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http://www.infowars.com/police-chief-defends-spying-on-protesters-as-terrorists/Police Chief Defends Sping on Protesters as Terrorists
WJZ’s Weijia Jiang that superintendent of the Maryland State Police has denied wrongdoing in a 14 month undercover investigation that spied on anti-war and anti-death penalty groups.
Colonel Terrence Sheridan conceded that the operation lacked good judgement but said, “We did nothing wrong.”
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SFPD spies are back
Undercover cops monitoring peace protesters, documents show
By A.C. Thompson
The San Francisco Police Department has been monitoring a radical Web site, using undercover officers to spy on antiwar protesters, and apparently collecting personal information about political dissidents, the Bay Guardian has learned.
A confidential police memo, part of a dossier obtained under the Sunshine Ordinance, acknowledges that at least some of the activities appear to violate the department's own rules.
The internal SFPD documents and a new audit performed by the city's police watchdog agency, the Office of Citizen Complaints, indicate the department has been gathering intelligence on the militant wing of the antiwar movement since last fall. Taken as a whole, the documents suggest some SFPD commanders may have orchestrated a secret spying program without the knowledge of top police officials.
http://www.sfbayguardian.com/37/24/x_news_war.html___________________________
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Santa Cruz, CA Police Caught Spying on Peaceful Grassroots Group
The national spying scandal goes local:
A grassroots group of locals put together a peaceful, creative and inspiring "Last Night DIY Parade" for New Year's Eve, replacing the First Night event that died this year for lack of funding. The group putting on the Do-It-Yourself event recently learned that the Santa Cruz Police Department had infiltrated their planning meetings! Not only did police officers present fail to identify themselves honestly, they gave false names and participated in meetings, including in decisions being made.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x112976______________________
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Cops spied on hippies, hip-hoppers
NYPD eyed everyone from stars to pols before '04 GOP bash in city
BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, May 17th 2007, 4:00 AM
Jay-Z was among those targeted.
The NYPD kept tabs on the biggest names in hip hop as well as peaceniks, anarchists, anti-war bloggers, a city councilman and at least one hippie pie-tosser as cops girded for protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The list of the spied upon was revealed yesterday in 600 pages of secret NYPD intelligence files released by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the city on behalf of hundreds of demonstrators arrested during the convention.
Sean (Diddy) Combs, Jay-Z, LL Cool J and Alicia Keys were among the notables the NYPD monitored in the months before the convention arrived in New York. Each was expected to attend a protest rally during the convention staged by the Hip Hop Summit Action Network.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/05/17/2007-05-17_cops_spied_on_hippies_hiphoppers.html___________________
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War on protesters
It might be worse than that. More than a week after the GOP closed its convention doors, ugly reports of police misconduct toward protesters are still trickling in. Imprisoned demonstrators have claimed that they were dragged, hogtied, beaten and denied medication for serious illnesses. One arrestee reports that a guard grabbed and wrenched his penis. The local authorities deny all those reports, and most of the allegations not been confirmed -- though some non-protesters caught in the dragnet have reported mistreatment as well, strongly suggesting that more than politically motivated exaggeration is at play. Human-rights groups are probing the prisoners' charges to sort the real crimes from the rumors.
One injustice is undeniable, though. When John Sellers of Berkeley, Calif., chief of the Ruckus Society, was arrested for a collection of misdemeanors -- which he denies committing -- his bail was set at an astonishing $1 million. Though a second judge later reduced the bail to $100,000, it's still hard to square that with the Eighth Amendment admonition that "excessive bail shall not be required."
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/08/14/police/print.html________________
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Killing by cops in N.Y. sparks outrage
Worker gunned down in hail of 50 bullets;
citywide protest called for December 6
Students walk out of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn November 29 to protest police killing of Sean Bell. Two other young Black men, shot along with Bell, remain hospitalized.
BY EMILY PAUL
AND DAN FEIN
JAMAICA, New York—Some 300 demonstrators marched and rallied in this largely Black community here November 26 to protest a deadly police shooting in this neighborhood the day before. The incident, in which five cops fired a hail of 50 bullets that left one young Black man dead and two seriously wounded, has sparked widespread outrage among working people. City officials and capitalist politicians have been working overtime to defuse the anger.
Sean Bell, 23, and two of his friends, Joseph Guzman, 31, and Trent Benefield, 23, had been celebrating at Bell’s bachelor party November 25 at a nightclub in Jamaica. They had left the club in a car when five plainclothes cops opened fire, killing Bell. Guzman was shot 11 times and Benefield 3 times.
The two wounded men were taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica. They were handcuffed to their beds, and were unshackled only in response to the demonstration outside the hospital, the Associated Press reported.
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"Fifty shots, and no one is shooting back at you? That’s an execution. It’s like putting them in front of a firing line,” said Bishop Lester Williams, who was supposed to preside at the couple’s wedding.