The General Police Brutality Thread

[Lexicus]

What happens to the people who are forced out of the "black" community when it redevelops into a "white" community? If they are dispersed among the rest of the population, is that not an "end to apartheid"? Is that not the goal?

In DC they have mainly moved to the suburbs, creating new 'black' communities.

My guess is, people like me (one of the putative 'winners') would be able to figure something out without gentrification. And I can see the 'losers', or at least some of them, in the gutter begging for coins on the way to and from work every day.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The operators of a drug-treatment recovery center in Missouri have filed a federal lawsuit against a Sheriff's deputy, alleging the officer coerced recovering addicts into becoming informants by threatening to report them for violating their court-mandated treatment program.

One can only wonder how often law enforcement officers abuse their authority like this. We hear about it once in a while, but of course we'll never know about the incidents that don't result in a lawsuit or an investigation by journalists (such as the reporters who exposed the coverup of the shooting of Laquan McDonald - would we have ever heard about that otherwise?).


Huffington Post, 22 Aug 16 - A Missouri Cop Allegedly Forced People In Drug Treatment To Work As Informants

The Allens [operators of the treatment center] allege that Franklin County Sheriff’s Lt. Jason Grellner, a former regional drug task force commander who recently lost a bid for county sheriff, exploited vulnerable people who were seeking treatment under the terms of drug court agreements that would allow them to avoid harsher punishments, such as incarceration. If these individuals didn’t cooperate, Grellner would threaten to tell the judge they had failed to meet their requirements and should thereby be expelled from the program, the lawsuit claims.

[...]

The participants Grellner allegedly targeted saw a “significant decrease” in success because they were required to “associate with other drug users/distributors, which led them to revert to the habits which led to their arrests and placement in Drug Court in the first instance,” the lawsuit states.

[...]

Additionally, [the lawsuit] accuses Grellner of having forced “participants to act as campaign aides in his election bid for Sheriff of Franklin County under threat of elimination from Drug Court.”

 

[Timsup2nothin]

One can only wonder how often law enforcement officers abuse their authority like this.

The "good" ones daily. Most of them hourly.

When I had my business I refused to bid on jobs for law enforcement. Any involvement with them just invites getting stuck in a "renegotiation" in their favor.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Something something Frank Serpico, something something.

Harry Callahan was a good cop.

 

[Lexicus]

Harry Callahan was a good cop.

Something something, Eliot Ness, something something

 

[EgonSpengler]

Middletown, OH chief of police Rodney Muterspaw on Twitter, reacting to the shooting of motorist Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, OK:

As an officer I am so sick and drained of some cops doing things like this. You are making us all look bad. STOP. #TerenceCruthcher
— R_Muterspaw (@RodneyMute) September 20, 2016

Meanwhile, in Boston: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling on Commonwealth v. Jimmy Warren, 20 Sept 2016:

Where the suspect is a black male stopped by the police on the streets of Boston, the analysis of flight as a factor in the reasonable suspicion calculus cannot be divorced from the findings in a recent Boston Police Department (department) report documenting a pattern of racial profiling of black males in the city of Boston.

[...]

The finding that black males are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for FIO encounters suggests a reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt. Such an individual, when approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity.

[...]

For the reasons stated above, the police lacked reasonable suspicion for the investigatory stop of the defendant. Therefore, we vacate the judgment of conviction and remand the matter to the Boston Municipal Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

[cont.]

Well, shucks...

 

[EgonSpengler]

More from the decision on Commonwealth v. Warren:

[Boston Police Dept Officer] Carr drew his firearm, pointed it at the defendant, and yelled several verbal commands for the defendant to show his hands and to "get down, get down, get down." The defendant moved slowly, conduct that Carr interpreted as an intention not to comply with his commands.

Wait, wait, wait. So moving slowly is the wrong thing to do?



And here's the article cited in the SJC ruling, if you're interested.

bpdnews.com - Boston Police Commissioner Announces Field Interrogation and Observation (FIO) Study Results - October 08, 2014

 

[Gary Childress]

(CNN) — From different angles, the videos show the same scene.

