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Latest Articles: Watching The Cops
Sheriff's Employee Embezzled Funds in Keeping with the Spirit of Civil Asset Forfeiture
Post Date: 2023-03-01 17:38:57 by Charles_Byrd
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Critics of civil asset forfeiture quite rightly refer to the practice of swiping cash and property from people accused (but not convicted) of crimes as "legalized theft." That enrages law enforcement types who insist they're just abiding by the law, never mind that the law is contemptible. But there are times when forfeiture clearly crosses over into outright robbery, such as when John Cox, an Albany County, New York, sheriff's department employee, used seized proceeds to cover his lousy luck with cards or horses. It's simultaneously awful and thoroughly in keeping with the policy of civil asset forfeiture. "The head of the Albany County Sheriff's Office ...
Attorney general intervenes after newsman covering train derailment arrested
Post Date: 2023-02-15 20:11:54 by Charles_Byrd
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A NewsNation reporter who was arrested in eastern Ohio while covering the train derailment which sparked a large chemical plume over the town had his charges dropped Wednesday, the state attorney general confirmed. Reporter Evan Lambert was arrested on Feb. 8 while giving a live report during a press conference during which Republican Gov. Mike DeWine gave an update on the train derailment that caused the mass evacuation of nearly 2,000 residents before hazardous chemicals were released from the cars. Videos of the incident did not provide enough evidence to warrant criminal trespass or disorderly conduct charges, according to Republican Attorney General Dave Yost. Click for Full Text!
More Proof the FBI Is Being Weaponized Against American Citizens
Post Date: 2023-02-14 19:38:37 by Charles_Byrd
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On Thursday, former FBI agent Nicole Parker, an 11-year veteran of the agency before she quit four months ago, testified before the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government. Click for Full Text!
Police Accountability is a “Non-Starter” Without Discarding the Qualified Immunity Doctrine
Post Date: 2023-02-14 19:26:44 by Charles_Byrd
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Some reps in Congress assert that dismantling qualified immunity (“QI”)— a police officer’s so-called good faith defense to a civil rights lawsuit—is a “non-starter” in negotiations to pass the George Floyd Civil Rights Act. In reality, meaningful police accountability is a non- starter without discarding QI. QI is a regressive framework which has turned federal civil rights lawsuits into sheer games of chance with bad odds. Under QI, the Supreme Court instructs judges to apply a two-pronged analysis, in a specific order: first to examine whether the right sought to be vindicated was clearly-established at the time, and second to examine whether the ...
An Alabama Man Was Taken to Jail. Two Weeks Later, He Was Dead From Hypothermia.
Post Date: 2023-02-14 18:36:31 by Charles_Byrd
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An Alabama man was taken into custody last month following a violent altercation with police. Two weeks later, he died from hypothermia, having seemingly been placed into the jail's freezer. A lawsuit filed by the family of Anthony "Tony" Mitchell on Monday alleges that officers at a Walker County, Alabama, jail engaged in horrific abuse against the 33-year-old, eventually leading to his death. Click for Full Text!
After Tyre Nichols Killing, It's Once Again Time To Build a Bipartisan Movement for Police Reform
Post Date: 2023-02-11 01:42:46 by Charles_Byrd
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A late acquaintance offered the following scenario to determine a person's fundamental attitudes. Let's say we happen upon police officers beating a suspect. We know nothing about the incident beyond what we're witnessing. Is our gut instinct outrage at the smackdown—or do we figure the cops must be in the right and the suspect no doubt is getting what he deserves? As someone who generally distrusts government authority and has covered several troubling police-use-of-force incidents, you can probably guess where I'd come down. But I know people who have been victims of violent crime and seem more likely to side with the police. Typically, people tend to make snap ...
Detroit Woman Sues City After Police Officers Shot Her Dog and Left It in a Trash Can
Post Date: 2023-02-09 00:47:07 by Charles_Byrd
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A Detroit woman filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city today after police shot her dog and left it in a neighbor's trash can. In a complaint filed against the city of Detroit and an individual Detroit police officer, Tiffany Lindsay says her Fourth Amendment rights were violated last September when the officer entered her enclosed backyard without a search warrant and shot her pit bull, Jack. Click for Full Text!
The Cops Who Killed Tyre Nichols Could Be Convicted of Murder and Still Get Qualified Immunity
Post Date: 2023-02-09 00:43:54 by Charles_Byrd
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At his State of the Union address last night, President Joe Biden introduced the family of Tyre Nichols, who was killed in early January by Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers during a traffic stop. The footage, released several weeks later, was brutal and condemned almost universally, reigniting a stagnant debate about how to give victims of state violence some justice after their rights are violated by the government. "When police officers or departments violate the public's trust," said Biden, "we must hold them accountable." Click for Full Text!
