damnedifIknow
damnedifIknow's JournalTeen In Critical Condition After Police Use Taser On Him
Witnesses to a police stop in Missouri say cops used excessive force when they used a Taser on a 17-year-old boy who is now reportedly in critical condition.
"You could tell the kid was going into convulsions," witness Michelle Baker told Fox4kc.com. "[The cop] turned him over and his head was dangling ... and he had blood coming out."
*The driver ... refused to roll down the window," Schmdley said. "The officer was able to get the door open. The driver refused to get out of the vehicle. A struggle ensued [and] a Taser was employed by the officer."
Masters' friend, 17-year-old Curtis Martes, told Fox4kc.com that he was on his porch when the traffic stop occurred and heard Masters tell the officer he was unable to roll the window down.
"I hear[d] him say ... 'I can't roll down my window [because] it's broke,'" Martes told Fox4kc.com.
In a separate interview with KCTV, Martes said Masters' father is an officer with the Kansas City Police Department.
Masters was transported to CenterPoint hospital, where he reportedly remains listed in critical condition Monday, with swelling in his brain."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/bryce-masters_n_5822670.html
Police Brutality In America, From Rodney King To Michael Brown
Amadou Diallo. Rodney King. Timothy Thomas. Looking at where we are today in the weeks after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, it can feel like nothing has changed in the way we police the police.
Many things haven’t. Juries acquitted police. Cops got their jobs back. And brutality happened again.
Some things have gotten worse. Like police militarization.
But some things have gotten better, or are still moving toward reform in the wake of a prominent brutality incident. A history of these incidents reveals that some major recent police reforms got their start after highly publicized episodes of police violence. But it was only after years or decades and dogged, persistent community-building that some progress started to manifest."
* Los Angeles was the original militarizer of police, even before the federal government started handing out left-over or used weapons, and before the height of the War on Drugs.
“The LAPD was the godfather of that kind of militaristic response,”
*And police accountability remains one of the most sticky problems. A 2008 Cincinnati Enquirer review found that while 35 police officers were fired over a 20-year period, 19 of the 25 who appealed the decision to an arbitrator got their jobs back, "
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/11/3477520/whats-changed-and-what-hasnt-in-policing-the-police/
This is What Happens to “Good Cops” Who Expose Corruption in their Departments
Detective Joe Crystal became a target of intimidation for his entire department after testifying against other officers in a misconduct case. Following his testimony, he received threats from other officers, and even found a dead rat on his car one day.
“He saw a wrong and decided he couldn’t live with himself and did the right thing and was punished, I think that’s just unbelievable,” Nicholas Panteleakis, Crystal’s lawyer said.
“They don’t care about anything but saving their money and saving their hide. It’s absolutely ridiculous with what this man has gone through. One, it lets the Baltimore City police know they were wrong, know that they’ve done numerous things against him that were wrong,” Panteleakis added"
Black Lawyers to Challenge Police Brutality in 25 Cities
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – In an effort to combat police brutality in the Black community, the National Bar Association (NBA) recently announced plans to file open records requests in 25 cities to study allegations of police misconduct.
Pamela Meanes, president of the Black lawyers and judges group, said that the NBA was already making plans for a nationwide campaign to fight police brutality when Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a White police officer following a controversial midday confrontation in a Ferguson, Mo.
Meanes called police brutality the new civil rights issue of this era, an issue that disproportionately impacts the Black community."
* The lawyers group will file open records requests in Birmingham, Ala.; Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix; Los Angeles; San Jose, Calif., Washington, D.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami; Atlanta; Chicago; Louisville, Ky.; Baltimore; Detroit; Kanas City, Mo.; St. Louis, Mo.; Charlotte, N.C.; Las Vegas; New York City; Cleveland, Ohio, Memphis, Tenn., Philadelphia; Dallas; Houston; San Antonio, Texas, and Milwaukee, Wis.
In a press release about the open records requests, the group said it will not only seek information about “the number of individuals who have been killed, racially profiled, wrongfully arrested and/or injured while pursued or in police custody, but also comprehensive data from crime scenes, including “video and photographic evidence related to any alleged and/or proven misconduct by current or former employees,” as well background information on officers involved in the incidents.
Not only will the NBA present their findings to the public, but the group also plans to compile its research and forward the data over to the attorney general’s office.
Meanes said that the group’s ultimate goal is to have a conversation with Attorney General Eric Holder and to ask him, and in some cases, demand that he seize police departments or take over some investigations that are going on in states or run concurrent investigations."
http://www.blackpressusa.com/2014/09/black-lawyers-to-challenge-police-brutality-in-25-cities/
Private Prison Stocks Soar As Companies Cash In On Incarcerated Immigrants
Share prices for two of the largest private prison firms have spiked sharply since an influx of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border was reported this summer. And some investors in GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America are seizing on the opportunity for more profit from incarceration, according to recent comments to CNN Money.
