Alabama’s Uncivilized Prisons are Indicative of Society’s Sickness: Report says the Homicide Rate is More than 600% Higher than the National Average

Alabama’s Prisons are the Deadliest in US. From [HERE] On November 19, 2018, James Lewis Kennedy was fatally stabbed at Elmore Correctional Facility in Alabama.

Kennedy had served 14 years of a life sentence with parole, following a 2004 conviction of burglary and attempted murder. His release was set for November 26, 2018, one week after he was killed, his sister Teresa told ThinkProgress.

“He wouldn’t have risked anything, he wanted to get out,” Teresa said of her brother, who was an auto-mechanic with five children. One of his sons would call him at prison several times a week and they’d talk for hours. Another is due to graduate from high school this year, a ceremony Kennedy was looking forward to.

Kennedy’s case isn’t unique in Alabama, where the prison homicide rate is the highest in the nation at more than 34 per 100,000 prisoners. The level of violence has skyrocketed over the past 10 years, as prisons in the state come under fire for “horrendously inadequate” care that violate the U.S. constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Holman Penitentiary in Escambia County, Alabama is one of the state’s worst offenders. Over the course of nine days last month, from December 2 to December 11, there were at least four separate stabbing incidents at Holman alone.

In response to the slew of stabbings, the Free Alabama Movement (FAM), a campaign of incarcerated individuals organizing through non-violent direct action for the end of prison slavery, called for an emergency response task force to lead a fact-finding mission at Holman, seeking to bring clarity and public scrutiny to the situation.

While an investigation has not yet been initiated, other prisoner advocates have taken it upon themselves to raise awareness of the crisis. Following the murder of Vaquerro Kinjuan, a 29-year-old with a 22-year sentence for first degree robbery, who died in the first series of stabbings at Holman in December, Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based non-profit committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment, published a report showing that the homicide rate in Alabama prisons is more than 600 percent higher than the national average.

Prisoners like Derrick, who has served 20 years of a 22-year sentence at Holman and wishes to withhold his last name for safety reasons, claim that corrections officers knowingly “put certain people close to each other that have a history of violence toward one another, which leads to more blood spilled. If they wanted the violence to stop, they wouldn’t keep doing this.”

The reason, according to Derrick and prison justice groups, is that the state, pointing to overcrowding and minimal staffing, wants to justify building more maximum security prisons, a move that would only exacerbate the current crisis.

Homicides aren’t the only threat in Alabama penitentiaries. For decades, prisoners at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama have been raped and forced to engage in oral sex by corrections officers. Incidents of officers watching women in the shower, groping them, organizing strip shows, and refusing to give women clean uniforms unless they partook in sexual acts were reported by the Department of Justice in 2014. Those who report the abuse are often locked in solitary confinement. [MORE]

Philly Narcotics Cops Faked Paperwork to Hide Snitches. Hundreds of Cases May be Challenged.

From [Philly.com] In May 2017, Philadelphia Narcotics Bureau supervisors Inspector Raymond Evers and Chief Inspector Anthony Boyle called staff into a police conference room in Germantown for a mandatory meeting. Evers would later describe it as a “pep talk” to "get better-quality investigations.”

But what he outlined, according to a 177-page August 2018 Internal Affairs report obtained by the Inquirer, was a scheme to flip low-level suspects into off-the-books confidential informants through a process that would evolve into falsifying paperwork, as well as hiding information from the District Attorney’s Office.

Some officers at the meeting described the system that Evers outlined — and that he, in at least three cases, personally oversaw — as illegal and a violation of police directives, according to the report. It sustained allegations Evers abused his authority, failed to supervise subordinates, and then lied during the course of the investigation about it. Internal Affairs also sustained charges against Boyle for failure to supervise, and against two officers for false paperwork.

The Police Board of Inquiry, the department panel that ultimately determines guilt and administers discipline, has not yet held a hearing.

“I was shocked by what the inspector and chief said. … These officers were provided improper instructions involving illegality,” narcotics Capt. Laverne Vann told investigators.

Narcotics Staff Inspector Debra Frazier said the recipe was simple: “Inspector Evers was encouraging the officers to obtain informants by flipping. Persons with a small amount of drugs, he said to put it on a property receipt and say you found it on the highway.”

The Internal Affairs investigation was launched in response to an anonymous letter “from stressed black personnel of the Narcotics Unit.” It echoes claims in a lawsuit against Evers, Boyle, and the city filed by the Guardian Civic League, an organization representing black police officers, and three African American narcotics officers, including Vann and Frazier, who claimed they suffered retaliation for resisting.

In a Thursday interview, Boyle said that he adhered to “legitimate and long-standing law-enforcement procedures,” and that any informant activity he was aware of was properly logged and reported to the DA. He called the allegations baseless, and said he believed Evers, too, had acted properly.

“It is 100 percent about attempts to get nonproductive members of the bureau to become productive or to get rid of them, and definitely a large portion of it, if not the total impetus, is an antiwhite sentiment among some of the minority officers.”

Evers said he would not comment based on his attorney’s advice.

The internal rift could have far-reaching consequences, according to Michael Mellon at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, who said hundreds of arrests made during and after Evers' yearlong tenure in leadership at Narcotics could be tainted.

“We believe that for close to two years the Philadelphia police narcotics units adopted an explicit policy and culture of altering and destroying evidence, hiding witnesses and suspects, and fabricating police paperwork, in an effort to coerce people into acting as confidential informants,” he said. “We have uncovered additional evidence of such activity beyond what is reported in the Evers investigation. This practice clearly violates the law, police protocol, and often the constitution.”

The concern with off-book flipping is it can produce informants motivated to lie in order to evade arrest, and it sidesteps any type of oversight by the DA or police Internal Affairs. But, more than that, it raises questions about what evidence may be obscured in drug busts that involved “flipping” — for example, if police are hiding that there was a second suspect in a house who may have been in possession of drugs.

“It’s impossible to know what the police destroyed or never recorded," Mellon said. “How can the citizens of the city trust that we have not been convicting innocent people?”

Alexandra Natapoff, professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the book Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice, said there’s nothing illegal about a police officer declining to arrest a suspect in hopes of extracting information. But falsifying documents and deceiving prosecutors often leads to injustice, she said.

“The famous problems with the use of criminal informants are that they lead to wrongful convictions because they lie to get a good deal or to avoid arrests themselves," she said. “They continue to commit crimes themselves, because they obtain a kind of impunity as a result of collaborating with the government, so they escape liability and accountability for their own crimes and then the whole process generates a secretive culture in which rule-breaking, cutting corners, and sometimes corruption is more likely to occur, because everyone knows that it’s very unlikely that anyone will find out what the deal was.”

Previous Philadelphia police narcotics scandals have led judges to reverse at least 1,500 cases after it was learned that police lied. More than 890 cases were tossed out since 2012 after a group of narcotics officers were accused of planting evidence, falsifying records, and even committing robberies on the job. Another 125 cases were dropped in connection with Chris Hulmes, an officer who lied about narcotics arrests. More recently, the Defender Association has filed a petition for review of 6,400 cases involving officers on a District Attorney’s Office do-not-call list of problem cops whose testimony wasn’t considered reliable.

Civil rights lawyer David Rudovsky, who reviewed the key points of the Internal Affairs report, said the investigation seemed incomplete, because it failed to establish how widespread the practice Evers outlined was, or how many cases were affected.

The Border Patrol has been a Cult of Brutality Since 1924

NEUROPEON BORDER PATROL HAPPILY DUMPS OUT WATER VOLUNTEERS HAD SET OUT FOR MIGRANTS IN THE DESERT. COPS DESTROY WASTER REGULARLY SO MIGRANTS DIE OF THIRST. [MORE]

From [intercept] SINCE ITS FOUNDING in the early 20th century, the U.S. Border Patrol has operated with near-complete impunity, arguably serving as the most politicized and abusive branch of federal law enforcement — even more so than the FBI during J. Edgar Hoover’s directorship.

The 1924 Immigration Act tapped into a xenophobia with deep roots in the U.S. history. The law effectively eliminated immigration from Asia and sharply reduced arrivals from southern and eastern Europe. Most countries were now subject to a set quota system, with the highest numbers assigned to western Europe. As a result, new arrivals to the United States were mostly white Protestants. Nativists were largely happy with this new arrangement, but not with the fact that Mexico, due to the influence of U.S. business interests that wanted to maintain access to low-wage workers, remained exempt from the quota system. “Texas needs these Mexican immigrants,” said the state’s Chamber of Commerce.

Having lost the national debate when it came to restricting Mexicans, white supremacists — fearing that the country’s open-border policy with Mexico was hastening the “mongrelization” of the United States — took control of the U.S. Border Patrol, also established in 1924, and turned it into a frontline instrument of race vigilantism. As the historian Kelly Lytle Hernández has shown, the patrol’s first recruits were white men one or two generations removed from farm life. Some had a military or county sheriff background, while others transferred from border-town police departments or the Texas Rangers — all agencies with their own long tradition of unaccountable brutality. Their politics stood in opposition to the big borderland farmers and ranchers. They didn’t think that Texas — or Arizona, New Mexico, and California — needed Mexican migrants.