Alabama Dodges Police Transparency, Hiding Violent Body Camera Footage from Public
Post Date: 2023-02-09 00:38:19 by Charles_Byrd
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The lead-up to the release of body-camera footage showing Memphis police officers beating Tyre Nichols included public calls for calm out of fear that citizens might riot after seeing the violent footage. While there were some protests and isolated incidents, the rioting did not happen. But in Alabama, those fears have been used to stop the public release of police body-camera footage entirely. Click for Full Text!
Tyre Nichols Documents: Officer Never Explained Stop to Him
Post Date: 2023-02-08 21:53:34 by Charles_Byrd
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The officer who pulled Tyre Nichols from his car before police fatally beat him never explained why he was being stopped, newly released documents show, and emerging reports from Memphis residents suggest that was common. The Memphis Police Department blasted Demetrius Haley and four other officers as “blatantly unprofessional” and asked that they be stripped of the ability to work as police for their role in the Jan. 7 beating, according to documents released Tuesday by the Tennessee Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission. Click for Full Text!
‘Riotsville, USA’ Shows the Birth of Police Militarization
Post Date: 2023-02-07 19:02:59 by Charles_Byrd
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After the 2014 police killing of Laquan McDonald, Chicago officials appointed a commission to study policing in the city. When the commission issued its report two years later, Steve Bogira of the Chicago Reader noticed that the report bore striking similarities to a report issued after the death of Daniel Claiborne, a 70-year-old Black man, also at the hands of police. Both reports, Bogira noted, found that residents in the city’s minority neighborhoods were frequently subjected to illegal stop and frisks. Both found that Black and Latino residents reported frequent verbal harassment and humiliation from police. Both reports found that police misconduct complaints were almost never ...
Tyre Nichols’s Death Proves Yet Again That ‘Elite’ Police Units Are a Disaster
Post Date: 2023-02-06 16:34:32 by Charles_Byrd
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The website of the Memphis Police Department includes an entire section called “Reimagine Policing.” The introduction emphasizes that trust is the key to effective law enforcement and proclaims the department’s participation in reform efforts such as President Barack Obama’s 21st Century Policing program, de-escalation training and the “8 Can’t Wait” reforms proposed by the group Campaign Zero. Yet in 2021, as homicides in the city soared, the city announced the formation of the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, or SCORPION. The teams, which included four groups of 10 officers each, would saturate crime hot spots in the ...
Brickbat: Remember, We Never Met
Post Date: 2023-02-06 14:56:36 by Charles_Byrd
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Hialeah, Florida, police officers Rafael Quinones Otano and Lorenzo Rafael Orfila have been fired and charged with armed kidnapping and battery. Orfila has also been charged with official misconduct. Click for Full Text!
DOJ Probes Memphis PD on Tyre Nichols' Killing
Post Date: 2023-02-05 21:18:39 by Charles_Byrd
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The U.S. Justice Department will participate in a review of the Memphis Police Department after the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man fatally beaten by officers in the Tennessee city last month, according to city officials. The review was disclosed in a bulletin by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. The bulletin said the Justice Department as well as the International Association of Chiefs of Police would take part in an "independent, external review" requested by the city to assess the Memphis Police Department's special units and use-of-force policies. Click for Full Text!
The Police Cannot Be a Law Unto Themselves
Post Date: 2023-02-01 17:04:42 by Charles_Byrd
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In 2020, during the weeks of protest and civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, I argued that the problem of police violence and misconduct was a problem of democracy. And this week, in the wake of yet another police killing caught on camera, I think it’s worth saying, again, that the institution of American policing lies outside any meaningful democratic control. You can think of accountability for public institutions in two ways: on the back end and on the front end. Click for Full Text!
Illinois Town Will Pay $12 Million to Family After SWAT Officer Shot 12-Year-Old in Kneecap
Post Date: 2023-02-01 16:32:18 by Charles_Byrd
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The city of Richton Park, Illinois, will pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from a 2019 SWAT raid during which a police officer shot a 12-year-old boy in the kneecap, a lawyer for the boy's family announced today. The federal civil rights lawsuit, filed by Crystal Worship on behalf of her son Amir, alleged that SWAT team officers from the Country Club Hills and Richton Park police departments burst into their house on the night of May 26, 2019, throwing flashbangs and detaining the family, including Amir and his 13-year-old brother, at gunpoint. Click for Full Text!
