Labor Activists Launch New Organization to Challenge AFL-CIO Foreign Policy

From [HERE] Labor activists from across the country, members of a number of unions, publicly announced the creation of LEPAIO, the Labor Education Project on the AFL-CIO International Operations, over the weekend of April 8-9. They held a press conference outside AFL-CIO headquarters on 16th Street in Washington, D.C., on April 8th, and followed with a four-hour educational conference at the University of the District of Columbia the following day.

This is the first project to focus on AFL-CIO operations around the globe since efforts to pass the “Build Unity and Trust Among Workers World-wide” resolution at the AFL-CIO’s 2005 National Convention in Chicago.

This new project, LEPAIO, is hoping to build support leading to the AFL-CIO’s 2022 National Convention in Philadelphia on June 12-15.

Speakers at the educational conference spoke on a number of issues, noting that the education conference on April 9th came on the 20th anniversary of the attempted (but failed) coup against democratically elected President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.

Speakers Margaret Flowers, William Camacaro, and James Patrick Jordan spoke of the on-going U.S. attacks on Venezuela that continue today, particularly through economic sanctions supported by the AFL-CIO.

This writer later noted the similarities between the 2002 attempted coup in Venezuela and the 1973 Chilean coup that overthrew democratically elected Salvador Allende, about which the AFL-CIO’s involvement in the latter through its American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) had been revealed by the late Fred Hirsch of Plumbers and Pipefitters #393 in San Jose, California, in 1974.These talks were followed by a heart-felt talk by David Hemson about how the progressive non-racial unions of South Africa were created, beginning with the mass strikes in Durban in 1973. Hemson had been one of the original organizers there.

Hemson spoke about how the AFL-CIO had supported the apartheid regime, especially through the on-going support of Zulu Chief Gatscha Buthelezi. Buthelezi and his people had physically attacked COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) members and affiliated unions in an internal war in the early 1990s in the province of Kwa-Zula/Natal. The AFL-CIO, ironically, had given Buthelezi the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Award for Human Rights in 1982.

Three More Senators Violated the STOCK Act

From [HERE] The deadline for members of Congress to file their annual financial disclosures for 2021 was last week, May 16. But as usual, most members availed themselves of a 90-day extension that will give them until sometime in August to release their reports. The disclosures list their households assets, as well as other information like outside positions and travel reimbursements, and are often dumped online as hundreds of pages of illegible paper scans.

In the Senate, just 23 senators filed their 2021 annual disclosures by last week’s deadline. A review of this batch of disclosures shows that last year at least three more senators appear to have violated the STOCK Act’s requirement that they disclose certain financial transactions made by their households within 45 days. 

Two senators, Democrats John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Gary Peters of Michigan, filed periodic transaction reports (PTRs) on May 16, 2022 for transactions they made in 2021. The transactions were also included in their 2021 annual disclosures. The third, Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas, has not yet addressed his missing periodic transaction report from last year for stock transactions that appeared in his 2021 annual disclosure for the first time.

The three are just the latest of dozens of members of Congress who have been found to have violated the STOCK Act’s timely reporting requirement recently. According to a tally maintained by Business Insider, at least 60 other senators and representatives have failed to report their trades in accordance with the law.

The STOCK Act, signed into law in 2012, requires members of Congress and other government officials to file PTRs within 45 days when they, their spouse, or their dependent children execute transactions worth more than $1,000 of stocks, bonds, and other securities.

Senator Hickenlooper’s errant PTR details five transactions his household made in 2021 that are listed in his annual disclosure: two sales of between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Liberty Broadband Corporation and Liberty Media Corporation by his spouse on March 15; a sale of between $100,000 and $250,000 in Liberty Broadband by his spouse on Sept. 1; a sale of between $250,000 and $500,000 in Liberty Media by his spouse on Nov. 12; and his own purchase on May 11 of between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of non-public stock in Skylark Lounge Holdings LLC, a Denver bar and music lounge.  

Alyssa Roberts, communications director for Sen. Hickenlooper, told Sludge, “We missed filing these on time by mistake but we’ve implemented steps to prevent it from happening again.”

Sludge asked Roberts if Hickenlooper had taken a position on the various legislative items that have been introduced to limit the trading or ownership of individual securities by members of Congress while in office. 

“Senator Hickenlooper supports legislation to restrict members of Congress from trading individual stocks,” said Roberts. “He believes we should prevent conflicts of interest and build on the disclosure and transparency already in place.” 

This statement stops short of endorsing the Ban Conflicted Trading Act or any of the three similar bills that have been introduced in the Senate, and Hickenlooper has not joined as a co-sponsor of any of them.

Hickenlooper was an active stock trader in 2021, his first year in the Senate, filing seven PTRs for transactions including a six-day sell-off of technology company stocks in late October and early November. He reported fully unloading his holdings in Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, and other tech companies, with a total maximum value of over $4 million. 

The stock price of Liberty Broadband has declined around 23% since Hickenlooper’s spouse’s first partial sale of the asset on March 15, 2021, and the stock price of Liberty Media has declined by about 6% since that date. 

Hickenlooper’s spouse, Robin Pringle Hickenlooper, has worked as senior vice president of corporate development at the Englewood, Colorado-based Liberty Media Corporation since 2010. Liberty Media’s assets include the Atlanta Braves baseball franchise and associated real estate projects, the Liberty SiriusXM Group that holds interests in SiriusXM and Live Nation Entertainment, and other sports companies in the Formula One Group. She sits on the SiriusXM board of directors, which is chaired by Liberty Media CEO Gregory B. Maffei, and she serves on the board of Chipotle.

Also on May 16, Sen. Gary Peters’ office filed a PTR for an Aug. 27, 2021 purchase listed in his annual disclosure of between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of stock in FS KKR Capital Corp., a credit solutions company. The senator did not file a PTR for the transaction last year as required by law. Sludge’s inquiries to Peters’ office about the transaction and STOCK Act compliance did not receive a response.  [MORE]

Elon Musk Is Not A Renegade Outsider – He’s A Massive Pentagon Contractor

From [DAVID ICKE] Elon Musk’s proposed takeover of Twitter has ruffled many feathers among professional commentators. “Musk is the wrong leader for Twitter’s vital mission,” read one Bloomberg headline. The network also insisted, “Nothing in the Tesla CEO’s track record suggests he will be a careful steward of an important media property.” “Elon Musk is the last person who should take over Twitter,” wrote Max Boot in The Washington Post, explaining that “[h]e seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.” The irony of outlets owned by Michael Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos warning of the dangers of permitting a billionaire oligarch to control our media was barely commented upon.

