Family of Dee-Jay Galmon Files Suit: Tangipahoa Sheriff Admits Unarmed Black Teen Had Hands Up, Did Nothing Wrong - Shot to Death by Police

/

Deputy who shot and killed teen has lengthy past

From [HERE] An 18-year-old black teen was shot and killed by a deputy. That teen's family has now filed a federal suit claiming it was a wrongful death. Could the deputy's past have foretold the future? "I can only tell you that without a doubt, my deputy says he did not intend to pull the trigger," said Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards.

Deputy William Phebus, a three-year veteran of the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Department is on paid leave as State Police investigate the recent shooting death of Dee-Jay Galmon, 18. August 11, 2012, Galmon reluctantly accompanied two of his friends to Club 81 in Tangipahoa Parish. Well into the night, the club's security called Tangipahoa deputies for help following a large disturbance. Two of the deputies who arrived on the scene were in the process of handcuffing an allegedly armed man on the ground when Galmon came into the picture.

"He was approaching the police to help them. He was telling them you've got the wrong person. You've got the wrong person. He had his hands in the air when the officer turned and shot him point blank, and he fell. When he hit the ground, he still had his hands above his head," said attorney Donna Grodner. Grodner filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Galmon's family claiming wrongful death. The main reason for that?

"Dee-Jay was not armed," said Grodner. Sheriff Edwards supports that statement and goes even further.

"We have no reason at this time to believe that this 18-year-old did anything wrong and certainly, I want to make that clear. He was unarmed. I'm not saying he violated any laws what so ever," said Sheriff Edwards.

The lawsuit also said the Tangipahoa Sheriff's Office was negligent when it did not properly investigate Phebus' past jobs before hiring him. The suit goes on to say Phebus' history should have been an area of concern.

Read More

Jonesboro Police: Incredible Handcuffed Black Man Made Phone Calls before Suicide

/

From [HERE] (did he also cook breakfast? Only an all white jury could believe this) Police in Jonesboro say the girlfriend of a man shot to death in the back of a squad car told an investigator he had called her from the car and said he had a gun. In a four-page statement police offered several new details about the investigation into the July 28 death of Chavis Carter, 21. Earlier this week, an autopsy report ruled that Carter's death was a suicide.

Carter's girlfriend, who was not identified in the report, also told the investigator that Carter said he loved her and that he was scared, according to the police statement. Phone records showed Carter made two calls, at least one of which was from the back of the patrol car, police said.

Benjamin Irwin, a Memphis, Tenn., lawyer representing Carter's family, said in an emailed response early Thursday that "in previous reports and information we had about (the girlfriend) was that no mention of a gun during the call was included. … "After watching the other witness interviews, I can only speculate that the interview involved a lot of leading questions by the investigator."

Police have been facing criticism since they said officers searched Carter twice but didn't find a gun before he was fatally shot in a patrol car. Race is also an issue in the case because Carter was black and police have said the two officers who stopped the truck he was in are white (race would be an issue no matter what color the police were). The police statement said there appears to be no doubt that an officer missed the gun when he initially patted Carter down. "It is presumed that Carter secreted the gun in the rear of the car after the pat-down but before the cuffing and second search," the statement said.

Read More

How do police search a man twice, find a baggie of pot, but miss something as obvious as a handgun?

/

One hopes authoritative answers will soon follow. Because for African-Americans, the abiding fear is that this is just the latest installment of a sordid narrative that ties Chavis Carter to Rodney King, beaten nearly to death by police on a street in Los Angeles.

And Abner Louima, sodomized with a stick at a police station in Brooklyn.

 And Amadou Diallo, shot 41 times by police while reaching for his wallet in a vestibule in the Bronx. 

And Arthur McDuffie, dying of police-administered skull fractures at a hospital in Miami. 

And Sean Bell in Queens and Oscar Grant in Oakland and Kenneth Chamberlain in White Plains and Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta and Jeffrey Gilbert in suburban Washington and Henry Glover in New Orleans and all the other African-Americans wrongly, disproportionately brutalized and killed over the years by police who seem to equate melanin with the forfeiture of basic human rights.

That pattern of misbehavior degrades a critical tool of effective police work: the public's trust. Which comes back to bite them - and us - when authorities are put in the position, as they have been in Jonesboro, of asking for the benefit of the doubt. 

