Tag: police state

For the First Time in US, City Proposes Ending Police Enforcement of Traffic Laws

In what is being touted as a first in the nation proposal, the City of Berkeley, California has proposed ending police traffic enforcement. The effects of such a radical shift in policing could be massive.

The move comes after claims that police officers all too often escalate minor traffic stops into deadly situations. These claims are well founded.

“Most traffic stops don’t really warrant a police officer,” said Darrell Owens, the co-executive of East Bay for Everyone, a housing and traffic non-profit. He helped pitch the new, one-year plan to Berkeley City Council. According to ABC 7, he says ideally the city would take money away from Berkeley PD to fund a new department.

“A minor traffic violation should not have resulted in the murder of a black or brown body, but at the same time we can also re-examine the nature of punitive law enforcement and broken windows policing that makes traffic enforcement so deadly to begin with.”

The officials who proposed ending police traffic enforcement dispelled any preconceived notions that this would allow dangerous criminals and drunks to rule the roads.

“We don’t want to inhibit apprehending dangerous criminals or drunk drivers. That is not the intent,” said Berkeley City councilmember, Lori Droste.

Though it is a step in the right direction, because government relies on revenue generated from traffic stops to fund itself, this proposal stops short of actually ending the practice of extorting citizens.

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Activists Build Their Own Facial Recognition System to ID Bad Cops Who Hide Badges

“Beat them at their own game.” “Flip the script.” “Give them a taste of their own medicine.” Any of these phrases will apply to the absolutely ingenious measures taken by  activists who are creating their own facial recognition systems to identify cops who hide their badges.

As TFTP reported during the George Floyd protests, across the country, in dozens of cities, cops were doling out unprecedented violence in the face of angry protests stemming from unchecked police brutality. Though Floyd’s death was the flash point of the unrest, the uprising represented something far deeper — systemic abuse by law enforcement of minorities, the poor, and everyone else not directly connected to the establishment. Countless incidents throughout this unrest involved officers who could not be identified and as a result of their anonymous instigation and violence, there has been no accountability.

In multiple states, police have been seemingly taking measures to avoid this accountability by removing their name tags or covering their badges. This is in direct violation of most departments’ policies. But no politicians, mayors, governors, or mainstream media seem to care.

Cops hiding their identification is ominous for two reasons. The first reason being that they can enact brutality against the innocent and we do not know who they are to hold them accountable. The second reason is the fact that anyone can dress up like a cop with no badge number and start doing whatever they want, up to and including inciting violence, detaining people, or any other numerous unscrupulous acts.

As we reported at the time, many of these departments appeared to have been given orders from the top down to cover their badge numbers and remove their name plates. This is not acceptable and thanks to a self-taught programmer, Christopher Howell, it no longer has to be.

Howell created a program that identifies cops who were permitted by their supervisors to cover their names while responding to protests.

“I am involved with developing facial recognition to in fact use on Portland police officers, since they are not identifying themselves to the public,” Howell told the NY Times.

Because Portland made it illegal to use facial recognition against the police, Howell had some barriers to using his software. However, as the NY Times reports, Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, told Mr. Howell that his project was “a little creepy,” but a lawyer for the city clarified that the bills would not apply to individuals. The Council then passed the legislation in a unanimous vote.

“There’s a lot of excessive force here in Portland,” Howell told the NY Times. “Knowing who the officers are seems like a baseline.”

This self-taught computer programmer has since created a system that has led to flipping the script on police accountability.

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Cop Assaults, Cuffs Autistic Child, Kneels on His Neck, Pepper Sprays His Dog for Not Using a Leash

A 14-year-old boy with autism was left traumatized and physically injured last month after one of Topeka’s finest felt it necessary to throw him to the ground, handcuff him and then kneel on his neck in the same move that proved fatal for George Floyd — a fully grown man. The boy’s mother is now speaking out and seeking justice for her child.

According to police, they were responding to a call about the boy bringing his dog on a walk without a leash. There had been no incident — meaning the dog never once harmed anyone — but fear of an unleashed dog led to a police response.

“At around 4:26 p.m. the officer located the 14-year-old in the neighborhood a third time and conducted a pedestrian stop,” the police Facebook post said. “He did not comply with the officer’s commands. A use of force was generated when he was taken to the ground and handcuffed.”

The officer informed the boy that he was in violation of city law the first time and told him to take the “goddamn dog home” the second time, according to body-camera footage detailed in the audit report, and reported on by VICE.

The boy — who was likely scared to death when the armed man began yelling at him — did not immediately comply and decided to keep riding his bicycle home. When the officer finally caught up to the boy, violent force was used against him and his dog.

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Unqualified Impunity: When Government Officials Break the Law, They Often Get Away With It

The horrifying video of George Floyd’s death, and the protests that followed, led to a rare occurrence: The police officers responsible are being prosecuted. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with murder and remains in jail, and three other officers are facing lesser charges.

Kentucky’s recent decision not to bring homicide charges against the officers who killed Breonna Taylor is much more typical. Most instances of law enforcement brutality do not result in criminal charges, even when they are captured on video. They often result in no consequences at all. This includes many cases of excessive force in response to the protests after Floyd’s death, but the problem is long standing, and not restricted to local police.

Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa Jr. was not prosecuted or disciplined for shooting and killing a 15-year-old boy, and the Supreme Court ruled last year that the boy’s parents could not sue.

Most of the individuals responsible for the CIA torture program faced no consequences—in fact, one of the CIA employees who oversaw torture and evidence destruction now leads the agency.

And the list goes on.

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Censoring the Biden story: How social media becomes state media

Chinese citizens watched President Xi Jinping deliver an important speech this week not far from Hong Kong. Well, not the whole speech: Xi apparently is ill, and every time he went into coughing spasms, China’s state media cut away so that he would be shown only in perfect health.

Xi’s coughs came to mind as Twitter and Facebook prevented Americans from being able to read the New York Post’s explosive allegations of influence-peddling by Hunter Biden. The articles cited material reportedly recovered from a laptop; it purportedly showed requests for Hunter Biden to use his influence on his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, as well as embarrassing photos of Hunter Biden.

Many of us have questioned the sketchy details of how the laptop reportedly was left by Hunter Biden with a nearly blind computer repairman and then revealed just weeks before the presidential election. There are ample reasons to question whether this material was the product of a foreign intelligence operation, which the FBI apparently is investigating.

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Cop Rips Woman’s Hair from Her Scalp Over Broken ‘Third Brake Light’ That Was WORKING

Shynita Phillips Abu was “jamming to music” in her car after a trip to a post office earlier this month when a San Diego County Sheriff’s deputy targeted her for extortion. His reason for pulling her over and eventually assaulting her? He claimed her “third brake light” was out.

In the land of the free, petty traffic violations like third brake light bulbs can and will lead to innocent people being assaulted and kidnapped. While it is technically an infraction if your third brake light bulb is out, according to Abu, when she picked her car up from the impound lot after the deputy took it, the light was actually working.

Abu has since filed a complaint against the department alleging excessive force. The department is now investigating.

According to Abu, who filmed the interaction, the officer became belligerent during the stop when she disputed the reason for the stop. Abu says the officer apparently didn’t like the fact that she was filming the arrest which made him angry.

“He started to yell ‘put the phone down now,’” she said. “And at that point, I became afraid”

For a simple traffic ticket, the officer proceeded to escalate force and is seen on video dragging the woman from her car. He allegedly pulled on her with so much force that her hair was ripped from her scalp.

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Innocent Woman Didn’t Let Cops See Her Ring Video, So They Raided Her Home, Mocked Her

In January of this year, Monecia Smith was awakened in the middle of the night as a shirtless man pounded on her door seeking help. Moments later the man ran to her neighbor’s house before gunshots ran out. Monecia has a Ring camera system which did not capture the shooting but did capture part of the deadly encounter.

“I could see the muzzle (flash) of gunfire,” Smith, a mother of four, said to the Kansas City Star.

Smith said she showed the video to a family member of the victim, later identified as Derrick Smith, 31 (not related to Monecia), but when police showed up to her home and asked for it, she refused to hand it over — which is her constitutional right. Smith wasn’t committing a crime and explained that her decision to keep the video from police stems from her lack of trust in the department.

As the Star explains, Smith pointed to the questionable shooting deaths of Ryan Stokes, Terrance Bridges, Donnie Sanders and others at the hands of Kansas City police officers, as the reason she does not trust them.

For all Smith knew, it was police who killed Derrick Smith and they could’ve been trying to seek out and destroy any evidence which showed it.

“There have been too many cases where nothing was done,” Monecia Smith said. “My trust for police has gone down the drain.”

Smith is not alone in her lack of trust for police. The Star interviewed 75 residents who share similar distrust.

“If people don’t trust the police, it is because a very severe injustice has occurred,” said Thomas C. O’Brien, a psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

And, in Kansas City, severe injustice is seemingly routine.

Last week, TFTP reported on 25-year-old Deja Stallings — a nine-month pregnant woman who was body slammed and then knelt down on by cops for allegedly “hindering and interfering” while filming an arrest.

Before that, Karle Robinson, 61, was held at gunpoint and handcuffed at his home near Kansas City. His “crime”? Moving a TV into his new house — while black.

The list goes on and provides an impetus for today’s distrust that goes back decades. Proving Smith’s reason for distrust is the fact that she was raided by these cops the very next day after refusing to show them the video.

According to the report, Smith showed the video to a member of Derrick Smith’s family and when detectives found out about it, they requested a meeting inside her home. Smith politely declined.

“I didn’t feel safe with him in my house,” she said.

Smith had no idea how profoundly predictive that statement would be. The very next day, a militarized unit of cops in tactical gear kicked in Smith’s door and ransacked her apartment — making sure to denigrate her along the way.

Smith, who was at work during the raid on her home, was alerted by a neighbor and came over immediately. When she showed up, cops were still in her home and she was told she couldn’t enter. But her cameras inside were rolling.

“Go out and make sure these detectives are OK, ‘cause this bitch, (inaudible) she’s getting crazy,” one of the shock troops can be heard saying on the video.

“They did all of that for a DVR?” Smith said. “Why did I deserve that?”

The fact of the matter is that she didn’t deserve that at all. Smith later filed a grievance over the incident which was sustained by the Office of Community Complaints, a civilian agency tasked with holding the police accountable. Unfortunately, however, the agency is largely impotent and have very few tools to actually hold cops accountable.

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