Earlier, in the mid-1800s, the Mexican-American War had unleashed a broad, generalized racism against Mexicans throughout the nation. That racism slowly concentrated along an ever-more focused line: the border. While the 1924 immigration law spared Mexico a quota, a series of secondary laws — including one that made it a crime to enter the country outside official ports of entry — gave border and customs agents on-the-spot discretion to decide who could enter the country legally. They had the power to turn what had been a routine daily or seasonal event — crossing the border to go to work — into a ritual of abuse. Hygienic inspections became more widespread and even more degrading. Migrants had their heads shaved, and they were subjected to an increasingly arbitrary set of requirements and the discretion of patrollers, including literacy tests and entrance fees.

The patrol wasn’t a large agency at first — just a few hundred men during its early years — and its reach along a 2,000-mile line was limited. But over the years, its reported brutality grew as the number of agents it deployed increased. Border agents beat, shot, and hung migrants with regularity. Two patrollers, former Texas Rangers, tied the feet of one migrant and dragged him in and out of a river until he confessed to having entered the country illegally. Other patrollers were members of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, active in border towns from Texas to California. “Practically every other member” of El Paso’s National Guard “was in the Klan,” one military officer recalled, and many had joined the Border Patrol upon its establishment.

For more than a decade, the Border Patrol operated under the authority of the Department of Labor, which in the early years of the Great Depression, before the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his appointment of Frances Perkins as secretary of labor, was a major driver pushing deportation. Perkins, even before she entered FDR’s cabinet, had already criticized Border Patrol brutality. In office, she tried to limit the abuses of immigration officials as much as she could, curtailing warrantless arrests, allowing detained migrants phone calls, and working to extend the protections the New Deal offered citizens to migrant workers, including an effort to make abusive migrant labor contracts more equitable.

Reform was short-lived. The White House, bowing to pressure from agriculturalists, placed the Border Patrol, and migration policy more broadly, under the authority of the Department of Justice. More laws further criminalizing migration reinforced the Border Patrol’s power. For example, the end of the Bracero guest-worker program, along with the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which for the first time assigned quotas to Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere, now meant that thousands of seasonal Mexican workers were officially “illegal.”

Exporting Paramilitary Policing

At the same time, experience gained in migrant interdiction began to be exported internationally. The Border Patrol is often thought of, even by critics of its brutality, as a sleepy backwater federal agency, far removed from the Cold War’s ideological frontlines. But the Patrol played a role in expanding the radius of Washington’s national security doctrine — the tutoring of allied security forces in counterinsurgency tactics — and accelerating the tempo of paramilitary action. [MORE]

US Can’t Count or Track the Number of Non-White Immigrant Children Separated from Parents Pursuant to Trump's Family Destruction Policy, but It’s Thousands More than Reported

From [ABAJournal] and [HERE] The number of separated immigrant children is far greater than the amount revealed in a court-ordered review, according to a report released Thursday by the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS has so far identified 2,737 children transferred to its care by immigration authorities in response to a court order in Ms. L v. Ice, the class action lawsuit that obtained family reunification.

But thousands of children might have been separated from their parents and guardians during an influx of immigrants that began in 2017 before the court-required accounting, the report says. The Washington Post, Politico, CNN and the New York Times have coverage.

The total number of separated families is unknown, the report revealed.

Nor is it known whether children have been reunified with families if they were separated during the 2017 influx, HHS Inspector General Ann Maxwell told Politico and other reporters in a press call.

The Department of Homeland Security separated the children from their families and transferred them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an office of HHS.

The IG’s report identifies several reasons why children haven’t been identified. The Department of Homeland Security has not provided detailed information about the children, and there isn’t an “integrated data system” to track children across agencies. There is also “complexity of determining which children should be considered separated.”

It is unclear whether recent changes to systems and processes will clear up the problems, according to the report. “The jury is still out on that,” Maxwell told the Washington Post.

More reports are planned, including reports on the children’s housing and health.

In the press call, Maxwell told reporters the current report doesn’t address whether senior Trump administration officials knew about the separations that occurred before an April 2018 announcement of a zero tolerance policy on illegal entry, according to Politico. “We did not, in this report, address who knew what, when,” Maxwell said.

The American Civil Liberties Union had filed the Ms. L lawsuit, which partly settled in September.

Lee Gelernt, lead attorney and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement Thursday: “We will be back in court over this latest revelation.”

“This policy was a cruel disaster from the start,” he said. “This report reaffirms that the government never had a clear picture of how many children it ripped from their parents.”

Amended Complaint for Jemel Roberson Reveals the Name of the White Cop who Fatally Shot a Black Security Guard Outside a Bar, But Elite White Media & Authorities Keep His Image Masked

From {NewYorkTimes] and [HERE] A suburban Chicago police department on Friday confirmed the name of the officer who shot a black security guard as he was detaining a suspected gunman who opened fire at the bar where he worked. The security guard, 26-year-old Jemel Roberson, stopped a mass shooting at the bar and was killed after the incident was over.

Officer Ian Covey [pictured above], a four-year veteran of the Midlothian Police Department, shot Roberson on Nov. 11 outside Manny's Blue Room Lounge, a bar in the neighboring suburb of Robbins, according to Police Chief Daniel Delaney.

The name of the officer who shot her son was revealed as part of a wrongful-death lawsuit she filed against the officer, Ian Covey of the Midlothian Police Department, and the village of Midlothian.

Hours after the amended complaint was filed on Friday, Chief Daniel Delaney confirmed the officer’s name in a press release.

Delaney had previously resisted calls to release Covey's name. Midlothian and Illinois state police had previously declined to name Officer Covey, even as Mr. Kulis subpoenaed records of the shooting and Mr. Roberson’s family pressed for the officer to be identified. The white media apparently has not pressed the issue with police and apparently Google and other elite racist suspects have managed to scrub the internet removing any images of the white cop. [MORE] It appears that no major news outlet has published an image of the white police officer - a so called “public servant” assigned a public badge number “serving” the community. One lone photo can be found on an Instagram page. Said photo has not been confirmed by cops or the disinterested media. There is nothing unique about such omissions when white cops harm Blacks or Latinos - contrary to any pretenses elite media protects authority. In what ways are such efforts [& lack thereof] similar to a klansman’s white hood masking his/her identity? Racism is carried out through deception, violence and cooperative control.  Part of the deception is not knowing who the racists are. It is difficult for non-white people to ‘always determine who is a racist, who is practicing racism and who is not - as it is impossible to monitor (or judge) all the individual actions and words of any white person at all times.’  Nevertheless, most white people, consciously or subconsciously participate in the system of white supremacy because it is in their perceived survival interest to do so. [MORE] This necessarily includes elite media - which as explained by Ishmael Reid is as white as a kkk picnic.

“If a young man shot a police officer, that young man’s picture would be on the TV tonight,” Gregory Kulis, Ms. Roberson’s lawyer, said at the news conference. “But for two months we have been looking for the name of the officer that killed Jemel Roberson.” [and the image is still not on TV]

The wrongful death suit was filed days after Roberson's killing and initially listed Covey as "Officer John Doe." Gregory Kulis, the attorney for Beatrice Roberson, has subpoenaed Midlothian and other law enforcement agencies whose officers responded to the incident to turn over any police dash camera or body camera video footage they captured at the scene.

Mr. Roberson, 26, was killed early on the morning of Nov. 11 as he detained a man who was believed to be involved in a shooting outside the bar in Robbins, Ill.

The shooting outside Manny's Blue Room Lounge has drawn national headlines, outrage and questions about whether race factored into the officer’s decision to open fire. Roberson was black. The officer is white.

Roberson was armed and licensed to carry a gun. He apprehended the gunman outside the bar, pinned him down and was waiting for police help when a responding officer from Midlothian arrived. 

Police say the officer ordered Roberson to drop his gun. Witnesses say they shouted at Covey that Roberson was a security guard. Roberson was wearing clothing emblazoned with the word “security” when he was shot. Mr. Roberson, who was licensed to carry a firearm, was holding the man at gunpoint.

The person Roberson apprehended had allegedly fired a weapon inside the bar moments earlier, wounding multiple people and drawing Covey and police officers from surrounding jurisdictions to rush to the establishment.

“I hear some people say he was shot,” Ms. Roberson said. “My son was not shot. My son was murdered.”

Jason Van Dyke's Wife Cried to White Judge: 'He did what he was trained to do' [translation: Cop was Authorized to Commit Unprovoked Acts of Genocidal Violence Against Black People for Our Survival]

BOO-HOO! Sovereign immunity was Not Available to White Cop who Murdered Laquan MacDonald but the white judge made sure the Law of the Jungle principles & Rules of White Supremacy Still Applied by Hooking Him up with a Light Sentence. Van Dyke’s wife said her life has been “a nightmare” since her husband was charged. She said she was denied a job and her daughter was not accepted into a dance group because of their last name.

If Van Dyke goes to prison, she said, her biggest fear is “somebody will kill my husband for something he did as a police officer, something he was trained to do.”

She looked up over her shoulder and addressed the judge directly: “His life is over. Please, please. He has paid the price already … I beg for the least amount of time.” [MORE]

Van Dyke, 40, will likely serve slightly more than three years. His sentence is based on his second-degree murder conviction, which only requires 50 percent of a sentence to be served.  He will receive credit for time served awaiting sentencing. [MORE]

It is doubtful the prosecution’s plea offer could have been better than the white judge’s sentence.

So Mrs. Van Dyke got what she wanted for her psychopathic race soldier or tool or “living human resource -walking fodder for Uncle Brother’s corporate police state and the system of racism white supremacy.”

