Tag: police brutality

NEW VIDEO Shows J6 Trump Supporter Rosanne Boyland Shot in the Face by Police Projectile, Then Pushed Down and Smothered, Before Metro Police Officer Beat Her with a Stick as She Died on US Capitol Steps

President Trump held his first press conference on Tuesday after Congress certified him the winner of the 2024 presidential election on Monday.

During his press conference from his home in Mar-a-Lago, President Trump made headlines when he announced he was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico – to the Gulf of America.

President Trump also told the assembled journalists that he heard there was a second person who died on January 6, 2021 at the pro-Trump protests on Capitol Hill.

Actually, Mr. President, four people died that day, three were killed by police action, on January 6, 2021.

Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed in cold blood by Officer Michael Byrd. Kevin Greeson died of a heart attack. Benjamin Phillips was killed when Capitol Police fired exploding cylinders into the crowd, and he was knocked unconscious, and Trump supporters were unable to revive him. And Rosanne Boyland was gassed, pushed down, smothered until unconscious, and then beaten with a stick by Officer Lila Morris several times as she lay dying on the US Capitol Steps.

The Capitol Police also attempted to kill Derrick Vargo when they pushed him off a three-story ledge. He survived with serious injuries.

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‘Deadly Exchange’: How US Police Learn Their ‘Worst Practices’ From The IDF

It is not uncommon for police to drive around with their lights flashing in Black and working-class neighborhoods in Atlanta. This is a tactic used to intimidate and make their presence known; for residents of these neighborhoods, it can feel like psychological warfare. US law enforcement learned this strategy from Israeli forces.

Thousands of law enforcement officials have traveled to Israel to learn new repression strategies and surveillance techniques from the Israel National Police, Israel Defense Forces, and the Shin Bet, who inflict violence, crowd control, and surveillance onto Palestinians. Anti-imperialist advocates say the tactics being taught to US law enforcement were battle-tested on Palestinians and spread to the US to target Black and Brown communities through a training relationship that grants Israeli forces more power and profit, causing further harm to Palestinians.

These programs are facilitated by the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, and the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Program—the latter of which was started in 1996. US leaders sought Israel’s guidance to curb terrorism, and a ‘deadly exchange’ of worst practices between US and Israeli forces was born. Federal, state, county, and municipal law enforcement executives including local police departments, the FBI, and ICE have traveled to Israel, while thousands of officials have attended conferences with Israeli experts in the US. An inaugural “US-Israel Security Conference” by JINSA occurred last month, where a former Israel Defense Forces commander was included as a guest speaker.

“Within these programs, worst practices are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing practices that already exist in both countries,” said Rania Salem, an organizer with the US Palestinian Community Network. “US forces take whatever is working in Israel and they bring it here and inflict it on Black and Brown people.”

Police departments in New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Atlanta, among others, have close ties with Israeli forces. Salem said that the increasing militarization of US police in recent decades is due in large part to the “funding and support of Israel’s brutal military occupation.” She said that in return for these trainings the state of Israel gets in good standing with the US for future support, and its forces learn new tactics in return—Salem said that Israel learned stop-and-frisk and racist traffic stop techniques from US law enforcement.

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14 current and former Minneapolis cops say Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell LIED during trial of Derek Chauvin

A group of 14 current and former Minneapolis Police Department Officers signed sworn declarations attesting to their belief that Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell committed perjury during the trial of Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Blackwell testified that the method of restraint used by Chauvin was not part of MPD officer training. Blackwell had said at the trial “that’s not what we train.”

However, others say that the “knee-on-neck restaint Chauvin employed was trained under the maximal-restraint technique (MRT), a restraint the MPD taught and allowed until 2023.” The officers who signed the declarations “swore that this training was well known—indeed, common knowledge—and omnipresent,” Alpha News said.

Reporting on the declarations, Alpha News said that these 14 statements “were among dozens of declarations submitted by lawyers representing Alpha News in a defamation lawsuit brought by Blackwell last October against Alpha News, Alpha News reporter Liz Collin, producer J.C. Chaix, and a publishing company.” Blackwell brought suit against Alpha News in response to their documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis,” which indicated that Blackwell had not been truthful in her testimony.

In a lengthy motion asking for the case to be dismissed with prejudice, attorney for Alpha News Chris Madel wrote “With this motion, 33 former MPD officers who served with Blackwell, and one who currently serves with her, have sworn that MPD trained this restraint as part of the ‘maximal-restraint technique’ (‘MRT’) and otherwise. Indeed, 14 of these officers have sworn—under oath—their belief that Blackwell perjured herself.”

