Stephen Hawking says he's an atheist, arguing that science offers a "more convincing explanation" for the origins of the universe and that the miracles of religion "aren't compatible" with scientific fact.

"Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation," the celebrated physicist said in a video posted by Spanish newspaper El Mundo. "What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is we would know everything that God would know if there was a God, but there isn't. I'm an atheist."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/25/stephen-hawking-atheist_n_5882860.html

Tensions boiled over in Ferguson, Mo. when police clashed with protesters Thursday night, hours after the city's police chief apologized in a video to the family of the teenager shot and killed last month."

The protest was interrupted by a melee with cops, and a video from St. Louis Public Radio showed officers in riot gear tussling - and in one instance using a shield to knock over a bicyclist. There are reports of multiple arrests.

"Every person that has worked for weeks trying to keep the peace is walking around upset and feeling like whatever happens next is justified!" Tweeted protestor Charles Wade. "We are hurt. Tonight was a blatant betrayal. I have no sympathy or empathy for any of the police out here. Not one. #Ferguson"

The latest violence comes two days after two businesses suffered damage as anger simmered over the destruction of the makeshift memorial to Brown, which burned down under suspicious circumstances.

Also Thursday, a report claims the man overseeing Ferguson's public relations in the wake of the Brown shooting once shot and killed an unarmed man."

Devin Sean James, 32, began working for the city two weeks after the Aug. 9 shooting, helping officials handle the media crush and PR backlash. But James was convicted of reckless homicide in Tennessee in 2006, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

James was behind the police chief's video apology. In it, Jackson said protesters had a right to peacefully assemble. Those words didn't match the scene on Ferguson's streets a few hours later."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ferguson-police-protestors-clash-chief-apologizes-article-1.1953554

For four years, two months and 13 days, Denver’s official rap on Marvin Booker has been that the street preacher died of natural causes in the booking area of the city jail — coincidentally while under a pile of deputies who had handcuffed, nunchucked, choked and Tasered him.

City internal affairs investigators shaped that narrative when they found no wrongdoing by the deputies, even though the excessiveness of their force was plain to see on videotape.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey chose not to press charges against the officers despite a city autopsy showing Booker’s death was a homicide."

* Videotape shows one deputy, and then a throng of others, grabbing Booker, handcuffing him and shoving him face down onto the floor. For the next few minutes, the gaggle of officers subdue his frail, motionless body with the full force of their much bigger bodies, a chokehold and a stun gun. Several other deputies and medical staff stood watching – nobody appearing on videotape to be outwardly bothered by the prolonged attack. Booker died soon after. "

http://www.coloradoindependent.com/149422/excessive-force-trial-throws-spotlight-on-notorious-denver-jail

I think I may have had a small mental break down last week. I knew it was coming, I was all tight with emotion after some of the responses I received on an open letter I wrote to some New York school teachers who wore NYPD shirts to school on the first day of class– in a largely minority school. When I skimmed through the comments section, I noted an almost sheer disregard for the humanity of the men I referred to in the piece who were murdered by police in the streets. Men like Eric Garner, Michael Brown and John Crawford, whose unfair deaths justify the movement against police brutality. A movement intended to end discriminatory judicial practices. One that most certainly should not be opposed by teachers of minority students.

To many White readers, the issue was simple: the NYPD deserved support from teachers, even if they mess up a couple of times. After all, not “all cops are bad” and most of these guys were doing something wrong anyway.

In a conversation about my piece on Twitter, one woman argued that John Crawford deserved to die, because he was carrying a gun at the Beavercreek, Ohio, Walmart store where he was shot multiple times by police. Despite all of the witness accounts that have said the young man was carrying a toy pellet gun (sold at the store) and on the cellphone with his girlfriend at the time of the shooting, Crawford deserved to die"

* Afterwards, I came home to my boyfriend. I fell in love with him about a year ago, before we even met in person. He wrote a comment on an article that I wrote and his words were so powerful and unique that I knew he was the one. And when I saw him for the first time, his caramel skin and pink lips were perfection to me — they still are. Everyone thought I was crazy for falling in love so quickly.

He probably thought I was too, when I got home that night and collapsed next to him sobbing uncontrollably.

“I don’t want you to die,” I said through gasps of air."

http://www.thefrisky.com/2014-09-22/girl-talk-on-police-brutality-experiencing-blackness-through-my-boyfriends-eyes/

Sad that people have to feel this way in 2014 America.

When a teenage driver refused an Independence police officer’s demand to exit a car last weekend, the officer reached for his stun gun, issued a warning and fired.

Though the FBI is investigating whether Officer Timothy N. Runnels used excessive force when he subdued 17-year-old Bryce Masters, it could be months before its answer becomes public.

According to experts, however, using force against an uncooperative but unarmed suspect should be a police officer’s last resort."