Jason Van Dyke also shed crocodile tears for an unimpressed jury who did not find him to be credible - but the white judge took note.

In Racist System You Can Be Executed Anytime, Anyplace by a White Cop. Van Dyke shot Laquan McDonald 16 times as he walked away from him. In order to shoot him that many times he reloaded his gun and continued shooting him while he was on the ground.

Several black motorists testified Friday at his sentencing that the white cop used a racial slur and excessive force during traffic stops in the years before the 2014 killing that was captured on a shocking dashcam video.

One of the witnesses, Vidale Joy, said Van Dyke used a racial slur after pulling him over in 2005 and at one point put a gun to Joy’s head. He said Van Dyke “looked infuriated” and seemed “out of his mind.” Under cross examination, Joy acknowledged he did not allege Van Dyke used a slur in his first accounts of the stop.

Another witness, Ed Nance, struggled to maintain his composure as he looked across the room to identify Van Dyke. Testifying about a 2007 traffic stop, he said the officer cursed and slammed him on the car’s hood, grabbed him by the arms and pulled him to the squad car. [MORE]

What is white collective power? When a white cop shoots a black man, his fellow officers, the police chief, internal affairs, the union, the media and the judge support, defend, and finance that white police officer’s “right” to shoot (murder) a black person.’ [anon] The system of racism white supremacy is designed for the survival for persons who classify themselves as “white.” Such deluded persons [racists] believe in an imaginary hierarchy wherein persons unable to produce color & lacking melanin are supreme; imagining themselves to be higher than what they imagine those classified as non-white to be.

As articulated Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, most white people consciously or subconsciously understand the following;

• White plus Black equals Colored.

• White plus Brown equals Colored.

• White plus Yellow equals Colored.

White people are genetic recessive. In general, this means they cannot reproduce a white child when they have sexual relations with non-whites. The white "race" can be replaced or "genetically annihilated" through such assimilation or social intermingling with non-whites. As white populations have been consistently declining, Black and Brown populations are surging. The "fear of replacement" or fear of losing control over non-whites fuels the system of white supremacy/racism and causes racists to act genocidally towards non-whites in a perceived "survival game" they are engaged in with "us." Her color confrontation theory explained that the more the white population shrinks, the worse its conduct toward non-whites will get.

For instance, this great fear of replacement or intermingling logically justifies the murder of Blacks, particularly Black males. "Within the historic framework of Western civilization and culture (the civilization and culture organized to prevent white genetic annihilation), all white peoples have the spoken or unspoken mandate to participate actively in their collective struggle for global white genetic survival. This specifically means, of necessity, the murder and slaughter of Black and other non-white males whenever it is felt within the white collective to be necessary and, therefore, justified. [MORE] She states, 'A major strategy in the war against the Black collective is the killing of Black males. Black males are being killed daily, in ever-increasing numbers, across the country by whites. Other non-white males also are being killed in ever-increasing numbers.' [MORE] 

Just Following Orders & the Law of the Jungle. Naturally, no Black man convicted of murder would expect to get hooked up with basically a 3 year prison sentence if he blasted a white cop in the street by shooting him 16 times. Cops have been granted superhuman powers and status from elected authorities in a legal system of coercion or physical force.

 FUNKTIONARY makes it plain:

Sovereign immunity  - ''government" so-called, applying the law of the jungle to its relationship to the people. We are bound by the written law but those who wrote the law are bound by the law of the jungle. Makes you feel like a fool, doesn't it? Minority rule majority fooled? Surely, on earth as it is in heaven. Why would we ever allow "government" to assert the position that it is not bound by the same law that binds us? The answer is that we are fools sweet-talked by judges into believing that the "natural state of affairs" is to bind the people by law, and the "'government" by fiat. "Government" has replaced religion as the opiate of the masses using the Media as its subduing gasses (fumes of subterfuge). (See: CHAOS, Overrulers, Judicial System, Constitution, Law, Domestication, Justice, Economics, Civilization, Weitiko Disease & "Government") 

As noted by Colin Kaepernick accountability for cops purposefully remains incidental, random, accidental or symbolic by design in a system of injustice. Indeed, through the doctrine of sovereign immunity court’s apply the law of the jungle to cops and their relationship to people. We are bound by the written law but those who wrote the law are bound by the law of the jungle. [MORE] Yet unaccountability is merely a symptom of the root problem of governmental authority.

Government “authority” can be summed up as the right to rule. “The concept of “government” is about certain people having some special right to rule. And that idea, the notion that some people – as a result of elections or other political rituals, for example – have the moral right to control others, in situations where most people would not, is the concept being addressed here. It is the idea that some people have the moral right to forcibly control others, and that, consequently, those others have the moral obligation to obey.” [MORE]

According to statist belief “the people” have delegated powers to politicians. And politicians have given police the moral right to commit acts of unprovoked violence on people. That is, police officers have acquired the moral right to initiate violence and commit acts of aggression against others (by way of so-called “laws”) “to protect” the people for their own benefit. [MORE]

Question here: can you delegate a right to someone that you don’t have? where does their “authority,” the right to rule others, come from? Asked differently, if you don’t have the right to initiate unprovoked acts of force against other people then how can you delegate or authorize another person to do such things? How did police acquire such super-human powers? The answer is logically unsupportable as “the belief in “authority,” which includes all belief in “government,” is irrational and self-contradictory. Yet all modern statism is based entirely on the assumption that people can delegate rights they don’t have.” [MORE] Similarly, did you voluntarily consent to an arrangement for others to hold authority over you, if so when?

BW is aware that the creator of this video is now a jesusized gop statist believer. Here he is pointing to the moon so pay no attention to his hands - look at the moon!

Like the concept of race, the concept of “authority” and “government” are also granfalloons!

Undeceiver Larken Rose states, “Despite all of the complex rituals and convoluted rationalizations, all modern belief in “government” rests on the notion that mere mortals can, through certain political procedures, bestow upon some people various rights which none of the people possessed to begin with. The inherent lunacy of such a notion should be obvious. There is no ritual or document through which any group of people can delegate to someone else a right which no one in the group possesses, And that self-evident truth, all by itself, demolishes any possibility of legitimate “government.

The average person believes that “government” has the right to do numerous things that the average individual does not have the right to do on his own. The obvious question then is, How, and from whom, did those in “government” acquire such rights? How, for example – whether you call it “theft” or “taxation”– would those in “government” acquire the right to forcibly take property from those who haw earned it? No voter has such a right. So how could voters possibly have given such a right to politicians? All modern statism is based entirely on the assumption that people can delegate rights they don’t have.” [MORE]

Dr. Blynd states “There is no freedom in the presence of so-called authority, i.e. outside of one's Self and Self-Nature.) He further states, authority is rule through coercion. The real threat to "authority" is the masses overcoming info-gaps and verigaps through self-knowledge and the proliferation of symbols of opposition, not crime or destruction of property.”

FUNKTIONARY explains:

Racism White Supremacy - psychopathic degeneracy. 2) "The local and global power system and dynamic, structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as white, whether consciously or subconsciously determined, which consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war); for the ultimate purpose of white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on planet earth—a planet upon which the vast majority of people are classified as non-white (Black, Brown, Red and Yellow) by white skinned people, and all of the nonwhite people are genetically dominant (in terms of skin coloration) compared to the genetic recessive white skin people." -Dr. Francis Cress Welsing, MD.

Prison Nation - U.S. Citizen - Unnecessarily Suffering citizen and enemy of the state -freely deluded to imagine otherwise.

Statism - the belief "citizens"' and "states" exist and the memetic thought patterns supporting such beliefs. 2) the religion of oppression and domination coupled with the science of exploitation and sociopathic control. 3) the opiate of the so-called Elites. 4) a philosophy that idealizes majority rule gang force (authority) over individual authenticity (autonomy). 5) servitude over liberty and statutes over humanity. So long as "states"' are viewed and accepted as natural, normal, reality-based and inevitable, they will continue to violently abstract humans into extinction. Statism is mind control; people both unwillingly and willingly surrender their property (labor being one's most inviolable property) to men and women pretending to be "governors,"" "commissioners," and "presidents" etc. because they believe they are "citizens" of a so-called "state" and must pay their proverbial "fair share" to support such abstractions or fictions of law. Just using statism against itself proves bureaucrats never have a case regardless of what they "charge" someone with. "Statism and it's supporting political theology do not exist in people's minds to promote freedom or protect 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness:" it's pure mind control to divert our attention away from the actions of anti-social individuals (sociopaths) who are so desperate to "protect" us they are willing to kill us and steal our property." -Marc Stevens. (See: DOME. Beliefs, Landmine Legislation, Scrapitalism, Standing, Subject Matter Jurisdiction. Judicial Victimization, States. Holodeck Court, Allegiance. Anarchy, Society, Civilization, Citizens, Monopoly Capitalism The Golem, Government Paradox, Granfalloons, Corporate State. Government, Servitude. Stalinize, Property, Standing & Monopoly).

