From [HERE] Nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI.
On average, there were 96 such incidents among at least 400 police killings each year that were reported to the FBI by local police. The numbers appear to show that the shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., last Saturday was not an isolated event in American policing.
The reports show that 18% of the blacks killed during those seven years were under age 21, compared to 8.7% of whites. The victim in Ferguson was 18-year-old Michael Brown. The officer who killed him is white.
While the racial analysis is striking, the database it's based on has been long considered flawed and largely incomplete. The killings are self-reported by law enforcement and not all police departments participate so the database undercounts the actual number of deaths. Plus, the numbers are not audited after they are submitted to the FBI and the statistics on "justifiable" homicides have conflicted with independent measures of fatalities at the hands of police. [MORE]
From [HERE] In 2013, the Ferguson Police Department made 5,384 stops and 611 searches. 86 percent of the stops and 92 percent of the searches were of black people. Only 67 percent of the town's population is black.
The racial disparity captured by these numbers is unacceptable, but it is not as easy to make sense of the injustice as it might seem. Are they solely a reflection of racist law enforcement actions?
UCLA's Center of Policing Equity has been called into dozens of police departments across the country to help them understand problems like this. And each situation is different.
"If you imagine that there is racism in law enforcement—and I don’t have to imagine, I’ve seen it, it definitely exists—there must also be racism in housing, employment, and education," said Phillip Atiba Goff, co-founder and president of UCLA's Center for Policing Equity. "We don’t know when the disparities we see in law enforcement are from the actions of law enforcement or if the disparities are picking up on bad things before contact with law enforcement." [MORE]
White people are playing a survival game with non-white people, engaging in behaviors—in economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and more—in order for them to survive on the planet, by any means necessary. Created for their survival, the operating system of white supremacy controls everything non-white people have or need. How will you react to it?
The events in Ferguson over the past week have sparked a national debate over racial profiling and the militarization of local police forces. On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message." What Holder did not mention was the federal government’s role in supplying local police forces with military-grade equipment. The New York Times reports Department of Homeland Security grant money paid for the $360,000 BearCat armored truck on patrol in Ferguson. Most of the body armor worn by officers responding to the Ferguson protests was also paid for with federal money. We speak to Radley Balko, author of the book, "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces." "When we take domestic police officers and we train them like soldiers and we give them military gear and we dress them up like soldiers and we tell them they’re fighting a war — a war on crime or a war on terror — they’re going to start to see themselves as soldiers," Balko says.
From [HERE] A news crew, clearly no threat or impediment to the cops, films from a verge in Ferguson, Missouri. A pop and a cloud of white smoke marks the arrival of a tear gas canister at their feet, and the newscrew is forced to flee. Moments later, police pull up in an armored van and hurriedly try to break down the film equipment--until they notice that anothercrew is still filming them from across the street.
From [HERE] Lawyers for the estate of a Jersey City Black man shot dead by police in June, as well as the man’s father, have notified the city that they intend to file a wrongful death lawsuit, an attorney said last night.
“At this point the facts are not exactly clear," Silberman said. "What we do know is Lavon King was shot and killed by a member of the Jersey City Police Department. Part of the issue is that there hasn’t been a lot of details released by the city at this point. It seems the details of the incident are being protected. There has been little if any communication between the city and Lavon King's immediate family.”
Silberman said he also finds it unfortunate that the city appeared to connect the death of King with the murder of Jersey City Police Det. Melvin Santiago, 23, who was gunned down by Lawrence Campbell, 27, of Grant Avenue, on July 13. Police shot Campbell dead moments after he shot Santiago.
Burning & Looting, Holding up Signs, Rapping, Apps, Moments of Silence & Waiting for Al Sharpton to do Something Will Not Solve the Problems Caused by White Supremacy. (In photo Suspected Race Robo-Soldier in Ferguson ready to create some peace and quiet for the machine. In bottom photo, protesters clashed with police on Sunday morning after the imposition of a midnight curfew. [MORE]One person is in critical condition and seven people have been arrested. Police confirmed the use of tear gas. Above audio is Neely Fuller on the radio discussing the Michael Brown murder and how to deal with police in a white supremacy system.)