They must understand that that narrative casts a long shadow. So there is one hell of a lot of doubt.

Read More

(gasp!) White Judge Who Accused NYPD Cop of Striking him says Officer & Prosecutor are Lying about Incident (imagine that!)

/

From [HERE] and [HERE] Prosecutors have decided not to bring criminal charges against a police officer accused of striking a New York City judge while trying to control a crowd during the arrest of a fitful homeless man, the Queens District Attorney said on Wednesday. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Raffaele, 69 years old, had accused the New York Police Department officer of intentionally hitting him in the throat on June 1 as officers tried to restrain Charles Menninger in the Elmhurst section of Queens

The judge  is blasting Queens District Attorney Richard Brown for refusing to prosecute. Judge Thomas Raffaele claims Brown is orchestrating a cover-up, the New York Law Journal reports. A press release explaining the refusal to prosecute is full of falsehoods, Raffaele told the publication. "Everything they say is a lie.”

Raffaele has said the incident occurred on June 1 when a crowd had gathered as officers were making an arrest. One officer was ramming his knee into the back of a screaming handcuffed man, and the crowd was jeering, according to Raffaele’s account. One officer appeared to be getting angry, and he ran toward the crowd and began hitting people, Raffaele said. Raffaele said he was the first one hit in “a full-force, open-hand blow to the front of my throat.”

Read More

Black man sues city and Chicago police officers over shooting

/

From [HERE] A Chicago man is suing the city and six Chicago police officers because he says he was shot twice “without cause” while he was unarmed in the South Austin neighborhood last August. Richard Keeler filed the lawsuit in the Cook County Circuit Court on Thursday that names the city of Chicago and six police officers.

According to the lawsuit, Keeler was the victim of battery, excessive force, no probable cause for arrest and malicious prosecution. About 3:25 p.m. on Aug. 30, 2011, Keeler was chased into an enclosed stairwell on the 900 block of North Parkside Avenue “without good cause,” according to the lawsuit. Before Keeler was chased and cornered, he violated no law or ordinance, the lawsuit says.

Keeler’s attorney, Michael Hedrick, said Keeler was shot twice by the officers while in the stairwell. One shot took off his right pinky finger while he was blocking his face, Hedrick said, and the other went into his chest.

Keeler was unarmed at the time of the shooting, according to the lawsuit. Keeler was 19 at the time of the incident. The lawsuit alleges the police officers “knowingly and maliciously gave false information to police investigators” after shooting Keeler, eventually leading to his arrest and charge with aggravated assault.

Read More

NJ Police Officer who shot Barry Deloatch Resigns - Faces Lawsuit for Killing Black Man

/

From [HERE] A New Jersey police officer who shot and killed a man during a chase has resigned in lieu of discipline. New Brunswick Police Officer Brad Berdel has filed for a state disability pension.

Weak prosecutors decided not to indict Berdel and a partner in the 2011 shooting death of 46-year-old Barry Deloatch. Authorities said Deloatch had threatened the officers with a board.

Police said Deloatch fled when Officers Brad Berdel and Daniel Mazan approached him and two other men on Sept. 22 because the officers said the men were behaving suspiciously. The chase ended with Berdel shooting Deloatch once, killing him. (what exactly made them suspicious? - bw)

Police said the 46-year-old Deloatch threatened Officer Mazan with a wooden board. But Deloatch’s family said he was unarmed, and prosecutors noted the officers didn’t have their police-issued batons at the time. Berdel also didn’t have his chemical spray. The bullet struck Deloatch in the left side of his body, piercing his aorta.

Capt. Joseph Miller tells The Home News Tribune of East Brunswick ( http://mycj.co/SqgVYS) Berdel was facing discipline for failure to carry and maintain the pepper spray that officers are issued. His partner did not violate any policies. Deloatch's family is suing the city and is seeking a federal investigation.

Read More

More Details in LAPD Beating of Black College Student: Weekly was Opening Door to his Apt. when Police Attacked

/

From [HERE] A 20-year-old Venice skateboarder who was allegedly beaten by Los Angeles police officers laid out new details Tuesday, saying he thought he was "going to die" as he was punched in the head four times.