Corporate Police State - the enforcer of the commodification of life within the Spectacle Surveillance Society. Anyone who thinks that he or she is immune to the baseless destruction of his or her life (including immediate family members) by a "government" or corporation does live in a happy menagerie—enjoy your illusions. (See: GUPI & Judicial Victimization)

Corporate State - an asexual, amoral, fictionalized group-entity "created" and operated by thieves (territorial gangsters) who endeavor via illusion and coercion to enforce slavery in the guise of "civilization," form over reality, and law over humanity. 2) Enfranchised crime. 3) The "Law" of Club & Fang. 4) a Shakedown Racket. 5) "A territorial monopoly of compulsion. As soon as you grant it anything, you have given it everything." -Hans Herman Hoppe. All Corporate States are rogue states by nature. Corporate State is hierarchy institutionalized as the only acceptable and unquestionable decision-making paradigm of rule by the compelled consent of the ruled. Corporate State is created by criminals who use deadly force if you don't comply with their dictates of compelled conformance and you have no other choice than to leave and become domiciled in another similar Rogue State. "The more corrupt the State, the more numerous the laws." -Tacitus (55-117 A.D.) "The State is basically a protection racket. The fact that it incidentally provides a few beneficial services merely camouflages its essential role as enforcer of the money-commodity (sic) economy, without which most of the artificially maintained conflicts of interest that now provide a pretext for the State would lose their rationale." -Ken Knabb. With respect to taxes and taxation by the Corporate State, the lucid anarchist-activist, Kenneth Rexroth, had this to say: "The state does not tax you to provide you with services. The state taxes you to kill you. The services are something which it has kidnapped from you in your organic relations with your fellow man, to justify its police and war-making powers." (See: Formal Education, Territorial Gangsters, Hierarchy, Democracy, Crime, Stationary Bandits, Monopoly Capitalism, Cooperative Federalism, Corporation, Fascism, Granfalloon, Reification, Constitution, Declaration of Undie-Pendence, Nations, Terrorism, Taxtortion, Crimethlnc., "Credit" & Group-Entity)

In System of Injustice White Judge Hooks Up White Cop who Murdered Laquan McDonald with a 6 Yr Sentence, which only requires 50% of said Sentence to Be Served

“LAWLESS SOCIETY - A SOCIO-JURISTIC HUMAN RELATION CONFLIGURATION WHERE LAW IS UPHELD, CODIFIED, AND DEIFIED OVER HUMANITY. IF YOU FEAR OR WORRY ABOUT ITS ADVENT, YOU'LL CERTAINLY NEVER RECOGNIZE ITS PRESENCE. 2) A POLICE STATE OF THE OVERRULING CLASS.” FROM FUNKTIONARY.

WHAT IS COLLECTIVE WHITE POWER? From [WGN] and [HERE] Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke has been sentenced to six years and nine months in prison for the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald.

Van Dyke, 40, will likely serve slightly more than three years. His sentence is based on his second-degree murder conviction, which only requires 50 percent of a sentence to be served.  He will receive credit for time served awaiting sentencing.

The decision comes more than four years after Van Dyke killed McDonald and more than two years after courts and reporters forced the city of Chicago to release video of the killing it had sought to keep secret. The video showed that McDonald had not lunged at Van Dyke, as officers and city officials claimed for years to explain why he had not faced discipline or criminal charge.

A Cook County jury in October found Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery in the Oct. 20, 2014, slaying. McDonald, 17, was shot 16 times.

The murder charge carried a possible sentence of four to 20 years in prison; probation without prison time was also an option. Each count of aggravated battery carried a sentence of six to 30 years.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan on Friday said he would only consider the second-degree murder conviction while making his decision.

"This [sentencing someone] is not pleasant and this is not easy," the longtime judge said. "I assume that 100 percent of everybody [non-white] is going to be disappointed."

Defense attorneys sought probation. Special prosecutor Joe McMahon during his closing arguments Friday requested a sentence of 18 to 20 years.

Wife Tiffany Van Dyke took the stand Friday afternoon, asking the judge for leniency.

"My biggest fear is that somebody would kill my husband [in prison] for something he did as a police officer, something he was trained to do," Tiffany Van Dyke said. "There was no malice, no hatred on that night. It was simply a man doing his job."

The prosecution called six witnesses earlier in the day: Vidale Joy, Jeremy Mayers, Eric Breathett, Edward Nance, Alberto Luces and the Rev. Martin Hunter, who is Laquan McDonald's great-uncle. The first five men testified about separate traffic stop experiences they had with Jason Van Dyke.

Nance, who was pulled over by Van Dyke in 2007, cried on the stand. He testified that Van Dyke violently cuffed him and threw him face-down in a squad car.

"I couldn’t move my shoulders. I couldn’t move nothing," he said.

Nance said Van Dyke "pulled me out of the car by left arm," took off the handcuffs and told him to go home.

"I said, 'Wait. Can I have my license? Where's my license at?'" Van Dyke said, "Shut the f--- up or you're going to jail," according to Nance.

Nance previously sued Van Dyke for tearing his shoulder. Nance was awarded $350,000 by a jury.

Hunter took the stand last, and read a victim-impact statement written from McDonald's point of view: "I'm a real victim of murder and that can never be changed."

The defense began calling witnesses later Friday afternoon. Among them was Van Dyke's 17-year-old daughter Kaylee, but no audio or video was recorded of her testimony because she is a minor.

Former CPD union president Dean Angelo also testified for the defense.

“He’s not the monster people made him out to be in the media and in political circles," Angelo said. "He's a big, gentle kid. ... He's a hard worker. He's dedicated. He's a good guy. He's religious. He's quite loyal."

Van Dyke faces four to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder; probation without prison time is also an option. Each count of aggravated battery carries a sentence of six to 30 years.

Van Dyke was the first Chicago police officer in 50 years to be charged with murder for an on-duty incident. The murder of Laquan McDonald took place on October 20, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois, when the 17-year-old African American was fatally shot by the white cop. McDonald was reported to have been behaving erratically while walking down the street, and holding a folding knife with a three-inch blade at his side. Initially, internal police reports described the incident similarly and ruled the shooting justified and Van Dyke was not charged in the shooting at that time.

When the police released a dash cam video of the shooting thirteen months later, on November 24, 2015, it showed McDonald had been walking away from the police when he was shot and posed no threat to them while doing so.

Video of the shooting, which was released via court order in November 2015, sparked massive protests and prompted federal and local investigations. [MORE]

Video Shows Jesusized Mob of Delusional Racist Teens with Trump Hats, Mocking Native American Vietnam Veteran & Interfering with Indigenous Peoples March in DC

“THE GREAT BRAIN ROBBERY.” Daily News reports that a video that showing a white mob of Kentucky high school students mocking and harassing a Native American war vet during the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington has sparked uproar online. With regard to non-white peoples, DC cops usually consider such arrestable conduct as disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, loitering, threats etc. No white teens were arrested.

Multiple clips shared across social media show a group of rowdy teens, many of them sporting Covington Catholic high school apparel, surrounding and yelling at a group of peaceful protesters at the D.C. event on Friday.

One student wearing President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat can be seen leering at a man playing a drum while he stands inches away from his face. The protester, identified by Indian Country Today as Vietnam War veteran and Omaha elder Nathan Phillips, remains stoic and continues to beat his instrument while those behind him sing along. Many of the white children are wearing MAGA hats and yelling “build a wall” to the Native Americans.

“I heard them saying ‘Build that wall. Build that wall.’ This is indigenous land. We’re not supposed to have walls here. We never did,” Phillips said in video posted to Instagram. [MORE]

Dr. Blynd states, Racism is a "virus in the mind. A racist is a psychopath at war with his own being." [MORE]  Race is an empty representation having no meaning or a granfalloon. Yurugu is ruled through many granfalloons and belief systems. Whenever the unreality of race is present [in their minds] racists are in a real deep state of attachment that prevents them from being conscious. When YOU appear they have checked out and checked into some robotic beliefs going on in their minds. Bhagwan explains, "a mind filled with belief always goes on projecting things in the world, it sees things which are not there.” Dr. Amos Wilson explained “when the projecting party or projectionist has superior influential advantages, as in the case of the White community relative to the Black community, projection becomes introjection, an act of creation, of transforming and conditioning reality.”

Bhagwan also explained “Believers create their own deceivers.”  Neely Fuller says that most white people have made racism their religion and have made themselves the God of that religion.

Fuller explained, "Most white people hate Non-White people. The reason that most white people hate Non-White people is because whites are not Non-White people. If you know this about white people, you need know little else. If you do not know this about white people, virtually all else that you know about them will only confuse you."

