officers who arrested the lawyer.
Suhr’s announcement came at the same meeting in which the American Civil Liberties Union called for a review of police policy, saying last week’s courthouse incident, which was filmed and viewed on YouTube millions of times, raised serious questions about tactics and racial profiling. Tillotson’s client is black.
“While I appreciate Chief Suhr’s apology, I am concerned that he continues to support Sgt. Brian Stansbury’s actions,” Tillotson said in a statement Thursday. “My client, a young African American man, was left without the benefit of advice of counsel. The right to counsel is not a formality. It is a shield that protects ordinary people against intimidation, bullying, and overreach by law enforcement.”
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