Added to this, a host of celebrities publicly left the social media platform in protest against the proposed $44 billion purchase. This only seemed to confirm to many free speech-minded individuals that the South African billionaire was a renegade outsider on a mission to save the internet from authoritarian elite control (despite the fact that he is borrowing money from the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to do so).

Musk has deliberately cultivated this image of himself: a real life Tony Stark figure who thinks for himself and is not part of the established order. But behind this carefully constructed façade, Musk is intimately connected to the U.S. national security state, serving as one of its most important business partners. Elon, in short, is no threat to the powerful, entrenched elite: he is one of them.

Convicted Racist Suspect, Millionaire Democratic Donor Ed Buck Ordered to Pay [only] $250,000 in fines/restitution to the Families of the 2 Black Men He Murdered After Luring Them Into His Home

From [HERE] Millionaire Democratic donor Ed Buck, who last year was convicted for the drug-related deaths of two men, was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine and $47,000 in restitution on top of his 30-year prison sentence.

U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder at a hearing Friday denied Buck’s request to stay payment of the fine to the government and the restitution to his surviving victims and the families of the deceased men for their funeral costs until after his appeal had been decided.

“It would be unfair to these people to wait when they had to pay out monies that were substantial to them,” Snyder said.

The judge said the $400,000 fine the prosecution had asked for seemed “excessive” in the light of his prison sentence. 

Buck’s lawyer, Mark Werksman, argued against the imposition of any fine, saying that his client owned $100,000 to his 94-year-old mother that she had advanced him for his defense and that he was still facing civil lawsuits by his victims.

Buck, 67, has denied he was responsible for the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean. They died as a result of what prosecutors said was Buck’s “deadly practice of luring people, typically young Black men, and those experiencing homelessness, addiction, and/or poverty, to his West Hollywood apartment” and injecting them, sometimes against their will, with methamphetamine and other drugs. 

Born in Ohio, Buck has said that he made enough money from “several business ventures,” to retire in his 30s. He moved to West Hollywood in 1991 and lived in the same drab three-bedroom rent-controlled apartment for the next 30 years. He was a fixture in West Hollywood politics, often giving public comment at the City Council meetings, and running unsuccessfully for the part-time council in 2007. He is credited with helping to convince the council to ban the sale of fur in West Hollywood, making it the first city in the country to do so.

He donated more than half a million dollars to various Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Gavin Newsom, candidates and political action committees between 2008 and 2017.

Buck has said that in his mid-forties, he was prescribed amphetamine to treat his narcolepsy, which eventually grew into a methamphetamine addiction.

During the two-week trial, a chorus of victims testified about their experiences with Buck who, according to prosecutors, “treated them like lab rats in his twisted experiments.” Buck cultivated relationships with numerous Black men, some of whom were prostitutes, others drug addicts, others poor — at times all three. They were enticed into Buck’s orbit by the promise of money, shelter and drugs.

Just 45% of Black Families Own Their Home, Compared with 74% of White Families–And the Gap Has Increased Over the Last Decade

From [HERE] The homeownership rates for both Black and white families rose slightly over the last 10 years, with part of the increase taking place during the pandemic. 

The racial homeownership gap persists. The homeownership rate for Black families rose only slightly over the last decade, with part of the increase taking place during the pandemic–but it still falls far short of the white homeownership rate. 

Just 44.7% of Black families nationwide own their home, up slightly from 44% just before the pandemic began. That’s compared with 74% of white families, up marginally from 73.7% two years ago. 

The huge homeownership gap between Black and white families–29.3 percentage points–has also barely changed over the last decade, from 30.4 percentage points in the first quarter of 2012. At that time, 43.1% of Black families owned their home, versus 73.5% of white families. 

That’s according to U.S. Census data as of the first quarter. The words “family” and “household” are used interchangeably in this report to refer to people living in homes together. This report uses 2012 as a point of comparison because that’s when the U.S. housing market started to recover from the Great Recession. 

“The good news is that the Black homeownership rate didn’t decline during the pandemic, even though Black Americans were hit hardest by coronavirus-related layoffs and are recovering slower financially,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “But that’s only a glimmer of hope in a flawed system, where Black families are at an unfair financial disadvantage due to the legacy of racism and discrimination that has caused several generations to miss out on building wealth through homeownership.”

Washington, D.C. and Birmingham, AL have the highest Black homeownership rates; Salt Lake City has the lowest

Just over half (51%) of Black families in both Washington, D.C. and Birmingham, AL own their home, the highest Black homeownership rates in the U.S. of all metros with more than 1 million residents. They’re followed by Richmond, VA (50%), New Orleans (49%), Philadelphia (49%) and Atlanta (49%). 

The metro-level data in this report is from a Redfin analysis of the U.S. Census’ 2016-2020 5-year American Community Survey, released in March 2022–the most recent metro data available. Note that the national data above is more recent, from the first quarter of 2022. 

Washington, D.C. also has the smallest racial homeownership gap, with 72% of white families owning their home. Austin and Los Angeles have the next-smallest gaps. Forty-three percent of Black families in Austin own their home, versus 65% of white families. In Los Angeles, the gap is 33% versus 57%.

On the other side of the spectrum, just 23% of Black families in Salt Lake City own their home, the lowest Black homeownership rate in the U.S. It’s followed by Milwaukee (25%), Minneapolis (27%), Las Vegas (31%) and San Diego (31%). 

Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Milwaukee also have the largest racial homeownership gaps, with 73% of white families in Salt Lake City owning their home, 77% in Minneapolis and 70% in Milwaukee. San Diego and Las Vegas have smaller gaps, as white families in those places also have low homeownership rates compared with other metros (61% and 63%, respectively). 

In most metros, Black families are less likely to own their home than they were a decade ago

The homeownership rate for Black families dropped from 2012 to 2020 in 36 of the 52 metros in this analysis, with the biggest declines in Milwaukee (25% in 2020, down from 33% in 2012), Salt Lake City (23%, down from 30%) and Memphis (45%, down from 51%). 

The homeownership rate increased most in New Orleans, where 49% of Black families owned their home in 2020, up from 47% in 2012, Minneapolis (27%, up from 25%) and Boston (35%, up from 33%). 

The Black homeownership rate hasn’t changed in Baltimore, Denver, Hartford, CT or Tampa, FL. 

Systemic racism, wage gaps, soaring home prices continue to drive the racial homeownership gap

Racist housing policies like redlining and discriminatory housing covenants are a major reason why Black families have missed out on property-value gains. Redlining effectively blocked many Black families from obtaining mortgage loans in the first half of the twentieth century, and a Redfin analysis found that the typical family in formerly redlined neighborhoods have missed out on $212,000 worth of home equity over the last 40 years. That’s money that could have been used to buy more property, and/or passed on to children and grandchildren. 