A video captured on cellphone shows four Los Angeles police officers on top of Ronald Weekley Jr. in the Saturday incident. As three officers wrestle with him on the ground, a fourth appears to punch Weekley in the face repeatedly. Officials said the Los Angeles Police Department's internal affairs unit is investigating the allegations. At a news conference at a church in Venice on Tuesday, attorney Benjamin Crump said his client suffered a concussion, broken cheekbone and broken nose from the beating. Crump's office said it would provide medical records but had not yet released them. "Why did they assault and confront this college student?" Crump asked. "Was it because he was on the wrong side of the road, or was it because he was the wrong color?"

In a crisp white button-down shirt, Weekley, who is African American and a chemistry major at Xavier University in Louisiana, appeared alongside his family and two witnesses to the beating. Crump said Weekley had been on a liquid diet since the attack and remained in pain. Weekley did not appear to have any visible injuries but broke down in tears while speaking.

"I was opening the door to my apartment when I was attacked from behind. They grabbed my hair and my back and tried to smash my face into the ground," he said. "I started screaming and yelling because I thought I was going to die." Weekley buried his face in his hands and his head on his mother's shoulder during the news conference. He later said he had blacked out during the beating.

Read More

NYPD: Spying on Muslims produced no leads, terror cases - Feds will not Investigate NYPD

/

From [HERE] In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department's secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames. Police hoped the Demographics Unit would serve as an early warning system for terrorism. And if police ever got a tip about, say, an Afghan terrorist in the city, they'd know where he was likely to rent a room, buy groceries and watch sports. But in a June 28 deposition as part of a longstanding federal civil rights case, Assistant Chief Thomas Galati said none of the conversations the officers overheard ever led to a case.

Read More

As Detroit brings in Outsider (White) State Police, civil rights leaders worry about oversight

/

911 is a Joke. In photo, Michigan State Police Capt. Monica Yesh said the outside police reinforcements who patrol the inner city are given additional training. Watch your back folks. From [HERE] Detroit Mayor Dave Bing cut the city's police department budget by nearly 20 percent earlier this summer, which will mean the loss of an estimated 380 positions, of about 2,600 officers, through attrition and early retirement, reports the Detroit News.

Michigan State Police troopers and Wayne County Sheriff's deputies have come to the city to help patrol traffic and prevent violent crime. This, the News reports, is making some civil rights leaders nervous about the relationship between police who are new to serving in the city, and residents who may not trust the police.  

The Rev. Malik Shabazz said he's concerned about troopers and deputies patrolling Detroit who are unfamiliar with the city. Shabazz was among the civil rights leaders who were called in to quell a disturbance that flared on Detroit's east side in May 2010, after a state trooper fatally shot a man following a car chase.

The shooting happened five days after a Detroit police officer killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones during a May 16 raid — and six blocks from the house on Lillibridge where the raid occurred. Residents became upset because they felt troopers were being disrespectful by laughing while the man lay dead.

"They weren't sensitive to what the situation was in Detroit at the time," Shabazz said. "That's what I'm afraid of: If we have more state troopers coming to Detroit, they're not going to understand the dynamics of this community."

Read More

Video released of Tampa Police Shooting Javon Neal: Parents say Police Murdered Black Teen

/

From [HERE] The surveillance video released today shows Javon Neal running up the stairs and making a hard left. Is he carrying a gun or is he holding his pants up with his right hand? Once 16-year-old Neal makes the hard left, he disappears from view. The video then shows Tampa police Officers Shannon Murphy and Gregory Pryor running up the stairs in pursuit of Neal. They stop, then flinch– as if surprised by something -- and fire on Neal.

The Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office released the video after receiving public records requests of the July 22 shooting at the Central Court Apartments Neal's father, Michael Lovett, saw the video for the first time Tuesday night. He said he doesn't see evidence his son was carrying a gun. "You don't see a gun at all," Lovett said. "Show a gun so we have some clarification. Right now they have some weak evidence."

Lovett said he's hired an attorney to help get evidence together. "I'm going to prove that they murdered my son," Lovett said. Earlier this month, the state attorney's office ruled that the use of deadly force by Murphy and Pryor was justified.

Read More

Negro Removal: Blacks are 7 Times more likely to be Arrested than whites in San Francisco

/

From [HERE] Although African Americans constitute 6 percent of San Francisco’s population, they are about seven times more likely to be arrested than whites, who represent 41.8 percent of the city’s population, according to an analysis of recently released statistics from the California Department of Justice.

