Tag: police shootings

Police in America: An Awkward Truth

It’s very difficult to talk about this in polite company, or in any company really in most of the nation, but there’s an awkward truth about cops that most people kinda sorta know, but still won’t take to its obvious conclusion.

Generally speaking, the police are a right-wing force in this country. They support right-wing causes individually, they act on behalf of right-wing elements of the society, and frequently stand down when right-wing forces are engaged against left-wing (or merely populist) forces in street battles.

Yes, they solve crimes. Even relatively nonpropagandistic, cop-focused shows like The Wire (which was produced by a police reporter and a veteran detective) show that aspect of their work. (Merely propagandistic shows, on the other hand, like Law & Order, Miami Vice, Hawaii Five-0 and myriad others, exist to only glorify that aspect of the job.)

But police departments were formed not to solve crimes, but to “maintain order” in the immigrant-unrest and labor-resistance world of the 19th and early 20th centuries — a role they inherited from the infamous Pinkertons, thugs-for-hire from an earlier day. 

And they have remained a force of social repression — repression of unrest — ever since. (If you click the Pinkertons link above, skip the History Channel’s glorification and read point 8: Pinkertons as “the paramilitary wing of big business”).

Most people fall somewhere on this spectrum in their thinking about cops — that they’re either our crime-solving friends from CSI or they’re somewhat problematic, but still a force for order in a troubled and violent world (The Wire, Hill Street Blues, True Detective).

But what if they’re a force for disorder? What if they’re too closely allied with the right-wing-terror problem the nation is trying, though not hard enough, to fix? What if our police are creating the problem we also want them to solve?

I don’t have an answer to those questions because I don’t have an answer about degrees — the degree to which cops solve problems vs. the degree to which they are problems. But there’s a lot of data to mull.

Keep reading

Cops Killed More People in 2022 than Any Year on Record — Here’s How to Stop It from Happening Again

As 2023 begins, American police polish off another deadly year, ending 1,176 lives in 2022. This number is a new record for police killings in America and yet still, it is set to increase by one, on average, every 8 hours.

Since 2018, cops in America have killed 5,668 citizens. And most people are not saying anything about it.

While it may be easy for some to write off police killings as a problem of American gun culture, this is not major factor. According to a report by the Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform (ICJTR), Finland has one the highest gun-ownership rates in Europe, with around 32 civilian firearms per 100 people – but incidents of police shooting civilians are extremely rare. We could only find 9 examples of police killings in Finland in the last two decades, one of which was an accidental shooting of a prison guard.

What’s more, as TFTP reported in 2021, the majority of police killings involve calls in which there was no crime or the suspect is only suspected of a non-violent offense.

“Most killings began with police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported,” according to a report from PoliceViolenceReport.org

It gets worse.

Keep reading

Killer Cop Executes Innocent Man for Standing in the Woods With with a Hatchet

On the day he was executed with a bullet to the head, Kevin Mahan had committed no crime. He was merely standing in the woods holding a hatchet — an act that millions of folks partake in every weekend while camping. Unfortunately for Mahan, a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Deputy was called to his location that day, and instead of being left alone, that JSO deputy executed him.

Mahan’s execution took place back on April 21, however, body camera was kept from the public until this week.

The deputy who executed Mahan has not been named as it is the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office policy to no longer identify officers involved in a shooting. A court ruling granted officers confidentiality under Marsy’s Law.

Marsy’s Law was started to protect the identity of victims of crimes by recognizing their right to privacy. Recently, however, unscrupulous police departments have been using it as a shield to protect the identity of killer cops. Cops, like the murderer in the video below, use Marsy’s Law to claim victim status in use-of-force cases where they claim the suspect was the aggressor.

While many suspects are the aggressor, Mahan was aggressing against no one and the only aggressive actions taken in his death were by the JSO deputy who put a bullet between his eyes.

According to police, their deputy confronted Mahan that morning after receiving a call about a “mentally ill man.” There was no report of a crime and though the sheriff’s office released Mahan’s previous record to smear him, on the day he was killed, Mahan had committed no crime at all.

Keep reading

Cop Charged with Murder After Jumping on Car, Executing Innocent Man Who Called 911 for Help

On the night he called 911 for help, 22-year-old Christian Glass had never been arrested, committed a crime, harmed anyone, and was a threat to no one. Despite these facts, and despite the fact that he was entirely innocent, police would show up to his call for help that night, and execute him.

Now, months after his death, former deputy Andrew Buen and his supervisor Sgt. Kyle Gould have been charged with felonies for their roles in executing Glass. The officers are in court today after being indicted by a grand jury.

Buen, who jumped on the hood of Glass’s car and killed him is charged with second-degree murder, official misconduct, and reckless endangerment.

Gould, who gave orders for Buen to forcibly remove Glass from the front seat of his car, where he remained during the entire standoff with several law enforcement officers, faces criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment.