FUNKTIONARY defines as follows:

MOBS - Many Other Belief Systems. 2) More Obvious Bullshit Stinking. 3) Mentally Off Balanced Society. 4) Most Other Belief Systems. All belief systems throughout all eras are designed to funnel human power (freedom, creativity, innovation, resources and wealth) up to a controlling manipulative elite. MOBS (secular, political and religious) in theory preach non-violence but in actual practice, ‘the crowd,’ foment, precipitate and participate in bloodshed and pathological violence when challenged by other belief systems, absolute truths or scapegoats (symbols of projection). See: The Crowd’s Clothes)

Jesusize - to believe in something (or someone—real, mythologized or imagined) or even worship it, based on little (scant and sketchy) to no evidence in support of it (single-source propaganda), and uncorroborated accounts that fly in the face of knows history, facts and science. 2) to turn fiction or fictional accounts into fact and history through propaganda, indoctrination coercion and violence.  Just because a man called "Jesus" did not exist in history does not mean that you cannot become the Christ you are awakening in (or at least to) the Divine Mystery. (See: Jesus Seminar & Christ Consciousness). [MORE]

belief systems - linguistically created illusions of structured thought. Belief systems are "my truth is better than your truth" systems carved out of absolute truth (abject falsehood) codified as dogma, spread by fear, enforced by hatred, resulting in continuous warring, genocide, and unimaginable atrocities. Belief systems create formulas and fixed patterns (ruts) for living. They provides us with ready-made reactions (not responses) to whatever situation may arise. Thus we are never phfree to act spontaneously in the fullness of any moment. Life is infinite in its unfolding; it cannot be met with formulas and scripts. Belief is a tether that keeps us forever in the tiny circle of our vanities. Ken Carey has aptly noted, "Belief systems are cages created by words, imprisoning their makers. Even insights that accurately reflect reality cannot be preserved effectively by a belief system." Belief systems are the greatest of our shared vanities. We judge, choose, and reach conclusions, and from these conclusions we create concepts and images. We vest these images with the illusion of reality; we give them life, and they in turn allow us to think that we know—but knowledge is always of the past. It is fixed, lifeless and immovable. No amount or quality of belief system can expand knowledge nor bring any justice. Besides, even knowledge is not reality. It is an image and conceptualization that we create of and about reality—a dead thing. Belief systems suck you in but can't get you off. Why are you living your life based on the unquestioned chain of hearsay? Our beloved BS (belief systems) are elaborate mirage-like constructions of vibrations through and to which we chain ourselves: ideas, ideologies, representations, events, and information deemed important and considered as foundational if not real. However, all that we are is an elaborate thoughtform appearing (temporarily congealed as light) within a world of ceaseless change that itself is a thoughtform that we (as human beams) choose to experience as physical and governed by the physical laws through which impersonal Consciousness creatively expresses (self-animates) in the world through undulating patterns of repetitive existential Self-relation. "The pathway to Enlightenment via radical truth is demanding and requires the surrendering of all belief systems. Only then does ultimate reality reveal itself..." -David R. Hawkins. (See: Reversion, Surrendering, Human Beam, Enlightenment, Spiritual Unfoldment & Mind-Inversion)  

Initially Authorities said Tempe Cop’s Safety was Imminently “Threatened," But Bodycam Video Shows Cop Fatally Shooting 14 Yr Old Latino Boy in the Back From Over 30 Yards Away as He Fled

A LONG DISTANCE THREAT. From [CNN] and [HERE] A 14-year-old Latino boy holding a replica gun was shot and killed by a police officer as he ran down an alley in Tempe, Arizona, authorities said.

The Tempe Police Department released body camera footage of the incident.

Authorities declined to provide the officer's first name, citing safety concerns for the public servant; however, the Police Department did release his photograph [b/c cop was not white].  The cop was responding to a call from a citizen reporting a suspicious vehicle and approached a gray Chevy pickup apparently involved in a burglary parked in an alley, Chief of Tempe Police Sylvia Moir said in a press conference.

The video shows the officer taking cover behind a trash can while the teen exits the truck. The officer is heard calling for the teen to put his hands up as he runs away from Jaen

"He's got a hand gun," the cop is heard saying on the footage. Cop Jaen calls for backup. Police say the teen “fell” at the end of the alley. The video shows Jaen stopping there, with his gun still drawn, pointing down at something on the ground. Police said the video was edited for public release so as to blur out the boy's body.

The gun was a replica 1911 airsoft gun that police claim the teen had just stolen from the truck.

The teen runs almost to the end of the alley, and the officer fires two shots. The teen ran from the police.

One of the shots struck him in the shoulder blade and the other hit a wall at the end of the alley, Moir said. Authorities did not give a cause of death.

Initially, on Wednesday Tempe Police said the officer chased the boy and gave verbal commands. During this time, police say the officer "perceived a threat" and fired his gun, striking the boy. [MORE] Police said the officer was chasing the teen Tuesday afternoon and at one point, the teen turned around, the officer felt threatened and fired his gun. [MORE]

An attorney for the family of the boy told CNN affiliate KPHO his relatives are in shock.

"We're in the process of trying to figure out what happened. The video is but one piece," Danny Ortega said.

The family went to the police station and requested to see the footage. Ortega said the distance between the officer and the boy when he was shot seemed to be significant.

"It was a long distance. How this young man could have presented a threat at that far a distance is a question that needs to be asked."

Officer Jaen has been a on the Tempe Police force for 14 years and was in the National Guard from 2007-2013, serving in Iraq in 2011, Moir said.

He has been placed on administrative leave pending criminal and administrative investigations.

Settlement Reached in Luis Góngora Case: Attorneys say White San Francisco Cops Shot Homeless Mayan Man in the Head from Above, while He was Either Sitting Down or Lying Prone on the Ground

From [MIssionLocal] The family of Luis Gongora Pat, the homeless Mexican immigrant police shot and killed in the Mission District in 2016, has settled a federal civil lawsuit with the city of San Francisco.

Although attorneys representing the family would not confirm the settlement nor the amount of the award, court records filed Wednesday reveal that Gongora Pat’s family have reached an agreement with city that must now be ratified by Board of Supervisors. This will likely happen in May.

Until then, all parties are bound to keep the terms of the settlement confidential.

The agreement comes nearly three years after Sgt. Nate Steger and Officer Michael Malone shot 45-year-old Gongora Pat six times at a homeless encampment at 18th and Shotwell streets on April 7, 2016.

The two officers and other civilian witnesses have alleged that Gongora Pat threatened the officers with a large knife, prompting the fatal shooting, while witnesses at the homeless encampment claim Gongora Pat was not wielding the knife, which would cast doubt on the justification for the shooting.

Video of the incident captures the officers shooting Gongora Pat a mere 30 seconds after exiting their vehicles. This raised enduring questions about how — and if — the SFPD properly uses “time and distance” when engaging with people in crisis.

Racist suspect District Attorney George Gascon last May declined to file criminal charges against the officers, sparking protests outside of the Hall of Justice and even Gascon’s home. The fatal shooting was among several that prompted calls for the ouster of Greg Suhr, then the San Francisco Police Chief.

Suhr resigned May 19, 2016, at the request of Mayor Ed Lee, hours after police shot and killed 27-year-old Jessica Williams in Bayview.

The recently settled lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in October 2016, alleges that the SFPD — and, consequently, the City of San Francisco — violated Gongora Pat’s civil rights and that his “wrongful death” was a product of the officers’ negligence.

The lawsuit cites eyewitness accounts and video evidence that Gongora Pat was not facing officers during the shooting that “left him riddled with bullets in his forehead, back, right arm and chest while leaving his wife a widow and his three kids fatherless.” The lawsuit also notes the officers repeatedly gave commands only in English, while Gongora Pat’s primary language was Mayan.

Attorneys for the Góngora family presented video and photographic evidence that they say shows that police officers shot Góngora from above, while he was either sitting down or lying prone. Photographs from a private autopsy show that Góngora was shot in the top of his head, as well as in the back, both arms, and the abdomen.

“The officer can be seen shooting down at the wounded man, with a handgun in one hand and a shotgun in the other, in a scene reminiscent of a gangster movie,” the claim states.

In an enlarged, slow-motion version of surveillance video, previously released by the San Francisco Chronicle, shows a partial view of the shooting. One of the officers can be seen firing three rounds.

“If you slow down this clip, you will witness that the officer who initially had the shotgun is pointing downward,” said Adante Pointer, one of the attorneys. “Mr Góngora was already down on the ground when this officer decided to pump three shots into his body.”

Two white San Francisco police officers fired four beanbags and then seven bullets at him within 30 seconds of stepping out of their patrol vehicles, video footage of the incident shows. The surveillance video provides a clear picture of some aspects of the encounter but does not show what 45-year-old Luis Gongora — was doing at the moment police opened fire. Gongora was just outside the camera’s frame.

The incident began when city homeless outreach workers — who had responded to a report of a disturbance in a homeless encampment — called 911 to say a man was waving a large kitchen knife. Officers arrived minutes later.

The footage obtained by The Chronicle, taken by a camera on the side of a building, shows three marked patrol cars pulling slowly up to the 400 block of Shotwell Street between 18th and 19th streets and parking in the middle of the roadway. Three officers, all of them men, emerge from the police cruisers. The driver of the car in front gets out with a beanbag shotgun and walks to his left to the sidewalk.

Within 10 seconds of getting out of his car, the officer points the gun at someone out of the frame and shouts, “Get on the ground! Stay on the ground!” The officer is moving forward, and a second officer joins him at his side. A few seconds later the officer with the beanbag gun again shouts, “Get on the ground.”

Moments later, both officers appear to shout at the man, commanding, “Put that down” and “Put it down.” The officers continue to advance and move out of the frame. Two more seconds pass before the first beanbag blast, which is followed by three more in short succession. The officer with the weapon can be heard pumping it to ready it for the next shot. The officers can be heard shouting more orders at the man.

Moments later — within 30 seconds after the first officer got out of his car — a burst of seven gunshots is heard. The two officers are still out of frame when the gunshots begin, but then can be seen retreating back into the frame as they fire the final shots.

A third officer is then heard reporting “Shots fired” over his radio as witnesses on the street cry out in shock and a woman on the opposite sidewalk bursts into a sprint away from the scene. [MORE] and [MORE]

Witnesses at the scene have contradicted the police account. They said Gongora spoke only Spanish, never challenged officers and probably didn’t understand what they were saying before he was shot. The witnesses said there was no one else near Gongora when the officers approached him.