Cress Welsing - "All of these behaviors, and many more, have absolutely nothing to do with addressing the challenges and conditions of the open warfare continuously being waged against the Black collective.
We Black people do not see the war being waged against us because we don't want to and because we are afraid. We are engaging in behaviordesigned specifically to block out any awareness of the war - our truereality. Our behavior thus forces us into the insanity of hoping and begging - as opposed to the sanity of analysis, specific behavioral pattern design and specific conduct in all areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war. (In photo racist suspectMissouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who is being mentioned as a possible presidential or vice presidential candidate on the 2016 Democratic ticket [MORE])
A major strategy in the war against the Black collective is the killing of Black males. Black males are being killed daily, in ever-increasing numbers, across the country. Other as non-white males also are being killed in ever-increasing numbers. These Black and other non-white males are being killed by white males in uniforms who have been authorized to carry guns. This particular form of murder and slaughter is called justifiable homicide.
Our Black collective today has no greater understanding of this war and the phenomenon of justifiable homicide than it did when Black males were being lynched and castrated daily, 100 years ago in the period of "Reconstruction," or reestablishment of white supremacy following the Civil War. Nor does the Black collective have a greater understanding of the current "open hunting season" on Black males than it did two and three decades ago. (In photo the universal sign for surrender - for white folks.)
Because we really do not understand what is going on, in our impotenceand ignorance, in our powerlessness and frustration, we start getting mad,fussing, crying, rhyming, begging with picket signs, rioting in misdirection, hooping and hollering, moaning in our churches and preparing again to vote for any white man who smiles at us even though he lies to us. These behaviors are all absolutely useless. Such behaviors are in vain and will take us nowhere. They will all come to naught and the problem - the war - will simply continue and intensify." [MORE]
Will the teddy bears, signs, Al Sharpton or the White Jesus Stop White Supremacy?
From [HERE] Earlier this year, the American Civil Liberties Union tried to produce a comprehensive report on the militarization of America's police forces. But they couldn't. "The militarization of policing in the United States has occurred with almost no public oversight," they concluded. "Not a single law enforcement agency in this investigation provided records containing all of the information that the ACLU believes is necessary to undertake a thorough examination of police militarization. Some agencies provided records that were nearly totally lacking in important information. Agencies that monitor and provide oversight over the militarization of policing are virtually nonexistent."
The people charged with protecting us are afraid of what will happen if we know what they're doing.
But the ACLU did discover something worth knowing: after aggregating the reports and data on SWAT raids they could find, they found that the militarized police operations were overwhelmingly aimed at minorities. "Overall, 42 percent of people impacted by a SWAT deployment to execute a search warrant were Black and 12 percent were Latino. This means that of the people impacted by deployments for warrants, at least 54 percent were minorities." (For comparison, 72 percent of Americans identified as white in 2010.) The feel of the police presence is much more militarized in minority communities than white communities.
From [HERE] The South Carolina-based New Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan says its Missouri chapter is raising money for the still unidentified white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, who was scheduled to begin college classes this week.
“We are setting up a reward/fund for the police officer who shot this thug,” the Klan group said in an email. “He is a hero! We need more white cops who are anti-Zog and willing to put Jewish controlled black thugs in their place. Most cops are cowards and do nothing while 90% of interracial crime is black (and non-white) on white.”
From [HERE] As developments continue to unfold in the case of Michael Brown in St. Louis, details are emerging about the police shooting death of an unarmed, 24-year-old black man in South Los Angeles.
A vigil in response to the incident was scheduled for Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, said Officer Jane Kim, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department.
A woman who said she was the mother of the deceased told KTLA that the victim's name was Ezell Ford. The woman, who said her name is Tritobia Ford, told KTLA that her son was lying on the ground and complying with police commands when police shot him three times. She said police would give her no information about the shooting.
