A Missouri appeals court upheld the decision to disqualify St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner from prosecuting gun charges against Mark McCloskey, the racist suspect attorney who waved an AR-15 rifle at civil rights protesters in front of his mansion last summer.
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From [HERE] The La Mesa police detective who fired a beanbag round at a 59-year-old protester during a riot in May, leaving her partially blind, will not face criminal charges, the San Diego County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday.
A review of evidence concluded that Det. Eric Knudson was acting reasonably in defense of himself and others when he fired the round during a melee, mistakenly believing that protester Leslie Furcron had thrown a rock. Her attorney said it was an empty can of Red Bull. Authorities said video confirmed the object was a can.
The findings are laid out in a 25-page letter released Wednesday and signed by Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan.
“Detective Knudson believed Ms. Furcron had thrown a rock. He was incorrect. Ms. Furcron threw a can, but his belief was not unreasonable given the totality of circumstances the officers were dealing with over several hours of protesting and rioting where they were subject to rocks being thrown at them continuously,” the letter reads.
The letter, addressed to La Mesa police officials, includes the first disclosure of Knudson’s version of events in the chaotic scene outside the La Mesa Police Department on May 30, during a riot that started as a demonstration against racial injustice and police bias.
The review found “no evidence Detective Knudson intended to aim at Ms. Furcron’s head.” Furcron required surgery to remove the beanbag round embedded in her head. She is now blind in one eye and is suing the detective and the city of La Mesa.
Furcron’s attorney, Dante Pride, lambasted the findings, saying there was “no accountability.” His client, he said, suffered “life-altering damage the D.A. passes off as ‘Oh well, it was a mistake.’ ”
“It makes absolutely no sense to me,” Pride said.
La Mesa police spokesman Lt. Greg Runge said the department was aware of the findings and would “be working to complete our internal investigation of the incident.” Knudson remains on paid administrative leave.
Demonstrators descended on La Mesa Police Department on May 30, days after the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minnesota police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes.
The protests targeted La Mesa in particular after the controversial arrest of a Black man near a trolley station a few days earlier. Video of the incident — in which an officer can be seen repeatedly pushing the 23-year-old man down onto a concrete bench — went viral. The officer was fired, and Stephan’s office announced Monday that he’d been charged with filing a false report.
After a few hours, the demonstration descended into a melee. Some hurled bottles and large rocks at officers, who deployed tear gas and fired beanbag rounds. Small fires were set in City Hall, and rocks crashed through the Police Department’s windows.
According to the review, Knudson told investigators he’d thought he saw a protester throw a rock.
“Knudson said that in order to stop the immediate threat and to protect the deputies from injury, he aimed for center mass on the protester and deployed one beanbag round at the person,” according to the letter.
He said he saw the person go down and heard shouts that the person had been shot in the face. Knudson told a fellow officer that he had not aimed for the face and that the person had been throwing rocks. He also said he initially did not know he’d shot a woman.
In his report, he said he’d shot a “light-skinned male.” The person he shot, however, was Furcron, a Black woman. Knudson said he’d aimed for the person’s “center mass,” not the face.
The review gives the accounts of others as well, including a protester who saw Furcron recording the events with her cellphone, then saw her get hit with something and fall to the ground, with a cork-like object lodged in her head.
Furcron had arrived at the demonstration shortly before she was shot. By then, police had declared it an unlawful assembly.
Federal authorities are also investigating the incident.
![SAMBOS [willing slaves] or bitch-nghrs (circled in red) do nothing while someone who looks just like their mother and grandmother is attacked for said reasons.According to FUNKTIONARY:White privilege - an invisible package of unearned assets bequeat…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a5430b290bade59404c2423/1610316824618-GQ5D8CPU7P5M8SN121UP/bitchnghrprotest+2.1.jpg)
SAMBOS [willing slaves] or bitch-nghrs (circled in red) do nothing while someone who looks just like their mother and grandmother is attacked for said reasons.
According to FUNKTIONARY:
White privilege - an invisible package of unearned assets bequeathed to all Caucasians. 2) an invisible weightless knapsack of advantages including but never limited to: special provisions and dispensations, over-passports, code words, maps, signs, codebooks, visas, clothes, vistas, tools, etc. of which most Caucasians are oblivious to wearing or utilizing.
From [HERE] As Berlinda Nibo was walking home Wednesday, she was met by a crowd of Trump supporters who had gathered in downtown Los Angeles, a smaller version of the D.C. demonstration that turned into a riot at the Capitol. Nibo, who is Black, said the group began to harass her as she passed by.
“They’re yelling at me because of my color, calling me the n-word, calling me the b-word, saying, ‘All lives matter. Black lives doesn’t matter,’” Nibo, 25, told KCAL.
When she yelled back, Nibo said the crowd of dozens went after her.
Moments later, Nibo found herself in the middle of pro-Trump demonstrators, as they pushed her around, smacked her, snatched her wig from her head, and at one point, pepper-sprayed her, she said. Nibo said she believes the crowd would have tried to kill her had it not been for a man who stepped in to shield her before she was carried away.
By the end of the day, police had arrested six people involved in a clash between Trump supporters and counter protesters, NBC Los Angeles reported. No one was arrested in the incident involving Nibo.
The violent incident in Southern California echoed the attempted insurrection nearly 2,700 miles away, where hundreds of pro-Trump rioters broke into the Capitol to disrupt Congress certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win. The riot incited by Trump’s incendiary rhetoric left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer who died late Thursday from injuries he sustained in the attack.
The incident in Los Angeles began when Nibo was walking around the neighborhood with her friends Wednesday. When she saw dozens of the president’s supporters near City Hall carrying Trump flags and chanting “Stop the steal,” she pulled out her cellphone and began to live-stream what was happening. Realizing she was the only Black person there [inaccurate, looked at the sambos in the photo], Nibo felt it was time to leave, she told the Root, especially after some of the Trump supporters saw her recording.
But demonstrators began following her and asking her whom she had voted for in the election, she said.
“I’m telling them, ‘No, I’m not a Trump supporter. I don’t care. Please just leave me alone. I’m just trying to get home,’” she recounted to KTTV.
Then, she said a maskless White woman ordered her to take her mask off. When Nibo responded by saying they should be wearing masks, she told the Root, they surrounded her and chanted, “All lives matter!” Nibo said she gave the crowd of Trump supporters the middle finger as she attempted to leave, but they would not allow her to exit.
At some point, Nibo became separated from her friends and found herself in the middle of the mostly maskless group.
“It’s just me and all of a sudden I’m just getting cornered by 30, 40 people,” she told the Root. “That’s what started all of them to jump in and shoving me around. Then, some lady comes out of nowhere and starts tugging on my hair, trying to pull my hair off of my head.”
