Tag: police brutality

It started as a noise complaint. It ended in another fatal Phoenix police shooting

Ryan Whitaker had heard a stranger knock on his Ahwatukee apartment door in the middle of the night earlier in May. So when he heard a similar knock on a Thursday after 10 p.m. later that same week, he answered the door holding his 9 mm gun.

Holding the gun in his right hand, he was confronted by two Phoenix police officers standing on either side of the door. They appeared surprised by the sight of the firearm, body camera footage shows.

Three seconds after Whitaker opened the door, Phoenix Officer Jeff Cooke shot Whitaker in the back at least two times, killing the 40-year-old man. 

The deadly episode, which happened on May 21, is part of a string of Phoenix police shootings this year that has, yet again, reinvigorated criticism from advocates who say officers are too quick to use deadly force to resolve incidents.

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‘I Can’t Breathe’: Cops Taser, Kneel, Stand On Man Until He Dies—Over Opening a Toy in a Store

Lionel Morris, 39, made the poor decision to remove a toy drone from its packaging in a grocery store in an alleged attempt to steal it. These actions most assuredly should have come with some consequences but it should never have been a death sentence. When multiple officers from the Conway Police Department showed up to the call, however, minutes later, Morris’ life would be over.

Body camera and surveillance footage from that fateful day on February 4, 2020 has just been released this week showing this man’s final moments alive. Morris took the last breaths he would ever take with multiple police officer combat boots and a knee on his back.

His last coherent words were “I can’t breathe.”

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Good Cop Forced Out for Exposing Secret Club that Celebrated Killer Cops with Parties

After the wholesale execution of Willie McCoy — a rapper who was killed by police as he slept in the Drive Thru of a Taco Bell — a disturbing practice by the department who killed him came to light. SWAT team commander with two master’s degrees, Captain John Whitney exposed the celebratory practice of beers, barbecues, and badge bending to commemorate killer cops. After this decorated cop exposed this practice, he was forced out of the job.

According to a shocking investigation by Open Vallejo, for years, a secretive clique inside the Vallejo Police Department has commemorated fatal shootings with beers, backyard barbecues, and by bending the points of their badges each time they kill in the line of duty

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Kids Held at Gunpoint as Cop Kicks Kneeling Mom in the Face—Over Vehicle Registration

If you ever have any doubt about how the state forces compliance with arbitrary dictates like vehicle registration, it is the promise of violence. If you do not obey every single arbitrary traffic code, you will be issued a promise of extortion via a citation. If you refuse to pay those who are doing the extorting, they will kidnap and cage you. If you refuse to be kidnapped and caged, they can and will initiate violence against you.

Over the years, the Free Thought Project has reported on countless instances in which people have been beaten or even killed over things as trivial as a burned out light bulb on their license plate. As the following case illustrates, the state is willing to hold children at gunpoint while beating and arresting their mother for failing to pay the state for a vehicle registration sticker.

The video, recorded by San Jose resident Josh Gil, shows police stop a family in a McDonald’s parking lot. When the video begins, the mother is outside of the car and on her knees. She is not resisting and not posing a threat when all of the sudden one of the officers appears to kick her in the face.

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Community Outraged After Police Seen Violently Attacking a Child Over Minor Bicycle Infraction

 A community is expressing their outrage this week after a video posted to Twitter shows officers with the Ridgewood Police Department violently arresting a small 15-year-old boy over a minor infraction.

The original Tweet claimed the boy was stopped and arrested for not wearing a helmet. However, the chief of police issued a statement Tuesday afternoon claiming that the boy was detained for riding his bicycle through a closed off road.

The boy was part of a large group of cyclists who police claimed were a hazard to motorists. Police said that the group of bicyclists then traveled through a closed off area before the boy was violently attacked and arrested.

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