“Blackwell remarkably claims that Collin and Chaix defamed her when they opined that it ‘seemed’ like Blackwell lied. In reality, this opinion was far more generous than necessary. It is a fact,” the motion further reads.

Floyd died in police custody after he was arrested in a parking lot on that fateful day in May 2020. Chauvin restrained him and Floyd later died. His death was deemed by the court of public opinion to be a racially motivated murder and within two days of his death, as cell phone footage of the arrest circulated online, riots began in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the country.

Floyd’s death was about 10 weeks into the Covid-19 pandemic which inspired local government leaders to insist on lockdowns, business, school and church closures. The riots began at the tail end of a spring as weather turned warm after the winter months. In many areas, lockdowns were still imposed except in the case of protests. Dozens of doctors signed a letter claiming that racism was a bigger health threat than Covid and that those who were out protesting were in the right. Anyone who wasn’t protesting for racial justice was told to stay home and churches, schools, and businesses remained closed.

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US System of Prison Injustice

I wrote in October that Joe Biden, in his four years as president, did literally nothing to improve the situation in prisons and jails across the country, either through the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), over which he has direct authority, or through enlightened policies that might filter down or set the standard in state prisons and in local jails.  

As we bump up against the end of the Biden administration, I wanted to take a look at this president’s final year in office and at what legacy he’s leaving in criminal justice.

— California, at the demand of the Justice Department in September, paid $4 million to five victims of a former guard at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and another $450,000 to a former prisoner at the California Institution for Women in Chino for rape and sexual assault at the hands of at least four guards. 

One of those guards, Greg Rodriguez, is facing 96 counts of rape, sodomy and sexual battery.  But because he resigned before being arrested, he has been allowed to keep his pension.

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Bodycam footage shows New York state correction officers beating prisoner to death

On Friday, the New York state attorney general’s office released video footage showing correction officers at the Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica, New York, beating to death a handcuffed inmate, 43-year-old Robert Brooks.

The bodycams of four of the killers recorded the horrific incident, which has been broadly viewed in the United States and internationally. He was pronounced dead the next day. Preliminary autopsy findings indicate that he died from asphyxiation due to neck compression.

Thirteen correction officers and a prison nurse have been terminated from their jobs for the killing. The FBI and the state attorney general’s office are investigating the incident, although as of this writing charges have not been brought against the guards.

In lying and insincere public statements, prominent state officials have expressed shock and horror at the killing. Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul said she was “outraged and horrified after seeing footage of the senseless killing.” New York state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) head Daniel Martuscello told the media, “This type of behavior cannot be normalized, and I will not allow it to be within DOCCS.”

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A SWAT Team Destroyed an Innocent Woman’s House. The Supreme Court Won’t Hear Her Case.

The Supreme Court last month declined to hear a case from an elderly woman whose house was destroyed by a SWAT team, leaving open the question of whether or not innocent people are constitutionally entitled to compensation when law enforcement lays waste to their property in pursuit of public safety.

In July 2020, while chasing a fugitive, police arrived at Vicki Baker’s home in McKinney, Texas. They threw dozens of tear gas grenades inside, used explosives to break the front and garage doors, and drove a tank through her backyard fence, although Baker’s daughter, Deanna Cook, had supplied them with a key to the home, a garage door opener, and the back gate code.

The suspect, Wesley Little, had previously worked for Baker as a handyman and barricaded himself inside her home while on the run from police. He had kidnapped a teenage girl, whom he released after the cops arrived. But Little himself refused to exit, prompting law enforcement to ravage the house. (He ultimately killed himself.)

Baker, who was in Montana when her house was destroyed, never contested that police acted in the best interest of the community when it sought to extract Little from her home. She took issue, however, with the subsequent response from the government, which refused to compensate her for the more than $50,000 in damages. Her homeowners insurance likewise declined to pay, as many policies explicitly do not cover damage caused by the government.

“I’ve lost everything,” she told me in 2021. “I’ve lost my chance to sell my house. I’ve lost my chance to retire without fear of how I’m going to make my regular bills.” Baker, who was undergoing treatment for stage 3 breast cancer when we spoke, had been preparing to retire with her husband in Montana. After the house was ruined, a buyer predictably withdrew. The government said she did not qualify as a “victim.”

She is not the only person with such a story. At the core of the case and those like hers is whether or not the Constitution legally obligates the government to repay people who are not suspected of criminal wrongdoing but whose property is nevertheless destroyed by police in an attempt to protect the community. The Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment promises that private property cannot be taken for public use “without just compensation,” though some lower courts have ruled that actions taken by police in stories like these operate under an exception to that rule.

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A Gift America Can’t Return: The Police State Is America’s New Crime Boss 

The American police state has become America’s new crime boss.