After her extensions were pulled off, the crowd began pepper-spraying her eyes, she added.
Raquel Natalicchio, a freelance photographer who captured the incident, said at least 20 Trump supporters circled Nibo, screamed in her face and pushed her among each other. She added that she witnessed men holding flagpoles beating her and others who punched her.
Nibo continued to defend herself until a man grabbed her from behind in a bear hug to protect her from the crowd, KCAL reported.
“The entire time, he kept whispering in my ear, ‘Don’t move, they’re trying to kill you, they’re trying to kill you,’” she said to KTTV.
Natalicchio said that although officers were nearby while she photographed the incident, none intervened. “It took two bystanders to pull her out,” she tweeted.
The LAPD said Nibo told them that the man carried her out of the crowd and let her go. Police said the man, who was seen wearing a Trump 2020 hat “was determined to be a Good Samaritan.”
“If not for him stepping in at that moment, these people would have literally tried to kill me,” she told KCAL9.
Nibo, who told KCAL she only suffered minor scratches, said the incident has left her rattled and fearing for her life as a Black woman in America.
“I don’t understand what’s going on in the world,” Nibo said. “I’m saddened by it. I’m heartbroken by it.”
MOBS = MENTALLY OFF-BALANCED SLAVES.
SCREWING US AGAIN. Angry Neuropeons Protest their Endangered Species or growing White Minority Status. The lack of initial police intervention in these Capitol riots and the tame interactions seen between law enforcement and members of the mob (as captured in this video of police taking selfies with people inside the building) provides a stark contrast to the way authorities handled peaceful protesters last summer. Anti-racism protesters were met with excessive police violence, pepper spray, tear gas, and more over the top tactics that we have yet to see on display at the Capitol by the mostly white, male US Capitol Police who were initially in charge of the situation. Here's a look at how differently the two situations were handled. [MORE] and [MORE]
According to FUNKTIONARY
Neuropeons - neurotic, stupid and self deluded poor white trash. 2) skin heads 3) Nazis, neo-Nazis and Theo-nazis (See KKK, WOTAN, Weitko Disease, Fasxism, Racism White Supremacy, Stupidity, Ku Klux Klan & Yurungu).
Sheople - economic prey. 2) those who are both sheep and asleep. 3) people who mindlessly let others do their thinking for them. 4) people who are not in control of what they allow themselves to come to believe in. 5) people who have not taken personal responsibility to question their belief, faith, the content of truth, the nature of subjective reality. 6) those who watch major misinformation and propaganda television networks presumably for news that is factual. Sheople blindly follow a path where reality is excluded from the process. Are you the shepherd, or the flock? Are you the prisoner, or are you the lock? Sheople line up to get fleeced at the Baa Baa Shop. Scientific studies have found that it takes a minority of just 5 per cent of what they called "informed individuals" to influence the direction of a crowd of a minimum of 200 people. The remaining herd of 95 per cent follow without even realizing it. The coziness of millions of others just like you give you a false sense of safety, but there is no life worth living where reality isn't the glue. Sheople are those whose eyes the shepherd has pulled the wool over. Will the sheople ever wake up and see the light? Na aa aa (See: Internal Revenue Service, Authority, Regalia, Obedience, Judicial Victimization, Mind Viruses, Jury, Psychological Reversal, Memes, Shephard, Eugenics, Danger, Intellectual Incest, Faith Paradox, Belief, Predictive Programming, Conditioning, Fear, Gun Control & Predatory Economics)
totalitarianism - a neologism coined by Mussolini--best understood by the phrase "The Nightmare State," whose agents (neocrats) seek totality of control over its subject-victims ("citizens"), including their erotic emotions and minds. 2) Big Brother's Fantasy State. 3) total impersonalized terror. 4) fascism disguised as democracy. (See: Fascism & Demockcracy)
totalitarian Patriotism - terrified silence created through the suppression of principled cognitive dissent under the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence. 2) allowing the officers of so-called "government" to become free from the limits of law. Criticism of the federal government's anti-terrorism policies is nothing less than treason."-US Attorney General "Jailin'" John Ashcroft December 6, 2001 remarks at Senate Judiciary Committee. "Either you're with me or you're with the terrorists." -Curious George Custard Dubya Bush. "If you say the government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away, you're wrong...There's nothing patriotic about hating you're government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country." -Bill 'Slick-Willy-Style' Clinton, (husband of New York Senator Hillary Rob'em Clinton), statements made during 1995 Commencement Address delivered shortly after the inside-job Oklahoma City Bombing. These statements are the language of totalitarianism. Totalitarian Patriotism is a goose step in the wrong direction~ The plot thickens as it sickens! (See: American Protective League, Oklahoma City Bombing, Fascism & Cooperative Federalism)
Human Resources - answer questions when asked; sign their names when told; open doors when knocked upon; entrust themselves to the protection of others as a ward; trust in anything other than their inner authority; believe what they are told; know the definitions of words and meaning of terms without bothering to reference the source of the definitions; evade instead of confront apparent external authority or putative jurisdiction, alleged liability or presentment; covet the property of merchants; volunteer to servitude; desire a kinder froster instead of liberty; and, yearn for the illusion of security at the expense of inalienable fights and freedom. Are you a human resource of the Corporate U.S. "government"? Are you a fictional citizen of the United States--as granted by Congress? Do you have a Birth Certificate with a date of birth? Have you registered to vote? Have you applied for the "benefits" of Social Security? (See: Statutory Oppression, Involuntary Servitude, Citizen of the United States, Legislation, Date of Biah, Statutes, Freedom, Liberty, Inalienable Rights, Empty Words, Blanks, Employee, Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow, OWLs, Hireling, Voting, SSN, Socialism, IRS & Birth Certificate)
obedience - a Self-Other irreversible relationship in which there is only communication (mind-to-mind), i.e. no contact, and an imbalance of power. 2) the highest form of the power-fear systemic. 3) slavery sold to both children and adults alike deceptively packaged in a respectfully sounding label. 4) reverse terrorism. You can compel obedience but you cannot compel responsibility or respect. Everyone should have a say in waking-up to (or waking up from) whatever they have been programmed to obey. It is difficult to reduce to obedience anyone who has no wish to command. If you can't read very well and follow it up with the absence of critical thinking skills, then obey your masters and oppressors until you can—for your own survival. Life is more trouble-free when you obey. If you speak TV-English, by all means obey the beast, if you like freedom of movement with your slavery. TV's ought to have warning labels: "Use of this device can be hazardous to your freedom.'" How can you take a man seriously who watches T.V. obediently, drinks habitually and desires freedom too? The historian Howard Zinn is clear on the role obedience has played on our conditions throughout the centuries. "[Civil disobedience] is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions of people have been killed because of this obedience. ...Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is people are obedient while the jails are full with petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem." More atrocities are commited in the name of economics than in the name of hate, ideological or religious intolerance. (See: Authority, God, Atrocities, Conditioning. TV, War, The COMB, Control, Power, Violence. Religion, Should. Duty, Hatred, Other, Inhumanity, Communication, Programming, Indoctrination, Poverty, Gangbanking, Education, Unlearning. Force. Orderlies, Police, Force Continuum. Judicial Tyranny, Residency, Labor, Property, Servitude, Critical Thinking, Holodeck Court, Questioning, Pulpit. TUFF. Authenticity. Fear & Authoritarians).