Both of these reckless and deadly officers have been fired. The two disgraced cops are expected to ask for special bond privilege in court today so they can travel out of state for Christmas — a kick in the teeth to the family of Glass.

“It is tragically ironic that Officer Buen would have the audacity to ask the court to modify his bond to allow out-of-state travel so that he can be with his family when his actions have deprived Christian’s family of being with their loved one this holiday season,” the family’s attorney, Siddhartha Rathod said.

Keep reading

FBI agent fatally shot person in altercation inside Washington, D.C., rail station

An off-duty FBI agent fatally shot a person with whom he got into a fight Wednesday evening inside a Washington, D.C., rail station, according to police.

The incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. inside the Metro Center rail station, Ashan Benedict, a Metropolitan Police Department assistant police chief, said a press conference about two hours later.

He also said the altercation started on the station platform and that the agent “appears” to have been the victim. He also said the shots were fired after the agent and the victim tumbled over a wall and fell about eight feet.

However, Benedict made clear the investigation is “preliminary and subject to change.” 

He said the yet-to-be identified agent is a veteran special agent assigned to FBI headquarters, in the nation’s capital. The agent was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

On Thursday afternoon, police identified the deceased shooting victim as 28-year-old Troy Bullock. They also said he was armed but that they remained uncertain whether the FBI agent knew that. 

Keep reading

Iranian forces shooting at faces and genitals of female protesters, medics say

Iranian security forces are targeting women at anti-regime protests with shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals, according to interviews with medics across the country.

Doctors and nurses – treating demonstrators in secret to avoid arrest – said they first observed the practice after noticing that women often arrived with different wounds to men, who more commonly had shotgun pellets in their legs, buttocks and backs.

While an internet blackout has hidden much of the bloody crackdown on protesters, photos provided by medics to the Guardian showed devastating wounds all over their bodies from so-called birdshot pellets, which security forces have fired on people at close range. Some of the photos showed people with dozens of tiny “shot” balls lodged deep in their flesh.

The Guardian has spoken to 10 medical professionals who warned about the seriousness of the injuries that could leave hundreds of young Iranians with permanent damage. Shots to the eyes of women, men and children were particularly common, they said.

One physician from the central Isfahan province said he believed the authorities were targeting men and women in different ways “because they wanted to destroy the beauty of these women”.

“I treated a woman in her early 20s, who was shot in her genitals by two pellets. Ten other pellets were lodged in her inner thigh. These 10 pellets were easily removed, but those two pellets were a challenge, because they were wedged in between her urethra and vaginal opening,” the physician said. “There was a serious risk of vaginal infection, so I asked her to go to a trusted gynaecologist. She said she was protesting when a group of about 10 security agents circled around and shot her in her genitals and thighs.”

Traumatised by his experience, the physician – who like all medical professionals cited in this article spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals – said he had a hard time dealing with the stress and pain he witnessed.

“She could have been my own daughter.”

Keep reading

Inside One of America’s Deadliest Police Departments

At just 22 years old, Sean Monterrosa was shot and killed with a silenced assault rifle, fired from the back of an unmarked police car. That made him the 33rd person killed by the Vallejo, California, police department since 2000. 

When police responded to reports of a looting at a local Walgreens in June 2020, Monterrosa was still in the parking lot. He got down on his knees and put his arms above his head, as unmarked police vehicles approached him. 

But one of the officers on the scene, Det. Jarrett Tonn, says he mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s waistband for a gun. He fired five rounds from the back seat of the vehicle he was in, one of which hit Monterrosa in the back of his head. 

“It looked like combat footage from Afghanistan,” said John Coyle, an attorney representing the Monterrosa family, referring to body camera footage of the incident. 

The Vallejo Police Department, which serves a city of about 125,000 in northern California, has killed more people per arrest than 97% of departments, according to the city’s Police Scorecard, which compares the department to those that serve a similar population size. And at its peak, the Vallejo PD’s rate of officer-involved shootings that resulted in deaths was about 38 times the national rate, according to an analysis from local news site KQED. The frequent killings have caused members of the community to lose faith in the department and even question whether they want to call the cops at all.  

Keep reading

Family Receives $8 Million After Innocent Dad Executed On Video as He Begged for His Life

As TFTP has reported extensively, Daniel Shaver was the unarmed victim of an officer-involved murder whereby a guest at the hotel called 911 to report seeing a man with a gun. It turns out the gun was no gun at all. However, when a coward Mesa cop “perceived” Daniel Shaver with a gun, this gave him justification for murdering the unarmed father of two.

This execution of an unarmed innocent father was captured on video and despite all the facts of the situation, no one was ever held accountable — until now. This week, the taxpayers of Mesa, Arizona were informed that they would be paying out $8 million to Shaver’s family — Laney Sweet and their two children — not the cop who killed him.

