Tag: police shootings

8 Cops Who Shot Fleeing Unarmed Man 46 Times on Video, All Get Off Scot Free

Before he was filled with taxpayer-funded bullets in July 2022, Jayland Walker, 25, was a standout wrestler at Buchtel High School, where he graduated in 2015. According to his family, he worked for Amazon, took a job driving for DoorDash, and was set to get married. All of this is over now, however, after multiple officers decided to dump more than a dozen rounds each into Walker’s body after he fled a traffic stop for a simple violation.

Now, despite the fact that these officers executed — in firing squad fashion — an unarmed man on video, they all will go back to work. This week, a grand jury concluded the officers were legally justified in their use of force against Jayland Walker, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“He reached for his waistband in what several officers described as a cross-draw motion, planted his foot and turned toward the officers while raising his hand,” Yost said. “Only then did the officers fire, believing Mr. Walker was firing again at them.”

“The law allows officers to use deadly force to defend themselves or others against a deadly threat,” he added.

Apparently, ‘belief’ in danger is enough to justify execution by firing squad. One can only hope that police never ‘believe’ you are a danger and treat you in a similar manner.

As we reported at the time, days after he was killed, officials released the body camera footage from Walker’s killing and the chief himself admitted that it was hard to determine what provoked the officers to fire their weapons.

Chief Mylett said in still photos of the footage, it appears Walker was reaching down to his waist but admitted Walker did not have a gun on him when he was killed.

The medical examiner had originally said he had “multiple gunshot wounds,” but Mylett said the medical examiner confirmed more than 60 wounds on Walker’s body.

Laughably, the Fraternal Order of Police in Akron described the shooting as being “consistent with the use of force protocols and officers’ training.”

Keep reading

7 Black People Killed After Cops Falsely Discover a Gun That was Never There

In a number of police brutality cases, the actions of a police officer are justified if the person is holding or reaching for a firearm, even when it is found later that the cop made a mistake. Recently, a Missouri Prosecutor has decided not to criminally charge two Independence Police Department officers who shot and killed 39-year-old Tyrea Pryor after a car crash after mistaking him for holding a gun.

Pryor’s case is one of many examples of police brutality but here are seven examples of cops pulling the “they had a gun” card.

Keep reading

New Mexico Cops Fatally Shoot Homeowner After Showing Up at the Wrong House

Police in Farmington, New Mexico, fatally shot a man while responding to a domestic disturbance call at the wrong house. The man killed lived across the street from the house police had been called to.

“On April 5, 2023, at around 11:30 p.m., the Farmington Police Department received a call for a domestic violence incident occurring at 5308 Valley View Avenue,” according to the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau, which is now investigating the incident. “Once on scene, officers mistakenly approached 5305 Valley View Avenue instead of 5308 Valley View Avenue.” Police knocked on the (wrong) door, no one answered, and “officers asked their dispatch to call the reporting party back and have them come to the front door.”

As they started to leave, 52-year-old homeowner Robert Dotson opened his front door holding a handgun—not an entirely unreasonable thing for someone to do when they get a strange knock on their door late at night.

No one alleges that Dotson pointed the gun at the police officers or threatened them.

Nonetheless, “at this point in the encounter, officer(s) fired at least one round from their duty weapon(s) striking Mr. Dotson,” the state police report. The Farmington officers did not even tell the man who answered the door to drop his weapon nor give him time to comply with their order before firing upon him, according to the statement from state police.

This would be an insane overreaction even if the police had been at the right house. That police weren’t even at the right house of course makes the shooting all the more senseless.

Dotson was pronounced dead at the scene.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

NPR puff piece on Atlanta leftist gunman revealed to be written by Antifa supporter

NPR on Saturday published a “misleading” piece on the circumstances surrounding the Atlanta police shooting of Antifa extremist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, where Antifa-supporting journalist Kaity Radde claimed the accused cop-shooter had his hands up when he was killed, and promoted the debunked conspiracy theory that the officer shot by the gunman was supposedly hit by friendly fire.