A man who identified himself as a cousin of Ezell Ford told KTLA that every police officer in the area knows that Ford had "mental problems" and "complications." The man told KTLA that police shot Ezell Ford in the back, and that when Ford's mother approached police asking for information, they pulled out billy clubs.
The LAPD said in a statement that the incident will be reviewed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Justice System Integrity Division and other agencies.
The incident took place at about 8:20 p.m. Monday night as officers conducted an investigative stop, according to the LAPD statement. During that stop, "a struggle ensued" and this resulted in an "officer-involved shooting," according to the statement.
The man underwent surgery at a local hospital and died, the LAPD said.
Expect Racism. Not Justice. From [HERE] A Mecklenburg County grand jury indicted a white Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer, Randall Kerrick, 28 on voluntary manslaughter charges in the deadly shooting of an unarmed Black man, Jonathan Ferrell.
It was the second time a grand jury had heard the case. The first panel, which convened a week ago, did not indict the officer, but suggested instead that prosecutors come back with a lesser charge. Community outrage was strong. Roy Cooper (in photo- suit), the attorney general and a likely Democratic candidate for governor, decided to present the case again, this time with four witnesses instead of two, and to a full panel of 18 jurors instead of 14.
Kerrick shot the unarmed Black man 10 times in a brief and violent confrontation on Reedy Creek Road. Ferrell had wrecked his car and apparently was seeking help; Kerrick was responding to a 911 call from a nearby white resident frightened by a late-night stranger (black man) at her door, who was seeking help.
Although the proceedings are secret, lawyers for the family said there was a good probability that the jurors saw footage of the shooting taken from a patrol car that night — something the family has not been allowed to view.
What they saw, according to people who have seen the video, was a 24-year-old man who was approaching officers with his hands outstretched. In the confusion, it is difficult to discern whether the bullets or commands from the officers came first. Either way, according to one lawyer who has seen the video, there was little time for Mr. Ferrell to respond.
Just after 2 a.m. on Sept. 14, Mr. Ferrell was dropping off a work colleague in Bradfield Farm, a subdivision with tennis courts and a swimming pool 17 miles east of downtown Charlotte.
On a particularly dark stretch of road, Mr. Ferrell drove down an embankment. The car was so damaged he had to kick out the rear window to free himself.
Unable to find his cellphone, he stumbled to the first house he found and knocked, according to the lawsuit and police reports. Inside, a white woman (Sarah McCartney, 32 - in photo) panicked and called 911. A black man, she said, was trying to break in. (The large house is part of the Bradfield Farm estate, 17 miles east of Charlotte. It is a rich, white community of well-manicured two-story homes, it also has four tennis courts, two swimming pools and a clubhouse. New and resale houses are available in the $110,000 - $230,000 range.)
'A Black Male is at My Door. Boo Hoo!'
Three officers arrived 11 minutes later. Mr. Ferrell had left the house and was on a street that led to the community pool. Rodney Monroe, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, said Mr. Ferrell charged toward the officers and refused orders to stop. One officer fired a Taser, which missed its target.
Officer Kerrick then fired 12 shots, 10 of which hit Mr. Ferrell. Most of the shots came when the two men were only a few feet apart, police said. The other two officers apparently never even drew their guns (b/c it was not reasonable to do so). Autopsy results included in the lawsuit show the bullets entered his body and traveled downward, which the family claims to show Mr. Ferrell was already on his knees or lying on the ground when he was shot. Officers then handcuffed him.
Toxicology reports showed Mr. Ferrell had caffeine, nicotine and an alcohol level that was well below the legal limit in his system. ( a significant mix to this white Ny Times reporter).
The family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit, naming the City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, Officer Kerrick and Chief Monroe. Chris Chestnut, a family lawyer based in Atlanta, hopes the suit will force the department to provide more information about the shooting, including the police video, and prompt improvements in a department that has a long history of citizen complaints about the use of excessive force.
