Tag: police brutality

Biden Administration Tear-Gassed ‘Peaceful Protesters’ Just Hours After Inauguration

A Democratic Party headquarters was damaged, an American flag burned, and marchers filled the streets in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, following Joe Biden’s inauguration. Antifa was reportedly behind the activities, known during the summer as “peaceful protests.”

The New York Times reported that “federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown.”

Some in the group of about 150 people smashed windows and spray-painted anarchist symbols at the political party building. Police said eight arrests were made in the area. Some demonstrators carried a sign reading, “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge!” in response to “police murders” and “imperialist wars.” Others carried a banner declaring “We Are Ungovernable.”

There was a huge amount of outrage last summer after President Trump was accused of having “peaceful protesters” tear-gassed without provocation to clear the area so he could “get his photo op” at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been burned in the riots the night before. The United States Park Police (USPP) denied this allegation and the claim that the D.C. protesters were peaceful was also completely false. Over the course of four days, protesters, armed with baseball bats, metal poles, and glass bottles for projectiles, vandalized property and injured 51 USPP officers.

So, where is the outrage over the Biden administration using actual tear gas (according to the New York Times) to break up “peaceful protesters”? They are peaceful, are they not? I mean, that’s what we were told about this behavior all summer. CNN and MSNBC, for example, specifically avoided calling the BLM riots “riots.”

MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi even called the riots “mostly peaceful” as he stood amongst rampant violence in front of a burning building.

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Death of Maryland man shows continued out-of-control nature of SWAT, no-knock raids

One of the most positive developments from last year’s political strife was a stronger focus on police abuses and no-knock raids. Some states and cities have imposed new restrictions, others are working toward greater transparency when it comes to police shootings. Unfortunately, Maryland, a state that has wrestled with some of the most egregious SWAT and no-knock cases in the country, remains mired in controversy.

The state has a long record of SWAT debacles. After police wrongfully raided a mayor’s house and killed his dogs in 2008, Maryland required police to report every SWAT raid. Between 2010 and 2014, police in Maryland conducted more than 8,000 raids, killing nine people and injuring almost a hundred civilians.

Despite controversies, statistics were no longer collected after 2014. Strong police unions have blocked numerous efforts at legislative reform. As a result, Marylanders continue to be vexed by the same kind of deadly no-knock debacles that killed Breonna Taylor last March in Louisville, Kentucky.

Duncan Lemp is one of Maryland’s latest victims.

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Mom Cries Foul As Cops Say Teen Shot Herself in Mouth While Cuffed Behind Her Back

It’s been nine months since police claim 19-year-old Sarah Wilson allegedly got a hold of a gun and killed herself in police custody while her hands were cuffed behind her back. Since then, her mother has been grieving and also crying foul after police are sticking by the story and refuse to release any information.

As TFTP reported at the time, Wilson allegedly committed suicide on July 25, 2018, during a traffic stop near the intersection of Berkley Avenue and Wilson Road, according to the Chesapeake Police Department. According to police, while handcuffed with her hands behind her back, Wilson was able to acquire a Taurus Judge handgun, place it in her mouth, and pull the trigger.

Dawn Wilson, Sarah’s mother has since come forward to speak out about the inconsistencies in the case.

“There’s just so many unanswered questions, and that’s the second hardest part of losing a child – of losing my child,” Dawn told WAVY, earlier this month.

“In all of her life I have never known of her to shoot a gun, own a gun, or even hold a gun,” said Wilson. “I’m not pointing fingers, I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there, but I need to know, and I think that’s fair I’m her mom.”

Wilson explained to ABC 13 that her daughter was the passenger in a car that was pulled over during a traffic stop. Police told Wilson that during the stop, Sarah produced a gun and used it to take her own life.

The driver of the car was 27-year-old Holden Medlin who allegedly resisted arrest during the stop and took off running. While police attempted to restrain Medlin, they claim that Wilson was handcuffed with her arms behind her back when she got the gun out of the car, “contorted” her body and shot herself in the head.

How exactly police missed a Taurus Judge handgun while handcuffing Wilson is a massive question as the gun is 5.5″ tall, and 10.5″ long. The gun is so large it can shoot both 45 Colt rounds and 410 shotgun shells.

“Things are not matching up, somewhere somehow, there is a discrepancy,” said Wilson who said that police have told her one thing while telling the media something completely different.

“She was handcuffed, and she managed to put a revolver in her mouth while handcuffed. That’s what the investigator told me last night,” said Wilson at the time. “If that is the case its very unfortunate and tragic but there is a level of negligence there.”

Even more terrifying than a handcuffed teen somehow managing to get a gun and put it in her mouth to kill herself is the fact that witnesses are saying something entirely different.

“There is a few different stories, but they all end the same, that the police shot her,” said Wilson last year.

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Cop Arrested for Sexually Abusing 46 Children, Forcing Them to Cut Themselves, Threatening to Kill Them

The Free Thought Project has reported on countless cases of child predator cops going after their victims through various means online, at school, in the home, on the job, and elsewhere. We have reported on abuse and utterly horrifying incidents over the years that shock the conscience. However, we have never reported on a case like the one below in which an NYPD cop allegedly preyed on dozens of children online — sometimes encouraging them to potentially harm themselves in a serious manner — while sexually abusing them in the process.

