Tag: police brutality

Family Granted $26 Million After Body Cam Showed Cop Execute Innocent Unarmed Child

On a Saturday night in a North Texas town in 2017, 15-year-old Jordan Edwards was murdered by a Balch Springs police officer. Jordan was a passenger in a car that had merely driven away from a party. Immediately after police killed him, the chief parrotted his officer’s false claim of fearing for his life as the vehicle drove “aggressively toward him.”

After watching the body-camera footage, however, the chief realized he’d spread a lie. So, he did the right thing and told the public the truth — the car was not a threat and was driving away.

Police Chief Jonathan Haber admitted that the car full of innocent teenagers was driving away from the officer when he raised his AR-15 and shot Jordan Edwards in the head.

“It did not meet our core values,” Haber said of the officer’s actions.

Based on the extensive reporting the Free Thought Project has done on officers shooting into vehicles, we predicted the original story would probably not be backed up by the body-camera footage, and we were correct.

The shooting was so egregious that Oliver was found guilty of murder in 2018 and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.

Now, six years after Balch Springs Police officer Roy Oliver raised his AR-15 and dumped multiple rounds into a car full of innocent children — executing one of them — Jordan’s family has the rest of their closure. The family’s federal civil rights trial began last week and concluded on Monday with a $26.1 million settlement: $8.5 million to Edwards’ father, Odell, for damages; $2.1 million in estate for damages such as mental anguish and funeral expenses; and $11 million in punitive damages.

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Cops Kidnap Elderly Deaf Woman, Strip Her Down & Break Her Arm Because She Couldn’t Hear Them

In an appalling case of police brutality, a 71-year-old deaf Florida woman found herself spending three days in jail and suffering a broken arm at the hands of Austin’s finest. All of this happened simply because she was unable to hear instructions from a gate agent at an airport and asked twice to get on an earlier flight.

As violent crime rates continue to rise and go unsolved across the nation, this incident serves as a chilling reminder of how police choose to go after “low-hanging fruit” and target vulnerable individuals in our society rather than violent criminals.

On September 13, 2022, Karen McGee was connecting in Austin on her way to Seattle. As a nervous flyer traveling alone for the first time in her life, she was already feeling overwhelmed. To make matters worse, her hearing aid wasn’t functioning properly.

Unbeknownst to her, she missed a gate change announcement for her flight. As her departure time passed and she didn’t see her flight boarding, she approached an Alaska Airlines gate agent for assistance. Although she was rebooked on a later flight that evening, McGee mistakenly thought there was another plane at the same gate headed to Seattle and inquired if she could get on that flight instead.

Struggling to hear the agent’s explanation, McGee asked another Alaska Airlines employee for help. Shockingly, instead of providing assistance to the senior citizen, the agent called the police.

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Police Use “Less Lethal” Weapons to Crush Social Movements Across the World

This week, the City of Philadelphia agreed to a $9.25 million settlement with protesters who were brutalized with tear gas and pepper spray during demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in late May 2020.

Such accountability for police who crush protests with crowd-control weapons is rare both in the United States and across the world. The settlement comes as researchers report that police in dozens of countries have routinely injured and even killed demonstrators with crowd-control weapons since 2015 as governments cracked down on protests.

Injuries from crowd-control weapons are increasing and widespread both in authoritarian nations such as Iran and China as well as “democratic” countries that supposedly tolerate dissent and public assemblies, according to a new report from Physicians for Human Rights and the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO). The report, “Lethal in Disguise: How Crowd-Control Weapons Impact Health and Human Rights,” found that more than 121,000 people globally were injured or killed by so-called less lethal crowd-control weapons such as chemical irritants, “flash bang” grenades and rubber bullets since 2015, although many other injuries likely went unreported.

From the uprisings in Iraq and Chile in 2019, to mass movements against regimes in Iran, Myanmar and Peru, clashes between police forces and social movements challenging government corruption and demanding basic rights are now a worldwide public health concern, according to the report. So far this month, crowd-control weapons were reportedly used against protesters in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Greece, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Italy, Kenya, Mozambique, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the U.S.

“The repression of demonstrations remains as global as protest itself,” said INCLO Program Coordinator Lucila Santos in a statement. “In addition to the growing violent use of crowd-control weapons, since 2016 we have seen new technologies deployed by governments with next to no accountability or oversight whatsoever.”

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DOJ Accuses Louisville Police Of Civil Rights Violations, Discrimination After Breonna Taylor Investigation

Louisville’s police routinely violate constitutional rights and federal law, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said following a two-year investigation following the death of Breonna Taylor.

The DOJ announced the findings of its investigation on Wednesday in a press conference and 90-page report. Federal investigators said their review found that officers of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) “engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.”

Some of the report’s findings include use of excessive force, executing search warrants without knocking or announcing, using invalid search warrants, and violating the rights of protesters.