An unarmed black man walks on a Tulsa, Oklahoma, road with his hands in the air. Police officers follow closely behind him as he approaches his vehicle. He stands beside the car, then falls to the ground after one officer pulls the trigger.

Now 40-year-old Terence Crutcher is dead. Crutcher's sister is demanding that prosecutors charge the officer who shot him. And the police videos of the incident are fueling criticism about the case.

Federal, state and local authorities are investigating the Friday night shooting.

Crutcher's family says he was waiting for help on the road after his SUV broke down.

The officer's attorney says she was afraid Crutcher was reaching for a weapon when she opened fire. Attorney Benjamin Crump, part of the legal team representing Crutcher's family, countered at a Tuesday news conference that Crutcher's window was rolled up, making it unlikely he was reaching into the car.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/20/us/oklahoma-tulsa-police-shooting/index.html

I'll wait for the facts to come together before making a final judgment but it doesn't look good for the police on first glance. Apparently PCP was found in the car and the guy was acting very strangely, but still lethal force appears to have been way over the top.

 

[Lexicus]

Link to video.

Super relevant part at roughly 1:50.

 

[tetley]

Apparently, North Carolina is going to make police videos no longer public record.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/us/charlotte-police-video/index.html

Which means they will release video only when it is beneficial to them. And after viewing the Charlotte shooting, it looks pretty clear to me this one was not.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So the latest shooting (I guess I have to specify that I'm talking about the one in El Cajon, CA, since it will likely be superceded by another shooting in a week or two, and then no one will know which incident this post is referring to) once again highlights how dangerous it is to call 911 for a friend or relative who is having a mental-health crisis.

As I understand the basics of the situation, the man's sister called 911 for help, and the 911 dispatcher sent police, who killed him. I don't think we have a lot of details yet; for instance, I don't know the nature of the man's "episode", but he's been described as running out into traffic.

I don't know what alternative the woman had, though. I suppose if other able-bodied friends and relatives were available, they could maybe talk to or physically restrain the man. At the same time, a person could lie to the 911 dispatcher about the nature of the emergency, so that only an ambulance is dispatched, but I can imagine paramedics arriving to see an adult man in the grip of autism, psychosis, schizophrenia, or dementia and calling the police for help. Restraining a person who's truly out of control can be difficult if there are 4 or 5 of you.

Additionally, the police are defending their actions not by claiming that he had a weapon, but by claiming that the man had "assumed a 'shooting stance'." It remains to be seen how far such a claim gets them.

 

[Lexicus]

So the latest shooting (I guess I have to specify that I'm talking about the one in El Cajon, CA, since it will likely be superceded by another shooting in a week or two, and then no one will know which incident this post is referring to) once again highlights how dangerous it is to call 911 for a friend or relative who is having a mental-health crisis.

As I understand the basics of the situation, the man's sister called 911 for help, and the 911 dispatcher sent police, who killed him. I don't think we have a lot of details yet; for instance, I don't know the nature of the man's "episode", but he's been described as running out into traffic.

I don't know what alternative the woman had, though. I suppose if other able-bodied friends and relatives were available, they could maybe talk to or physically restrain the man. At the same time, a person could lie to the 911 dispatcher about the nature of the emergency, so that only an ambulance is dispatched, but I can imagine paramedics arriving to see an adult man in the grip of autism, psychosis, schizophrenia, or dementia and calling the police for help. Restraining a person who's truly out of control can be difficult if there are 4 or 5 of you.

Additionally, the police are defending their actions not by claiming that he had a weapon, but by claiming that the man had "assumed a 'shooting stance'." It remains to be seen how far such a claim gets them.

It better not get them anywhere. The cops who did this need to be institutionalized. Bloodthirsty murdering scum.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

For what it's worth, there are pictures of the guy "drawing down." He has something in his hand pointed at the cops, a classic "two hand grip," feet shoulder width apart, sighting along the top...everyone knows I'm no fan of the cops, but I'd probably have shot this guy too.