“The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says officers killed [Terán] in self-defense after they shot a state trooper, but the City of Atlanta released videos in which an officer suggests the trooper may have been injured by friendly fire,” Radde wrote of the January 18 incident, referring to a claim made by Antifa sympathizers that investigators maintain is false.

As reported by FOX 5, the GBI said that law enforcement came across Terán camped out in a tent in the woods in the Antifa-controlled autonomous zone near “Cop City,” what rioters are calling the site of Atlanta’s future Public Safety Training Facility.

According to investigators, officers fired at the suspect in self-defense after he refused to follow verbal commands and shot a state trooper, who was injured and treated at an intensive care unit.

The GBI has said that no footage of the actual shooting exists, but video the Atlanta Police Department shared captured by one trooper who heard the shooting take place out of eyesight’s body camera has fueled conspiracy theories from supporters of the Antifa gunman, with the family’s lawyer saying it confirmed their “worst fears that Manuel was massacred in a hail of gunfire.”

In the footage, one of the officers heading towards the sound of several gunshots says to others in the group, “Did they shoot their own man?”

“We don’t know who he got shot by, if it was by a deputy,” another one responds.

In a statement regarding these comments, APD said these officers were simply speculating on what the multiple gunshots could’ve been.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

FBI Agent Accused of Shooting Dog After Altercation With Owner

According to Philadelphia Police, Jacqueline Maguire, who has been head of the Philadelphia FBI Field Office since 2021, shot another women’s dog outside the Touraine luxury apartment building in Philadelphia earlier this month.

Philadelphia Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said, “When she [Jacqueline Maguire]tried to get her dog back, I think the dog attacked her.” Police say Jacqeline Maguire shot the dog shortly after. However, witnesses to the incident have taken to Instagram and Twitter to tell a different story.

One witness to the incident wrote on Instagram, “I saw the whole thing. I saw the lady pulled out the gun yelling at the owner, ‘I just shot your dog because your dog was trying to kill my dog’ I was walking my dog right across the street I did not hear any dog fighting or growing.”

Federal Whistleblower Kyle Seraphin wrote on Twitter, “Had an @fbi employee from the @FBIPhiladelphia office share this from Instagram. There is no love for this executive manager Special Agent in Charge. This excited utterance about the reason for shooting the dog is admissible and indicates a complete violation of DOJ Deadly Force Policy.”

Keep reading

Video Raises Questions About Tortuguita’s Death at “Cop City” Amid Permit Appeal

Body-worn camera video released by the Atlanta Police Department (APD) showing the immediate aftermath of a Georgia State Patrol trooper’s fatal shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán at the forested site of a planned police training facility raises questions about the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s (GBI) initial story of Terán’s killing. The video release comes at a time when the facility’s land disturbance permit is being legally challenged.

APD released four videos from a unit of officers who were not directly involved in the shooting. The footage appears to confirm Terán’s killing was carried out by a Georgia State Patrol SWAT team, which is not required to wear body cameras.

Terán, whose chosen name was Tortuguita, was shot and killed by police on January 18 during a violent raid on a protest encampment in the South River Forest that has blockaded construction of what Atlanta-area activists have dubbed “Cop City,” an 85-acre, $90 million police militarization and training complex spearheaded by the Atlanta Police Foundation that, if built, would be one of the largest police training facilities in the country. The site would contain several shooting ranges, a helicopter landing base, an area for explosives training, police-horse stables and an entire mock city for officers to engage in role-playing activities.

The GBI initially said Tortuguita was shot and killed after allegedly firing a gun and injuring a Georgia state trooper during the raid, but APD’s newly released body camera video appears to show officers suggesting that the trooper was shot by friendly fire in the initial moments after the shooting. In one video, after gunshots ring out through the forest, an officer can be heard saying, “That sounded like suppressed gunfire,” implying the initial shots were consistent with the use of a law enforcement weapon, not the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield nine-millimeter the GBI alleges Tortuguita purchased and fired upon the trooper with, which did not have a suppressor.

