From [HERE] The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona today demanded that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials remove immigration detainees from the Pinal County Jail (PCJ) or immediately remedy unconstitutional conditions at the facility, where hundreds of detainees are held in unsanitary conditions and subjected to abuse, despite the government’s pledge to create a “truly civil” immigration detention system.

In a letter sent today to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton and other top government officials, the ACLU charges that an investigation into the jail has revealed unacceptable conditions of confinement that are indisputably punitive, despite the fact that the immigration detainees there are held on civil, and not criminal, charges.

“[Conditions at the Pinal County Jail] violate the U.S. Constitution, as well as ICE’s own National Detention Standards, and continue in spite of the Obama administration’s pledge – honored mostly in the breach – to establish a truly civil system of immigration detention,” the ACLU’s letter reads. “The confinement of immigration detainees at PCJ, at least under current conditions, has no place in any system that aspires to civility.”

In photo Ernest "Marty"Atencio, a menatally disabled Latino war veteran, who was allgedly beaten to death by officers in the Maricopa County jail, filed suit on Friday. [MORE] Atencio is at least the 12th inmate to die under strange circumstances in the Maricopa County jail system. (The Phoenix New Times lists 11 other such cases here.)  From [HERE] Lawyers for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio asked the US District Court for the District of Arizona  in a motion on Friday to dismiss the lawsuit pending against him that claims his office discriminated against Latinos and disregarded their constitutional rights. The motion to dismiss the case comes a month after the US Department of Justice filed suit [PDF] against Arpaio for allegedly racially profiling Latinos , punishing Spanish speaking inmates, and conducting immigration patrols based solely on reports that there were Spanish speaking individuals with dark skin. As part of its suit, the DOJ requested that officers at the Maricopa County sheriff's office receive training on how to conduct constitutional traffic stops and protect Latinos as much as other citizens of the county. Arpaio denies the allegations and believes that the allegations against him are politically motivated as an attempt by the Obama administration to win the Latino vote in the upcoming election.

The DOJ originally filed suit [JURIST report] against Arpaio last month after the conducting a comprehensive and independent investigation initiated in June 2008 under Section 14141 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 [PDF] and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [DOJ materials]. In December the DOJ issued a 22-page letter of findings [text, PDF], which found reasonable cause that sheriff's office and Arpaio were engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct and violations of federal law.

From [HERE] and [HERE] Chicago's Independent Police Review Authority is looking into a complaint filed by a pregnant Black woman who was shocked with a police Taser on Tuesday night. Tiffany Rent, who is eight months pregnant, left the hospital Wednesday afternoon after being checked by doctors. She and her unborn child appear to be OK. But she said the baby hasn't been kicking as much as usual since the incident.

At about 8 p.m. Tuesday, Rent, her two young children and her boyfriend, Joseph Hobbs, pulled into the parking lot of a Walgreens on the 110 block of South Michigan Avenue. She parked in a handicapped parking spot and Hobbs went into the store. Rent said she got out of the car to re-seat her 3-year-old when a Chicago police officer began writing her a $200 ticket. "He gave me the ticket and I threw the ticket on the ground," Rent said in a telephone conversation with NBC Chicago. Rent said she got back into her car and closed the door. That's when, she said, the officer told her she was under arrest and used a Taser on her through the window. 

She told the Chicago Tribune that officers were aware of her condition because she is visibly pregnant: "I was standing at the squad car close enough for him to see that I was pregnant." Police claim that she was attempting to drive away. (Didn't the police want her to move her car out of the handicapped spot? It seems there was no legal basis to detain her and no probable cause to arrest for any offense! Last month a Dekalb County officer attacked a 9 month pregnant Black woman [MORE] -bw).

From [HERE] and [MORE] The family of a Latino man who died in December following an altercation with police and detention officers in a Maricopa County jail has filed a $20 million notice of claim against the city of Phoenix, the Sheriff's Office and the county agency responsible for health care in the jails. It was caught on routine jail video tape. 

The claim, filed Friday, alleges that excessive force, coupled with a series of failures by medical professionals to tend to Ernest "Marty" Atencio, contributed to the 44-year-old's death in December. He was a mentally ill Gulf War veteran.

Atencio had been in police custody for over four hours and had been showing signs of “acute psychosis,” the medical examiner reports. The video appears to show burly officers from Phoenix and Maricopa County piling on Atencio, apparently after he said something, though exactly what remains unclear because jail cameras don’t record audio. Atencio died four days after he was removed from a "safe cell" in the Fourth Avenue Jail. Atencio is at least the 12th inmate to die under strange circumstances in the Maricopa County jail system. (The Phoenix New Times lists 11 other such cases here.) 

