Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread #2

Anyone remember this guy, from a @Typo_Negative post in the first thread?

Well, a judge just ordered him to pay $1 million to the woman whose house he broke into.

Tamara Williams is speaking out:

From that article:

Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham said last week that dashcam and bodycam videos of the shooting would be made public after relatives of the shooting victims have watched it.

The video is particularly important because the version of events given by police appears to contradict the version that Williams’ mother, Clifftina Johnson, gave after she visited her daughter in the hospital. Johnson has said that her daughter told her that she and Stinnette did nothing to provoke the officer before he opened fire.

It’s not without some pride that I note my adopted hometown is handling this tragedy really well, with the city acting transparently and responsibly and protestors successfully keeping everything peaceful. I know it’s still early in the story but I’m very hopeful we’ll see justice done here (to the extent that it’s possible when a 19-year-old father is gunned down).

Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham said last week that dashcam and bodycam videos of the shooting would be made public after relatives of the shooting victims have watched it.

I will believe it when I see it. (that they will release the video, I mean)

I wasn’t sure where to put this so I decided on this thread…

Police officer killed while breaking up cockfight

Interesting update on Breonna Taylor. Apparently they threw the grand jury under the bus saying that they did not feel additional charges were warranted when they were not allowed to consider any.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/it-was-uproar-in-that-room-breonna-taylor-grand-jurors-give-first-interview-say-panel-tried-to-revolt-over-lack-of-charges/ar-BB1atV3Q?li=BBnbcA1

Officers didn’t have body cameras on during fatal shooting, attorneys say

Shocked! Shocked I am at this development! I cannot believe that the cameras malfunctioned. I say malfunctioned because obviously our heroic men in blue would not deliberately leave them off…I mean…aw fuck it

I was just coming on to post this. What a scumbag. He was probably fired for not having his camera on, but forensic evidence might be enough to prosecute him.

  • He said the car was backing toward him, but “all of the bullets – perhaps six or seven – appeared to have been fired into the driver’s side door of the vehicle.”
  • Based on the dashcam video, “the victims’ car was stationary, and … the officer was also stationary and … it appears he took aim and shot inside the car while standing at a 90-degree angle to the vehicle, not from behind.”

Yet the cop said he was in fear for his life and claims the driver tried to run him over. Sounds like murder 2 to me.

Quotes from: Waukegan police release video footage, but none of it shows fatal shooting of Marcellis Stinnette – Chicago Tribune

They’ve released video:

The kids in the car were definitely not “doing nothing.” They fled arrest twice. But it’s also clear the cop who did the shooting was not behind the car and could not have been run over, even if he sounds genuinely frightened.

It’s actually heartbreaking all around.

What is the rule about shooting into a moving vehicle?

While true, there’s no evidence there was any reason for the arrest. And the videos don’t exactly show officers as pillars of integrity.

National Fraternal order of Police put out a tweet showing a small child hugging a police officer, claiming that they saved the child after he was found wandering barefooted in the streets during a protest. They have since deleted the tweet after information was revealed that he had been in the back seat of a car which police smashed into and arrested his parents, he wasn’t just wandering in the street.
https://external-preview.redd.it/hz2JBG07OZGw61HQ7bPVEoDFwxyfodkAUE9CgpiLUFk.jpg

Yeah, I haven’t seen anything verifying or denying the existence of the arrest warrant mentioned by the first officer. But it’s clear that they sped away from him while he was questioning them, which – I don’t care what the circumstances – is not a good call. It’s no wonder the second officer approached them with apprehension.

It’s also clear they sped away from him, but I don’t care how anxious or scared he was, there’s no way firing six shots into the side of a vehicle moving away from you can be justified. His life was never in danger.

Reflecting on this further … when the woman claims they were “just sitting there,” she might be talking about before the first cop approached them. If they truly were just sitting in a parked car, that’s not against the law. I haven’t seen anything about why the first cop approached their vehicle.

I’m white and middle aged, so I want to better understand the mentality at play here. If you’re young and Black, and a cop approaches your parked car (where you’re not doing anything illegal) and says he has a warrant for your boyfriend, is that frightening enough to make you speed off?

Nobody died in this one, but it’s still illustrative of the thug mentality that seems to infest many police forces. I’m not fundamentally anti-cop; they truly have what is by definition a difficult and heartbreaking job. But if society gives you the right to carry a gun you are obligated to conduct yourself honorably in your interactions with citizens.

[ The complainant saw his neighbor being assaulted by Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies and started videotaping the encounter. He was then detained, searched, and his phone seized. He’s suing the county and I hope he wins big $. Sheriff Scott Jones has cost Sacto Co so much in settlements and general ill-will that I don’t understand how he keeps getting elected: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/marcos-breton/article235508482.html]

BTW, I’ve heard of cases where the police officers have deleted video or photos from people’s cameras or phones, so there are apps that will automatically upload the video to a website. I think the ACLU has state-specific apps for this purpose. (The laws vary by state, which is why the same app may not be legal in all states.)

Just to show the kind of integrity and sense of justice possessed by the police, one of the officers involved in murdering Breonna Taylor is now suing her boyfriend for infliction of emotional distress. If you put this in a story, people would say that you’re overreacting, but put it in real life and it happens!

Fuck that guy with a rusty chainsaw.

It is actually 1984. Orwell was being optimistic.

There you go, now you have the newspeak down.