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Tag: police brutality
Video Shows Cops Beat a Naked Black Man to Death With Handcuffs as Brass Knuckles
A throng of corrections officers at a Memphis jail used handcuffs as makeshift brass knuckles to beat a Black inmate and kneeled on his back and neck until he went limp in a pool of blood, according to surveillance video. And for minutes, they administered no aid, including CPR.
The county medical examiner ruled Gershun Freeman’s death on Oct. 5, 2022, a homicide. Ever since, the 33-year-old’s family and friends have demanded the officers involved be punished and the notorious Shelby County Jail where it happened be reformed. Now, a federal civil rights complaint filed Tuesday reveals new details of the horror Freeman experienced, including analysis of the jail’s blurry, 13-minute surveillance video.
“The gatekeepers are supposed to keep, but instead they abuse their authority with violence,” Kimberly Freeman, Gershun’s mother, told VICE News. “We are mountain climbers for my son, Gershun. Living wasn’t in vain.”
The incident began when corrections officers approached Freeman’s cell in what was known as the “suicide pod,” on the fourth floor of the jail, to serve dinner, according to court documents. Freeman seemed to be experiencing a mental health crisis and was housed naked and alone to minimize the risk of self-harm. But instead of serving his tray through the door slot, which was common practice, surveillance video shows two officers approached Freeman’s cell and pointed a can of mace at him as a third officer opened the doors remotely from the other side of the hallway.
In the surveillance video, Freeman is seen shielding himself from the mace with an orange piece of fabric, which he was given for warmth, and darting out of the cell. His family’s attorneys say he wasn’t attempting to hit anyone but “bat away the mace can in the deputy’s hand.” Then, the other officer hit Freeman with a haymaker punch, which knocked him to the ground, surveillance video shows.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
Hellbound and Down 
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