 The notice of claim (Contains graphic images)

From [HERE] NEW YORK — New York City has agreed to pay $2 million to the mother of a young man who was killed at the Rikers Island jail by a cartel of fellow inmates who sometimes acted as enforcers for corrupt prison guards.

Christopher Robinson, 18, was jailed for a minor parole violation in 2008 when he was fatally beaten by a group of inmates in a detention unit for teenage prisoners.

Prosecutors later said the attack was the work of a gang of youths who had been enlisted by guards to help maintain rigid control over the unit. The intimidation campaign, nicknamed The Program, didn't stop at enforcing typical jailhouse rules. Prosecutors said the crew robbed fellow inmates of commissary chits and phone privileges and even decided who was allowed to use chairs in a common room.

Robinson's mother, Charnel, said at a news conference Friday that she thought the settlement was an acknowledgement by the city that something had gone horribly wrong at the jail, but she said neither that, nor the money, would ease her pain. "It just hurts every day, and it doesn't get any better, and this will not help," she said.

She said her son was putting his life back together when he was jailed for breaking a probation curfew to work late at a new job.

Case is an example of the nation's “broken” immigration policies and the potential danger of “show me your papers” laws, like the one passed in Arizona that allows local law enforcement agents to detain illegal immigrants.

From [HERE] Cass County has settled a lawsuit out of court filed by a jailed immigrant who claimed that jail officials ignored her allegation that she was raped by a fellow detainee, and instead offered her a Tylenol.

The lawsuit was filed in January by the ACLU on behalf of Claudia Leiva-Deras, 27, a legal immigrant from Honduras who speaks only Spanish.  She was detained in 2009 after reporting that she was a victim of domestic assault at her home. At the time, she was an illegal immigrant, but later was granted legal, permanent resident status under a clause that allows that for victims of domestic violence.

The lawsuit claimed that Cass County officials failed to respond to her reports of almost daily beatings during four months of detention, ignored the sexual assault allegation and her requests for a doctor, and instead only offered a Tylenol. Terms of the settlement were not released, and Cass County has stated that officials were not deliberately indifferent to the woman's allegations.

From [HERE] The president of the NAACP called the Jordan Miles case "disturbing" Thursday and pledged to assist local advocates petitioning the state attorney general to take up the matter. 

At an appearance at the University of Pittsburgh, Benjamin Todd Jealous said the amount of time it took Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. to decide whether to criminally charge three white police officers accused of beating Mr. Miles in January 2010 "suggests perhaps an intentional delay."

The officers said they confronted Mr. Miles because he appeared to be "sneaking around" with a heavy object in his coat that they thought was a concealed weapon. When he was approached by the officers he ran away, but the officers soon caught up with him and beat him into submission by delivering violent blows that left his face swollen and distorted. Police also used a stun gun and pulled out a chunk of his hair. He is 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds and was unarmed. 

"We, again, are deeply disturbed that the DA took a year-and-a-half to say 'no,' " Mr. Jealous said.

Last month, Mr. Zappala concluded that, after consulting with several experts, he did not have enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the officers accused of beating Mr. Miles, then 18, in Homewood.

The U.S. attorney's office also decided not to bring charges of civil rights violations against any of the officers.

From [HERE] During last year's string of questionable fatal shootings by Miami police, Officer Reinaldo Goyo shot and killed Travis McNeill, a 28-year-old unarmed black man during a traffic stop. The controversy stemming from the death was, in part, the reason that former police chief Miguel Exposito was fired, but prosecutors have decided not to charge Goyo with any crimes.

 In the early hours of February 11, 2011, McNeill and his cousin were leaving a bar in the Little Haiti neighborhood when they were surrounded by police cars.

"My nephew told me said they were leaving the club -- leaving the club and got about two blocks from the club and police swarmed them," McNeill's mother told the media at the time. "They hit the lights, they stopped. They were never given any warning about show your hands, freeze, step out of the car, the only thing that happened was gun fire." After being stopped, prosecutors believe McNeill reached down to retrieve a cellphone that had slipped from his lap. Officer Goyo apparently thought he was reaching for a gun, and decided to open fire.

From [HERE] and [HERE] U.S. Attorney Sally Yates said that she, along with the FBI, with open their own investigation into the shooting death of Ariston Waiters after a grand jury cleared the officer who shot Waiters of any criminal wrongdoing.

Yates told CBS Atlanta News that Waiters' case is very important and deserves a thorough examination because the young man lost his life after an interaction with a police officer.