Thirty years after then-President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law, its legacy of mass incarceration, police militarization, and over-criminalization continues to haunt us.

It has become the gift that America can’t seem to return.

We are now suffering the blowback from the triple threats of the Crime Bill: police militarization, a warrior mindset that has police viewing the rest of the citizenry as enemy combatants, and law enforcement training that teaches cops to shoot first and ask questions later.

Too often, that “triple threat” also manifests itself in deadly traffic stops, the use of excessive force against unarmed individuals, and welfare checks turned fatal.

The Crime Bill fueled the rise of the police state by pouring funding into law enforcement agencies, particularly for military-grade weaponry and the expansion of police forces. It also laid the groundwork for mass incarceration by incentivizing the construction of more prisons and enacting harsh “three strikes” laws that mandated lengthy sentences for repeat offenders.

Most critically, the Crime Bill led to the explosive growth of SWAT teams across the country.

It’s estimated that more than 80,000 SWAT raids are carried out every year. That translates to over 200 every single day in the U.S.

Among the tens of thousands of raids that leave in their wake the wreckage of lives, homes and trust in the nation’s so-called peacekeepers, some are so egregious as to cut through the apathy and desensitization that has settled over the nation regarding police violence.

Such tragedies are not isolated incidents.

They are the direct result of a system built on policies like the 1994 Crime Bill.

The unfortunate reality we must come to terms with is that America is overrun with militarized cops—vigilantes with a badge—who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

It doesn’t matter where you live—big city or small town—it’s the same scenario being played out over and over again in which government agents, hyped up on their own authority and the power of their uniform, ride roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.

These warrior cops, who have been trained to act as judge, jury and executioner in their interactions with the public and believe the lives (and rights) of police should be valued more than citizens, are increasingly outnumbering the good cops, who take seriously their oath of office to serve and protect their fellow citizens, uphold the Constitution, and maintain the peace.

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Remember Peanut: a Treatise on Evil and Why the State Killing of a Squirrel Matters So Much

What is evil? For the average person it’s a difficult concept to explain but most of us know it when we see it. Every once in a while there’s an event which strikes the collective consciousness in such a way that it becomes deeply symbolic. Sometimes these events symbolize ultimate good, and sometimes they symbolize ultimate evil. The public is affected by these things in ways they didn’t expect and might not even comprehend, but they are archetypal and profound nonetheless.

In the wake of Donald Trumps election victory and the jubilant celebration some people might overlook one of these recent events; the state assassination of a man’s pet squirrel and the national anger that followed.  Why does the death of a squirrel matter? It’s not only about the squirrel, it’s about the context and what it means for our civilization at large.

In a progressive controlled state (New York), Mark Longo ran a legal animal sanctuary for abandoned and injured animals. He promoted the sanctuary on social media with videos featuring his long time pet, Peanut the Squirrel. Longo rescued Peanut after his mother was killed in an accident and he raised the animal for seven years.

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‘They’re all dead’: Man arrives home to find his 7 dogs shot dead — allegedly by a police deputy

A Tennessee man returned home to the tragic sight of seven of his dogs dead, one of them only alive because he hid from the shooter — allegedly a police deputy.

Conner Brackin, a 24-year-old police deputy with the McNairy County Sheriff’s Office, was arrested and charged with aggravated animal cruelty on Tuesday following an investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. On Nov. 4, Brackin responded to an “animal welfare concern” in Bethel Springs, a city located around 100 miles east of Memphis. According to the affidavit, Brackin spoke with the person who made the complaint about multiple dogs on the neighboring property, some in pens, some in two different trailers. Brackin released one of the dogs from a pen and then “loaded his service rifle and pistol and began firing into the campers at the dogs.”

He allegedly fired eight times, killing seven dogs.

The dogs’ owner, Kevin Dismuke, was not home at the time of the shooting. When he arrived home, the body of one of his dogs was by the front door. As he entered his home, Dismuke didn’t hear his other dogs and, one by one, found them dead.

“I found our old dog Gator laying between the beds,” he told Memphis CBS affiliate WREG. “I ain’t heard Jasmine. I ain’t heard Max. So, I stepped back inside the trailer and I found Jasmine laying back there by the bathroom door. They’re all dead — all but Max. He’d hid under the bed.”

The McNairy County Sheriff’s Office stated Brackin observed two dogs in “extremely poor health” and one was “already deceased.” After looking for the dogs’ owner, Brackin let a neighbor take one of the dogs and said that he had been “cleared to put down the remaining animals safely by my supervisor.”

Dismuke disputed the claim when he talked to WREG, saying, “They were told the property was abandoned and the dogs were malnourished. I got the veterinary paperwork in my truck from three weeks ago. They all had a clean bill of health on them.”

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