Does offer further proof of my basic premise though...no situation is so bad that calling the cops won't make it worse.

That said, this is also another demonstration that the incident itself is not really the issue. The cops in El Cajon are bad news. They've been bad news for a long time. When cops set themselves up as the enemy it really doesn't matter whether the incident that tips the scale is absurdly bad or almost reasonable, it tips the scale just the same.

 

[EgonSpengler]

For what it's worth, there are pictures of the guy "drawing down." He has something in his hand pointed at the cops, a classic "two hand grip," feet shoulder width apart, sighting along the top...everyone knows I'm no fan of the cops, but I'd probably have shot this guy too.

Does offer further proof of my basic premise though...no situation is so bad that calling the cops won't make it worse.

That said, this is also another demonstration that the incident itself is not really the issue. The cops in El Cajon are bad news. They've been bad news for a long time. When cops set themselves up as the enemy it really doesn't matter whether the incident that tips the scale is absurdly bad or almost reasonable, it tips the scale just the same.

Yes, there are circumstances in which the use of lethal force is necessary, or even just an understandable, if horrible, error. If the El Cajon police, or police generally, behaved in ways that earned them some modicum of trust, I believe people would give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm reminded of the tool who killed Tamir Rice in Cleveland. Between the failure of the 911 dispatcher to provide necessary information and the failure of the officer to approach the scene responsibly, shooting a 12-year-old became an act of self-preservation. I don't have it handy, but I'd swear I read recently that some cops aren't taught to use cover when approaching a potentially dangerous situation. Part of me wants to say "That's simply not possible", but another part of me knows better.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes, there are circumstances in which the use of lethal force is necessary, or even just an understandable, if horrible, error. If the El Cajon police, or police generally, behaved in ways that earned them some modicum of trust, I believe people would give them the benefit of the doubt.

Case in point...

During the span of the current national uproar over police shootings, the LAPD has had multiple fatal interactions with the populace. They have also had multiple less recent shootings passing through their investigative process. They have also concluded multiple investigations of even less recent shootings, some favorably for the officers involved, some with disciplinary action, and a couple with charges filed against the officers. Life goes on in LA.

Nobody really likes the LAPD, but since the reforms after Rodney King and Rampart they are generally deemed to be mostly trustworthy. The unfortunate apparent conclusion is that rioting works.

 

[tetley]

The El Cahon guy was holding a vape, and from that distance--give me a break. You know that's not a gun from that distance. The PD conveniently released a still photo of only that instant, when video was available.

As usual, everybody is all supportive of Americans' right to their free speech, to protest, to whine for 1 1/2 weeks. As for their right not to get shot--not so much.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I once chased a guy off the freeway by holding a Nokia cell phone against the side of my hand with my thumb. Asking people, even cops, to identify the object rather than the stance is a big ask, no matter the distance.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So a couple of Sacramento cops tried to run a guy down with their car. Twice. When that didn't work, they had to get out and shoot him.

Los Angeles Times
Washington Post
Chicago Tribune
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...shooting-him-14-times/?utm_term=.98c3cc015ffc

“F— this guy,” the officer says before aiming his police cruiser at the mentally ill homeless man that he and his partner had been sent out to confront. “I”m going to hit him.”

“Okay, go for it. Go for it,” his partner responds, his voice recorded on the Sacramento police cruiser’s dash cam.

 

[Lexicus]

Absolutely disgusting. Undoubtedly our resident police apologists will explain to us how it was justified though.

 

[EgonSpengler]

And, as in Chicago, the police stayed pretty quiet about the killing until local media caught up with them. The Sacramento Bee in this case.

The dashcam video was released Sept. 20 after The Sacramento Bee obtained surveillance footage from a private citizen that showed the officers shooting Mann. Within an hour of The Bee posting the footage online, Sacramento police called a news conference to release video from three dashboard cameras as well as audio from two 911 calls and other information.

The incident occurred July 11, so the police were mum for 2 months but had a press conference an hour after The Bee released its footage.