January 31, 2013

Family: 7-year-old NYC boy handcuffed over $5

Source: AP

A 7-year-old New York City boy's family has filed a $250 million claim against police and the city after saying he was handcuffed and falsely accused of stealing $5 from a schoolmate.

Wilson Reyes' mother, Frances Mendez, told the New York Post that her son was "interrogated" for 10 hours on Dec. 4.

The court claim, filed by attorney Jack Yankowitz, said Wilson was handcuffed and held in a room at P.S. X114 in the Bronx for four hours, then taken to a precinct house. He allegedly was held there for six hours and charged with robbery.

Mendez told the Post she initially wasn't allowed to see her son when she went to the station. When she did get to him, she saw that he had been cuffed by one wrist to the wall, and she snapped a photo of him.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/family-7-old-nyc-boy-handcuffed-over-5-201233037.html

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Let us assume the child did steal the money in the manner described. The police are still dead wrong.

1) You do NOT interrogate a minor absent his parent/guardian.

2) You do not keep him "incommunicado" when his mother comes looking for him.

This is what happens when you give bullies badges and refuse to hold them accountable for their actions.

January 30, 2013

UNDER SURVEILLANCE

Source: Yes! Weekly (NC Triad)

Anyone who has ever been involved in grassroots organizing, a social movement or activism has probably wondered at least once, if not frequently, about if they are being watched. Though police surveillance is no secret — uniformed officers regularly videotape legal protests, for example — what happens with the intelligence is usually a mystery to the public.

Eventually the curiosity got to me, and I filed a request with the city for e-mail records with my name as the keyword. I’ve never been arrested, but I knew assumptions of surveillance weren’t just paranoia.

The results were disappointing — there was almost no information about police surveillance — so I kept digging. The department’s criminal intelligence work is shrouded in mystery, and the lack of transparency made me determined to see what else I could find.

In some cases, the documents were jarring — police infiltration of Occupy Greensboro, a council member reporting on activist meetings and a list of the surveillance successes at an anarchist conference in town.

Read more: http://www.yesweekly.com/triad/article-15466-un-der-su-rvei-llance.html

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This is a local story, but with national implications since it seems all our local police departments have their own little STASI wannabes wasting taxpayer resources looking for fake criminals while ignoring real crime.

I was involved in the Occupy movement in my area and am now quite sure I have a "file" with these idiots and will be subject to "scrutiny" in the future. The most aggravating aspect of this story is that a local politician used the Occupy movement to help get herself elected to the city council by sucking up to them, all the while she was ratting us out to the police.

January 30, 2013

Someone call The Doctor, The Weeping Angels are on the move

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/500451-do-you-recognize-this-angel

January 7, 2013

The Evolution of a Democratic Constituency Promise

We will NEVER do <that>!

We will never do <that>!

We will never do <that>.

Reports that we are considering doing <that> are completely false!

Reports that we are considering doing <that> are false.

There has been some discussion of doing <that>, but it is just talk.

The president is firmly committed to not doing <that>.

Reports that we are doing <that> are just "trial balloons" floated by centrists in the party.

There has been some discussion of doing <that> in exchange for not doing <something else>.

The president is not inclined to do <that> in exchange for not doing <something else>, and would veto any bill doing that sent to him.

The president doesn't want to exclude any ideas, he needs to appear bi-partisan.

Doing <that> in exchange for not doing <something else> is certainly on the table.

Not doing <something else> is critically important, and it is only pragmatic to consider doing <that>. Critics on the Left need to look at the bigger picture.

The president is still committed to not doing <that>. Reports to the contrary wrong.

All options are on the table.

Doing <that> is vital to the presidents long term goals of not doing <something else>.

Critics on the Left need to understand that we cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

If you look carefully at what we have said in the past, we never said we would never do <that>.

We said we would do <that>.

We have ALWAYS said we would do <that>.

The president signed <that> AND <something else> into law today.

Where did you get the idea that we would never do <that>?

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Fill in any failed conservative proposal for <that> and <something else>.

Wash, rinse, repeat.