“We should be smart enough to look at different avenues,” he said."

* No national policy exists for appropriate use of force by police. Instead, each of the country’s 18,000 police departments sets it own policy."

*“As with any service weapon, officers can misuse (stun guns),” authors wrote in a 2009 report about police use-of-force cases. Stun gun misuse can range from “outright abusive or illegal use” to less obvious cases of officers pulling them “too early in a force incident,” said the report presented to the National Institute of Justice.

Officers need training not only on how to use the weapons, but also on when, experts say."

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article2184934.html

Amid the new wave of protests in Ferguson, the sad and tragic cycle continues."

September 19, 2014

From Ferguson, Missouri to Staten Island, New York, it seems like a new story about police brutality breaks every day. Here are some recent incidents of police violence from around the nation that you may not have heard about. Because honestly, who can keep up?"

1. 22-year-old black man police claim they shot in self-defense was actually shot from behind

2. 17-year-old is in critical condition after being tased, stepped on and allowed to fall

3. Milwaukee police officer won’t be punished for lying about witnessing an illegal strip and cavity search

4. Officer caught beating a suspect on video is suspended…two months later.

5. Police department famous for police brutality hosts NRA-sponsored law enforcement shooting competition

6. Police commander and Renaissance man of brutality is finally indicted

7. Police threaten to brutalize man if he reports that they brutalized him


Details at link: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/endless-march-police-brutality-7-stories-just-week?page=0%2C0

NEW YORK (AP) -- An expert forensic pathologist hired by the family of a New York City man whose death in a police chokehold this summer was ruled a homicide has agreed with the findings of the city's medical examiner.

Dr. Michael Baden said Friday at a press conference outside the medical examiner's Manhattan headquarters that there was hemorrhaging on Eric Garner's neck indicative of neck compressions.

Baden is a former New York City medical examiner. Last month, he conducted an autopsy of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old man fatally shot by a police officer in August in the Missouri town of Ferguson.

The 43-year-old Garner died following a July confrontation with police on Staten Island."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NY_POLICE_CHOKEHOLD_DEATH_NYOL-?SITE=NYSCH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

On Wednesday the Albuquerque City Council unanimously passed an ordinance to create the new Police Oversight Board."

The new "POB" has the power to subpoena witnesses and police officers in its investigation of civilian complaints and police-involved shootings.

These changes come after dozens of police-involved shootings and an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ investigation found APD has a pattern and practice of excessive force. The DOJ noted the civilian oversight in Albuquerque was lacking resources and funding.

The new POB will have a budget of $750,000, or 1 percent of APD's budget.

The Board will primarily be responsible for investigating all civilian complaints against police officers, as well as police involved shootings."


*The ordinance was sent to Mayor Richard Berry's desk. There may be parts of it that he won't agree with; for example, the council took away the Mayor's power to approve people appointed to the Oversight Board."

http://www.koat.com/news/new-police-oversight-board-passed-by-council/28145696

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Former Birmingham police detective Corey Hooper today was sentenced to serve a year and a day in federal prison for his 2012 conviction on an excessive force charge.

A federal appeals court earlier this year ruled the judge in that case didn't impose a tough enough sentence after Hooper was convicted of hitting a handcuffed man.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in May vacated the five-year probationary sentence and ordered U.S. District Court Judge Inge P. Johnson to re-sentence Hooper. "

*Hooper is to report to the designated prison on Dec. 1 to begin his sentence. She said she wants to give time to the prison system to find a prison that would be safe for a former police officer so he wouldn't have to be held in a jail while awaiting a space to open up. A jail would not be an appropriate place, she said.

With adding the extra day to the 12-month sentence, Hooper will be allowed to accrue good times, which would allow him to be released in about 10 months. The judge also said she would recommend the prison system place Hooper in a halfway house as soon as possible, which would allow him more freedom."

*Meadows said that the case is serious because a police officer was involved. He said Hooper deserved a punishment that would serve as a deterrent to other officers.

Meadows said he would have liked the new sentence to have been closer to the lower end of the guideline range (70 months). "A year and a day sends a message to other police officers that before they decide to haul off and hit a handcuffed suspect there are consequences to that kind of criminal behavior," he said."

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/09/former_birmingham_police_offic_1.html

#t=146

One minute into this YouTube video, you could see an officer pushing a helpless woman to the side while other officers engage in shoving matches with the citizens. Then a male officer gets into a wrestling match of sorts with an unidentified woman before officers are seen bringing a man to the ground while a crowd congregates to watch. One man screamed "you (expletive) hit him."

Sirens blared as the NYPD took control of the situation before a male officer is seen kicking the unidentified man already on the ground at the 2:23 mark of the video. "

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2014/9/17/nypd-investigates-police-brutality-sunset-park