The gap between the arrest rates for whites and African Americans in San Francisco is well above state and national averages, a Bay Citizen analysis has found. In California, African Americans are four times more likely to be arrested than whites, and nationwide, about 2.4 times more likely to face arrest.

The disparity in the arrest rates is likely even larger than reported because the police department has routinely misclassified Latino arrestees as “white.” A recent Bay Citizen investigation revealed that the department has classified Latino arrestees as white and Asian arrestees as “other” for at least a decade, sending the erroneous statistics to the state Department of Justice and the FBI. Department officials have blamed an outdated computer system that allows officers to only categorize individuals as white, black and other for the incorrect data.

Read More

Oklahoma Officer to Stand Trial for Killing Dane Scott: Police Captain says Black Teen was Unarmed, Not a Threat

/

Associated Press /The Daily Oklahoman An Oklahoma County judge ordered a Del City police officer Monday to stand trial in the death of an 18-year-old black teen who was shot following a vehicle pursuit earlier this year.  The decision came at the end of a preliminary hearing for Capt. Randy Harrison, who is charged with first-degree manslaughter in the March 14 death of Dane Scott Jr.

According to a police affidavit filed in the case, "Scott was unarmed and was not posing a threat of death of great bodily harm to the officers or any other person."

In the affidavit, Del City police Capt. Jody Suit said Harrison took a gun away from Scott during a struggle before Scott ran off, the affidavit shows. Officer Steve Robinson, one of the officers at the scene, testified that he didn't see anything in Scott's hands after the teen scuffled with Harrison. Robinson said he fired his stun gun at Scott. "He didn't make a move or turn toward me," Robinson said.

A utility worker also testified that he saw a police officer wrestle the gun away from Scott and saw Scott run before he was shot by the officer. As Scott ran away, Harrison fired three times and missed, but a fourth shot struck Scott in the back according to court documents. Witnesses to the shooting claim Scott Jr. was running away from police officers with his hands in the air when police fired at the teen. A clerk at a nearby convenience store reports hearing “about 4, 5, 6” shots. The clerk states, “It was like being on a firing range.” [MORE]

Read More

Jonesboro Police Toxicologist: Black Man Handcuffed -- but he shot himself in head - Makes Sense to the Racist Mind

/

From [HERE] Police in Jonesboro, Ark., have drawn scrutiny after a suspect handcuffed in a police car apparently managed to shoot himself in the head. Jonesboro police stopped Chavis Carter, 21, of Southaven, Miss., on July 28 while he was riding with several other people in Jonesboro, about 130 miles northeast of Little Rock. Carter was held on an outstanding warrant, frisked, found in possession of a small amount of marijuana, placed in a patrol car and handcuffed, according to police reports. A short time later, officers noticed Carter slumped in the backseat of the cruiser, covered in blood, according to an autopsy report released Monday. The report found Carter had managed to conceal a handgun, which he used to shoot himself in the right side of the head. He later died at a hospital, and the report listed his death as a suicide.

"Apparently he produced a weapon, and despite being handcuffed, shot himself in the head," the report said. The death was still under review by local prosecutors and police Monday. Jonesboro police released a video reenactment showing how Carter could have shot himself in the head with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Dr. Stephen Erickson, a forensic pathologist from the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory (a pseudo scientist for the Government), signed off on the autopsy report and told the Los Angeles Times that the police department’s video reenactment makes sense.

“Of course, when we got the case, that was our first question — could he do this with his hands behind his back?” Erickson said. “The police department answered all those questions in their investigation.” Erickson said the gunshot, which he was told came from a .380, wounded Carter on the right side of the head near his ear, exiting the left side, and could have been fired by Carter twisting his hands around behind him.

“Getting your left hand over far enough would be difficult, but your right hand is attached to it, so you get a little more flexibility,” Erickson said. “The human body is very flexible, very plastic.” (what's next, straight jacket cuffs? Perhaps he levitated or used magic? What will the prosecutors and jurors look like? Expect racism -bw).