NiggerMania. Racists see themselves as the permanent enemy of Blacks and Black people must wake up to that reality.
Numerical Inadequacy. Persons who classify themselves as Whites make up less than 10% of the world's population. That is, 90% of the world's population of 7 billion people are non-white. If anything, this suggests white skin is an anomaly. And the "white" population is declining because it is genetic recessive. Dr. Frances Cress Welsing called racists' fear of a Black planet "numerical inadequacy." 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.
She stated, ‘Within the historic framework of Western civilization and culture (the civilization and culture organized to prevent white genetic annihilation), all racists have the spoken or unspoken mandate to participate actively in their collective struggle for global white genetic survival.’ Such genocidal and genthanasiastic conduct or behavioral system is carried in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war). For example, in the area of “law” police and prosecutors must incarcerate or kill Blacks or place them in greater confinement. Similarly, in the area of “politics” the shrinking racist votary must rig elections through suppression and purge tactics to survive. [MORE] As explained by election guru Greg Palast the GOP's white votary was not large enough to elect Donald Trump. That is, he never legitimately won either election in 2016 or 2020. Going back to the scene of the original crime:
CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT [MORE]
According to "FUNKTIONARY, THE KEY HOLDERS ENPSYCHLOPEDIA"
“injustice” - the by-product of authority and its enforcement through legal fictions: the Corporate Police State and their tribunals. 2) forced obligations. injustice is the systematic means by which the greedy keep in check the needy. Injustice pervades; justice is incidental, accidental and random. “The paradox of injustice emerging out of justice has only occurred because the different standards of what is just have both been called justice.” JD Unwin. (See Holodeck Court, Greed, Control, Vices, Involuntary Servitude, Positive Law, Volunteered Slavery, War on Drugs, Master’s Rent, Lawful , Legal & Judicial Victimization).
Expectations – a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, a case of positive feedback. Expectations (attitudes, mind-sets) are filters with and through which we edit experience and create knowledge vacuums. In most instances, expectations are merely unconscious premeditated resentments and disappointments borne of projections and/or conscious desires. Have you placed too many expectations upon other’s expectations of yourself? Set all things free of memories and cruel expectations—let go and let be. Don’t get lost in the misconception or expectation of others. Go ahead and pull yourself inside out—you might be amazed at what you’re really all about. (See: Habits, Needs, Blame, Wants, Relationship, Luck, PM Wisdom, Memory, Reality Boxes, Options, Choice, Decisions, Romantic Love, Letting-Go, Nexpectations, Projection, Bewilderment, Discernment, Relaxative, Relationships, Love Continuum, Dreams, Wisdom, Maybe Love & Samsara)
"The Law". - crime without punishment. "The Law" is nothing but one group making a rule to protect its vital interests against another group, along with the capacity to compel, coerce and enforce that rule---and if not obeyed, the power to punish in the form of monetary fines and/or imprisonment. Therefore, in obeying and "abiding" by laws (rule) of other people, you're not being "good," you're simply supporting your own domination and economic demise. The Law is not designed to keep the peace but to keep the piece---retain their ill-begotten piece of the pie. Politicians, lawyers, government employees and officers, and judges, do not really care what the law says. Read that sentence again and then bum it into your memory; it will save you a lot of angry days and sleepless nights. There is a vast difference between what the law says and "how the system works." Here is something else for you to bum into your memory---the system has been hijacked from The People and it now functions for four primary purposes: 1) "Government" control of persons and property; 2) the receipt of"revenue," either by lawful action or extortionate conduct; 3) The protection of the system (racket) that provides for points 1 and 2; and, 4) The protection (racket) of persons who facilitate and enforce points 1, 2, and 3. If you are one of the uninitiated, the statement made above may seem somewhat reactionary to you. However, all one need do to learn that these statements are true is to stand your ground when agents acting on behalf of "government" accost you and they are legally in the wrong (exceeding their delegation of authority or jurisdiction). If you are a person of integrity and good faith, you will expect agents acting on behalf of"government" to sit down with you, read the letter of the law (statute and regulation), and cease their unlawful and colorable actions against you. What you will not be prepared for is the attack that will be made upon you by officials of your "government" in retaliation for your audacity! On the other hand, if agents of your so-called "government" are not accosting you, but you notice that they are acting in a manner that is contrary to the written law, if you bring that fact to the attention of government's minions, the mouthpieces of "government" will fall completely silent and never respond (with anything substantive or probative) to your comments, observations, or requests for correction. The agents of "government" generally use the law as an offensive tool (blunt instrument of violence) to compel the population to comply with its edicts and dictates. The law itself is elitist tool so designed to ensure that the outcomes of the so-called justice system favors privileged and power-holding members of society over (and at the expense of) poor and disenfranchised members of society. The Law, fundamentally and by design, preserves the unequal distribution of wealth, power and resources in society. It is a fail-safe check on the existing revolving high balance when the checks on the revolving-door "working poor" and disenfranchised fail or come into question. Academia (the constellations of institutions that serve objectives of "the law" ensure that its mission gets reinforced by misinformed consent within the academy and throughout society via the dependent (yet undependable) corporate media. The present justice system and existing judicial framework deliver what is considered to be justice for the privileged and powerful as it simultaneously dispenses what could only be called injustice to the poor, oppressed and powerless. The law is a blunt instrument used with finesse by the elite as a means of social, economic and psychological control. In most cases the minions of government could care less whether it is acting lawfully, or whether it is even applying the law to the intended persons or property. The agents acting on behalf of"government" only care that there is a superficial appearance of legality or mere symbol of justice. The "rule of law" is best (more accurately) viewed as one more myth competing against others for acceptance. Law is a consciousness that permeates (both reflecting and creating) any languaculture--written and unwritten. Americans can use the law as either an offensive tool or a defensive tool depending on the circumstance and your preference. The actual application, execution and enforcement of the law undermines (demythologizes and at least problematizes) the worn-out platitude that America is a "nation of laws, not of men." What most of us fail to accept, and what lawyers, legal scholars and enforcement officers fail to entertain, is that law itself is a product of violence, but a violence that the rule of law refuses to recognize. Real life experiences underscore, and some cinematic (reel life) depictions in Hollywood highlight and illustrate, Michel Foucault's thesis that law is best viewed as a discursive practice that organizes social experience to fabricate the categories of legal and illegal (See Power, Government, Justice, Holodeck Court, The COMB, Mythology, Legal, Servitude, Slavery, Due Process, Great Deception, Terms, Illegal, Representation, Punishment, Class, Community, Media, Control, Perception, Rhetoric, Speech Acts, Constitution, Pluralism, Democracy, OLD, Lawyer, Categories, Labels, Crime, Cooperative Federalism & Vices)
From [DPIC] Romell Broom (pictured), who survived a botched execution attempt in September 2009, has died on Ohio’s death row of suspected COVID-19 complications. He was 64 years old and had spent more than half his life on death row.
A Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokesperson said Broom died on December 28, 2020. Corrections authorities placed him on their “COVID probable list” of prisoners suspected to have died of COVID-19, pending final confirmation of his cause of death. At least 17 death-row prisoners in four states have died of COVID-19, matching the number of executions this year. At least 124 prisoners in Ohio have died from the coronavirus, including Ohio’s oldest death-row prisoner, James Frazier, 79, who died on November 19 after 15 years on death row.
Broom was convicted of kidnapping, rape, and murder in Cuyahoga County and was sentenced to death in October 1985. Ohio first tried to execute him on September 15, 2009, but aborted the execution after two hours of unsuccessful attempts by executioners to establish a viable IV line. Despite inserting the IV in 18 different sites on Broom’s arms and legs, prison personnel failed to find a suitable vein, and in one case instead struck bone.
Broom then challenged the state’s authority to attempt to execute him a second time, arguing that to do so would violate the constitutional prohibition against twice placing a person in jeopardy of life. In a divided 4-3 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court on March 16, 2016 ruled against his claims and authorized the state to try for a second time to execute him.
Writing for the majority, Justice Judith Lanzinger said the botched effort to put Broom to death was not a failed execution because setting the IV line was only a “preliminary step” to an execution and the execution itself “commences when the lethal drug enters the IV line.” The majority reasoned that “because the attempt did not proceed to the point of injection of a lethal drug into the IV line, jeopardy never attached.”
The court also denied Broom’s claim that a second execution attempt would constitute cruel and unsual punishment. Assuming that prison personnel would comply with the state’s execution protocol and successfully carry out the execution, Lanzinger wrote: “We simply are unable to conclude that Broom has established that the state in carrying out a second attempt is likely to violate its protocol and cause severe pain.”
The state rescheduled Broom’s execution for June 17, 2020, but Governor Mike DeWine issued a reprieve on April 14, 2020, citing the unavailability of execution drugs. DeWine rescheduled Broom’s execution for March 16, 2022.
From [HERE] A grand jury has indicted a Joliet police sergeant on four counts of official misconduct for accessing the video of an arrested man’s fatal beating and suffocation by cops.
The indictment on Tuesday of Sgt. Javier Esqueda by a Kendall County grand jury alleges he used a laptop in his squad car to view a video of Eric Lurry’s death.
That is, for exposing the crimes of his fellow cops, Esqueda was arrested and indicted on four counts of official misconduct for accessing a video of alleged criminal activity within his own department.
The complaint states that on June 10, Esqueda “knowingly performed an act with (sic) he knew to be forbidden by law to perform in that he used the laptop in his Joliet Police Department squad car while not on duty to access the Joliet Police Department WatchGuard system to view a video file which was locked and he did so while in a motor vehicle which passed through Kendall County. All of the foregoing occurred in Kendall County, Illinois.”
[Remember, in a democracy bodycamera footage and all other property in the possession of the cops is owned by the people - but the the government actually owns us as their property b/c they are our masters. Accordingly, the public and the media will rarely, if ever, gain access to these videos, and cops can release them at their unilateral discretion; because the cops own and control all the footage. Like magic logic. BW]
Lurry, 37 year old Black man, was killed by cops in January while riding in a police vehicle after he was arrested at the scene of an alleged drug deal. The Will County coroner’s office nonsensically ruled his death an accident due to heroin, fentanyl and cocaine intoxication.
Esqueda released video that shows officers appearing to torture Lurry prior to his death. When police arrested Lurry, they put him in the back of a squad car and suspected him of putting drugs in his mouth. In an attempt to get Lurry to spit out the drugs, police held his nose closed while shoving a baton in his mouth and slapping him. This torture went on for nearly two entire minutes until Lurry fell unconscious and eventually died.
“He was suffocating,” Esqueda said. “In my opinion, anybody would suffocate in that situation.”
For five months, the department kept the video secret while clearing the cops involved. Nicole Lurry never knew of the video’s existence until Esqueda blew the whistle after he came across it.
Adding to the egregious act of hiding such damning evidence is the fact that the audio had been turned off after the officers were seen slapping Lurry.
“It was almost like the supervisor looks off and says something to somebody, and then you hear the sound cut out. That’s what alerted me that possibly, they were trying to get rid of evidence,” Esqueda said.
“So there was a deliberate, initial act to turn off the audio or get rid of the audio?” CBS 2 reporters asked Sgt. Esqueda.
“There had to be. There’s no way that can happen,” he said.
However, prosecutors determined there was no police misconduct. Joliet police eventually released three hours of video related to the arrest of Lurry.
Lurry’s wife, Nicole, has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Joliet and four police officers, claiming they engaged in “willful and wanton acts and reckless conduct” that led to her husband’s death.
While Joliet is in Will County, prosecutors say Esqueda’s alleged misconduct took place in neighboring Kendall County. Esqueda’s attorney Jeff Tomczak filed a motion on Oct. 21 to dismiss the case by arguing no actions by his client took place in that county.
From [HERE] More details have emerged about the police shooting of an unarmed black man who was left for several minutes with no first aid while dying.
Andre Hill, who was carrying just his mobile phone when he was shot on 22 December while leaving the garage of a friend, was wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt when he was killed.
Bodycam video from officers in Columbus, Ohio, appears to show the 47-year-old was still alive on the floor after he was shot as officers secure the area.
The newly released body camera footage show the fatal shooting of Hill, who was a guest at the residence police responded to. Around 1:30 a.m, the video shows Hill inside a garage, walking toward Coy with a cellphone in his hand, the screen lit up and visible. Within seconds, Coy fires his weapons and Hill falls as Coy continues to ask Hill to show his hands.
Coy did not have his body camera on when he got out of his vehicle and approached Hill, a clear violation of police policy. After the shooting, he turned it on, which activated a 60-second "look back" feature and recorded the shooting without audio. [MORE]
As well as holding a mobile phone in one hand, police claim his other hand had not been visible when he emerged from the garage (not a crime, yet).