Other factors contributing to the comparatively low Black homeownership rate also stem from systemic racism. There’s a persistent wage gap, with Black men nationwide earning 87 cents for every dollar earned by white men and Black women earning just 63 cents to the dollar, according to one study. Student debt is another obstacle, with the typical Black college graduate owing nearly double the typical white college graduate four years after graduating. Predatory lending during the Great Recession is yet another factor: Nearly 8% of Black households with mortgages lost their homes to foreclosure between 2007 and 2009, versus 4.5% of white families. 

Soaring home prices exacerbate the problem, with U.S. sale prices up 34% just since the beginning of the pandemic, and that’s especially problematic for prospective Black homebuyers. Prices rose at double the rate in majority-Black neighborhoods than those in majority-white neighborhoods from 2012 to 2018.

There are some reasons for optimism about Black real estate wealth. The total value of homes owned by Black people in the U.S. increased 31.1% year over year to a record $2.3 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021, and their total home equity increased $1.5 trillion, up 45%, according to the Federal Reserve. 

“It’s worth celebrating the fact that the real estate wealth held by Black Americans is on the rise, and hopefully that wealth will strengthen Black communities” Fairweather said. “But unfortunately, because most Black Americans don’t currently own a home, most of them aren’t earning money through homeownership. Moving forward, the public and private sectors should work together on a major policy overhaul to help Black families buy homes, as that is one of the most important steps in reducing inequality in this country.” [MORE]

Gun Control? Estate of Andrew Brown Jr., who was Fatally Shot 14X by NC Cops Agrees to $3 Million Settlement. Who Will the Government Murder and Pay Next?

From [HERE] The estate of Andrew Brown, Jr. has settled its lawsuit against a North Carolina county sheriff’s office over his shooting death during an arrest last year, according to an attorney for the estate.

Brown’s family settled with Pasquotank County for $3 million, according to attorney Bakari Sellers, who represents the family and is also a CNN political analyst. CNN reached out to the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office for comment on the settlement. 

Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, was killed April 21, 2021, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, by Pasquotank County deputies attempting to serve a warrant for his arrest. His death resulted in protests against the shooting as critics accused police of a lack of transparency.

Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble later concluded the shooting – which Brown’s family described as an execution – was justified, saying Brown “recklessly” drove at the officers on the scene while trying to flee arrest.

Much of the attempted arrest was captured on body cameras worn by some of the deputies involved, however North Carolina law restricted its release without a court order. In a press conference nearly a month after Brown’s death, Womble showedvideos captured by deputies. 

Three of the seven deputies on scene fired a total of 14 shots at Brown, according to Womble. A state autopsy later confirmed Brown died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head. 

“While the district attorney concluded that no criminal law was violated, this was a terrible and tragic outcome, and we could do better,” Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten said, adding that two deputies did not turn on their body cameras during the incident. 

The three deputies who fired at Brown would be reinstated and retrained, Wooten said at the time. One of them has since retired and the other two were back on the force. 

Brown’s family and their attorneys said the same body-camera and dash-camera videos show Brown was trying to drive away from officers and was not a threat.

Attorneys for Brown’s estate filed a $30 million civil rights lawsuit in July, claiming deputies violated Brown’s Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force.

An amended complaint further alleged the arrest warrant for Brown was unlawful because it was not signed by a judge. The suit also said the two ranking officers initially on the scene when Brown was confronted told investigators that they did not fire their weapons because they did not see any indication that Brown had a weapon. One of them told investigators he did not think Brown’s car was going to hit him, the lawsuit said.

The FBI has announced a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting.

Lawsuit: After a Black Man Complained that Minneapolis Cops Assaulted Him During a Traffic Stop, Police Use Fabricated Evidence to Obtain a Warrant, Raid His House and Get Him Locked Up for 7 Months

From [HERE] Minneapolis man who was the subject of a botched drug raid has filed a federal lawsuit against several police officers, alleging they needlessly beat him during a traffic stop and one of them later "fabricated and/or misrepresented evidence to a Hennepin County judge" to obtain a warrant for his home.

The lawsuit alleges Minneapolis officers Tony Partyka, Neal Walsh and other unidentified officers violated Moore's civil rights by "unnecessarily and recklessly using excessive force to pull Moore from his vehicle, throw him to the ground" and beat him on the side of the road during a routine traffic stop, leaving Moore with a broken nose and other injuries.

A few months later, Partyka violated Moore's civil rights again "as retribution for Moore's complaints to the Minneapolis police department" about the use of force when he led a SWAT raid into Moore's north Minneapolis home with a no-knock warrant, according to the suit.

Hennepin County Judge Paul Scoggin ultimately threw out the drugs and other evidence recovered in the search, after Moore's public defenders exposed what Scoggin called a "reckless disregard for the truth" on the part of Partyka.

"Unfortunately for Moore, the warrant was only quashed after he had unjustly been forced to spend over seven months in jail when he was arrested after the illegal search of his residence," the lawsuit states.

The Minneapolis City Attorney is reviewing the lawsuit, but declined to comment on the allegations, said city spokesman Casper Hill.

The Star Tribune first reported on Moore's saga in May 2021, after the charges against him were dropped. Chief among the questions that unraveled the case: Did Partyka embellish — or fabricate — key information from a trusted informant? [MORE]

White Florida Cop Charged with Manslaughter after Murdering James Lowery. Shot Unarmed Black Man in the Back of the Head as He Fled. Cops Refuse to Release Video, Media Refuses to Release Image of Cop

THE GREAT UNDECEIVER NEELY FULLER EXPLAINS THAT RACISM WHITE SUPREMACY IS PRIMARILY CARRIED THROUGH DECEPTION [MORE]

From [HERE] Titusville, Florida police officer Joshua Payne turned himself in yesterday (June 1) in connection to a fatal shooting that occurred late last year.

On December 26, 2021, Payne shot and killed 40-year-old James Lowery, a Black man, while chasing him on foot. The officer is now in Brevard County Jail and will face a manslaughter charge.

At the time of the incident, Payne and other officers were responding to a 911 domestic violence report. Police arrived near Gayle Avenue after a call stated that a woman was being beaten on the road.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Lowery matched the domestic battery complaint description of the suspect. Reports state that as the officer attempted to stop the suspect, the 40-year-old fled the scene.

Payne allegedly shot Lowery twice with his taser, but the suspect continued to run away. A report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement says that Lowery reached the gate of a nearby home and tossed a bag of narcotics over the fence. The report adds that as the officer told the suspect to “get down,” the man climbed the fence to escape.

At that moment, sources say the officer pulled the trigger on his gun and taser, striking Lowery in back of his head. He died from his wounds.