Read More

Black Colwyn (PA) Cop files suit against Darby police who Assaulted him after making an Arrest

/

From [HERE] A COLWYN COP claims in a federal civil-rights lawsuit that officers from neighboring Darby Borough, including the police chief, assaulted him and called him racially derogatory names because he aided a man who was beaten there. The March 18, 2011, incident was captured on video by a civilian, and although much of the action is obscured by a vehicle, an officer can be heard repeatedly yelling, "Get the f--- out of Darby!" Colwyn Officer Clinton Craddock said he was in a marked car in Colwyn when a woman flagged him down and told him a man had been assaulted and was unconscious two blocks away, according to the suit.

Craddock claims he went to the scene, in Darby, and held the assailant until Darby police arrived.

He claims he was sitting with one leg out of his cruiser when Darby police Chief Robert Smythe arrived and began yelling at him not to enter the town again. Craddock, who is black, claims that Smythe, who is white, called him a racially derogatory name and then slammed his car door on his leg. According to the suit, Craddock believes the treatment he received was because of his race. He claims that as a result he's suffered pain, humiliation, a twitching eye, shakes and hair loss. He is suing for monetary damages.

A Darby resident videotaped the incident from [HERE] a second-floor window overlooking the scene, and the recording was uploaded to YouTube.

Read More

5 LAPD Officers Assault Unarmed Black College Student in Front of his House (Black Family in white neighborhood)

/

From [HERE] and [HERE] A 20-year old black college student from Venice is accusing Los Angeles Police Department officers of using excessive force during his recent arrest, and the alleged victim and his family are demanding justice. KTLA spoke with Ronald Weekley Jr. Monday morning, who said he was skateboarding in front of his home Saturday afternoon when police officers detained him by piling on top of him, pinning him to the ground and beating him. The incident was partially caught on camera.[HERE]

Ronald Weekley Jr., 20, claimed he suffered a broken nose, broken cheekbone and a concussion during the confrontation outside his home in the Venice neighborhood. His face appeared slightly bruised as he spoke with friends, supporters and journalists. "We feel very strongly that his civil rights were violated," his father, Ronald Weekley, said in a telephone interview. His son  may have been stopped because he was "an ethnic kid" in a predominantly white neighborhood, Ronald Weekley said.

Witnesses say officers repeatedly punched "him in the face while his arms were pinned behind his back.  Police approached Weekley because he was skateboarding on the wrong side of the street and not complying with officers orders to stop. and they resisted when they tried to arrest him and slam him into the concrete Saturday, police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said. The officers called for backup, and Weekley was arrested on suspicion of using force to obstruct or resist police, Smith said. The footage shows Weekley pinned to the ground and surrounded by four officers. At one point, an officer punches the 20-year-old in the head with his fist. Officers claim Weekley was resisting arrest, but Weekley says he was physically unable to do so.

Weekley and his son both said the police actions were unprovoked. "We want the Chief of Police to not only do an investigation, but we want him to train his officers better because they work in ethnic communities," said Weekley Sr, who also noted, "In terms of this stop, it's quite immaterial that Ron had warrants for curfew two or three years ago."

Read More

CNN Releases Video of Firing Squad Execution of Homeless Black Man - Shot 30 Times by Saginaw Police

/

Graphic Video [HERE] 

From [HERE] and [HERE] Civil rights investigators for the Justice Department on Friday opened a federal probe into the controversial shooting death of a Saginaw, Michigan, homeless Black man whose family says he had a history of mental illness.

"I can confirm the Justice Department now has an open investigation into the Saginaw shooting," said Mitchell Rivard, spokesman for Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez of the Civil Rights Division. Prosecutors and state police have already begun an investigation into the shooting death of Milton Hill.

Hill had been had been arguing with officers in a parking lot next to a shuttered Chinese restaurant when he was shot in broad daylight, in full view of passing motorists and while he was holding some sort of knife. Saginaw County Prosecutor Michael Thomas said that the squad of police confronting him opened fire "because apparently, at this point in time, he was threatening to assault police." However, in the video Hall does not make any sudden movement toward police. Police had a police dog on a leash in front of Hall but apparently chose to use their guns instead. He was murdered. 

The July 1 shooting happened in a parking lot on West Genesee Avenue, a busy commercial strip on the north side of Saginaw. In a video purchased by CNN, shot by a motorist from across the street, the 49-year-old Hall is seen arguing with a half-dozen officers. 