From [HERE] A handful of bullets and an ammunition magazine that were found in the Homewood yard into which police tackled Jordan Miles would become evidence in a March civil trial if the 3 white police defendants have their way.
Jordan has claimed undercover white officers approached him for no valid reason. Officers chased him when he ran and when they caught up with him they 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. The officers put him in handcuffs, and repeatedly shoved his face into the snow, causing a piece of wood to impale his gums. He is 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds and was unarmed. No weapons were found. As a result, he suffers from permanent brain damage. [MORE]
In August 2012 a nearly all white jury (7 whites, one black) ruled in favor of the white cops on Mles' claim for malicius prosecution and a mistrial on two other counts. Seting up the present retrial on whether the officers falsely arrested the young Black man and used excessive force. [MORE]
In 2012, U.S. District Judge Gary L. Lancaster didn't allow any reference to the bullets or magazine at the first trial resulting from Mr. Miles' lawsuit against officers Michael Saldutte, David Sisak and Richard Ewing. After Judge Lancaster's death, the case was transferred to Judge David S. Cercone, and the officers' attorneys asked him Monday to reconsider the decision.
"Right where this took place, they found the magazine. They did not find the firearm, though," said Bryan Campbell, attorney for Officer Saldutte, who signed the motion along with James Wymard, representing Officer Sisak, and Robert Leight, attorney for Officer Ewing. "People normally wouldn't carry a magazine without a firearm."
Attorney Joel Sansone, representing Mr. Miles, called the motion "another attempt to smear a fine young man who has no criminal history of any kind."
A nigger is a non-white person who is is subject to white supremacy. In the absence of white supremacy niggers would not exist. [MORE]
From [HERE] A white village police officer who was suspended after he apparently posted a vulgar, racist post about President Barack Obama on his Facebook page last month will keep his job after he accepted a litany of disciplinary measures Monday night.
The Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution that allows Police Chief Richard Love to impose on Officer Peter Burns a 60-day suspension without pay or benefits; forfeiture of 25 vacation days; a psychological evaluation; a training program focused on diversity and sensitivity; and a two-year “last chance” agreement, in effect a probationary period. “Officer Burns has provided an apology to the community at large and to Pleasantville residents, as well as to the chief and his colleagues in the police department,” Mayor Peter Scherer said.
Officer Peter Burns published the post on Wednesday, Dec. 11 on a Facebook profile page he operated under the name “Coon Trapper.” See racist post above.
The Facebook profile page, which was deleted last month, contained photos of Burns in hunting gear and camouflage, and included links to hunting and animal trapping websites. The page's settings were private, meaning that only those who "friended" Burns had access to the Obama post and others on his Facebook page. White supremacy/racism is designed to remain hidden from you.
He was hired in 2004 and receives an annual salary of $98,959. [MORE]
From [HERE] It has been nearly six months since Durham police shot and killed a Honduran man suspected in a non-fatal stabbing. A state medical examiner’s report confirmed Tuesday what a death certificate said last summer: Jose Adan Cruz Ocampo was shot four times and died from a gunshot wound to the top of his head.
But other questions remain. The officer who fired the fatal shot July 27, R.S. Mbuthia, who apparently is also non-white, remains on administrative leave with pay, a police spokeswoman said last week. A State Bureau of Investigation report has yet to be released.
Four shots
According to the autopsy report, the fatal bullet entered Ocampo's head in the top rear area, traveled “sharply downwards” and exited through his neck. The report confirms earlier statements that Ocampo, 33, was also struck in the chest, abdomen and left wrist.
Police have said little since Chief Jose Lopez told The Herald-Sun soon afterward that Ocampo was shot in the chest when he failed to heed instructions to put his hands in the air and drop a knife.
The description didn’t jibe with witnesses who told the NCCU clinic’s investigator that Ocampo was trying to hand the knife, hilt or handle side out, to officers when he was shot.
