//Included in the grand jury material released tonight after the announcement that no charges would be filed in the Michael Brown killing is a handwritten witness account stating that the teenager charged at Officer Darren Wilson “like a football player. Head down.”
The unidentified witness wrote that the 18-year-old Brown “has his arms out with attitude,” while “The cop just stood there.” The witness added, “Dang if that kid didn’t start running right at the cop like a football player. Head down.”
The witness told of hearing “3 bangs,” but “the big kid wouldn’t stop.”//
//This is not to say that the actual manner by which the police took Garner down should not be thoroughly explored. NYPD guidelines apparently forbid the use of chokeholds, yet The New York Times story notes that a review board has received more than 1,000 complaints of police using chokeholds going back to 2009. The Times also notes that one of the officers who has been plunked on desk duty has been sued twice in federal court for civil rights violations, including one case where he pulled over a vehicle for a broken taillight and then strip-searched its inhabitants on the side of the road.
We should be concerned that the reason why the police swarmed Garner in the first place is getting lost. He allegedly possessed "untaxed cigarettes." That is it. There is this press focus on how the police took Garner down, and the problem with that focus is the question, "Well, what do you do when a 400-pound man refuses to cooperate when you try to arrest him?" Or to put it another way: Would there be an objection to police using a chokehold to take down and subdue man who was engaged in violent activity harming others? Because you know that's going to be part of the defense of this behavior.//
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department killed a man earlier this week, mistaking him for an armed assailant. John Winkler, 30, was actually a victim of the assailant.
Winkler worked as a production assistant on Tosh.0, according to the Los Angeles Times. The sheriff's department said in a statement that Winkler and another man were visiting a friend's apartment. The friend's roommate, Alexander McDonald, allegedly took the three hostage at knifepoint. Deputies were called to investigate. The door of the apartment opened and Winkler and another man, who was covered in blood, ran out. Because Winkler was "lunging at the back of the fleeing victim" and "was similar to the description of the suspect and was wearing a black shirt," three deputies fired at him. He was not armed. //
Earlier this year, eight LAPD officers who shot 103 bullets at two Hispanic women they mistook for one black man, hitting one of the women twice, were simply given "extra training" as punishment. A sheriff's deputy in South Carolina who shot a 70-year-old man because he mistook the man's cane for a rifle was told his actions were "an appropriate response to what he reasonably believed to be an imminent threat to his life." And in Albuquerque, police officers shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man as he turned away from them, which police chief Gordon Eden said was "justified."//
Man to get $1.6M for humiliating 3-enema ordeal after traffic stop
A city and county in New Mexico have agreed to settle for $1.6 million their portion of litigation brought by an arrestee who said he was subjected to a humiliating hospital anal exam involving three enemas, a colonoscopy and more after a traffic stop last year.
The city of Deming and Hidalgo County got a search warrant to authorize the examination of David Eckert after he was pulled over for failing to yield to a stop sign when exiting a parking lot on Jan. 2. It was based on a police dog's alert to the alleged presence of drugs near the driver's seat of his vehicle and a claim that Eckert appeared to be clenching his buttocks, according to the Associated Press and Forbes.
However, the warrant was valid only in Luna County, and a physician at a Deming emergency room refused to perform the examination, Eckert alleges in his suit, which was filed in federal court in New Mexico. Doctors at a second hospital, Gila Regional Medical Center, agreed to perform the exam, but the facility is located in Silver City, across the county line.
Despite the exam, no drugs were found on Eckert or in his vehicle.
"It was medically unethical and unconstitutional," his lawyer, Shannon Kennedy, told the Associated Press. "He feels relieved that this part is over and believes this litigation might make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else."
Eckert's suit also named Gila Regional Medical Center and the doctors who performed the exam as defendants, and that portion of the case is ongoing.//
As long as there are police officers like corporal Christopher Carter of the University of the Incarnate Word campus police, there will be cause for alarm that freedom and justice in the United States have seriously eroded.
The San Antonio campus cop was placed on paid administrative leave following the shooting of a clearly unarmed and non-combative student. What was the 23-year-old student’s crime? Robert Cameron Redus was shot dead by officer Carter at 2 a.m. for nothing more than making a sarcastic remark toward the officer who pulled him over for speeding..
According to the police report, local KSAT News explains that witnesses affirmed that the cop literally “emptied his gun” into the student without warning.
“I didn’t hear him say anything like, ‘Get down on your hands and knees,’ you know?” one witness explained, “I didn’t hear him say anything. He just started shooting. He emptied the gun on him… Boom, boom, boom.Six shots — five or six.”
Mohammad Haidarasl also witnessed the murder, saying that Redus’ last words were “Oh, you’re gonna shoot me?”
Redus couldn’t believe officer Carter would actually go that far, but Haidarasl added that the cop kept yelling “Stop resisting, stop resisting,” even though it was clear Redus was offering no physical residence, only sarcastic comments.//
At a time when over 4 million people have had their health insurance canceled, it’s good to know that some Americans can still access prompt medical treatment, even if they don’t want it. David Eckert was pulled over by police in Deming, N.M., for failing to come to a complete halt at a stop sign in the Walmart parking lot. He was asked to step out of the vehicle, and waited on the sidewalk. Officers decided that they didn’t like the tight clench of his buttocks, a subject on which New Mexico’s constabulary is apparently expert, and determined that it was because he had illegal drugs secreted therein. So they arrested him, and took him to Gila Regional Medical Center in neighboring Hidalgo County, where Mr. Eckert was forced to undergo two abdominal X-rays, two rectal probes, three enemas, and defecate thrice in front of medical staff and representatives of two law-enforcement agencies, before being sedated and subjected to a colonoscopy — all procedures performed against his will and without a valid warrant.
A video posted yesterday on YouTube shows the grisly shooting of a dog by a police officer in Hawthorne, California.The 130-pound, 3-year-old Rottweiler named Max was shot to death after he escaped through a window in a parked car and ran over to his master, Leon Rosby, who was being arrested for filming the scene on his phone.The video (watch original on YouTube) shows Rosby, 52, walking his dog Sunday around 7 p.m. near a house with several police squad cars parked outside.He is seen filming the scene in order 'to make sure nobody's civil rights were being violated,' he told DailyBreeze.com.Rosby is then seen talking to a pair of police officers in the distance.Hawthorne Police Lt Scott Swain said that officers were warning Rosby to turn down the music in his car.'It's distracting the officers. It's interfering with what they are able to hear,' Lt Swain said. 'It's not just a party call. It's an armed robbery call. The officers need to hear what's going on with the people being called out of the residence. That music in his car is bleeding over and it's distracting them.'A neighbor who witnessed the event said they heard Rosby yell 'It's my (expletive) radio!' to officers.But Rosby said that didn't happen because as a Christian he doesn't swear.'I do apologize if I didn't immediately comply,' Rosby said. 'The music may have been a little loud but I was complying.'
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