On the video, he tells police, "My name is Milton Hall, I just called 911. My name is Milton, and I'm pissed off." When an officer tells him to put the knife down, he responds, "I ain't putting s--t down." Finally, he turns to the left of the frame. It's then that the police open fire with a reported 46 shots in a five-second hail of bullets.

Read More

South Africa's "Hill of Horror" - Questions Remain after Senseless Police Massacre

/

From [HERE] In a loping, crouching run, striking South African miners advance towards a line of police in helmets and flak-jackets who are pointing automatic rifles at them. The police open fire.

In less than a minute, the men, some of whom police say conducted witchcraft rituals they believed would protect them from bullets, crumple and fall in a hail of gunfire that kicks up clouds of yellow dust. Television footage starkly captures the moment of the police shootings at a dusty platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg on Thursday that killed at least 34 protesting workers and tore a gash in the soul of post-apartheid South Africa. The sight of protesters falling dead before guns fired by government security forces strikes a jarringly painful chord in a nation ruled by Africa's oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress.

Its proud anti-apartheid image has long been nurtured by memories of fallen martyrs and massacres committed by police and troops under white-minority rule that ended 18 years ago. Except this time the shooting, the deadliest security operation since apartheid was abolished, was carried out by a police force under the responsibility of an ANC government.

Read More

'End the Big Lie': Dashcam Video Released by Jonesboro Police Shows Nothing in Chavis Carter Custodial Death

/

From [HERE] The Jonesboro police department has released the dashboard video from the night they claim 21-year-old Chavis Carter shot himself while handcuffed in the back of a police car. Police Chief Michael Yates has said the video, along with witness accounts, supports the involved officers’ account that Chavis Carter shot himself.

But the footage, which is 90 minutes long and includes interviews with witnesses, does not capture video or audio of a gunshot itself, or the aftermath. The local channel, WCMTV, which is sorting through the footage, noted: You can see the White Truck pulled over by Jonesboro Officer Ron Marsh’s car. Marsh gets out and heads over to the Passenger side where Chavis Carter gets out the car. Two other men are also in the truck. The audio on this dash cam is inaudible at times, but parts of the conversation are audible. On the footage, we hear Marsh ask if Carter has ID before patting him down and escorting him to the back of the patrol car. From inside the cruiser, we hear an officer quiz Carter once again about his ID. Also in this video, we can clearly see a bag of what is reportedly drugs sitting on the hood of the cruiser. What is not clearly seen or heard on the tape is a gunshot. Nor is there any dash cam video or audio of officer Marsh finding Carter shot in the backseat.

An eyewitness recalled, “The other officer jumped out the car, ran and opened two back doors of the vehicle and next thing I know that’s when the ambulance pulled up but other than that I didn’t hear a gunshot or nothing like that.”

Read More

Apartheid Returns with Black Cops: South African Police Open Fire on Striking Miners - 34 Dead

/

Police Slaughter Workers on Strike. South Africa is home to 80 percent of the world's known reserves of platinum, a precious metal used in vehicle catalytic converters and for other engineering purposes. Rising power and labor costs and a steep decline this year in the price have left many mines struggling to stay afloat. From [HERE] and [HERE]  Thirty-four people were killed in clashes between police and striking miners at a South African mine on Thursday, police said. Police opened fire after failing to disperse strikers armed with clubs and machetes at the Marikana mine.

The Lonmin-owned platinum mine has been at the centre of a violent pay dispute, exacerbated by tensions between two rival trade unions.

The incident is one of the bloodiest police operations since apartheid. Violence had already killed 10 people, including two police officers, since the strike began a week ago.

The images, along with Reuters television footage of a phalanx of officers opening up with automatic weapons on a small group of men in blankets and t-shirts, rekindled uncomfortable memories of South Africa's racist past. After over 12 hours of official silence, police minister Nathi Mthethwa confirmed that at least 30 men had died when police moved in against 3,000 striking drill operators armed with machetes and sticks and massed on a rocky outcrop at the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. Some of the carnage was captured in the raw video [HERE] 

In a front page editorial, the Sowetan questioned what had changed since 1994, when Nelson Mandela overturned three centuries of white domination to become South Africa's first black president. "It has happened in this country before where the apartheid regime treated black people like objects," the paper, named after South Africa's biggest black township, said. "It is continuing in a different guise now."

Read More