“He didn’t charge the officers,” said John Visor, 33, who was living in a tent on Shotwell Street and said he was roughly 10 feet from Gongora when police arrived. “He was going in circles. He didn’t understand what they were saying. They just shot him. They just shot him.”

Visor said Gongora carried a knife for safety, but that he didn’t have it out when police arrived.

Last Monday evening, Gongora Pat’s family members — including his widow, Fidelia del Carmen May Can, who traveled from the home she and Gongora once shared in Yucatan, Mexico — gathered with 30 others who reassembled his memorial where the shooting took place on Shotwell.

His family members had given depositions related to the lawsuit earlier in the day.

“This is the first time the family is at the site where Luis died,” lawyer and advocate Adriana Camarena said to those in the circle. “This is a very special night for them.

Judge Refuses to Dismiss Assault Case: White Rochester Cops were Suspicious of Black Man b/c He Refused to Consent to Street Detention So They Repeatedly Punched Him in the Face During False Arrest

From [13WHAM] and [HERE] The case involving a Rochester Police officer charged with assaulting a man during a mistaken identity stop last May will go to trial.

Officer Michael Sippel and fellow RPD officer Spenser McAvoy were accused in a wrongful arrest case, which alleged that the two beat Christopher Pate on May 5, 2018. Pate said after providing his identification to the officers, he was grabbed, had a stun gun used on him, then was handcuffed and subsequently punched in the face, causing occipital bone and jaw fractures, as well as other damage to his mouth.

The case was determined to be one of mistaken identity, and all charges were dropped by Rochester City Court Judge Maija Dixon.

The Monroe County District Attorney's Office sent the case to a grand jury, which voted to indict Sippel on a third-degree assault charge. McAvoy was not charged. Sippel pleaded not guilty in November. "Specifically, the grand jury's allegation is that Officer Sippel, with the intent to cause a physical injury to another person, caused such injury to Christopher Pate," [MORE] In New York, the state constitution’s bill of rights requires that people who are charged with felonies be indicted by a Grand Jury in order for a criminal case to go forward. The Grand Jury is therefore the only authority that can decide whether or not a prosecution should go forward in a felony prosecution.

Defense attorney Clark Zimmerman had filed a motion to dismiss the case, but it was denied by Judge Thomas Morse on Tuesday morning.

Clark Zimmermann, the attorney for suspended Rochester police Officer Michael Sippel, argued in court papers that there is no video evidence to support an allegation from Christopher Pate that he was beaten by police after he was handcuffed during a May 5 confrontation.

“Rights are myths—obedience to servitude or jail is the reality” FUNKTIONARY

The video "shows that no force was used on (Pate) after he was handcuffed and secured in the rear of a police vehicle," the court papers say.

Pate told grand jurors that he was "punched in the face" while handcuffed, Zimmermann said. [as if punching him w/o handcuffs is lawful conduct - impeachment is for trial, counsel]. The body camera footage has not been released to the public because it is secret.

City Court Judge Thomas Rainbow Morse Tuesday refused to dismiss the criminal charge against Sippel, who faces up to a year in jail.

Christopher Pate, 37, said he was approached by white officers in an unmarked vehicle at Fulton Avenue and Bloss Street around 4:45 p.m. on May 5. Officers claimed that Pate matched the description of an individual on their "most wanted" board.

Pate said that after he provided his identification and proved he wasn't the person they were seeking, the officers continued to escalate the situation and initiated a physical confrontation.

According to Pate, the officers tased and handcuffed him then punched him repeatedly, breaking bones in his face.

“I saw the officer on top of him, beating him," said Tina Davis, who saw the incident happening right outside her front door on Fulton Avenue, near Bloss Street. "The guy was yelling and asking him why are they beating him, because he wasn’t resisting or anything, because he wasn’t. From that point on, they took him down to the ground and was on top of him and being real aggressive.” [MORE]

McAvoy wrote in his incident report that Pate fit the description of a wanted man who was black, had a thin build and a large forehead, and wore dreadlocks or braids. McAvoy reported that he got out of the cruiser and approached Pate, who was on the south side of the street.

“(Pate) changed his direction of travel, wouldn’t look at me, and began to walk northbound across Bloss Street and in doing so impeded the vehicular traffic of a gray Honda sedan that was traveling eastbound on Bloss,” McAvoy wrote.

McAvoy wrote that he asked Pate whether he had identification, to which Pate reportedly replied, “Have a good day, officer.”

“This exchange happened several times and then I grabbed (Pate) by the hand, at which point he told me that I had no reason to stop him,” McAvoy wrote.

His report went on to read that Pate showed a public assistance card that revealed Pate was not the wanted man.

In the meantime, Pate went on his way, only to be confronted from behind by Sippel, who asked Pate to stop and show his identification. According to the report, he refused to stop and kept walking eastbound, this time on the north side of Bloss, before turning north onto Fulton.

“In front of 75 Fulton Ave. we caught up to (Pate),” McAvoy wrote. “After a use of force (Pate) was taken into custody.” [MORE]

According to a police report Pate showed identification that revealed Pate was not the wanted man - but instead of releasing him, the stop continued and therefore the questionable stop became unlawful. [MORE]

Mayor Lovely Warren and former Police Chief Michael Ciminelli have said the video showed evidence of clear misconduct by police officers in the arrest of Pate, who was wrongly identified as a suspect in an assault and a burglary.

"What I saw not only angered me and troubled me but hurt me to my heart," Warren said. "In this country and this city in particular, people with this kind of authority must be held accountable."

Pate was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, but those charges were dismissed a few days later in City Court. District Attorney Sandra Doorley said a judge dismissed the charges, deciding that they were "defectively drafted by the police."

Sippel has been suspended without pay.

Michael Mazzeo, the president of the Rochester Locust Club police union, said Tuesday that the officers acted properly and were upset that Pate was injured. Police officers aren't helped by brutality allegations, he said. Police may be loath to use needed force, and the public may assume proper arrests were instances of excessive force, he said.

"We're sorry that Mr. Pate got hurt," Mazzeo said. "It affects us who are out there and have to engage in force.

"Had the complainant in this case, stopped and conversed this never would have happened. That’s it. Instead he strengthened Officer Sippel’s belief he was the wanted person by his actions, by trying to avoid police contact and by using defamatory language toward the officer," said Clark Zimmerman, Sippel's attorney.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in March.

Judge Morse is asking anyone with video footage of the incident to come forward. 

The Rochester City Council introduced a draft bill this week that addresses police accountability. The bill would create a civilian-controlled Police Accountability Board with the power to investigate complaints from residents and to discipline officers who the board determines have abused people. Rochester would be the first municipality in New York State — and one of just a handful in the country — with a civilian board that has the power to discipline officers. [MORE]

White Judge Can’t See or Hear White Chicago Cops’ Code of Silence: To Justify Murder, Cops Claimed Laquan McDonald Moved Menacingly Toward Cop w/Knife, Swung It & Tried to Get Up After Being Shot

The murder of Laquan McDonald took place on October 20, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois, when the 17-year-old African American was fatally shot by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. McDonald was reported to have been behaving erratically while walking down the street, and holding a folding knife with a three-inch (7.5 cm) blade. Initially, internal police reports described the incident similarly and ruled the shooting justified and Van Dyke was not charged in the shooting at that time.

When the police released a dash cam video of the shooting thirteen months later, on November 24, 2015, it showed McDonald had been walking away from the police when he was shot. That same day Officer Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder and initially held without bail at the Cook County Jail. He was released on bail on November 30. The city reached a settlement with McDonald's family. On October 5, 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty at trial of second-degree murder, as well as 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

From [NYT] Three white Chicago police officers were acquitted on Thursday of charges that they had conspired and lied to protect a white police officer who fired 16 deadly shots into a black teenager, a contentious verdict in a case over what many viewed as a “code of silence” in the Police Department.

The judgment, rendered in a tense, cramped courtroom overflowing with spectators, was delivered by a judge and not a jury. Speaking from the bench for close to an hour, Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson rejected the prosecutors’ arguments that the officers had shooed away witnesses and then created a narrative to justify the 2014 shooting, which prompted citywide protests, the firing of the police chief and a wide-ranging federal investigation into the police force.

ALL WHITE TRIER OF FACT. Stephenson is also white. She was the 3rd judge assigned to this case. The case was initially given to Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan [also white], who recused herself without explanation.

Brosnahan appears to have stepped aside because her husband, Kriston Kato, a onetime controversial Chicago police detective, was dispatched to the scene of McDonald's shooting that night as a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police union. Documents obtained by the Chicago Tribune show Kato told investigators with the city inspector general's office in 2016 that he spoke with both Van Dyke and Walsh.

After Brosnahan stepped aside last week, Judge Diane Gordon Cannon was assigned to preside over the case. Cannon [also white] is perhaps best known for her 2015 acquittal of then-Chicago police Cmdr. Glenn Evans on charges he shoved his gun down Rickey Williams' throat and threatened to kill him. In throwing out all charges, Cannon belittled evidence of Williams' DNA on Evans' service weapon as "of fleeting relevance or significance." At a routine hearing Tuesday, Cannon granted prosecutors' request for a new judge in the alleged cover-up case involving the three officers. [MORE]

The ruling came more than three months after Officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted in October of the second-degree murder of Laquan McDonald, and on the afternoon before he was scheduled to be sentenced for a killing that was captured on an infamous police dashboard camera video.