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ATF Honors Agents Who Kicked Off the Waco Slaughter of Women, Children

The ATF is honoring its agents who were killed as they kicked off the slaughter of American women and children at the Waco, Texas Branch Davidians compound in 1993, in an event widely known as the “Waco Massacre.”

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives Houston, Texas office posted to Twitter this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Waco Siege, that led to the Waco Massacre. Included in the ATF’s tweet was a photograph of four agents “standing post” at the “Waco Peace Officer Memorial in Waco, TX in honor of Special Agents Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams, and Steve Willis.”

The ATF was blasted in the responses to its tweet by a chorus of Twitter users, including prominent accounts like those of Jake Shields and Mindy Robinson.

“We mourn for the innocent women and children you burned alive,” Shields commented on the ATF’s tweet.

“Oh, you mean the baby killers?” Mindy Robinson wrote. “Are they standing guard so real patriots don’t dance on their graves? Yea, it takes a real man to shoot, kill, poison, and set innocent women and children on fire for their own “safety.”

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Ohio Woman Says Cops Broke Her Wrist for Recording During Traffic Stop

A new lawsuit alleges that an Ohio woman suffered a broken wrist and other injuries after being violently arrested during a traffic stop, in part due to filming the police who pulled her over.

In February 2020, Amanda Mills was pulled over for speeding in Walton Hills, a small town outside Cleveland, Ohio. According to the suit, a police officer, identified in the lawsuit only as “Officer Schmidt” exited his cruiser “irate” and “screaming.” Nervous, Mills began recording the encounter. Schmidt ordered Mills to get out of her vehicle. According to the suit, “Amanda asked ‘why?’ without making any other statement or any sudden movement. At this point, Officer Schmidt realized Amanda was filming him with her cellphone, and he became even more agitated.”

According to the complaint, Schmidt “opened Amanda’s driver-side door, grabbed her by the wrist and arm, and ripped her out of her vehicle.” Another officer helped Schmidt pin Mills to the side of her vehicle. The suit alleges that “Amanda screamed that she was not resisting arrest and continued to cry out in pain.” However, rather than releasing her, officers handcuffed Mills and put her in the back of their cruiser while they searched her vehicle. Eventually, Mills was released from custody after officers could not find illegal substances or outstanding warrants for her arrest. While Mills was initially charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for “failing to comply” with police orders, that charge was eventually dropped.

According to the suit, Mills was left with a broken wrist and other injuries to her arm and breasts. The complaint alleges that the officers’ excessive force violated Mills’ Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. The complaint also says that the Walton Hills Police Department’s practices are the “moving force behind the injuries suffered by Amanda,” and the department is guilty of “failing to adequately train, adequately supervise, as well as failing to investigate and discipline, its police officers when it comes to the excessive use of force.”

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Anthony ‘Tony’ Mitchell froze to death after guards put him in walk-in freezer at Alabama jail

An Alabama man froze to death inside a county jail after he was placed inside a walk-in freezer or another cold area by guards, a recently filed lawsuit alleges.

The family of Anthony “Tony” Mitchell says that more than a dozen jail officials in Walker County abused him and then schemed to cover up the alleged mistreatment.

Mitchell dealt with “hellish” conditions inside the jail for roughly two weeks before his death following his arrest in mid-January, his grieving mother, Margaret Mitchell, argues in the suit.

“While Tony languished naked and dying of hypothermia in the early morning hours of Jan. 26 and his chances for survival trickled away, numerous corrections officers and medical staff wandered over to his open cell door to spectate and be entertained by his condition,” the bombshell complaint claims.

A Walker County sheriff’s official told a relative that Mitchell, 33, would receive help while inside the jail after his arrest, but instead he was tased by guards and housed in the jail naked, due to the facility’s suicide watch policy, the lawsuit speculates.

Mitchell suffered from drug addiction and faced both mental and physical health woes, according to his family.

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Cop Arrested After He Was Caught Dumping Naked Body of 16yo Girl in the Woods

The residents of Norcross have been searching for 16-year-old Susana Morales since she went missing on July 26, 2022. She was last seen walking home on surveillance footage but tragically would never arrive. Her disappearance had been a mystery until last week when her body was discovered 20 miles away. According to an arrest warrant, she was dumped there by disgraced Doraville police officer Miles Bryant.

“It’s unbelievable honestly, there is no words that I can say to explain it,” said Jasmine Morales, Susana’s sister. “It sucks that it took so long but I guess with him being an officer has something to do with that.”

On Monday, Bryant was charged with concealing Susana’s death — her body was discovered five days earlier. Bryant has only been charged with one count of concealing the death of another and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

According to the arrest warrant, police say Bryant dumped Susana’s naked body in a patch of woods in Dacula. Medical examiners are still trying to determine the teen’s cause of death. The warrant states that police suspect Bryant of rape, murder, and other offenses, although he’s yet to be charged with those crimes.

According to court records, Bryant lived near Susana. Local news, 11 Alive interviewed neighbors who said Bryant was normal.