Five minutes after he was shot by Officer Adam Coy, who is white, another officer can be heard in the footage saying: "Let's cuff him up. He's still moving."Mr Hill is then rolled over on to his stomach before being handcuffed and put on his back as the officers wait for an ambulance.
Minutes later, a more senior officer arrives and asks "anybody doing anything for him?" He then orders an officer to start CPR. Mr Hill was later pronounced dead.
"Andre Hill should be alive today," said Police Chief Thomas Quinlan in a video statement Thursday. "A Columbus police officer is responsible for his death. I can't defend it, I can't make it right, but I will do what is in my power."
Hill was transported to the hospital when medical aid arrived, where he died from his wounds. A preliminary autopsy report released by the Franklin county coroner stated the cause of death as a homicide. No medical report has stated whether aid immediately following the shooting could have saved Hill's life.
This news of additional investigations comes following the termination of Coy at the police chief's recommendation. Coy was fired without a hearing, due to his "use of deadly force, his failure to activate his body camera and his failure to render aid to Hill."
Coy's firing was called a "correct decision" by Benjamin Crump, the Hill family's attorney, who also called for redefining the relationship between police and communities of color. "The rampant police mentality to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to a Black person is incontrovertible evidence that Black lives don't matter to too many law enforcement officers," Crump said.
His daughter Karissa Hill said "It is just disgusting how they did my dad. These pictures that I got to look at, I got to memorise my dad on the floor for the rest of my life and how nobody helped him.
"How there's 22 officers on the scene with body footage and not one of them helped my dad. It's unbearable. All because of this state, and who they hire.
"I mean, he is lying on the ground dying. I mean, what is Andre Hill's crime? Is it because he's a black man, and for whatever reason, police in America shoot first and ask questions later?"
The T-shirt Mr Hill was wearing on the night he died called for justice for Mr Floyd.
Ben Crump, the Hill family's lawyer, said officers' actions were unforgivable."Where is the humanity for Andre Hill? Where is the humanity for this Columbus citizen who had committed no crime, had no weapon, was unarmed, only holding a cell phone? Where is the humanity for this citizen?
"He offered no verbal commands before he started shooting Andre Hill. He didn't say stop. He didn't say freeze. He didn't say, put your hands up. He didn't give Andre Hill a chance. He didn't give him a chance."
Mr Coy was sacked by the city on Tuesday, after it accused him of incompetence and "gross neglect of duty", among other charges.
He and another officer were responding to a non-emergency call by a neighbour when they encountered Mr Hill.
The bodycam video shows Coy telling an officer leading him away from the home: "I gotta figure out what I missed".
"We'll take care of that I promise you," officer Jared Barsotti responded.
The footage also captures a woman inside the house where Mr Hill was shot telling officers that he had been bringing her Christmas money.
She shouted: "He was bringing me Christmas money. He didn't do anything." [MORE]
From [HERE] Two more cops were involved with restraining a black man who died while telling officers 'I can't breathe' in March, it has been revealed, as the other four cops who arrested him remain on paid leave and his family accuses the police of a 'coverup'.
Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old father-of-two, died of oxygen deprivation on March 3 after being pinned to the ground by cops and having a spit hood put over his head as he walked home from a convenience store with a snack.
Tacoma police say they spotted him trying to get inside a car and that they restrained him when he violently threw one of the cops to the ground.
But bystander footage released in June cast doubts on this version of events as it showed Ellis being aggressively beaten and restrained by the officers.
His death was ruled a homicide by the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office in June but no one has been charged in connection to his death.
Ten months on from the incident, authorities have now revealed that two additional law enforcement officers were also involved in the restraint of Ellis that led to his death.
Tacoma Police Officer Armando Farina placed a spit hood over Ellis' head after he told the officers he couldn't breathe, according to Washington State Patrol records released Wednesday.
Pierce County Sheriff's Office Det. Sgt. Gary Sanders, who was off duty at the time, also helped to shove the 33-year-old's leg into a hobble to hogtie him while he lay handcuffed and prone on the pavement.
Neither officer has been suspended and they are being treated as witnesses and not targets of the investigation.
The four cops already identified in the incident remain on paid leave.
The lawyer representing Ellis' family said the sudden emergence of the new details points to a 'coverup' within the city and the Tacoma Police Department as they say the black man was 'murdered' by the group of cops.
Tacoma Police Officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank, Masyih Ford and Timothy Rankine had previously been named by authorities.
That a fifth Tacoma officer - Farina - was also involved was not revealed until now and Ellis' family said they were unaware any other officers were involved before this week.
Authorities had previously said an off-duty sheriff's sergeant was at the scene but Sanders, a 20-year veteran, had also not been named.
The presence of the sheriff's sergeant only came to light when the Pierce County Sheriff's Department was disqualified from its role as the independent investigating agency for conflict of interest when it emerged one of its own was at the scene.
The newly-released records show that Collins and Burbank were the first law enforcement officers on the scene, according to the Seattle Times.
Ford and Rankine then arrived by which point Ellis was already in cuffs.
Burbank continued to hold Ellis down while the other two relieved Collins, the records state.
Farina then arrived on the scene to find Ellis 'face down in handcuffs which also had a hobble connected to them', according to his police report, obtained by the Times. The officer then detailed how he put a spit hood over Ellis who had blood coming from his mouth.
'The subject was alert and breathing and had blood on his face and coming from his mouth,' the report says.
'Due to his assaultive behavior I placed a spit hood over the subject's head to protect everyone on scene from possible exposure.'
According to Sanders' police report, he had finished his day shift at the sheriff's department and was moonlighting at Pacific Lutheran University, when he responded to the call for assistance.
The sheriff's sergeant said he arrived on the scene to see 'four Tacoma police officers fighting with [Ellis].'
He said he helped place a hobble on the black man to hogtie him.
'I just grabbed his foot and pulled it up toward his, his waist…he cinched it into the handcuffs, and then he was, there, he was pretty much contained at that point,' the report states.
The revelation that more officers were involved in the restraint that ultimately killed Ellis comes a staggering 10 months after he died.
It also comes on the heels of numerous questions over the handling of the investigation into his death.
James Bible, the lawyer representing Ellis' family, told the Times 'it is clear that Manuel Ellis was murdered.'
'It's clear that he was on his stomach, that he was hobbled, that he was bleeding from his mouth and that he was telling officers 'I can't breathe sir' when the officers so callously disregarded his humanity and then put a spit mask over his head,' he said.
'We believe that this incident implicates more than just the officers in this case, but an entire system in Tacoma and Pierce County.'