Payne, who was hired in July of 2020, was placed on unpaid suspension after the incident.

Earlier this year, civil rights attorney Ben Crump filed a lawsuit against the Titusville Police Department. The famed lawyer is working on behalf of Lowery’s family.

Crump released a statement that read, “We are encouraged by the state attorney’s decision to file charges against Officer Payne for his deadly actions, but we will not stop fighting until there is a conviction. Officer Payne targeted, stalked, tased and shot James in the back of the head despite the fact that he wasn’t involved in the case that was being investigated, wasn’t armed, and was in no way threatening the officer.” It continued, “Officer Payne’s actions, as laid out in black and white in the affidavit, were nothing short of criminal. Nothing will bring James back to his family and loved ones, but we can bring them a measure of justice by holding Officer Payne accountable. And today’s charges bring us one step closer.”

Ben Crump and Quanell X Call for the Arrest of the White Houston Cop who Murdered Jalen Randle. Thus Far, the Harris County DA, a Racist Suspect Democrat, has Failed to Act

From [HERE] Nationally-renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump held a news conference Thursday with the family of Jalen Randle to discuss what they are calling the disturbing and violent record of Houston Police Officer Shane Privette, who shot and killed the Black man on April 27.

Crump and the family said that body camera footage from the incident clearly shows that Randle, with no visible weapon, was running away from police when he was shot in the back of the neck. Randle’s family feels he was not provided enough time to respond to the officer’s command before being gunned down.

Kim Ogg is is the Harris County District Attorney in Texas and took office in 2017. She is a racist suspect and a democrat. The DA’s office stated to news media;

“In every officer-involved shooting, our Civil Rights Division prosecutors conduct a thorough, independent review of all the evidence and present every bit of evidence to a Harris County grand jury to determine if a criminal charge is warranted.

“We also await the results of the Houston Police Department’s investigation.”

Last Monday, community activist Quanell X, representatives from the Rainbow Push Coalition and other civil rights advocates held another news conference, this time in front of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, calling for #JusticeForJalen. 

The family addressed the media after having a meeting with Ogg, saying that the meeting was “cordial” and they feel confident that they would get the movement they are seeking in the case. 

Crump, who gained national recognition in the Trayvon Martin case, said he plans on bringing a civil lawsuit against the Houston Police Department on behalf of Randle’s estate. He and the family reviewed the bodycam video, and heard what they feel proves that Privette intended to kill Randle.

“His motive was to kill my son,” Randle’s mother, Tiffany Rachal, said. “I am devastated, I am angry and for no one to come out to say anything to us is absurd to me.”

Rachal claims Privette could be heard in the video saying, “He won’t live to leave this neighborhood,” just minutes before the shooting, but law enforcement officials said important information is being left out.

Ray Hunt, executive director of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, also listened to the tape and told KPRC 2 that it is very clear that Privette flubbed his words. Hunt said he finds it interesting that Crump nor the family completed Privette’s sentence at the press conference.

According to Hunt, “He ain’t gonna liv-leave this neighborhood…” Privette could be heard saying, correcting himself, “…he’s gonna bail at that… (interrupted).”

Twenty seconds later, Privette comes back on the audio, saying, “he’s going to go back to that house.”

Despite the opposing sides, the family feels their loved one’s death was unnecessary, and this is not the first time Privette’s actions have come under scrutiny.

The officer was indicted by a grand jury in 2019 for first-degree aggravated assault on a Black citizen that occurred during an on-duty incident. KPRC 2 Investigates reported on the case back then.

According to records, on Nov. 14, 2017, Dwayne Walker was being arrested for manufacture and/or delivery of less than a gram of a controlled substance.

During the arrest, Privette allegedly struck Walker in the face with his knee in a gas station parking lot. Walker sustained various bruises and an excessive force investigation was launched. Charges against Privette were later dropped in 2019.

Nonetheless, Crump and the family believe Privette should not have been allowed to work as a law enforcement officer in the community after the previous incident. The civil rights attorney is calling on District Attorney Kim Ogg to file charges against Privette.

“How long will it take for them to arrest the officer who killed Jalen Randle? Shot to the back of the head, what else needs to be said?” Crump asked.

In May, police released video showing different angles of the shooting from body-worn cameras from various officers, including Privette. From where the video begins, the statement that is being called into question is not on the recording.

The Value of Black Citizenship Low as a Jury of Sheople Say a White Cop Didn’t Use Excessive Force when He Violently Assaulted a Black Man During an Arrest to En-Force Topeka’s “Parallel Parking’’ Law

VAGINAL WHITE TOPEKA COP-ARTIST WEARING A COSTUME CALLS FOR BACK UP DURING A PARKING TICKET TRAFFIC STOP ON AN EMPTY STREET. ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY:

Force – the source or sources of all possible actions of the particles or materials of the universe(s). 2) the manipulation of a man or woman in disregard of its own volition or nature. 3) the use of an outside physical coercion of any kind by one or more humanoids against another or others in order to make him/her or them obedient and compliant to his/her or their will. 4) the basis of all social evils and can only be used in the sense of attack not defense. 5) You must! In the way I say! 6) the social disease. “Force (coercion) and fraud are the foundation of all social systems and the source of the aroma which they exhale.” ~Max Nomad. “Force” operates to remove personal volition from opportunity to act or not act. Someone “makes” you behave in a certain way by threatening to injure or enslave you, someone you love, or something you prize, if you do not behave in that way. Force operates to obtain an intended behavior when the forced party would otherwise have exhibited a different behavior. Punishment, pain, suffering, and discomfort characterize force. Unfortunately, governments only function by misuse of force—mistreatment, duress and coercion. Once established, they put laws into effect by threatening persecution, imprisonment, fine, or death against all who don’t comply with those laws—including the use of the force continuum. “That which is imposed by force is sooner or later deposed by force.” ~ Mikhail Naimy. In reality, force is neutral, it is how it is applied that colors its action. The greatest and highest force in the universe is love unfolding in each moment. (See: Government, Autonomy, Justice, Fiction, Fraud, Corporate State, Freedom, Forgery, Racism White Supremacy, Religion, Authority, Violence, Coercion, Deception, Language, Force Continuum, Capital Punishment & Gerp)

From [HERE] A jury of sheople has found that a white Topeka police officer did not use excessive force when he arrested a Black man in 2018. Timothy Harris sued Officer Christopher Janes after his arrest during a traffic stop in Topeka. The racial make up of the jury is unknown because racist suspect “journalists” don’t usually report on such things in their effort to conceal the reality of the system of RWS for their elite white masters who run the Dependent Media.

He alleged Janes violated his civil rights by taking him to the ground, hitting him and using pepper spray while his hands were handcuffed behind his back. A federal jury on Thursday ruled in Janes' favor.