The three police officers — David March, Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney — contradicted what the video showed. In it, Mr. Van Dyke fires repeatedly at Laquan, who is wielding a knife, as he moves slightly away from the officers and even as he lies crumpled on the ground. Prosecutors cited that footage repeatedly as they built a case against the officers, who are white, on charges of conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice.

There was also a security camera at a nearby Burger King restaurant that may have captured the shooting, but during the time of the shooting there is a gap of 86 minutes in the recording. The manager of the restaurant said that on the night of the shooting, five Chicago police officers gained access to the video and passwords on the equipment, and that by the time the Independent Police Review Authority requested to view the footage the next day, it had been erased. The Tribune later obtained footage showing a Chicago police employee working on the restaurant's computers after the shooting. However, according to FBI sources, the video taken from the Burger King surveillance camera was not altered, and there were gaps throughout the surveillance video because the system at Burger King was a "mess." [want to buy a bridge?]

Judge Stephenson said that even though the officers’ accounts of the shooting differed from the video, that did not amount to proof that they were lying. “Two people with two different vantage points can witness the same event,” she said, and still describe it differently.

The judge suggested that key witnesses for the prosecution had offered conflicting testimony, and said there was nothing presented at trial that showed that the officers had failed to preserve evidence, as the prosecutors had argued. Challenging the point that officers had shooed away a witness as part of a cover-up, the judge said it was not obvious that the police had known the witness had seen the shooting.

The officers, who were brought to trial in November, were accused of writing in official reports that Laquan had tried to stab three other officers, saying they saw him trying to get up from the ground even after a barrage of shots. The white cops backed up Officer Van Dyke’s account that Mr. McDonald had moved menacingly toward him with a knife and swung the weapon. The dashboard video contradicted those accounts, and showed Mr. McDonald, who was clutching a knife, seeming to veer away from the police when Officer Van Dyke began firing his weapon. The shooting continued as Mr. McDonald lay crumpled on the street. [MORE]

The initial police portrayals of the incident, consisting of about 400 pages of typed and handwritten reports, prompted police supervisors to rule the case a justifiable homicide and within the bounds of the department's use of force guidelines. The reports did not say how many times McDonald was shot and said McDonald was acting "crazed" and lunged at officers after refusing to drop his knife. Michael D. Robbins, one of the attorneys representing the McDonald estate, said his initial thoughts were that "I didn't think there was a case if he had lunged at a police officer," adding, "The police narrative, without exception, is that the use of force is justified and necessary, which it sometimes is."

One police report described that McDonald "raised the knife across chest" and pointed it at Van Dyke. Van Dyke told investigators that he feared McDonald would rush him with the knife or throw it at him, and he also recalled a 2012 Police Department bulletin warning about a knife that was also capable of firing a bullet, as well as throwing knives and also spring-loaded knives capable of propelling the blade. One report noted that McDonald's knife "was in the open position" but, when announcing charges against Van Dyke, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said the knife was found folded at the scene. [MORE]

Mr. March, Mr. Walsh and Mr. Gaffney each denied that they had conspired to come up with a narrative that might justify Mr. Van Dyke’s decision to shoot Laquan. None of them fired any shots that night. Other officers, too, had witnessed the shooting and had given questionable accounts, but were not on trial; grand jurors indicted the three officers but declined to indict any others.

It was “undisputed and undeniable,” Judge Stephenson said, that Laquan had ignored officers’ commands to drop his knife. While she spoke, the three officers sat silently, sometimes staring down at the carpet or nervously jiggling a leg. After she read the verdict, several [white] people broke into applause.

Mr. Walsh, who was Mr. Van Dyke’s partner on the night of the shooting and who has resigned from the department, said little. The experience has been “heartbreaking for my family,” he said. “A year and a half.”

But many others were outraged.

“The verdict says to police officers that you can lie, cheat, steal, rape, rob and pillage, and it’s O.K.,” said the Rev. Marvin Hunter, who is Laquan’s great-uncle.

A group of ministers who gathered at the courthouse denounced the outcome. The Rev. Leon Finney, a pastor on Chicago’s South Side, called it a “travesty.”

“There was clearly evidence from the video that Laquan McDonald was not attacking or seeking to attack any of the law enforcement officers,” Mr. Finney said. “How could they all three make up a story indicating that Laquan was threatening their lives?”

Toni Preckwinkle, the Cook County Board president who is a candidate for mayor, called the decision “a devastating step backward.”

“Laquan’s murder has become a part of the fabric of our city,” she said. “The verdict today does not serve justice in the wake of the senseless loss of a young life.”

Old [like-an-ox] Negro Gladys Knight is “Praying" the Super Bowl National Anthem Unites the System of Racism/White Supremacy [“mind your wants b/c someone wants your mind"]

From [TMZ] Gladys Knight is adamant she does NOT have a problem with Colin Kaepernick and his protest -- but says she's hoping her national anthem performance at the Super Bowl can unite the country,. 

"I understand that Mr. Kaepernick is protesting two things and they are police violence and injustice," the 74-year-old said in a statement.

"It is unfortunate that our National Anthem has been dragged into this debate when the distinctive senses of the National Anthem and fighting for justice should each stand alone."

Knight continued in her statement ... 

"I am here today and on Sunday, Feb. 3 to give the Anthem back its voice, to stand for that historic choice of words, the way it unites us when we hear it and to free it from the same prejudices and struggles I have fought long and hard for all my life, from walking back hallways, from marching with our social leaders, from using my voice for good."

"I have been in the forefront of this battle longer than most of those voicing their opinions to win the right to sing our country’s Anthem on a stage as large as the Super Bowl LIII." 

"No matter who chooses to deflect with this narrative and continue to mix these two in the same message, it is not so and cannot be made so by anyone speaking it."

"I pray that this National Anthem will bring us all together in a way never before witnessed and we can move forward and untangle these truths which mean so much to all of us."

Ignorance is a motherfucker. How’s Your Funkentelechy? Buddha explained the “the ignorant man is an ox, he grows in size not in wisdom.”

Neely Fuller explains ‘in a socio-material condition dominated by the system of racism white supremacy “race” is racism. It is not possible to mix racism. Racism is a condition that is either maintained or it is ended.’ Race is a granfalloon. Racism/white supremacy cannot be integrated - it either exists or doesn’t exist. Dr. Amos Wilson explained, defining racism in terms of bad attitudes or bigotry leads to solving the wrong problems. [MORE]. Dr. Bobby Wright stated, “it is pathological for Blacks to keep attempting to use moral suasion on a people who have no morality where race is the variable.”[MORE]

George Clinton articulated the apothegm “mind your wants because someone wants your mind.”

Doc Blind explained that Government is mind control.

OSHO stated, “Man is born only as a potential. If you don't develop your potential, if you don't grow spiritually, you are just like an ox. The body will go on becoming bigger and bigger, but that is not growth. Growing old is not growing up, growing physically is not growing spiritually.” 

US Orderlies Secretly Detain an American Born Journalist working for 'Press TV' in Iran - Advocates say She Committed No Crime & Petition US Public Rulers for Her Release

From [NPR] Iran's foreign ministry is calling for the immediate release of an American-born journalist who works for an Iranian state broadcaster and who is believed to have been detained in the U.S.

"The custody of Iran's reporter in the U.S. is highly political and she should be released immediately," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted as saying by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Marzieh Hashemi, 59, works for the English-language news service Press TV in Iran. Hashemi lives in Iran but was shooting a documentary in St. Louis, according to The Associated Press, which spoke to her son Hossein.

Hashemi was heading to Denver when she was detained on Sunday at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, her son told the news service on Wednesday. He said she was transferred by the FBI to a detention facility in Washington, D.C., and had not been charged with a crime.

"We want more clear answers," Hossein Hashemi said in a separate interview with Press TV. "The fact that she has not been charged has made it difficult for us to know what kind of lawyers to pursue and what route forward we should go with ... we have hard time understanding how someone who is not charged can be held in a facility like that."

The FBI, the Department of Justice and the Metropolitan Police Department in St. Louis all declined NPR's requests for information.

Hashemi told the AP he has learned his mother is being held as a material witness. Federal law allows for the detention of a person who is "material in a criminal proceeding" if it seems that person is unlikely to respond to a subpoena.

Marzieh Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin in New Orleans. She converted to Islam in 1982 and moved to Iran in 2008, where she worked for Iran's English-language state-owned news service Press TV, according to the AP. The news service says she holds Iranian citizenship.

Hossein Hashemi says his mother is being treated as an inmate, not a witness, in a Washington, D.C., detention facility.

"She is currently in prison, she has an inmate number, she is behind bars," he says.

Forty-eight hours passed before she was able to contact her children, Hossein Hashemi says. She has been eating only pretzels because the prison food does not meet her dietary restrictions, he says, and her hijab was removed during processing.

Hashemi told the AP that he and his siblings have received subpoenas to appear before a grand jury in Washington. He did not respond to NPR's phone calls seeking comment.

Press TV chief Peyman Jebelli says his organization will take "any legal action that will be necessary" to support Hashemi and obtain her release.

