Tag: police shootings

Cops Mistake Innocent Man for a Suspect, Publicly Execute Him

Stagger’s story was buried in the media and written off after police claimed that he shot at them. CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi initially said officers had returned fire after a suspect shot at them. However, it would later be revealed that cops made that up and Curtis never fired any gun.

It would then take months to get any transparency in the case. Although Curtis was murdered in May, the body camera video was not released publicly until many months later.

According to police, they initially believed Stagger was wanted in connection with the shooting death of 15-year-old Jaylin Ellzey. But he was not. Nevertheless, a heavily militarized police SWAT team descended on the neighborhood. Whether or not they had the right person was apparently of no consequence to the officers.

When police officers found Stagger in his vehicle, they quickly surrounded him and opened fire through the window, killing him. Stagger never even tried to run.

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It Sure Looks Like Daniel Cameron Lied About Breonna Taylor’s Killing

It’s getting harder to deny the likelihood that Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron lied, and lied multiple times, when he explained why a grand jury decided not to charge any police officer with a crime for killing Breonna Taylor. Cameron’s office presented evidence to the jury, but the only criminal charges he announced last week were against Brett Hankison, the Louisville officer who fired blindly into Taylor’s apartment on March 13 and accidentally sprayed ammo into a neighboring unit. The “wanton endangerment” charge he’s facing means that the only officer who will suffer legal consequences for the events surrounding Taylor’s death, at least for now, is the only one who didn’t have a direct hand in killing her. The other officers involved, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove, shot Taylor six times out of more than 30 rounds fired between them.

When Cameron announced this decision to the public, he characterized it as a just resolution to a universally accepted set of facts. “The warrant [that the police used to enter the apartment] was not served as a ‘no-knock’ warrant,” he claimed, rebuking witness accounts that officers had failed to announce their presence before bursting into Taylor’s home, causing her boyfriend Kenneth Walker to think they were being burglarized and shoot one of them in the leg. Walker’s bullet was the police’s justification for opening fire, which killed Taylor, who was unarmed. But failing to announce themselves as police would undermine that defense: Under Kentucky’s “castle doctrine,” law-enforcement officers are the only home invaders that residents aren’t allowed to use deadly force against, but only if they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement.

This wasn’t the only dubious claim that Cameron expected the public to take at face value. He also said that the grand jury agreed that Taylor’s death was justified. “While there are six possible homicide charges under Kentucky law,” he explained, “these charges are not applicable to the facts before us because our investigation showed — and the grand jury agreed — that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in the return of deadly fire after having been fired upon.” But the grand jury may not have actually agreed.

On Monday, one of the jurors took the extraordinary step of filing a court motion to make transcripts of the grand jury deliberations public and allow its members to speak publicly about how they unfolded, according to the New York Times. Grand jury deliberations are subject to strict secrecy, and the evidence they consider usually only becomes public in court if there’s prosecution. The unnamed juror claimed that Cameron had misrepresented the jury’s case to the public, and that the jurors were never given the option to indict officers Mattingly and Cosgrove. If true, this would appear to undermine Cameron’s claim that the jury was unanimous that Taylor’s death was legally justified.

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Sheriff & DA Arrested for Destroying Video of Cops Killing Man on ‘LIVE PD’ Over Bright Headlights

 Javier Ambler, a 40-year-old postal worker, was on his way home from a friendly poker game when he allegedly made the mistake of failing to turn off his brights when passing another vehicle. This is something everyone who is reading this article has likely done at some point in their life. However, because Ambler drove past a Williamson County sheriff’s deputy, an hour later, he’d be dead.

Ambler was killed last year and investigators with the Williamson County sheriff’s department investigated themselves and determined that the deputies did not violate the agency’s pursuit or use-of-force policies. This was in spite of the fact that Ambler’s death was ruled a homicide.

Now, we may have some insight into why all the officers were cleared. A Williamson County grand jury has indicted Sheriff Robert Chody for felony evidence tampering in Ambler’s death. According to court documents, Chody is accused of destroying video recordings and audio recordings in the investigation into Ambler’s death “with the intent to impair their availability as evidence in the investigation, “KVUE reports.

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Police Claim Woman Handcuffed in Back of Police Cruiser Got a Gun and Shot Herself in the Head

 Unfortunately, over the years, TFTP has reported on several incidents in which people handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser have managed to somehow get their hands on a gun and then somehow shoot themselves in the head. In 2018, Sarah Wilson allegedly grabbed a gun and shot herself in the head while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. Her death was ruled a suicide. Victor White III, 22, was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser in Louisiana and also allegedly grabbed a gun and shot himself in the back of a police cruiser. Like Wilson, his death was also ruled a suicide. Now, another investigation is underway as it’s happened yet again.

Authorities are now investigating the death of a 30-year-old woman in police custody who officers say managed to obtain a gun while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser, and kill herself.

The unnamed woman was being transported by police between two hospitals for a mental health evaluation and would never make it to her destination.

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Court Refuses Qualified Immunity for Alabama Cop Who ‘Insulted’ and Killed Man Who Was Trying to Help Stray Dog

A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to grant qualified immunity to an Alabama police officer who shot and killed a man “without warning” for failing to show identification after he attempted to help a stray dog his family found in a parking lot.

Robert Earl Lawrence was shot in the stomach by Dothan Police Sergeant Adrianne Woodruff and he bled out on the pavement “on the next to last day of the year” in 2014. His three young children and his girlfriend were in the car–screaming while it happened.

Prior to his death and altercation with police, Lawrence, reportedly a sovereign citizen, was just trying to help the dog his family found near the local Walmart by taking it to the Dothan Animal Shelter.

But Lawrence’s attempt to help quickly went askew.

“The receptionist told Lawrence that they accepted dogs only from residents of Houston County,” the court notes. “He told her that he was from nearby Geneva County but had found the dog in Houston County. She agreed to take the dog but asked for his identification. He refused to provide it, claiming that being required to do so would violate his federal privacy rights.”

A brief argument ensued and Woodruff entered the room–reiterating the shelter’s policy about accepting strays and advising Lawrence to fill out an intake form. He declined and left the shelter, “carrying the dog with him,” saying he would just leave the animal on the road.

Woodruff followed Lawrence out and warned him that dumping the dog would be considered a crime. She also copied down his tag number–in line with a policy for people who threaten to dump animals the shelter refuses to take in. As Lawrence got into his car, Woodruff grabbed him from behind and said “You’re not leaving.”

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