According to police records, the Topeka police officer stopped Timothy C. Harris for sitting in his car while his car was illegally parallel parked more than 12 inches from the curb, which apparently is a serious crime in Kansas.

Topeka police officer Christopher Janes approached Harris and started asking questions. Even though Harris was fully cooperating, Janes became extremely hostile quickly. But the bodycam speaks for itself.

The body cam video begins with Harris’ car stopped along the street as Janes pulled up. Harris and a woman are inside the car.

Janes also told Harris that his vehicle could not be stopped where he was. Harris and his passenger argued they weren’t parked because the engine was still running, and Harris had just gotten in moments ago - they were standing momentarily.

The argumentative white cop said to the black woman, “Are you an attorney?”

The video then shows Janes asking for Harris' identification. As Janes is heard radioing in to dispatch, Harris asked him what was going on, to which Janes replied, “You’re being detained. That’s what’s going on.”

At that point, Harris is seen taking off his jacket, reaching into his pocket, then trying to hand Janes his wallet along with another item.

When Harris started to get out of the car, Janes tells Harris to get back in the car. Janes then turns Harris to face the car and handcuffs him. As Janes tries to roughly move Harris to a patrol vehicle, Harris moves around surprised by the use of force and twists to ask Janes ‘what is doing that for?. At that point, the white cop slams him to the ground while he is handcuffed, and the woman is heard yelling at Harris, “Stop it, You cannot do that.”

Janes detained Harris without explanation and forcefully took him to the ground where he began punching him and spraying him with pepper spray, according to the federal lawsuit.

When backup officer arrived, Harris was already covered in blood with a broken jaw, according to CJOnline.

In the video the Black man is heard begging the cop to “please stop” and he says he can’t breathe over and over. The woman says ‘he can’t breathe, get off of him’ - as apparently the white cop was on top of the handcuffed Black man’s back on the pavement.

In the lawsuit, Harris claims Janes never said why he was being detained.

Harris' attorney Andrew Stroth said the video "speaks for itself and is a clear case of excessive force."

"The TPD has historically engaged in a pattern and practice of excessive and unreasonable force and the City of Topeka is liable,” he continued.

In the supervisor inquiry obtained by 13 NEWS, TPD's Sgt. Hoa Lam said Janes' actions were in line with his training. Additionally, the tactics were within the department's policy.

Following the January incident, Topeka Municipal Court records show Harris was found guilty of unlawful parallel parking, and interference with a law enforcement officer, but charges of disobeying a lawful police order and battery against an officer were dismissed.

REALITY UNDERMINES LEGAL TRUTHS. Black people must understand that so-called Constitutional rights are a myth. Brazen cops so frequently abuse their power that no Black person could make a compelling or rational argument that so-called constitutional rights afford any real protection from cops on the street. Belief in such lies are mental slavery. in the free range prison you only have rights if a person in authority, such as a judge, police officer, Govt official or politician, says that you do. Don’t waste time in this life believing in advocating in such bullshit.

The arrest for violation of a parking ordinance in this case was petty. But take a closer look. What should be overstood here is that all “Laws” are threats backed by the ability and willingness to use violence/force against those who disobey. Our legal system is entirely based on physical violence. Michael Huemer explains ‘the legal system is anchored by a non-voluntary intervention, a harm that the state can impose regardless of the individual’s choices.’ Jeremy Locke states, Locke states, “The lie of tyranny is that you will maintain the freedom of life by obeying authority. The choices it offers you are a lifetime of obedience or death.” As a placebo, citizens might rationalize that they voluntarily comply with authority but there really is no other choice. The only reality is to comply with authority or eventually authoritarians will place you in greater confinement. Huemer spells out the mechanics of it,

“One can choose not to pay a fine, one can choose to drive without a license, and one can even choose not to walk to a police car to be taken away. But one cannot choose not to be subjected to physical force if the agents of the state decide to impose it.” Our legal system is not voluntary or consensual and there is no way to opt out or decline participation in it; we are all born into an involuntary system of physical coercion where you either obey authority or go to jail. [MORE]

Court Rules a KC Cop is Not Liable for Fatally Shooting Ryan Stokes in the Back pursuant to The Law of The Jungle (Immunity). Cops Chased Black Man after a Drunk White Man Falsely Accused Him of Theft

ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY:

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, Judicial System, Constitution, Law, Domestication, Justice, Civilization, Weitiko Disease & “Government”) 

sovereign force – an abstract body of legal lawlessness unto itself administered by territorial gangsters.

From [HERE] A federal appeals court has ruled that a Kansas City police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man during a foot chase near the Power & Light District in 2013 cannot be held liable in the Black man’s death.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth District on Tuesday affirmed a 2020 ruling that granted William Thompson qualified immunity when it ruled that the officer used “reasonable” force when he fatally shot Ryan Stokes, 24, on July 28, 2013.

Ryan Stokes, age 24, was an unarmed black man who was fatally shot from behind by a white Kansas City police officer. The officers chased Ryan into a Power & Light District parking lot around 3 a.m. on July 28, 2013, after a drunk white man falsely accused Stokes of stealing his iPhone.

After the shooting, KCPD promoted a false narrative that Ryan Stokes was a thief with a gun who had engaged in a standoff with police when he refused to drop his weapon. They delivered this statement to the press and to Ryan’s family. Daniel Straub, one of the officers involved in the chase that night, later gave a sworn testimony against the department’s initial false narrative. He revealed that in fact, Ryan Stokes didn’t have a gun and was complying with his orders. Daniel Straub was later pushed out by KCPD after speaking on the matter.

Ryan Stokes didn’t steal the phone. He was unarmed and was already surrendering to officer Daniel Straub when Stokes was shot from behind by another KCPD officer. That officer’s name is William Thompson, and he is still on the force. [MORE]

The Stokes family appealed the 2020 decision to the federal appeals court. In its ruling released Tuesday, the three-judge panel wrote: “Despite the tragic circumstances, the district concluded that Officer Thompson was entitled to both qualified and official immunity.

We affirm.” The court has maintained that Thompson believed Stokes was armed and turned to ambush other police who were chasing him that night following an altercation and that Thompson fired his weapon to protect his fellow officers.

The officer fired three shots at Stoke, striking him twice in the back. Stokes died a short time later. “We have fought for justice for Ryan for the last 8 years and we will continue our fight,” according to a written statement released on behalf of his mother Narene Stokes and Brittney Lee, the mother of his daughter. “(Today) we learned that the officer will be protected by ‘qualified immunity,’ a court created doctrine designed to protect the officer and to deny citizens any protections against lawless police.” “The laws must change. Our sons and daughters must be protected.”