Bible also accused authorities of a 'coverup' as he said the release of Wednesday's report was the first the family knew of the new details.
'There was a remarkable coverup by the city of Tacoma and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office,' he told KIRO.
Ellis died back in March 3 but his case gained more attention in early June, after the release of bystander footage of his death and in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died on Memorial Day when a white cop knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes until he passed out while he begged for air saying 'I can't breathe.'
Footage of Ellis' arrest was posted on Twitter by the Tacoma Action Collective, a racial justice group, in June.
In the witness video, a woman filming the arrest from her car is heard yelling out to the officers to stop as they are seen throwing punches at Ellis, who is on the ground and kicking at them.
'Hey! Stop! Oh my God! Stop hitting him. Stop hitting him. Just arrest him. Just arrest him,' the unidentified woman pleaded from her vehicle, before a man, also not identified, distracts her from outside.
The officers are later seen in the footage holding down the man as the woman drives past them.
Accounts from the people behind the footage - Sara McDowell and Samuel Cowden - and the footage itself suggest Ellis was placed in a chokehold and shocked with a Taser, reported the Times.
Prior to the release of the footage, Ellis had only been heard in a recording of police radio yelling 'I can't breathe' during the arrest.
According to police, Ellis started hitting their patrol car and asking to speak them about outstanding warrants against him.
Cops say he then picked up one of the officers by the vest and threw him on the ground.
They then tried to restrain him when he got combative on the floor, shortly before he died.
It is unclear how he was restrained, and how long he was restrained for before he died.
When the footage surfaced, protests erupted in Seattle demanding justice for Ellis and Tacoma Mayor Victoria Wooodards called for a full investigation and for the officers involved to face immediate firing.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office ruled that oxygen deprivation caused by restraint was the cause of death.
The four cops first identified were placed on administrative leave for two weeks after Ellis' death and then returned to work.
After the coroner's ruling, they were placed on leave again and continue to be paid.
Governor Jay Inslee also waded in to the case in the summer ordering an impartial investigation by the Washington State Patrol and taking it away from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department on learning of the department's sergeant's involvement.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson will determine if any of the officers will face charges.
His office is also reviewing 20 other incidents of death or serious injury at the hands of law enforcement in the first half of 2020.
According to FUNKTIONARY:
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)
From [HERE] Bayle Adod Gelle was deep in sleep late Wednesday night at his home in Eden Prairie when he heard loud banging on the door.
The intensity of the sound at 2:15 a.m. left Bayle confused. He trudged down the stairs from his second-floor bedroom. As soon as he reached the living room, he found his wife there—surrounded by more than a dozen officers from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office. The officers allegedly pointed their guns at him and his wife, Bayle said, and then tied their hands tightly with a cord.
Awakened by the bangs and commotion, three children—ages 4, 7, and 9— joined their parents in the living room. Officers allegedly pointed guns at them, too, Bayle said.
“I felt very scared,” Bayle said in an interview with Sahan Journal at his home Thursday evening, some 14 hours after the police raid. “I thought they were going to kill us.”
After Sahan Journal published this story, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office provided an additional statement. Sheriff David Hutchinson said that “per HSCO procedure for all high-risk search warrants, the adults in the home were handcuffed.”After reviewing body-cam footage, the sheriff said he believes his deputies followed procedures and “acted professionally and politely.”
Hutchinson added, “Law enforcement never knows for sure what it’s walking into in these high-risk situation.” [all non-white people are the enemy of the government]
In his statement, Hutchinson closed by calling the search an “active, on-going investigation. No further information is available currently.”
That lack of information about the killing of his son frustrated Bayle. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, he visited the site of the shooting and talked to the gas station attendant, in a search for answers.
Back in the ransacked house that evening, surrounded by family members, Bayle described a harrowing police raid that terrified his family. He touched his right hand with his left and mimicked how the police tied up his hands and how it hurt. Looking distraught and shaken, Bayle said that his family moved out of the house on New Year’s Eve and into a nearby mosque in Eden Prairie.
Bayle runs a home health-care agency and is father to 11 children; until his killing, Dolal lived at home. Bayle seemed especially upset at the ordeal his youngest children endured.
During the police action, he recalled, his 4-year-old panicked and tried to run back upstairs. Officers yelled at him to stop running, the father said. The boy sat next to his mother, whose hands were tied, and could not stop crying.
The rest of family members sat in the living room, their hands tied with a cord. Officers kept the door of the living room open throughout the entire incident, and cold winter air rolled inside the house.
The cord on his hands nearly stopped the blood flow to his fingers, and Bayle, who is in his 60s and has diabetes, felt dizzy.
The next day, his fear had turned into anger.
“Imagine your son getting killed, and then getting a visit from those who killed him and they terrorize you in your home?” Bayle said.
![1) A White man called 911, sounding calm [or drunk] talking about, "Hi. How are you. [pause] I'm sitting in the park and there is a guy here pointing his gun at everybody. He is wearing a camouflage hat, like Desert Storm." The caller subsequently s…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a5430b290bade59404c2423/1609890203713-4U1RHUAX33NSOU76IBPX/tamir+authority+small+.jpg)
1) A White man called 911, sounding calm [or drunk] talking about, "Hi. How are you. [pause] I'm sitting in the park and there is a guy here pointing his gun at everybody. He is wearing a camouflage hat, like Desert Storm." The caller subsequently said he was “probably a juvenile” and that the weapon was “probably fake. But he said enough. He gave the impression that an adult Black man, possible a military veteran, is at a park filled with people, threatening them with a gun. Perhaps about to wreak havoc with a loaded weapon. There is no panic in his voice and he doesn't sound frightened either - because he wasn't. Apparently, the cops arrived minutes after the call. Where did all the people he talked about go? Where did he go? The caller knew what could happen when called the police on the Black child, that's probably why he called. After his reckless call, what happened to Tamir was reasonably foreseeable under these circumstances in this context. [Black male with gun in public place] Listen for yourself BELOW.
2) White Woman Police Dispatch Constance Hollinger calls the white cops and relays info from the 911 caller telling them: 'a Black male wearing a camouflage hat with a gun is at the park threatening people with a gun, waving it at people.' [cops don't listen to 911 calls they get it from the dispatch, so they never heard the above call]. She fails to relay the details that she was told by the 911 caller - that the suspect is “probably a juvenile” and that the weapon was “probably fake" to the responding officers. In other words, she purposefully provided incomplete information or mislead the cops.