Keep reading

Cops Wake Innocent Man, Sleeping in His Own Driveway, Fill Him With Holes

On New Year’s Eve, Anthony Maclin, 24, was asleep in his car in his grandmother’s driveway. He had committed no crime, was not suspected of a crime, and harmed no one. However, none of this was a defense against three police officers surrounding his car, firing for seven straight seconds, and filling Mclin with holes.

On the night they filled Maclin with holes, police were responding to a call about an unidentified man sleeping in a car in a woman’s driveway. Maclin was in a rental car with Florida plates, and his own grandma called police because she didn’t recognize the car — a mistake she now direly regrets.

According to police, they attempted to wake Maclin, who was asleep with his legally owned and registered handgun in his lap. Instead of simply taking cover and waking him from a distance with a police loudspeaker, officers surrounded the car with guns drawn as if Maclin was a wanted murder suspect.

It is not a crime to sleep in your car with a gun on your lap in Indiana. In fact, Indiana has laws on the books that allow you to defend yourself on your own property — including from police officers.

Nevertheless, these cowboy cops surrounded the car, guns drawn until Maclin began moving around; at which point they attempted to execute him.

Never once in the body camera footage below do you hear officers say, “drop the gun,” or “he has a gun,” or even the word “gun.” This is likely due to the fact that Maclin never touched the gun in his lap and the trigger-happy cops opened fire on him out of sheer fear.

Once she realized that it was her grandson in the vehicle, Vickie Driver became hysterical. “That’s my grandson,” she said, immediately regretting the call to police. “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t want to wake you guys up,” Maclin said as he lay on the ground bleeding out after being shot. Miraculously, Maclin lived. He was hospitalized for weeks and has undergone six surgeries.

He has not been charged with a crime.

Keep reading

Cops Kill Man for Running Away, Shoot Him At Least 5 Times After He Falls to Make Sure He’s Dead

If we were to declare a winner in the decades-long war on drugs today, hands down, drugs would be the victor. For over 50 years, the US has waged a cruel and horrific campaign of violence, injustice, brutality, and oppression to eradicate arbitrary substances they’ve deemed illegal. Not only was this campaign unsuccessful at eradicating substances, but it’s led to the most deadly drug overdose epidemic in history in which enough people die every year to pack an NFL stadium.

Instead of realizing the error of their ways, the callous, obstinate, and violent state has simply doubled down on enforcement — driving a black market consisting of increasingly dangerous synthetic substances. Fentanyl, in particular, has gripped the nation thanks to the prohibition of safer alternatives, driving crime, suffering, and death. As the following case illustrates, it also fuels an incentive for rampant police violence.

Eric Nathaniel Thornton, 38, was suspected of buying this substance in Jacksonville, Florida last month which landed him six feet under. According to police, officers were watching Thorton and Brian Brightman — who they referred to as a “known drug dealer” — conducting an “illegal drug transaction.”

Because cops claim the right to kidnap, cage, and even kill you over these arbitrary substances they deem “illegal,” they moved in to make an arrest. Not wanting to be kidnapped and caged, Thornton ran from officers.

Thornton never once attempted to harm the officers and was merely attempting to avoid being thrown in a cage for his addiction. He needed medical help for a medical problem; instead, he received bullets… at least ten of them.

As Thornton ran from officers, they claimed he was holding a knife and used this as a reason to fill the fleeing man with holes.

“He’s got a knife,” an officer can be heard saying before executing a fleeing man.

As the body camera footage shows, Thornton dropped to the ground, let out a groan, and died on the scene. Police would go on to justify his execution by releasing photos of knives, which they claim were a threat to their lives as Thornton ran away.

We’re told that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is now looking into the matter and the result of the investigation they are conducting on themselves will be released when it’s complete.

Thornton was the third person killed by this same department in the first few weeks of 2023. As long as this country continues to treat addiction and substance abuse with violence and coercion, Thornton will be but a single line on an ever-increasing list of names whose lives were taken by the losers of the war on drugs.

Keep reading