The court’s ruling could end the family’s civil ligation efforts. But Cyndy Short, an attorney representing the family, said they may ask the full appeals court to hear the matter or submit the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the time of the shooting, Thompson said he thought he saw a gun in Stokes’ hand when they crossed paths in a parking lot near 12th and McGee streets.

Several officers said they believed Stokes was actually surrendering.

Police later found a gun in a car next to Stokes’ body (a drop gun). However, the handgun belonged to Stokes’ friend and the owner of the car.

A Jackson County grand jury cleared the officers of any criminal wrongdoing. In its opinion, the federal appeals court panel wrote: “Critical to our decision was the idea that “[a]n officer is not constitutionally required to wait until he sets eyes upon the weapon before employing deadly force to protect himself against a fleeing suspect who turns and moves as though to draw a gun.”

Official immunity shields Missouri police officers from liability for their discretionary decisions, including when they “draw[ ] and fire[ ] a weapon,” even if they are negligent.

Immunity ends where bad faith or malice begins, the court further ruled.

Narene Stokes has maintained that the shooting of her son was unjustified. She filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the police department in 2016. “He had never broken the law. He loved his daughter and his family,” Stokes and Lee said in their joint statement. “

But none of those facts protected him against a young white man’s foolish drunken racist accusation against Ryan’s friend three (3) minutes before the shooting, which set off a series of events that led to this ‘tragic circumstance’ and changed our lives forever,” they said. Stokes was among the names of Black men fatally shot by police chanted by protesters in the summer of 2020.

More Lies About Gun Control? Klansas City Prosecutors Release a Photoshopped Image to Justify Cop Shooting a Pregnant Black Woman. In the Image Her Leg is Invisible and Her Arm is Interwoven w/a Fence

THE BOTTOM LINE HERE IS THAT BLACKS ARE PROHIBITED FROM POSSESSING GUNS IN THE SYSTEM OF RACISM WHITE SUPREMACY. WHETHER THE BLACK INDIVIDUAL POSED A THREAT OR POSSESSED IT UNLAWFULLY OR LAWFULLY IS BESIDE THE POINT; NO GUNS ALLOWED FOR BLACKS. ANY BLACK PERSON IN POSSESSION OF A GUN OR A BLACK OBJECT IN THEIR HAND OR PHYSICALLY NEAR A GUN OR BLACK OBJECT OR ANY BLACK PERSON SAYS THEY ‘HAVE A GUN,’ CAN BE EXECUTED ANYTIME BY COPS.

RACISTS WANT IT LIKE THAT. PARTICULARLY IN CITIES RUN AND CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRAT PUPPETICIANS AND THEIR BLACK ROLEBOTS, SUCH AS KANSAS CITY, NYC, OAKLAND, CHICAGO, PHILADELPHIA, ETC. Amos Wilson explained, as with the GOP, "to Democrats, Black people and their welfare are not the end of the electoral process but merely the means for winning.” SO PROTECT THE VOTE AND GET OUT TO VOTE FOR DEMS WHO DELIVER NOTHING TANGIBLE TO THE BLACK VOTARY [MORE] AND [MORE]

From [HERE] An unarmed Black woman told officers she was pregnant just before she was shot multiple times in Kansas City, Missouri, according to a witness.

Leonna Hale, 26, had her hands up in the moments before officers shot her in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store on Friday night, a woman identified only as Shédanja told The Kansas City Star. 

Shédanja said Hale was attempting to run away from officers when they shot her five times.

However, in a statement Wednesday [June 1 2022], [Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker] said a review conducted by her office of police body cameras showed that Hale “continually displayed a weapon during her encounter with police officers” before she was shot. “Our job, as prosecutors, is to remain neutral and review all evidence,” Baker said. “Our review of body cam videos provided the actual accounting of events that night.”

Jackson County Prosecutor’s office released the above photo. The cops declined releasing the bodycam. [in American mythology the body worn camera is the property of the people - meaning the people pay for the cops “service” and all their equipment, tools and furniture actually are owned by citizens because the police are our public servants. In actual reality, the police are our public masters and bodycam is intended to prosecute people not cops ). Disinformation purveyors like Andy Ngo and others observed anomalies in the image — Hale’s ankle appeared to have been badly edited, and her arm seemed to be interwoven with the fence.

White Democrat Louisiana Gov Accused of Doing Nothing After Viewing Video of White Cops' Brutal Murder of Ronald Greene Claims 'He Didn't Know Prosecutors Hadn't Seen It or Why No Cops Were Charged'

From [HERE] Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said there was “no excuse” for a video he watched of the deadly arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene failing to reach prosecutors for another six months. But he maintained he couldn’t have known at the time that the footage had not already been turned over.

The white Democrat’s remarks in a news conference Thursday offered a preview of his June 16 testimony to a bipartisan legislative committee investigating allegations of a cover-up in Greene’s 2019 death in Louisiana State Police custody.

Ronald Greene’s family and a group of advocates are calling for the governor to be punished after new reports show he saw the video of the man’s violent arrest months before it was shown to detectives or prosecutors.

Gov. John Bel Edwards reportedly received a text message from a top state police official within hours of Greene’s death telling him that troopers engaged in a “violent, lengthy struggle.” Facing upcoming reelection, the governor shied away from publicly commenting on the case for two years, according to reports.

According to The Associated Press, in October 2020 after seeing the more incriminating video of two showing the violent arrest, the Democratic governor and his staff remained mum.[MORE]

Mona Hardin said the new detail is another piece in the string of cover-ups in her son Ronald Greene’s death. Police officials initially said Greene died from a car crash. However, two years later, leaked video footage made public showed he was punched, tased, and dragged by troopers before he died.

Edwards said there isn’t a good explanation for the key video not being promptly turned over but emphasized that he didn’t know in October 2020 that he was seeing evidence that wasn’t available to the authorities with the power to charge the troopers seen beating, stunning and dragging Greene.

“There’s no excuse for it,” Edwards said. “I didn’t know about it.”

An Associated Press report last week found that neither Edwards, his staff nor the state police he oversees acted urgently to get the footage into the hands of detectives or prosecutors. That clip did not reach them until April 2021, nearly two years after Greene’s May 10, 2019 death that troopers initially blamed on a car crash. Now three years have passed, and despite ongoing federal and state investigations, no one has been criminally charged.

Edwards said he intends to tell lawmakers the truth. “The truth, as I’ve said all along, is good for me.”

At issue is the 30-minute body-camera footage from Lt. John Clary, the highest-ranking trooper to respond to Greene’s arrest. It is one of two videos of the incident, and captured events not seen on the 46-minute clip from Trooper Dakota DeMoss that shows troopers swarming Greene’s car after a high-speed chase, repeatedly jolting him with stun guns, beating him in the head and dragging him by his ankle shackles.