Supporters for Waiters said they were happy about Wednesday's announcement, including Robert Patillo, an attorney for the Rainbow Push Coalition, which is an organization that fights for social change.

Attorney said the statute of limitations has expired on civil remedies that the family could seek. But he asked the council to provide family members $125,000 to offer closure. In 1975, Police initially claimed Whitehurst shot at police while fleeing, but it was later determined that Whitehurst was shot in the back and a gun was planted beside his body.

(AP) — Stacy Whitehurst wishes he'd had more time to get to know his father, Bernard Whitehurst, who was shot to death by a Montgomery police officer almost 37 years ago. Whitehurst was three years old when his father died, and his only memory of him is of playing with a man on the floor of their kitchen.

"I remember hearing his heartbeat," Stacy Whitehurst said. After all these years, his family wants needs more than a vague memory of their father and husband. Whitehurst's widow, Florence Whitehurst, and his children appeared before the Montgomery City Council on Tuesday night and asked for a formal apology and compensation for the wrongful police shooting.

From [HERE] A Latino man released from prison after serving 21 years for a crime he didn't commit is suing police and the City of Chicago. Jacques Rivera, 47, filed a lawsuit claiming police officers manipulated a young witness and falsified evidence to convict him of first-degree murder.

“While we absolutely commend the Cook County State’s Attorneys’ Office for its decision to dismiss the charges, simply releasing Mr. Rivera from prison has not made him whole for all that he has suffered,” said attorney Jon Loevy. “He deserves compensation for the injustice that cost him so much of his life.”

Rivera was convicted in August 1988 of shooting and killing 16-year-old Felix Valentin. The lawsuit alleges police manipulated 12-year-old Orlando Lopez, the only witness to the crime, into identifying Rivera as the shooter.

According to the suit, Lopez failed to identify the shooter in a first line-up that included Rivera, but police made no record of it. After Lopez allegedly came across the shooter in his neighborhood, the lawsuit claims he viewed a second lineup two weeks later and was pressured by the police who apparently used "suggestive tactics" to falsely identify Rivera.

From [HERE] Since January, Harris County grand juries have cleared more than a dozen law enforcement officers who shot civilians on and off duty, including seven fatally.

Most of the incidents happened last year. The list includes two separate shootings involving officers in their homes who killed burglars and the 2011 case of the out-of-control shooter at Houston's Tranquillity Park subdued by a pair of lawmen. Grand jurors also declined to indict a former Harris County's Sheriff Office detention officer who fatally shot a man while off duty in 2008.

The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although only one sentence long, protects people against unjustified detentions by the government. It reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

From [HERE] Police in Aurora, Colo., searching for suspected bank robbers stopped every car at an intersection, handcuffed all the adults and searched the cars, one of which they believed was carrying the suspect.

Police said they had received what they called a “reliable” tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

“We didn’t have a description, didn’t know race or gender or anything, so a split-second decision was made to stop all the cars at that intersection, and search for the armed robber,” Aurora police Officer Frank Fania told ABC News. Officers barricaded the area, halting 19 cars.

“Cops came in from every direction and just threw their car in front of my car,” Sonya Romero, one of the drivers who was handcuffed, told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver. From there, the police went from car to car, removing the passengers and handcuffing the adults.

Police claim there was No Dashcam Camera

From [HERE] Dallas police say John Husband III, the man who was shot and killed by an officer on Saturday, was reaching for a "fully loaded" handgun when the officer fired in self-defense.
  The police statement — issued nearly two full days after the incident in the 3600 block of Folklore Trail in Oak Cliff — said a car driven by Husband was pulled over by Officer Leland Limbaugh for failing to signal a turn.

The officer, hired in 2009, "smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the car" and ordered Husband out of the vehicle. When Limbaugh began to handcuff Husband, the 21 year old tried to break away.

“Suspect Husband ignored the officer’s commands and began to struggle with the officer," the statement read, adding Husband then, “reached for the gun in his waistband.”

The story contradicts what several witnesses claim, including Xavier Bryant, 22, who was in the car with Husband at the time. "He didn't even try to chase him," Bryant said. "Then they try to make it seem like he was going for a gun? He was trying to run away." He and others insist Husband was shot in the back as he ran away. The Dallas County Medical Examiner confirms the bullet struck him in the back, near the left shoulder blade.

Photo of Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, 15 year - old who was killed by a Border Patrol agent pictured at his graduation from the secundaria. [MORE] 

From [HERE] U.S. Justice Department officials met Tuesday with the parents of a 15-year-old Mexican boy who was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent to explain why they have decided not to pursue a criminal case against the agent, an attorney for the family said.

Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca's parents were told during the meeting that there is no avenue to appeal the Justice Department's ruling that agent Jesus Mesa Jr. followed policy in 2010 shooting, Attorney Steve Shadowin told The Associated Press.

From [HERE] A Black teen’s arrest was caught on camera, and one local mother says it went too far. Police confirm an investigation has now been launched into the alleged use of excessive force. (CBS did not post the video). 

According to police, it began when the officers on patrol wanted to question the teen about his damaged car in the 1600 block of Ruan Street on Monday evening. On Tuesday night, the suspect’s family spoke out demanding justice.

There is cell phone video showing officers from Philadelphia’s 15th Police District making the arrest. According to the suspect’s family, the video is proof that authorities abused their power when arresting 18-year-old Marcus Warryton. “He said he has staples going down his head. His back and his neck are sore. His face is all bruised up, they just kept beating him,” added Denise Singleton, the suspect’s sister.

From [HERE] Thomas D. Raffaele, a 69-year-old justice of the New York State Supreme Court, encountered a chaotic scene while walking down a Queens street with a friend: Two uniformed police officers stood over a shirtless man lying facedown on the pavement. The man’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was screaming. A crowd jeered at the officers.

The judge, concerned the crowd was becoming unruly, called 911 and reported that the officers needed help. 

But within minutes, he said, one of the two officers became enraged — and the judge became his target. The officer screamed and cursed at the onlookers, some of whom were complaining about what they said was his violent treatment of the suspect, and then he focused on Justice Raffaele, who was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The judge said the officer rushed forward and, using the upper edge of his hand, delivered a sharp blow to the judge’s throat that was like what he learned when he was trained in hand-to-hand combat in the Army.

From [ColorLines] The Oakland Police Department’s nine-year-long struggle with federal oversight took a significant turn last week, as a federal judge demanded an investigation by court-appointed monitors into police shootings involving OPD officers and speculated openly about placing the department under federal control.

In a court order issued on May 31, District Court Judge Thelton Henderson indicated that an independent monitoring team raised unspecified concerns about how Oakland officials—including OPD brass, Chief Howard Jordan and “the City officials who supervise him” (i.e. City Administrator Deanna Santana and Mayor Jean Quan)—handle police shootings.

“The Monitor’s concerns surrounding officer-involved shootings highlight the uncertainty over whether Defendants will, without further intervention by the Court, ever be able to comply with the reforms to which they agreed over nine years ago.” Henderson wrote.

Frequent changes in the police department and the city’s leadership have not helped matters either: three mayors and four police chiefs have come and gone since federal oversight of OPD began in 2003.

From [HERE] (AP) — A case involving a 19-year-old Black college student who was beaten after he questioned officers' authority to search the trunk of his car is now the subject of an FBI investigation, authorities said Monday.

The Jan. 15, 2009, case involving Alex Landau is one of several high-profile cases that have raised questions about the Denver police department's policies and procedures and prompted calls for a federal civil rights investigation. The officers involved were cleared of any wrongdoing by the police department and no state criminal charges were filed against the officers. The city settled the case for $795,000 after Landau filed a lawsuit alleging the beating left him brain damaged.

Denver Police Chief Robert White and Manager of Safety Alex Martinez in a joint statement said the FBI investigation centers on whether Landau's civil rights were violated by the officers involved. The department's policies and procedures are not the target, White and Martinez said. 

The original lawsuit accused the officers of stopping Landau, 19, after midnight on Jan. 15, 2009, for making an illegal turn, then calling him "nigger" and beating his face and head with their fists, a radio and a flashlight until he was unconscious. 

From [HERE] The New York Police Department, the mayor and the city’s top prosecutors on Monday endorsed a proposal to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana, giving an unexpected lift to an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to cut down on the number of people arrested as a result of police stops.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose Police Department made about 50,000 arrests last year for low-level marijuana possession, said the governor’s proposal “strikes the right balance” in part because it would still allow the police to arrest people who smoke marijuana in public.

The marijuana arrests are a byproduct of the Police Department’s increasingly controversial stop-and-frisk practice. Mr. Bloomberg and police officials say the practice has made the city safer, but, because most of those stopped are black or Hispanic, the practice has been criticized as racially biased. In fact, a recent study found that 86 percent of those arrested are black or Latino. The overwhelming majority are people under the age of 30. In 2010, 50,383 people were arrested for low-level marijuana offenses. [MORE]