Leaper
February 12, 2016, 8:54am
8022
I can’t believe every single person in the government looked at this idea and thought, “Is there any reason not to do this? Nah, how bad a look could it be?”
Did I miss this getting posted?
CMC
From today’s Washington Post :
2 LA cops charged with repeatedly raping, ‘preying on’ vulnerable women
On Wednesday, prosecutors charged Valenzuela and Nichols with raping the dog-walker and three other women over the span of several years. According to a felony complaint, the pair of cops repeatedly threatened the women — all of whom had previous drug arrests — with a return to jail unless they agreed to oral or vaginal sex.
At the time it happened, this story did not make it into our thread, but now there is a NY Times article (paywalled), and an episode of This American Life that describe it. The summary is that off-duty police working security at a Houston hospital went into the room of a (delusional, combative) patient and ended up shooting him. The patient is subsequently charged with assault with a deadly weapon (said weapons being furniture, a tray table and the patient’s hands).
Oh yeah, I forgot: Sadly, sadly, the patient is Black.
Hooleehootoo:
At the time it happened, this story did not make it into our thread, but now there is a NY Times article (paywalled), and an episode of This American Life that describe it. The summary is that off-duty police working security at a Houston hospital went into the room of a (delusional, combative) patient and ended up shooting him. The patient is subsequently charged with assault with a deadly weapon (said weapons being furniture, a tray table and the patient’s hands).
Oh yeah, I forgot: Sadly, sadly, the patient is Black.
There’s also this from the Times article:
An ambiguity in Medicare rules allowed Alan Pean’s conversion from delusional patient to felony suspect. If a patient throws a tray at a nurse and the staff responds with restraints, it can be considered a health care incident. If the same patient throws the same tray at a police officer, even one off-duty, who shoots in response, the encounter is subject to a criminal investigation.
Muffin
February 25, 2016, 1:36am
8027
An unemployed person died in debtor’s prison in Utah. He had not paid his medical bill. Kudos to the deputy sheriff who spoke up against this. Shame on the USA not joining the first world when it comes to health care.
The Washington Post has a e-book out:
Lethal Force: The True Toll of Police Shootings in America (Kindle Single)
After a police officer shot and killed a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, the media began to pay greater attention to deadly interactions between black men and the law. But when reporters tried to get to the bottom of some basic questions—how often do police shoot people? Who are the victims? Are officers ever charged with crimes?—they came up blank. Police departments were not required to report these statistics to the FBI.
The Washington Post set out to track every fatal shooting by an on-duty officer in 2015. Its database chronicled the shootings in real time, using news reports and other public sources. It compiled a trove of data, from the race of the person killed, whether the person was armed when killed, to whether the person was purported to have threatened the officer prior to being killed.
The results found by the Post are shocking and haunting, from the sheer breadth of shootings by police in the U.S. to the stories of those killed. And its call to reform is being heeded. This groundbreaking book will radically alter how you view confrontation and accountability within the ranks, and offer a new perspective going forward.
Well, maybe not Smapti’s view.
Did we already list Keith Davis of Baltimore ? He was shot in the face by officers who fired more than 40 rounds at him in a parking garage. There seem to be some problems with the officers filing reports and with internal affairs interviewing the officers.[
Several officers involved in the shooting told jurors that they had not been called to give statements after firing their weapons, nor had they written reports that the department’s general orders require.
“Police unload (guns) into a garage with three civilians and no one bothered to ask them anything. The law requires a use of force report. There’s no firearm discharge report. There’s no incident report. There’s no report to go to the Maryland State Police. None of that was done,” said Davis’ attorney Latoya Francis-Williams.
She said she requested reports written by the officers and their supervisors when preparing for trial, and was told they were never generated.
Additionally, none of the officers involved gave statements to internal affairs investigators until Jan. 19, more than seven months after the shooting and nearly two months after prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against them.
“No one from internal affairs contacted me to give a statement,” Officer Alfred Santiago said on the witness stand.
Two other officers, Lane Eskins and Israel Lopez, testified that they didn’t submit any reports after firing their service weapons.
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/099ae7890f084449986ed31bed8f8f11/trial-raises-questions-about-baltimore-cops-internal-probes )Also, it sorta looks like the initial charge that Davis robbed someone may have been an excuse:
This month, Keith Davis, 25, went on trial after police said he robbed a driver and ran from police into a dark parking garage. Prosecutors said he brandished a firearm and officers fired more than 40 rounds when they felt threatened, striking Davis in the face. The jury convicted Davis on only a gun charge.
After the Kevin Davis verdict, his attorney said his case was “a reflection of the rampant abuse of the Baltimore Police Department.”
“When the officers ran down the street, (Davis) ran like everyone else to get out of their way, because if something goes wrong with an officer nobody is going to investigate,” Francis-Williams said.
monstro
February 27, 2016, 8:48pm
8030
No real details yet, but [this happened in Salt Lake City:
The shooting occurred about 8:15 p.m. Selam Mohammad told The Salt Lake Tribune a police officer shot Mohammad’s 16-year-old friend.