A statement was released by the legal team of Sweet and Shaver’s children after the settlement was reached and it is damning (emphasis ours):

“Daniel Shaver lived, and will be remembered, as a wonderful, compassionate husband and father. His spirit endowed and embedded light and love to those around him throughout his much-too-short life. While on this earth he provided security, prosperity and stability to his wife and children. He brought a pragmatic, caring perspective to every problem he approached, and had a good-willed nature and charm.

His beloved widow and children miss him every hour of every day. They will never forget Daniel’s loving legacy, nor take for granted the cherished memories of the beautiful time they spent with him. No words can do justice to a life unjustly cut short, and no amount of money can undo the transgressions that cruelly removed Daniel from his family’s lives forever.

While this settlement helps Daniel’s widow and children with the financial stability to move forward, it does not erase the cruelty of his killing, or the malicious campaign by the Mesa Police Department—orchestrated and implemented by their attorneys for over 6 years of needless, malevolent scorched-earth litigation. This settlement does nothing to cure the blatant lack of accountability by all involved since the night of Daniel’s death, which stands as an irredeemable blight on the criminal justice system.

The failure and injustice of Daniel Shaver’s killing and the resulting sham criminal trial, which made a mockery of the notion of Justice predictably ended in no conviction and to this day casts an ugly shadow over this settlement. As this chapter closes, we call upon the Department of Justice to swiftly proceed with its ongoing investigation and announce the federal criminal charges of officers involved, and bring justice where the state of Arizona has failed.”

As we reported at the time, when Brailsford and his partner arrived, they began a standoff with Shaver for no reason and ordered the innocent father to crawl toward them on the hotel floor. Shaver was begging for his life, crying, crawling on his belly, then on his hands and knees. He was eventually shot to death by Brailsford when Shaver reached back to pull up his shorts which were falling down from the crawling.

As Shaver pulled up his shorts, Brailsford perceived that Shaver was reaching for a non-existent gun thereby justifying the brutal execution of an innocent father.

Mesa PD fired Brailsford — not for murdering Shaver — but upon learning the inside of his AR15’s dust cover had the words “You’re F**ked” engraved, a violation of police department policy.

Subsequently, Brailsford was charged with Shaver’s murder but a jury of his peers found him “not guilty” and acquitted him of all charges. Even with undeniable footage, the Mesa cop killed an unarmed man who was begging for his life, the citizens on Brailsford’s jury were seemingly conditioned to give the officer a pass because he perceived there was a gun. In 2019, Brailsford was rehired before immediately retiring and received a pension of $31,000 a year for life!

Since Brailsford is still in his 20’s, if he lives to be 65 he will have been paid over 1 million dollars for killing Shaver, an action which supposedly now has caused Brailsford to be disabled according to the terms of his retirement — thus the angry sentiment in the statement above.

Keep reading

Cop Pulls Gun at High School, ‘Accidentally’ Shoots an Innocent Kid and is NOT Arrested or Even Fired

Imagine for a moment that you were carrying a pistol in a public space, and all of the sudden, you accidentally squeeze off a round. Now, imagine if this place was a school.

There are two possible scenarios that would take place; the first one is that police return fire and you are killed. The second, less lethal result would be your inevitable arrest and charges of public endangerment, unlawful discharge, illegal use of a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon, terrorism, or a myriad of other infractions associated with sending a deadly projectile hurling through a space occupied by innocent children. You would immediately be facing fines, jail time, probation, and firearms restrictions.

However, if you are a government agent who’s trusted with carrying a deadly weapon into places others cannot, you needn’t worry about any of those repercussions. The scenario below just so happens to prove it.

Vermillion County Deputy Tim DisPennett, identified as a 19-year veteran of the department, was giving instruction to vocational students at South Vermillion High School when he pulled his gun and “accidentally” shot a student.

The class was geared at teaching students how to be police officers, and participants in the drill were acting out a scenario with a “bad guy,” according to WTHI.

Hopefully, none of the students being taught by Deputy DisPennett were paying attention to his instruction — as his methods are clearly flawed.  

“This morning at South Vermillion High School, there was an isolated incident in one of our vocational classrooms. The incident was an accidental discharge of a firearm by a law enforcement officer during a drill. One student was injured without life-threatening injuries and has been taken to the hospital. Only SVHS is currently on lockdown, due to the abundance of emergency personnel in the building,” read a statement sent out to parents after the shooting.

Luckily the student who was shot was not severely injured and will be okay. As for the deputy, he has not been arrested, nor fired, and has only been placed on paid leave. Detectives with the department are now investigating the shooting.

Aside from the above-the-law treatment of this officer, the excuse for the weapon accidentally discharging is nothing short of asinine.

Guns do not fire themselves.

Keep reading