“Investors see this as an opportunity. This is a potentially untapped market that will have very strong demand,” activist investor Alex Friedmann told CNN Money.
Both firms, which house prisoners through private sector contracts with the government, have arrangements with federal agencies to detain immigrants. Since July 30, CCA’s stock has increased 8.5 percent, and GEO’s has increased 7 percent. "
*Last year, filings showed GEO Group hired a lobbyist to influence federal immigration legislation, despite promises not to do so. And over the past 12 years, GEO has spent at least $4.2 million on direct, reported political contributions, in addition to other contributions by affiliated political action committees, according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money and Politics. A 2012 Associated Press report found that GEO and the two other largest private prison firms had spent $45 million on campaign donations and lobbyists over the course of ten years. "
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/02/3477866/private-prison-investors-see-profit-in-central-american-migrant-influx/
Dogs that Cops Killed
Most Recent
Blossom
Geist
“Dog”
Chloe
Unnamed Dog Stomped to Death
Scout
Luke
Smokey
Lily Girl
Rosco
Tank, Hump, and Janey
Billy
Two Unnamed Dogs
Ziggy
Boo Boo
Belle
Jack
Bully, Boss, and Kahlua
Baxter
Cisco
Ava
Bucky
Unnamed Belgian Malinois
Deano
Jake
Cammi
Rosie
Patton
Ciarra
Bruiser
Max
Parrot
Gloria
Unnamed Pitbull
Elko
Two Dogs, Names Unknown
Wrinkles
“We don’t give a fuck about your dog.”
A partial list posted August 6, 2014 with pictures.
http://dogmurders.wordpress.com/
East Peoria Police refuse to return body of dog shot by police
Bella, an 8-year-old pit bull, was shot and killed when police answered a dog at large call after she escaped from her yard on Thursday. She was shot in her side in the neighbor's yard as she ran for home. According to Shane, Bella was on private property at the time the officer fired the fatal shot.
Bella almost made it to her front porch before the officer shot her a second time in the chest, killing her.
Although the officers who responded say Bella was "threatening and annoying." Shane says Bella was only barking, and had never bitten anyone or showed any kind of aggression. To make matters worse, East Peoria police allegedly threatened to use a Taser on Shane if he went near Bella, or tried to touch her body.
Then they took Bella's body to an undisclosed area, where it is currently being held at Tazewell Animal Control. Police have ordered Animal Control not to return Bella to her family so she can have a proper burial. The plan is to behead Bella and then cremate her body. East Peoria Police have told the family Bella has already been destroyed.
The family wants a necropsy done for investigative purposes, so police are doing their best not to allow this to happen. This case stinks of a cover up, as necropsy findings have shown an officer guilty of murder and lying in past cases."
Facebook: Justice For Bella
http://www.examiner.com/article/east-peoria-police-refuse-to-return-body-of-dog-shot-by-police
On police brutality and anti-Black racism
Many people were shocked by the militarized force used by police and by scenes of violent street fighting in Ferguson that many Americans and Canadians associate with far-away war zones. This is North America, not Cairo or Gaza. Of course, such comments ignore hundreds of years of brutal state violence against Black and Indigenous people in Canada and the U.S., as well as the violence that is and always has been directed at the poor, or at any resistance posing a threat to the current social order and racial hierarchy."
Less than a week before Brown was killed, police in Ohio shot death 22-year-old John Crawford to death in a Walmart after a shopper called 911, reporting a man in the store with a gun who might “rob the place” or “shoot somebody.” Crawford was on the telephone with the mother of his children, LeeCee Johnson, at the time. He had picked up a toy rifle, the butt of which he was reportedly leaning on when police arrived. His last words were “it’s not real,” before he was shot and killed by the police. Johnson reported, “I could hear him just crying and screaming. I feel like they shot him down like he was not even human.”
Videos that document police violence and abuses of power – particularly directed at Black, mentally ill, and poor people – constantly circulate. This violence is normalized to the extent that when someone whose identities place them in multiple groups is killed – someone who is Black and poor, or Black and mentally ill – many are inclined to view their death as inevitable. An example of this tendency was the police killing on August 19 of a second Black man, 25-year-old Kajieme Powell, not far from Ferguson. Captured in full on a cellphone video, some assessed the situation as “suicide by cops.”
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2014/09/on-police-brutality-and-anti-black-racism/
Are we becoming more STUPID? IQ scores are decreasing
Westerns have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian age, according to a study published by the University of Amsterdam last yea
Dr Woodley and others think humans will gradually become less and less intelligent.
But Dr Flynn says if the decline in IQ scores is the end of the Flynn effect, scores should stabilise.
He thinks that even if humans do become more stupid, better healthcare and technology will mean that all people will have fewer children and the ‘problem’ will regulate itself."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html
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