Officer Carmine Simpson was arrested on Thursday morning for an absolutely sickening and sadistic habit of targeting dozens of children online, have them send him sexually explicit videos and photos, and encouraging them to seriously harm themselves.

“Instead of protecting the community as a sworn police officer, the defendant has preyed upon and sexually exploited the most vulnerable members,” stated Acting United States Attorney Seth D. DuCharme.  “The protection of innocent children is a priority for the Department of Justice and this Office will continue to make every effort to ensure that those who contribute to the victimization of children will be brought to justice.”

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4 Cops Charged, Facing Life in Prison After Innocent Family and Dog Executed In Their Home

The murder of an innocent Houston couple made national headlines in 2019 as police took to smearing their names and threatening those who didn’t believe their official narrative. As the months passed, we learned that the Houston police department’s raid on the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas was based on lies and they were murdered for no reason.

The following May, the case had reached a turning point after the family hired a forensics expert to examine the home and found that there is no evidence the officers encountered gunfire. Then, in a major move in August of 2019, the cop who lied to obtain the warrant for the raid—was charged with murder in the first degree, with several others charged shortly after. Now, a half dozen more officers have been charged, with four of them facing life in prison.

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State Supreme Court Bars Victims of Police Crimes from Seeking Punitive Damages in Lawsuits

Over the years, the Free Thought Project has run many headlines with the phrase “taxpayers held liable” included in it after cops were caught maiming, raping, kidnapping and killing people. Many of these excessive force, murder, and wrongful arrest lawsuits were brought against police departments because the departments and prosecutors refused to hold the offending officers accountable and lawsuits were the only form of justice the victims could seek.

While no amount of money can ever undo the damage caused by some of these officers, it was at least some form of seeking justice. In Iowa, however, all that is changing after the Iowa Supreme Court just severely limited the amount of financial damages a victim of police crimes can be awarded.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat and the longest-serving attorney general in U.S. history, with four decades in the role, is a friend of bad cops. According to a recent investigation by the Associated Press, Millers office has failed — quite possibly deliberately — to convict and cop in the state since 2004. And, in the last 16 years, he’s brought charges against just two cops.

Clearly, Miller has a bias toward police and for decades, abusive cops have enjoyed a sort of immunity under his tenure. Citizens who were abused by police or family members of those killed by police have been forced to seek justice through civil lawsuits, seeking punitive damages. Now, however, thanks to an initiative brought forward by Miller, the Iowa Supreme Court just severely limited the financial damages that can be awarded for injuries and deaths caused by state police officers who are found to have used excessive force.

In a 6-1 decision, the court ruled that punitive damages, which are intended to punish and deter future criminal behavior by police, are not available in cases in which officers use excessive force in violation of constitutional rights.

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Cop on Leave After Deliberately Shooting His Own K-9 Partner 3 Times, Killing Him

As TFTP has reported far too many times to count, police officers in America are unafraid of shooting and killing man’s best friend. We’ve reported on cops “fearing for their lives” and shooting dogs on leashes as well as sadistic cops killing tiny pets out of pure spite. Police officer violence against dogs is so extremely common that we’ve even reported on cops beating and choking their own dogs. However — outside of cops leaving their dogs in hot cars until they die — we have never reported on a cop deliberately killing his own K-9 partner, until now.

This week, a Plymouth Police K-9 handler shot and killed his own dog — on purpose. The incident happened when police were preparing the dog to track a suspect when the officer alleged that his K-9 bit him.

Officer Keith Larson said that his K-9 Nico, attacked him and he had no other option but to kill him. Police said Larson attempted to get the dog under control but was unsuccessful so he pulled out his gun and shot the dog “for safety reasons.”

After he killed his own dog, the department asked the public to keep officer Larson in your prayers.

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Cops Who Kill Americans Have Less Than a 1 in a 1000 Chance of Being Convicted of Murder

After the death of George Floyd in May of this year, 2020 marked a historical movement in the fight for police accountability and equal justice under the law. Despite facing a global pandemic, millions of Americans left their homes and took to the streets to have their voices be heard. The momentum toward radical change was inspiring.

However, the winds quickly fell from the sails of that change as mainstream media and establishment partisans essentially coopted the movement. Instead of talking about actual solutions like ending the drug war or ending qualified immunity, the establishment pushed the vaguely uninspiring movement to defund the police and continued to push divide based on race.

Even Black Lives Matter is now admitting that despite raising billions of dollars over the course of 2020, the establishment is leaving them in the wake. Despite Joe Biden and Kamala Harris paying lip service to police brutality and riding the waves of the Black Lives Matter movement, the president-elect and his vice president now refuse to even meet with the group. This is also in spite of the fact that BLM formed a PAC, which helped fund its ad campaigns to mobilize Black voters to go out and vote for Biden.

What so many police accountability activists are learning now is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. As fissures in their leadership begins to crack apart Black Lives Matter inside its upper echelons, talk about police reform is waning, fast.

Getting bad orange man out of the White House has effectively placated the masses and the huge movements and protests we witnessed prior to November 3, have fizzled out.

Despite horrifying police killings, many of which were captured on video and rocked the nation, the arrest rate for cops who kill people on-duty remains as low as ever. According to reports, since 2005, just 126 police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter in relation to an on-duty killing.

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