One of those neighbors shared cell phone videos, showing what they described as investigators collecting a bed sheet from Bryant’s personal car. In one of the videos, his police car was being towed away.

“It’s hard to put my mind around it right now, that’s this person who lived in this complex did that,” said another resident who asked not to disclose her identity out of fear of retaliation. That neighbor says while she didn’t know Bryant personally he has introduced himself several times as a police officer who also moonlights as security at the complex.

Neighbors said Byrant’s demeanor during the past six months wasn’t alarming.

“He was very normal, just smiling laughing, living his life,” the neighbor said. “Poor baby laid out in a field somewhere. Are you serious, how can you be that cold-hearted? How is somebody that cold-hearted?”

Though much of the media is referring to Bryant as a “former officer,” he was a cop until Monday. He was only fired after being charged with dumping the naked body of a teenager in the woods.

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Family Shocked as Cop Who Beat Elderly Grandma to Be Released Early, Serving Less than 1/5 of Sentence

On June 26, 2020, Karen Garner, 73, walked from her home to the local Walmart two blocks away to get some supplies. Everything that happened after this trip to Walmart became the subject of an excessive force lawsuit against the Loveland Police Department that cost taxpayers $3 million because they have no idea how to treat elderly women with dementia.

That $3 million now goes to the round-the-clock care required for Garner after the attack left her disabled.

For nearly a year, the cops who savagely attacked the elderly woman thought they got away with it. However, in April 2021, the Loveland city manager announced that Officer Austin Hopp, Officer Daria Jalali, Sgt. Phil Metzler, and Community service officer Tyler Blackett had all been suspended and placed on administrative leave. Then, the following May, Jalali and Hopp were both charged.

At the time, the chief of the Loveland police department, Robert Ticer referred to the incident, saying, “What you saw on the video is not the Loveland Police Department.”

In March, Hopp took a plea deal. Before that deal, Hopp had faced a mandatory sentence between 10 and 32 years for his brutal attack on the innocent woman as she picked flowers walking home from the store.

Last May, Hopp was sentenced to 5 years but thanks to his blue privilege, this cop could be out of jail next week — after serving only nine months. CBS reports Hopp is scheduled to appear in a northern Colorado court next week to possibly be transitioned out of prison and into a halfway house program.

“The Garner family is shocked and confused that former Officer Hopp is being offered a parole hearing to discuss the opportunity of moving to Community Corrections,” the family wrote in a statement. “His plea deal and sentence of 2-5 years did not even offer the opportunity of a parole hearing until April of 2024. He’s only served 9 months of his sentence. This is likely being offered due to prison overcrowding, according the CO DCC website, and we’d like to know what Governor Polis is doing to make sure violent offenders are not being let out years early, as is happening in this case.”

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Cops Kill Man for Running Away, Shoot Him At Least 5 Times After He Falls to Make Sure He’s Dead

If we were to declare a winner in the decades-long war on drugs today, hands down, drugs would be the victor. For over 50 years, the US has waged a cruel and horrific campaign of violence, injustice, brutality, and oppression to eradicate arbitrary substances they’ve deemed illegal. Not only was this campaign unsuccessful at eradicating substances, but it’s led to the most deadly drug overdose epidemic in history in which enough people die every year to pack an NFL stadium.

Instead of realizing the error of their ways, the callous, obstinate, and violent state has simply doubled down on enforcement — driving a black market consisting of increasingly dangerous synthetic substances. Fentanyl, in particular, has gripped the nation thanks to the prohibition of safer alternatives, driving crime, suffering, and death. As the following case illustrates, it also fuels an incentive for rampant police violence.

Eric Nathaniel Thornton, 38, was suspected of buying this substance in Jacksonville, Florida last month which landed him six feet under. According to police, officers were watching Thorton and Brian Brightman — who they referred to as a “known drug dealer” — conducting an “illegal drug transaction.”

Because cops claim the right to kidnap, cage, and even kill you over these arbitrary substances they deem “illegal,” they moved in to make an arrest. Not wanting to be kidnapped and caged, Thornton ran from officers.

Thornton never once attempted to harm the officers and was merely attempting to avoid being thrown in a cage for his addiction. He needed medical help for a medical problem; instead, he received bullets… at least ten of them.

As Thornton ran from officers, they claimed he was holding a knife and used this as a reason to fill the fleeing man with holes.

“He’s got a knife,” an officer can be heard saying before executing a fleeing man.

As the body camera footage shows, Thornton dropped to the ground, let out a groan, and died on the scene. Police would go on to justify his execution by releasing photos of knives, which they claim were a threat to their lives as Thornton ran away.

We’re told that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is now looking into the matter and the result of the investigation they are conducting on themselves will be released when it’s complete.

Thornton was the third person killed by this same department in the first few weeks of 2023. As long as this country continues to treat addiction and substance abuse with violence and coercion, Thornton will be but a single line on an ever-increasing list of names whose lives were taken by the losers of the war on drugs.

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