Iranian media have echoed Tehran's outrage at the arrest of Marzieh Hashemi. One called her detention "Saudi-style behavior with a critical journalist," the AP reports. It was a reference to Saudi Arabian journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. Commentators on Twitter have also equated the two journalists.

Trita Parsi, an Iran expert and professor at Georgetown University, tells NPR, "I don't think that argument is necessarily going to stick. I don't think the parallels are that particularly strong."

However, he notes that the detention of Hashemi comes after Iran detained U.S. Navy veteran Michael White. At least three additional U.S. citizens are being held in Iran, NPR reports.

"As tensions between the United States and Iran increase, there seems to also be an increasing trend of citizens who may not be involved in anything falling in the crossfire between the two governments," Parsi says.

Press TV has come under criticism for appearing too sympathetic to Iran's government. In 2013 the European Court of Justice placed the broadcaster on a human rights sanctions list after it aired forced confessions by detainees who had endured torture.

In a 2009 interview with NPR's Scott Simon, Marzieh Hashemi defended the regime of then-President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his expulsion of foreign media after a violent crackdown on protesters who challenged his election victory.

"I think the average Iranian feels very free to express themselves, OK?" Hashemi said. "But I think that within the framework of the laws in this country — and each country has its own rules, and its own laws. So freedom of expression, I think that through time, there's certain times, especially in emergency situations, difficult situations that governments all around the world are going to make certain decisions."

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of the PEN America group promoting literature and free expression, says she is concerned Hashemi might have been targeted for her documentary work on the Black Lives Matter movement or in retaliation for Iran's detention of U.S. citizens.

"Either case would be an egregious violation of democratic norms," Nossel says in a statement. "It would be shocking to see the U.S. following the model, often employed by China and Iran, of detaining citizens of a country they consider hostile on spurious grounds, including to serve as a bargaining chip. If there are other grounds for Hashemi's detention they must be made clear, otherwise she should be released immediately."

U.S.-Iran relations are unlikely to improve soon. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced a conference in Warsaw in February, and he has hinted Iran will be a key topic.

"We'll work on many issues, including how it is we can get the Islamic Republic of Iran to behave more like a normal nation," Pompeo told reporters in Qatar.

On Behalf of Her Masters Black Puppetician Muriel Bowser Uses Veto to Reject Decriminalizing Fare Evasion in DC, Citing a Loss of "Revenue" & a Tool to Put Black Teens Into Greater Confinement

From [WashPost] Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has rejected the D.C. Council’s decision to decriminalize Metro fare evasion, issuing her second-ever veto Wednesday amid concern the measure would exacerbate the transit agency’s financial problems.

Bowser’s veto sends the bill back to the council — which approved the measure 10 to 2 — for an override vote. If the same vote holds, it would meet the required two-thirds threshold to become law.

In a letter to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who along with Council member and Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) opposed the measure, Bowser noted that the region had come together last year in a historic agreement to provide the transit system with $500 million a year in dedicated funding for capital projects. Decriminalizing fare evasion, she said, would set back the agency’s finances.

Fare evasion costs Metro $25 million to $50 million per year, Bowser said, “and I am concerned that [the decriminalization bill] would exacerbate the problem.”

Metro says the $25 million loss estimate is from bus revenue alone. Bus operators log every instance where passengers fail to pay. (Fare evasion is an operating loss, and while fare evasion on Metrobus is recorded — operators record instances with the push of a button — there are no reliable statistics on the extent of fare evasion on the rail system.)

[D.C. Council votes to decriminalize Metro fare evasion]

“While I understand that [the] Council intended to change fare evasion to a civil offense, it is important to note that the bill simply removes criminal penalties while failing to set up a new civil adjudicative process,” Bowser wrote. “This leaves [Metro] without any meaningful tools to enforce the payment of fares and will encourage fare evasion, which will result in additional lost revenue for the Metro system.”

Bowser also made clear that her objections were not merely due to the potential revenue losses. “We should not encourage lawlessness on Metro, which could exacerbate public safety concerns on our Metro and in our city,” she wrote.

The existing criminal penalties of potential arrest, fines up to $300 and up to 10 days in jail, are overly harsh and disproportionately target African Americans, the bill’s backers argued. They pointed to a study from the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs that found 91 percent of fare evasion citations and summons from January 2016 to February 2018 were issued to African Americans.

White told his colleagues that inaction would amount to “condoning” a pattern “with an overwhelming number of black people being arrested unnecessarily.”

More than 40,000 Immigration Court Hearings Canceled Since Government Shutdown

From [Jurist] The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of Syracuse University reported on Monday that 42,726 scheduled immigration court hearings had been canceled throughout the US as of January 11 due to the government shutdown.

The largest number of cases comes from California, with 9,424 cases canceled. New York has canceled 5,320 cases, and Texas has canceled 5,141 cases. If the shutdown continues until February 1, the total number of cancelled cases will reach about 108,112. If the shutdown continues until March 1, that number will increase to 185,071. The number will increase by roughly 20,000 cases per week as the shutdown progresses.

The cancellations add to the already large backlog of immigration cases before the court. As of the end of November, there was a backlog of 809,041 cases. It may take three or four years before canceled cases can be rescheduled.

Several organizations have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration due to the partial government shutdown that began December 22, mostly over the requirement to continue working without pay. This includes air traffic controllers and National Treasury Employees Union in January, and the American Federation of Government Employees in December. The center of the shutdown is the debate over the allocation of $5.7 billion for a border wall along the southern border of the US.

Suit says After an Unlawful Stop, White La Salle Cops Falsely Arrested a Black ex-Marine for DUI, Took her Blood Sample at Hospital & Subjected Her to Degrading, Violent Strip Search in Cell

From [HERE] In the video, three LaSalle County Sheriff’s deputies can be seen throwing a woman onto a bench and then onto the floor of a jail cell and forcibly removing her pants as the woman — a Marine Corps veteran — screams loudly.

“What are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing?” the woman yells in desperation during the strip search, which a newly filed federal lawsuit called “demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, embarrassing, and degrading.”

The lawsuit — which seeks more than $1 million in damages — claims the arrest that led to the search and the search itself were illegal. It also alleges deputies knew the actions were taken in error, so they tried to conceal the evidence of their misconduct by deleting a video of what happened.

Zandrea Askew, a 28-year-old woman who was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2015, says that she was sitting in her parked car on a street in LaSalle County in the early hours of Jan. 20, 2017. The suit does not identify the city or town where she was picked up.

It was then, she alleges, that two LaSalle County sheriff’s officers approached her and made her perform field sobriety tests, despite her showing no signs of intoxication and having no warrants for her arrest.

After passing the field sobriety tests, she was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence of drugs and was taken to a local hospital, the suit alleges. There deputies tried “to obtain a blood sample” from Askew with no legal justification, the suit says.

All the while, Askew was cooperative and respectful to the deputies, the suit states.

From the hospital, she was taken to the LaSalle County Jail in Ottawa, which is about 80 miles from Chicago. Once there, the suit states, at least three female sheriff’s deputies dragged her into a cell, threw her to the ground and “unreasonably and deliberately attacked and restrained [Askew] causing injury to [her body]” as several more deputies looked on, the suit states.

While she was restrained, three deputies “forcibly and maliciously” strip searched Askew, violently pulling her hair in the process, she alleges. The cell she was in was also equipped with video surveillance.

Four minutes of surveillance footage provided to the Sun-Times shows two deputies leading Askew into a cell and another following close behind.

“You have one chance to cooperate with us and then we are going to be taking your clothes off off of you ourselves,” one deputy can be heard saying on the video.

“Are you going to undress yourself?” the deputy asks. When Askew doesn’t answer, the deputy says: “Don’t just look at me like I’m stupid. I’m asking you a question.”

As Askew faces the cell wall, one deputy suddenly throws her onto a bench and then onto the floor. The deputies can then be seen removing Askew’s pants.

Throughout the incident Askew screams “what are you doing?” several times.

“The Officers’ conduct in stripping Plaintiff of her clothing was intentionally demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, embarrassing, and degrading,” the suit states.

Later, several unidentified officers and employees of the sheriff’s office “attempted to delete and/or destroy the video recording of the assault and stripping of the Plaintiff,” the suit states. “However, despite these efforts, a restored version of the video was recovered and disclosed to Plaintiff by the LaSalle County State’s Attorney’s Office.”

Askew’s attorney, Terry Ekl, noted in the complaint that Illinois law prohibits law enforcement officers from strip searching suspects arrested for misdemeanor offenses — such as driving under the influence of drugs — “unless there is a reasonable belief that the individual is concealing a weapon or a controlled substance.”

Ekl said the officers “had no reasonable belief” that Askew was hiding a weapon or drugs.

Askew was soon charged with driving under the influence of drugs and resisting arrest. Eighteen months later, the LaSalle County State’s Attorney dismissed both charges and wrote “that there was no probable cause” for Askew’s arrest, the suit states.

The 11-count suit alleges a host of Fourth Amendment violations, including unlawful detention, false arrest, excessive force, violations of due process, failure to intervene and malicious prosecution.

LaSalle County, the sheriff and seven sheriff’s deputies were named as defendants. A representative from the LaSalle County State’s Attorney’s Office, which represents the county in civil litigation, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Propublica Research Shows the IRS is More Likely to Audit Poor Persons Making Less than $20,000 than Wealthy Persons Making $10 Million a Year

[MORE]