Clary’s video is perhaps even more significant to the investigations because it is the only footage that shows the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans under the weight of two troopers, twitches and then goes still. It also shows troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old Greene to remain face down on the ground with his hands and feet restrained for more than nine minutes — a tactic use-of-force experts criticized as dangerous and likely to have restricted his breathing.

In his news conference, Edwards emphasized contested accounts of whether the Clary video was shown to Greene’s family days after the governor and his lawyers saw it, saying this “is another instance of the media reports getting the substance of their report just very wrong.”

Greene’s family says it was not shown the Clary video after meeting Edwards on Oct. 14, a claim affirmed by prosecutors and several others who attended the viewing in Baton Rouge. State police and the governor’s office, however, disputed that, previously telling the AP that the Clary video was in fact shown.

The governor highlighted an email from lawyer Phaedra Parks saying she was one of the attorneys for Greene’s family present at the viewing and they did see the Clary video. Parks included with her email a copy of handwritten notes from the day of the meeting that include timestamps and details of events shown on Clary’s footage.

Another lawyer for Greene’s family, Lee Merritt, previously said they were not shown the Clary video, and contemporaneous notes from the then-head of the state police appear to indicate that there were multiple showings on that day, with the family not present for one.

John Belton, the Union Parish district attorney and lead prosecutor on Greene’s case, said Friday he remains “certain” he was not shown the Clary video that day. “We would have known we were seeing something different,” he told the AP. “We didn’t see it.”

Edwards said he thinks Belton “is mistaken.”

San Francisco Dems @ War w/their Own Image Struggle with How to Project a Civilized, Liberal Face while Concurrently Trying to Lock Up as Many Blacks as Possible and Allow Cops to be Unaccountable?

The great rebel Dr. Amos Wilson stated, The bane of the African community is the exploitative White American community which projects a so-called civilized, fraternal, egalitarian, liberal face while concurrently seeking to maintain White supremacy. This means that the White American community must maintain African subordination while not appearing to do so. It must cannibalistically sacrifice the vitality, autonomy, and if need be, the life of the African American community while posing as its benefactor and savior. It pleads innocence while washing its hands of the blood of African people. This duplicitous task can only be accomplished by making it appear that the African community is dying of natural causes, not of an ingenious attempt on the part of the White American community to strangle it to death. This means that African American hands must be used to plunge White American-manufactured daggers into the hearts of African American citizens. This is the assigned role of the Black-on-Black violent criminal. How this role is played out will be delineated in the chapters that follow.

To explain the problem of African subordination in terms of racism, racial hatred, and the like, is to misdirect and mislead the African community down the irrational and destructive path of seeking to overcome "racism" (as if "racism" could exist without some race of people being empowered to practice it) while leaving the power (and need) to practice this behavior in White hands. The African American and worldwide African communities have chased phantom explanations and solutions to their detriment. While the explanations and solutions expressed in this book may or may not be accepted by the reader, he or she must accept the fact that new explanations and solutions must be found and applied full speed ahead! [MORE]

From [HERE] As the former chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, Mary Jung has a long list of liberal bona fides, including her early days in politics volunteering in Ohio for the presidential campaign of George McGovern and her service on the board of the local Planned Parenthood branch. “In Cleveland, I was considered a communist,” she said in her San Francisco office.

But the squalor and petty crime that she sees as crescendoing on some city streets — her office has been broken into four times during the coronavirus pandemic — has tested her liberal outlook. Last year, on the same day her granddaughter was born, she watched a video of a mentally ill man punching an older Chinese woman in broad daylight on Market Street.

Ms. Jung, director of government affairs for the San Francisco Association of Realtors and head of a Realtors foundation that assists homeless people, wondered what kind of city her granddaughter would grow up in. “I thought, ‘Am I going to be able to take her out in the stroller?’”

Now she finds herself leading what has been called a Democratic civil war in one of America’s most liberal cities: an effort to recall San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, that has echoes of the party’s larger split over how to handle matters of crime and punishment. In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, liberals and independents will decide a recall that is receiving major funding from conservative donors in addition to backing from moderate Democrats.

“What shade of blue are you — that’s really what it comes down to,” said Lilly Rapson, the campaign manager of the recall and Ms. Jung’s partner in the endeavor. A lifelong Democrat, Ms. Rapson said she was motivated to lead the campaign after her home was broken into last year as she slept.

There is no compelling evidence that Mr. Boudin’s policies have made crime significantly worse in San Francisco. Overall crime in San Francisco has changed little since Mr. Boudin took office in early 2020.

But his message of leniency for perpetrators has rankled residents of the city, many of whom feel unsafe and violated by property crimes. Like a president facing election during a bad economy, Mr. Boudin finds himself a vessel for residents’ pandemic angst and their frustrations over a wave of burglaries and other property crimes in well-to-do areas. Some residents, especially the city’s sizable Asian American population, also feel that a spike in hate crimes has made it unsafe to walk the streets.

If successful, the recall would overturn one of the nation’s boldest efforts in criminal justice reform: an experiment to install a former public defender as the protector of public safety with promises to reduce mass incarceration, hold the police accountable and tackle racial disparities in the justice system.

A vote to push Mr. Boudin from office would signal to Democrats that talking tough on crime could be a winning message in the midterm elections, and deal a blow to a national movement that has elected progressive prosecutors in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles. [MORE]

Paid Crisis Actor At Three Different False Flags

Would Real People Smile and Laugh After Witnessing a Mass Shooting? No. But Actors Would Do So During a False Flag: Duper Delight Buffalo False Flag

From [HERE]

NY's New Gun Law Requires Potential Teenage Mass Murderers, who Otherwise Obey the Law, to Wait 2 Yrs to Buy a Gun If They Intend to Commit Their Massacres w/a Registered Semiautomatic Rifle

From [HERE] New Yorkers under age 21 will be prohibited from buying semiautomatic rifles under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, making the state among the first to enact a major gun control initiative following a wave of deadly mass shootings.

Hochul, a Democrat, signed 10 public safety-related bills, including one that will require microstamping in new firearms, which could help law enforcement solve gun-related crimes.

Another revised the state's “red flag” law, which allows courts to temporarily take away guns from people who might be a threat to themselves or others.

“In New York, we are taking bold, strong action. We’re tightening red flag laws to keep guns away from dangerous people,” Hochul said at a press conference in the Bronx.

New York's Legislature passed the bills last week, pushing the changes through after a pair of mass false flag shootings involving 18-year-old gunmen using semiautomatic rifles. According to the false narrative: Ten Black people died in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket May 14. A Texas school shooting took the lives of 19 children and two teachers 10 days later. [MORE] Believers create their own deceivers.