Hollinger also knew that the caller was calm and was not in any immediate danger when he called. Despite the caller's allegation that a suspect was threatening "people" at the park, Hollinger knew that no one else had reported the incident to 911. She may have also given cops the impression that there was a group of "people" at the park. Dispatch has now effectively programmed the white cops to believe an ongoing emergency is taking place. Was this a mistake [negligence] or done intentionally [criminal]? [MORE]
From [HERE] Two white Cleveland police officers will avoid federal criminal charges for their role in the killing of Tamir Rice, an unarmed 12-year-old Black boy shot in 2014, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday, citing a lack of evidence in the high-profile case. Although the white dependent media repeatedly states that Rice was carrying a toy gun in reality the video shows that the child had a toy pellet gun in his pockets when the police arrived. Authoritarians and racist suspects go on subtly re-mixing & writing history to justify their actions and justify this racist system of coercion. Don't blame a toy gun or blurry video for this bullshit. [MORE]
The announcement drew to a close a five-year federal investigation into the actions of then-Officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, one that has been criticized by Tamir’s family and government watchdogs as deeply flawed and politically influenced.
The federal inquiry languished under both the Obama and Trump administrations. In 2019, two career prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division were denied permission to use a grand jury to issue subpoenas for documents or witness testimony.
Justice Department officials said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday that they could not establish that the officers involved in Tamir’s killing willfully violated his civil rights or that they knowingly made false statements with the intent of obstructing a federal investigation.
“This high legal standard — one of the highest standards of intent imposed by law — requires proof that the officer acted with the specific intent to do something the law forbids,” the Justice Department said. “It is not enough to show that the officer made a mistake, acted negligently, acted by accident or mistake, or even exercised bad judgment.”
The outcome of the protracted examination of the case angered the Rice family, which sued Cleveland over Tamir’s death. The city settled the case for $6 million in 2016, and Officer Loehmann was later fired for an unrelated violation.
“It was blatantly disrespectful that I had to learn from the media that the Department of Justice had shut down the investigation, after career prosecutors recommended a grand jury be convened,” Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice, said in a statement on Tuesday. [MORE]
In evaluating the legality of the stop all that matters is what the cops knew and what they saw at the time of the stop; that is, the first hand knowledge the police had in the present moment of the stop. A court will only consider what an officer observed or knew at the time of the stop. What cops subsequently learned from records checks, court records, videos or from the media is not relevant to a 4th Amendment analysis.
Here, the police acted on the basis of an anonymous caller who had no personal face to face contact with police. Cops had no way to know whether the information was reliable or credible. Prior to engaging Tamir, the cops did not talk to anyone else on the scene or do any investigation. They pulled up blazing.
When the racist suspect cops arrived on the scene most of the information from the police radio run dispatch was not corroborated. 1) No "guy" or grown man was present - only a 12 yr old child. From 4 to 10 feet away this was obvious to cops 2) There were no people around - the child was alone, no one is in the vicinity in the video. The white man who called 911 moments ago was not there. Thus, no ongoing emergency existed. 3) Contrary to white media accounts no gun was visible when cops arrived - the toy gun was in the child's pants and out of sight when police arrived- as his hands are empty and near his stomach when cops arrive. Importantly, Tamir was not engaged in criminal activity when cops arrived. The cops also did not witness any predictive conduct based on information the dispatch or caller provided - that is, Tamir was not threatening anyone as described by dispatch. A reasonable officer may have asked, 'is this the person we're were looking for?'
The cops acted without a warrant. When the white cop pulled his gun out and pointed it at Tamir what crime was he being stopped and arrested for? [MORE]
From [HERE] Louisville police have taken steps that could result in the firing of two officers connected to Breonna Taylor’s death — the one who sought the no-knock search warrant that led detectives to her apartment and another found to have opened fire.
Detective Joshua Jaynes received a pretermination letter, media outlets reported Tuesday. It came after a Professional Standards Unit investigation found he had violated department procedures for preparation of a search warrant and truthfulness, his attorney said.
Detective Myles Cosgrove also received a pretermination letter, media outlets later reported, citing his attorney, Jarrod Beck. Kentucky’s attorney general has said it was Cosgrove who appeared to have fired the fatal shot at Taylor, according to ballistics tests.
The shooting death of the 26-year-old Black woman in her home sparked months of protests in Louisville alongside national protests over racial injustice and police misconduct.
Jaynes has a hearing with interim Chief Yvette Gentry and her staff on Thursday.
“Detective Jaynes and I will show up for the pretermination hearing to try to convince acting Chief Gentry that this action is unwarranted,” attorney Thomas Clay told the Courier Journal. “Jaynes did nothing wrong.”
Jaynes was not present during the shooting at Taylor’s apartment in Louisville. About 12 hours earlier, he secured a warrant with a “no-knock” clause from a judge.
In Jaynes’ pretermination letter, Gentry said, the officer committed “extreme violations of our policies, which endangered others.”
“Your actions have brought discredit upon yourself and the department,” she wrote. “Your conduct has severely damaged the image our department has established within our community.”
Officers were serving a narcotics warrant on March 13 when they shot Taylor, but no drugs or cash were found in her home. Taylor was an emergency medical worker who had settled in for the night when police busted through her door. [MORE]
From [HERE] The family of Oscar Grant on Friday claimed that the Alameda County District Attorney’s office knows where one of the officers involved in Grant’s death is hiding from authorities.
In front of the Fruitvale BART station, where Grant was killed on New Year’s Day 2009, Grant’s mother and uncle used the 12th anniversary of his death to renew their call for murder charges to be brought against former BART Police officer Anthony Pirone.
Pirone and former officer Johannes Mehserle were both involved in the attempted arrest of Grant that led to his death. Only Mehserle, who shot Grant fatally in the back, faced charges. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2010.
Among those speaking at the press conference was former Black Panther Party chair Elaine Brown, who claimed Alameda District Attorney Nancy O’Malley knew where Pirone was located. Previously BART and other county officials said they didn’t know where he was.
“We contacted BART because they have been complicit,” Brown said. “They have covered up the murder right, we never knew anything about the exact things that Tony Pirone did.”
Attorney Charles Bonner backed Brown’s claim, saying O’Malley’s office admitted that they knew Pirone was in Long Beach, Calif.
“Why aren’t they arresting him?,” Bonner said.
Calls and emails to O’Malley’s office Friday were not answered.
Pirone became the focus of the family’s fight for justice in early 2019, when an unsealed internal investigation revealed that Pirone’s aggressive actions propelled the incident towards violence. He was also reported to use a chokehold similar to what a Minneapolis police officer used to kill George Floyd earlier this year.
“He actually crushed the bones in Oscar’s face,” Grant’s uncle Bobby Johnson said during the press conference.
O’Malley’s office announced the reopening of the investigation into Grant’s death back in October. Since then, the office has been silent on its progress and the family says they’re being told the statute of limitations is hindering the case.
“They say there’s a statute of limitations, which we know is bogus. This is murder,” Bonner said.