Manny Ocampo said his brother would not have understood the officers’ instructions. “No entiende nada deingles (He didn’t understand any English),” Ocampo said.
The family wants an explanation, he continued. “Why did they kill my brother?”
From [HERE] and [HERE] The city of Harvey is currently facing two lawsuits from a December incident in which officers shot a Black man in the leg without cause, shot and killed a Black witness’s puppy, and threatened a witness. Harvey, a far south suburb of Chicago, has a median income and home value of about half the statewide median.
Paul Manning claims officers in a squad car followed him as he walked down a street on December 30. As described in the lawsuit, the officers stopped their car and told Manning to “come here”; Manning, however, who was unarmed and had done nothing wrong, kept walking.
(Apparently, there was no legal basis for the stop - no reasonable articulable suspicion that criminal activity was going on and that Manning was involved in it. And Manning obviously did not voluntarily consent to the police stop.)
As he kept walking away from the squad car, Manning slipped and fell. When he tried to get up, one of the officers shot Manning in the back of the leg. After Manning fell yet again, the officers fired still more shots at him. While Manning was lying on the ground, one of the officers stood on the man’s back and handcuffed him.
(Police also had no legal basis to forcibly prevent him from leaving after he fell down. It seems then that the violent stop was unconstitutional (as the 4th Amendment is applied to white people that is) and a use of excessive force. To the extent that you might be dealing with a racist police officer, attempt to comply with orders. In face to face confrontations with police, white supremacy is your reality. Nevertheless, avoid incriminating yourself and resist participating in your own oppression - bw.)
A nearby witness tried to record the incident on his cell phone. The officer, however, grabbed the witness’s cell phone and threw it while, as Manning describes in the lawsuit, saying, “You touch the phone, I will shoot the shit out of you.”
Meanwhile, Karnischa Miller heard gunshots and opened the back door to witness, as she claims, “a young man, Paul Manning, lying on the ground after having been shot. He was screaming and asking for an ambulance.”
Powerless Class. What's the remedy?
Her 14-week puppy Nemo ran out through the open door. An officer yelled to Miller’s boyfriend to come get the dog, but as LeShon Wright advanced to follow the order, an officer raised his gun towards Wright and the dog.
Wright stopped in his tracks, but the dog kept walking towards the officer. Although Nemo “did not growl, bark, or act aggressively in any way”, the officer shot the puppy.
The city of Harvey has admitted that the officers shot Miller’s dog. Miller claims that the officer’s response was, “Yeah, I shot the dog. What the fuck you gonna do about it?”
The Perils of Asking White People for Help in a White Supremacy System [MORE]. Expect Racism.From [HERE] A grand jury will decide Tuesday whether the criminal case against a white Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer for an on-duty shooting of an unarmed Black man will go to trial.
Officer Randall “Wes” Kerrick is charged with voluntary manslaughter in the Sept. 14 shooting death of 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell. If indicted Tuesday, Kerrick could go before a judge and jury as soon as this year. If convicted of the felony, he faces between three and 11 years behind bars.
Kerrick was arrested about 14 hours after he shot the unarmed Black man 10 times in a brief and violent confrontation on Reedy Creek Road. Ferrell had wrecked his car and apparently was seeking help; Kerrick was responding to a 911 call from a nearby resident frightened by a late-night stranger at her door.
The odds are against Kerrick on Tuesday. Grand juries work behind closed doors and typically consider hundreds of cases. Most lead to indictments. (ha! this white writer is thinking about Black on Black crime or Black on white crime and definitely not white on black crime- certainly not involving alleged criminality of white police officers and black male victims. But we know better - expect racism -bw).
A 15 second video, shot from a camera inside one of the police cars at the scene, is in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office, which is prosecuting the case. Despite calls from Ferrell’s family and various media outlets, the video has not been shown to the public, and the opposing sides in the Kerrick case debate what it reveals.