According to FUNKTIONARY:

Second Amendment – (to the Constitution for the United States)—is only intended for a militia to enforce the First Amendment if and when deemed necessary. Every non-felon in the street has the guaranteed right to be packin’ heat. Slave states (the overwhelming majority) are those that have criminalized openly carrying firearms. In the case of Silveira v. Lockyer, Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski summed up the importance of the right to keep and bear arms:

“The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”

The right to keep and bears arms actually serves as more than an insurance policy, it also serves as a deterrent. For when would-be tyrants know that the citizenry is well-armed, they think twice about imposing tyranny. (See: Gun Control, HUGGS, Self-Ownership, Cowards, Cemetery & Militia)

BOHICAN Puppeticians Pose and Grin as Corpse Biden Signs Executive Order on Police Reform That Does Almost Nothing to Prevent Local Cops from Murdering Blacks or Interfering w/Their "Rights" at Will

ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY:

BOHICAN – Bend Over Here It Comes Again Negro. Sniggers are the last of the buck-dancing Bohicans. “I am the last of the Bohicans,” he said, “…and I will never be broken. I am the last and worst of my breed—and the final token.” (See: Snigger, Coin-Operated, Samboism, Uncle Tom, Possumist, Turdistan, Piece-Activist, Niggeroe & GOP)

From [ELIE MYSTAL] Last week, a day after local police in Texas threatened to Taser parents instead of going into Robb Elementary School to stop a mass murderer from killing their children, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on police reform. The order came two years after a police officer in Minnesota crushed the life out of George Floyd in broad daylight, and many months after Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joined every Republican in the Senate to protect their precious filibuster and kill the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. 

The executive order is, to put it kindly, pathetic, but that is not entirely Biden’s fault. It only applies to federal law enforcement, because those are the people under Biden’s direct control. It bans things like choke holds and no-knock warrants and mandates body cameras, but again only for the federal officials Biden has the power to order around. It restores the Obama era ban on the transfer of military equipment to local police (a ban that, as we’ve already seen, will be rescinded the moment a Republican is back in the White House). But it doesn’t get creative or aggressive with local law enforcement. Jeff Sessions famously threatened to pull funding from local police in so-called sanctuary cities if they didn’t comply with his federal immigration mandates. Biden’s executive order does not make the same move: It stays squarely within the bounds of presidential power.

The reality of policing in America is that most of it happens at the state and local level. I am not particularly worried about being pulled over by the FBI for driving while Black, as I am neither a multistate serial killer nor likely to be mistaken for one. I’m not particularly worried about the Department of Justice’s execution of search warrants, as I am not a cult religious leader in Texas. I’m just a Black man who doesn’t want to be murdered in broad daylight for a moving violation. Biden’s executive order does functionally nothing to increase my chance of survival or that of my Black sons.

It’s worth remembering how we got here. Black people, and a host of concerned allies, protested throughout the summer of 2020 after video of the lynching of Floyd was played on television. Those protests represented the largest and longest sustained civil uprising in this country since the civil rights movement. Biden, as the Democratic nominee, rode the wave of those protests throughout the summer and promised action and reforms if elected. Black folks rewarded him with overwhelming support in the general election. Meanwhile, Black people in Georgia handed Democrats a slim majority in the Senate, even as allegedly well-meaning whites failed to hold up their end of the bargain and rejected well-funded Democratic candidates in Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina.

A president turning the main policy ask from his most reliable constituency into a puddle-deep executive order two summers later would be viewed as a massive failure… if that constituency were anybody other than Black people in this country. But we know how it works in America. Black folks agitate, organize, march, sweat, and bleed for a thing, and white elected officials worry about how it’s all going to play to the white supremacist audience over at Fox. Black people risked additional police brutality to protest police brutality, and the president we elected to deliver police reform declared in his State of the freaking Union: “Fund them. Fund them. Fund them. With training.”

And yet, the gridlocked machinations of the Senate have essentially given Biden a mulligan on this signature failure. Even the most ardent police reform advocates, and the loudest voices for strong use of executive power, have to acknowledge that, without Congress, Biden’s ability to change the behavior of local police is limited. Our constitutional system, created by and for white men with specific carve-outs that allowed individual states to maintain chattel slavery at their discretion, explicitly reserves “the police power” to the states. As long as white state governments want their police to viciously hunt black and brown bodies—and many white state governments do want that—there’s little Biden can do on his own authority.

Given that limitation, all Biden’s executive order could do was set an example. All police reform advocates could really hope for was that Biden would set a tone, and frame the issue correctly.

Instead, even in this functionally performative executive order that will secure the safety of virtually no one who voted for him, Biden caved to the police unions.

We can see that by comparing this final order to the draft executive order that was leaked back in January. In that first version, Biden called for use of deadly force only as a “last resort” when there is “no reasonable alternative” to prevent “imminent and serious” injury or death. The necessity for that restriction on force should be self-evident. Cops should only shoot when they have no other alternative and only shoot to prevent themselves or others from dying.

But if you think that’s a reasonable standard that shouldn’t be controversial, then you don’t think like a cop. Police unions complained about the language, arguing that a “no reasonable alternative” standard would lead to second-guessing of cops who kill people.

And Biden folded. In the final order, the use of deadly force language was changed to “when necessary” and “when the officer has a reasonable belief” that deadly force will prevent injury or death.

That watered-down language is pretty much the same standard we have now. Cops can shoot people to death when they think it’s necessary. It doesn’t have to be their “last” resort; they don’t have to exhaust other, de-escalation alternatives. Cops are literally authorized to shoot first and ask questions later, so long as other police officers view that shooting as “reasonable” under the circumstances.

In short, Biden contemplated putting an actual restriction on when cops can shoot Black people in his performative order that will only affect law enforcement that doesn’t regularly shoot Black people—and then backed off because the law enforcement that does regularly shoot Black people, who weren’t even covered by the order, threw a hissy fit.

This order is like a wealthy person who makes a big show of giving out turkeys on Thanksgiving (while privately voting for whichever politicians give him the biggest tax breaks)—but before they hand over the turkey, they rub it in dirt so that the recipients of the generosity still know they’re poor. 

There is nothing in Biden’s executive order that will stop law enforcement, at any level, from shooting unarmed Black people. There’s nothing in Biden’s executive order that even tries to make that stop. If a local cop or a state trooper or an FBI agent or a guy from the Space Force shoots me tomorrow, I promise you they will claim it was “necessary,” even if the only thing I’m holding is my Afro pick. No matter how many Black people protest or organize or advocate or vote, white politicians have decided police brutality is a cost Black people must bear.