Democratic Mayor Eric Adams of New York mandated all city employees complete a “racial equity” training before a March 6 deadline, Fox News reported. The training emphasizes the importance of recognizing “racial equity” in the workplace, according t
Post Date: 2023-01-30 21:48:40 by Charles_Byrd
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Addis, Louisiana, police officer David Cauthron has been charged with two counts of negligent homicide and one count of negligent injuring for his role in a high-speed chase on New Year's Eve that left two teens dead. The chase started after a man stole a family member's car. Cauthron reportedly ran a red light and slammed into an unrelated vehicle in which the teens were riding. Click for Full Text!
Brickbat: Didn't You See Me?
Post Date: 2023-01-26 23:50:29 by Charles_Byrd
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The Waterbury, Connecticut, police department has fired officer James Hinkle for screaming at and berating a woman who drove through an intersection where he was directing traffic. Click for Full Text!
LAPD Officers Tased a Confused, Terrified Man Who Then Died, All Over a Minor Car Collision
Post Date: 2023-01-20 00:48:53 by Charles_Byrd
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A man died earlier this month after being Tased six times in less than a minute by Los Angeles police during a traffic incident. Now activists are demanding answers and changes to how, or even whether, police should respond to these types of calls. Body camera footage released a week ago from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) shows Keenan Darnell Anderson, 31, in pretty bad mental shape when police showed up at the scene of a car crash at a busy Venice intersection on January 3. According to the LAPD, officers were responding to a call of a hit-and-run, and witnesses said Anderson, driving a BMW, was responsible for the crash. Anderson was a 10th-grade English teacher in Washington, ...
Brickbat: Close Enough
Post Date: 2023-01-20 00:47:00 by Charles_Byrd
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Julie Hudson spent a week in a Pennsylvania jail because a police officer in Texas thought she looked like a robbery suspect. Hudson, a doctoral student at Holy Family University, had been told she had an outstanding warrant when she was turned down for a job she'd applied for. When she went to police to find out why, she was arrested on a warrant from Texas, a state she has never been to. It took seven days for police in Webster, Texas, to determine she wasn't the woman they were looking for. Why did they think she was? Click for Full Text!
Brickbat: A Real Ninja
Post Date: 2023-01-17 23:25:55 by Charles_Byrd
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The Denver sheriff's office has suspended Deputy Daniel Rodriguez for 10 days, with seven of them suspended, for using excessive force on a man being booked into the jail. Rodriguez reportedly broke the man's wrist with nunchucks when the man fought with deputies. Click for Full Text!
'Humiliated': Americans detained, fined thousands for using wrong lane at border
Post Date: 2023-01-10 21:13:15 by Charles_Byrd
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Being shackled to a metal bench, left for hours, and then fined thousands of dollars. Or in the alternative having their car confiscated. Click for Full Text!
Phoenix Police Sued Over Death of Mentally Ill Man in Their Custody
Post Date: 2023-01-06 00:25:35 by Charles_Byrd
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Akeem Terrell had been behaving peculiarly at a party on New Year's Day in 2021, and did not cooperate with Phoenix, Arizona, police trying to arrest him after they ordered him to leave. He died in custody later that day. Now surviving family members of Terrell's are suing Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, the county itself, the city of Phoenix, and various officers involved in causing Terrell's death. The suit was filed last week in federal court in Arizona, suing over various alleged constitutional rights violations, and seeking compensatory and punitive damages and court costs. Click for Full Text!
Brickbat: See You Later
Post Date: 2022-12-28 23:17:35 by Charles_Byrd
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Old Saybrook, Conn., Police Department Officer Josh Zarbo has been placed on administrative leave after being charged with computer crime. Zarbo ran the license plate of a woman he met at Walmart, where he was working security, and soon after that started following her on Instagram. Zarbo claims he ran her license plate because she seemed suspicious. But shortly before seeking that information, he texted a friend, "Bro I am gaming right now." That's apparently slang for trying to pick up women. Click for Full Text!
Private Security: An Effective Method to Prevent Being a Crime Victim
Post Date: 2022-12-22 15:44:01 by Charles_Byrd
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In the face of rampant crime, many individuals and businesses turn to private security as an alternative to government protection. One example is the Karco gas station in Philadelphia, which has hired heavily armed guards from Pennsylvania S.I.T.E. Agents to patrol its premises. The guards are equipped with Kevlar vests and either AR-15s or shotguns, and the owner claims that since hiring the guards, the gas station has been free of loitering and other criminal activity. The failure of state police and the justice system to effectively protect citizens is what has led many people to turn to private security and the use of firearms for self-defense. In some states, restrictive gun control ...
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