After watching the video on the day of Ferrell’s death, Police Chief Rodney Monroe and his top commanders decided to file charges against one of their own. CMPD investigations into police shootings normally take weeks. This one took hours, and the speed of Kerrick’s arrest caught many of his fellow officers as well as police groups around the country off guard.
An attorney for the Ferrell family, which filed a civil lawsuit against Kerrick and police last week, described the shooting as “cold-blooded murder” by a “rogue cop.”
While the video remains sealed under a judge’s order, many of the other details of the case have become familiar. Kerrick is a former animal-control officer who had three years of CMPD experience. Ferrell was a former Florida A&M football player who had moved to Charlotte a year earlier to be with his fiancee and raise money to enroll at Johnson C. Smith University.
On the night of the incident Ferrell had gathered at a Hickory Tavern restaurant with a group of friends. Afterward, he offered a co-worker from Dillard’s department store a ride home to the Bradfield Farm community northeast of Charlotte. (Tests show that Ferrell was not drunk.)
But as he left the neighborhood, he ran off the road and wrecked his 1999 Toyota Camry. Unable to open the doors, Ferrell kicked his way free through the rear window, then walked a quarter of a mile to the nearest home. Investigators later found his cellphone in the car.
When he reached the nearby house, police said, he knocked on the door. The white woman inside called 911. Kerrick and fellow officers Thornell Little and Adam Neal drove to the neighborhood. Police say that as the three patrolmen got out of their cars, Ferrell ran toward them.
Ferrell’s mother and brother say that since Ferrell comes from a family of law officers, it would have been natural for him to run up to the police for help.
Monroe said the officers ordered Ferrell to stop and get on the ground. Seconds later, when he didn’t, Little fired his taser but missed. Ferrell continued to run, police said. Officer Kerrick fired 12 times with his Smith&Wesson .40-caliber, semi-automatic pistol. Most of the shots came when the two men were only a few feet apart, police said. The other officers apparently never even drew their guns.
Monroe says the video shows that his officer used excessive force. Ferrell was clearly unarmed, the chief told the Observer a few days after the shooting. He said it didn’t matter whether Ferrell ignored the officers’ commands. “It can’t automatically result in use of deadly force,” Monroe said.
What is White Collective Power? When white police officers ambush an unarmed, surrendering Black man and their fellow officers, the police chief, internal affairs, the union, jurors, prosecutors and the white media support, defend, and finance the officers “right” to kill him. [MORE] and [MORE]
From [HERE] Despite being completely unarmed, 29-year-old Black man, Mark Duggan was lawfully killed by the police, a UK jury ruled by a majority of eight to two on Wednesday. The shooting of the Londoner in August 2011 provoked the worst riots in the country’s modern history. The jury was composed of seven men and three women - apparently they were all white.
With the same eight-to-two margin, the jury decided that Duggan had been weaponless when he was surrounded by the officers. However, the majority in the jury concluded that the man “threw” the gun from a cab just before being stopped by the police.
Duggan was suspected of being a gang member, with officers stating that he collected a weapon in east London just before the incident happened.
He was shot twice after he got out of the taxi, with one bullet going through his arm and another delivering a lethal wound to the chest. The gun became central to the inquest as it had been "found" several meters away from Duggan’s body, wrapped in a sock, with no fingerprints on it. How did the gun get there?
Neither the gun nor the sock had any DNA or fingerprints from Duggan on it. Gun residue was also absent from the deceased, save for a speck in his back pocket which the jury was told was scientifically irrelevant. His fingerprints were on a shoebox found inside the cab in which it is believed the gun had been stored, and traces of the drug ecstasy were in his bloodstream.
A statement by Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, Mark Rowley, who is white, was barely heard due to a large crowd outside the court shouting: “Who killed Mark Duggan?” and “murderers.”
The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP, Diane Abbott, said she was baffled by the jury's finding, which she said would raise a lot of questions in the local community.
Writing on Twitter, Abbott said: "If the Duggan jury believe that he did not have a gun in his hand when he was shot, how can they find it was a lawful killing? baffled."