Police did not immediately confirm that or provide the gunshot victim’s condition.
Salt Lake Tribune reporters saw and heard onlookers yelling at police and throwing rocks.
At 8:40 p.m., a line of officers moved people down the sidewalk on the south side of 200 South, from Rio Grande to 400 West.
Police were closing the Trax Blue Line before the Old Greektown stop.
That’s the vicinity of where the shooting occurred — on Rio Grande Street between 200 and 300 South.
](Police investigating shooting by officer in downtown Salt Lake City - The Salt Lake Tribune )
Dehumanizing snore?
joking aside, this is just too much. I can’t even…
Speaking of people sleeping in their (running, in this case) car , this story will warm your heart and instill confidence in your servants of public safety.
Plot points:
The story does have a less heart-stopping ending, though.
It’s like the pig said: some animals are more equal than others.
I don’t remember if we had a post about the 4 February 2016 killing of Antronie Scott by Officer John Lee in San Antonio, Texas but [the former officer is apparently now able to seek other employment opportunities:
In a terse statement issued Tuesday, Police Chief William McManus says Officer John Lee has been, in the chief’s words, “issued a contemplated indefinite suspension for placing himself unnecessarily in a tactical situation wherein he felt compelled to use deadly force.”
Police spokeswoman Romana Lopez said in an email that “an indefinite suspension is equivalent to being fired.”
Investigators say Antronie Scott was fatally shot the night of Feb. 4 at a north San Antonio apartment complex by officers trying to serve him with two felony weapons and drug warrants. They say Scott was holding a cellphone, not a gun as officers feared.
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/801eaede858544f5b7a314a72a4fa98f/san-antonio-officer-who-shot-unarmed-be-fired )
Baltimore City Schools Police officer slaps and kicks student while a second officer looks on.
Since the “peace officer” did not arrest the student, I’m gong to assume this little bit of violence was not justified by the student resisting arrest. Instead, it appears to be just some good old fashioned corporal punishment, meted out by the peace officer in response to some infraction or other.
Now, if only the student, or perhaps a nearby educator, had been armed, this assault could have been prevented. An armed school is a polite school.
[The police chief of White, GA and another officer have been arrested on charges of false imprisonment:
Authorities say a Georgia police chief and an officer have been arrested, accused of arresting people on fake charges and then reducing the charges to collect fines.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman Greg Ramsey says 58-year-old police chief David King and 26-year-old officer Black Scheff of the White Police Department were charged Wednesday with false imprisonment under color of legal process, theft by extortion and violation of oath by a public officer.
Ramsey says the incidents occurred between December 2011 and April 2015.
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4c0122132e914d808566ef5391a724c8/police-chief-officer-arrested-false-imprisonment-charges )
[Federal appeals court says cop has immunity; cannot be charged in teen’s fatal shooting:
A Michigan police officer can’t be held liable for fatally shooting a kneeling teenager in the head, a federal appeals court said, slamming the door on a lawsuit tied to a racially charged incident at a bank in the state capital.
The court, in a 2-1 decision this week, said Lansing Officer Brian Rendon is entitled to immunity because his actions were not “objectively unreasonable.”
In March 2011, three officers responded to a suspected break-in at a Lansing bank. They found Clay hiding and waving scissors, which were wrested from her, but the 17-year-old also drew a steak knife.
Rendon, who is white, shot Clay in the stomach while she was on her knees. The officer followed in “quick succession” with a shot to her head, the court said.
U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell had ruled that Rendon wasn’t immune to a lawsuit over excessive force. He said there was evidence that Clay wasn’t resisting after being shot in the stomach.
But the appeals court reversed Bell’s decision, saying a key legal issue was whether Rendon reasonably believed Clay still was a threat.
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ccd394a76a2f4139a9478965c6837560/court-lansing-officer-has-immunity-teens-fatal-shooting )
Fuck “beliefs”.
[He’s been charged with murder:
Police Chief Ernest Finley said on Monday Smith deemed Gunn “suspicious,” left his car and approached Gunn on foot. The Gunn family’s attorney Tyrone Means said Gun was walking home from a friend’s house at the time.
Authorities initially said Gunn was holding a stick or cane and the two men had struggled. But a neighbor of Gunn tells The Associated Press the stick was actually an extension handle for a paint roller that belonged to him.
“He didn’t have anything, other than the cane they was talking about was my paint cane laying right there. Been there two or three weeks,” Colvin Hinson said Wednesday.
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/95bdab0e82a24758b7195e944204792e/alabama-officer-charged-murder-fatal-shooting )
You conveniently ignore the fact that at the time she was shot in the head, she was in possession of a bullet (in her stomach).