BART unsealed more documents from the internal investigation on Dec 18. Attorney John Burris, who is working on the case with Bonner, said during the press conference that he was concerned over some of the findings in the new documents. Among them, he found reports saying that when investigators interviewed Pirone, they asked him “softball questions.”
“My point of view: the DA dropped the ball here,” Burris said.
The press conference ended with Lateefah Simon, one of BART’s Board of Directors, discussing a resolution she plans to bring before her board supporting Grant’s family in pursuing murder charges for Pirone.
“No longer can elected officials fear what real justice looks like,” Simon said. “We ask the DA to do right by the spirit of this young man.”
The Grant family also held a “virtual vigil” on Zoom that started at noon Friday and featured a performance by soul singer and Grammy award winner Macy Gray.
Grant was 22-years-old when he was fatally shot in the back by Mehserle in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2009. Grant’s family, on behalf of his daughter, sued BART over his death in 2011. The two parties settled for $2.8 million.
From [HERE] Federal prosecutors accused Florida prison officials of failing to protect women inmates from sexual abuse by correctional officers in a searing report released Tuesday.
The Justice Department investigation report details beatings and rapes of female prisoners at Lowell Correctional Institution, located in Ocala. State prison officials neglected to address the crimes, despite “systemic” sexual abuse that goes back to at least 2006, according to the report.
Lowell is the largest women’s prison in the country and houses nearly 1,500 inmates.
Throughout its 36 pages, the report lists incidents of sexual abuse against prisoners by officers as recently as April.
In that case, a sergeant engaged in oral sex in a maintenance room with a prisoner. Another inmate accused the same sergeant of harming her throat during oral sex in 2017, federal prosecutors say. The Florida Department of Corrections never completed an investigation of that incident.
But the conduct of that officer, who was arrested in July, is not an isolated incident, the report states.
In 2018, another sergeant allegedly raped a woman inmate in a storage area. That same year, an officer took an inmate to an outdoor area and forced her to perform oral sex. In another 2018 incident, an officer forced a woman to have sex in a bathroom in exchange for a drug that treats opioid withdrawal.
One lieutenant had multiple sexual abuse allegations lodged against him over a period of several years but remained on the job until he was arrested last year for allegedly molesting children in the surrounding community.
The report is the culmination of a two-year investigation by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. Investigators, including a former warden of a women’s prison, combed through thousands of pages of documents and photographic evidence from the Department of Corrections and conducted on-site interviews of staff and prisoners.
In addition to the documented cases of sexual coercion and rape, many prisoners told federal investigators about daily acts of sexual harassment and abuse such as groping and watching inmates while they shower.
Inmates who objected to the abuse were threatened with solitary confinement or withholding of basic necessities like toilet paper.
The report also lists numerous incidents of violence, including slamming a female inmate’s head into a wall and a beating that left a prisoner paralyzed.
Of the 161 incidents investigated by state prison officials between 2015 and 2019, only eight resulted in the officer’s arrest, according to the report. [MORE]
These words, uttered by the defendant, recorded by someone outside the jail, posted on Instagram and played ad nauseam during Montague’s trial, helped the state convince a jury the 27-year-old Annapolis native was guilty of second degree murder in a drug deal gone wrong.
The case is both a warning and a reminder of how the criminal justice system has used hip hop’s often raw and criminal thematic leanings in criminal proceedings despite the possibility of it unfairly prejudicing the defendant.
Read More
From [HERE] Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Charles Kushner, Stephanie Mohr. You’ve probably heard about President Trump’s odious pre-Christmas pardons for the first three — and nothing about Mohr, a former Prince George’s County police officer. But Mohr’s pardon — for violating a homeless man’s civil rights by unleashing her K-9 on him — is equally, if not more undeserving. Of all the acts to pardon in a year that witnessed the killing of George Floyd, it is the most insensitive and inflaming.
I know; I was part of the team at the Justice Department’s civil rights division that helped prosecute Mohr in 2001.
In the middle of the night on Sept. 21, 1995, a local Prince George’s County police burglary stakeout unit found two homeless men on the empty roof of a business, eating food they had found in the trash in Takoma Park, Md. Ordered down from the roof, Ricardo Mendez and his friend willingly climbed down. Lit by a police helicopter above and facing a brick wall, the two men were surrounded by police officers, some with guns drawn, and Mohr holding her German shepherd on a leash. Both men obeyed commands and stood facing the wall with their hands up.
It should have been over. It wasn’t.
A police sergeant later testified that he was approached by Mohr’s supervising officer who said, “Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite?” The sergeant gave consent, and Mohr set her dog to attack Mendez, an undocumented immigrant whose only crime was seeking a safe place to eat and sleep. Mohr testified that she was doing her job as trained, and the victim needed “only 10 stitches.”
Think about that: only 10 stitches. Mohr disregarded her training to give her dog a taste of flesh and blood.
A key government witness was Dennis W. Bonn, a retired Takoma Park police sergeant who testified that he gave Delozier permission to have Mohr release her dog. Bonn, who pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in the case, said Mendez and Herrera-Cruz never tried to run or resist. Police quickly learned that Mendez and Herrera-Cruz were not burglary suspects but had been sleeping on the roof. [MORE]
This was no accident or split-second mistake. It was a willful and deliberate act of police brutality. It was also not Mohr’s first — and there was a pattern to the violence. Evidence at trial showed that Mohr had previously released her dog on a Black teenager sleeping in a hammock in his own backyard. She had threatened the relatives of a fugitive that she would let her dog attack their “black ass” if they did not tell her where he was. There were other incidents that the jury did not even learn about, including one in which Mohr put her dog into a trash dumpster to attack a man who had fled from police.
At trial, in addition to the police sergeant at the scene who pleaded guilty and went to jail for his role, numerous police officer witnesses testified about the incident. The jury convicted Mohr and the presiding judge gave her a significant prison sentence. A unanimous panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country, affirmed her conviction. Mohr was released after serving a 10-year sentence.
In early December, Mohr made a direct appeal to the president for a pardon by going on Newsmax. She spewed falsehoods about the case, claiming she had been made a scapegoat. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The White House statement announcing her pardon noted that it reflected her “service and the lengthy term that Ms. Mohr served in prison,” adding, “Officer Mohr was a highly commended member of the police force prior to her prosecution.” Actually, she had been sued at least four times for brutality, was twice found to have made false statements to a superior and was flagged as a potential problem officer by the department’s early warning system.
It should be no surprise that on the night in question, Mohr saw these two undocumented homeless men as little more than something for her dog to practice on. In those days, the Prince George’s police department was known for brazen and routine abuse of force. A Justice Department review of the police force had resulted in a litany of changes to its use-of-force protocols. [MORE]
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