Category: American Injustice System,

In Alaska hometown, Native women say police ignored rapes

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Susie reported to Nome police that she had been assaulted and went with the investigating officer to the hospital, where a forensic nurse was prepared to perform a sexual assault exam.

But the officer told the nurse not to bother, according to a hospital record that Susie released to The Associated Press.

…Rape survivors and their supporters told the AP that the city’s police department has often failed to investigate sexual assaults or keep survivors informed about what, if anything, is happening with their cases.

Survivors and advocates contend that Nome police pay less attention and investigate less aggressively when sexual assaults are reported by Alaska Native women. More than half of Nome’s population is Alaska Native, largely of Yupik heritage or — like Susie — of Inupiaq heritage. All of its police department’s sworn officers are non-Native.

In Alaska hometown, Native women say police ignored rapes – ABC News

sigh…

Allegations of missing votes in Georgia turned over to Congress

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,Leave a comment

On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each of the other six machines in that precinct, Democrats won every race.

…The odds of an anomaly that large are less than 1 in 1 million, according to a statistician’s analysis in court documents. The strange results would disappear if votes for Democratic and Republican candidates were flipped on machine No. 3.

…The suspicious results in Winterville are evidence in the ongoing mystery of whether errors with voting machines contributed to a stark drop-off in votes recorded in the race for Georgia lieutenant governor between Republican Geoff Duncan, who ended up winning, and Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico.

…Even though it was the second race on the ballot, fewer votes were counted for lieutenant governor than for labor commissioner, insurance commissioner and every other statewide contest lower on the ballot. Roughly 80,000 fewer votes were counted for lieutenant governor than in other down-ballot elections.

…Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office has refused to open an investigation. 

…The Georgia Supreme Court is also considering a challenge to the lieutenant governor’s race. Duncan won by 123,000 votes, but the plaintiffs contend missing votes could have changed the result.

…The decline in votes showed up on ballots cast on the state’s electronic voting machines in 101 of Georgia’s 159 counties. On paper absentee ballots, there wasn’t a significant decline in votes cast for lieutenant governor.

In addition, the drop-off in votes grew more extreme in precincts with large African American populations.

…Electronic voting machines have been marketed as a way to help people of different education and disabilities vote correctly, but the higher undervote rates for African American voters suggests that electronic voting harms historically disadvantaged groups.

…The state’s electronic machines lack a paper ballot that could be used to double-check the accuracy of digital results.

…Why would voters skip the lieutenant governor’s race on electronic voting machines but not on paper absentee ballots? Why would African American voters be disproportionately affected? If votes disappeared, could they have changed the results of the lieutenant governor’s race?

…The unresolved questions about the election have contributed to mistrust in the state’s electronic voting system and questions about election officials’ commitment to investigating complaints in a thorough and nonpartisan manner.

Allegations of missing votes in Georgia turned over to Congress

mmmhmmm

‘Can’t feel my heart:’ IG Says Separated Kids Traumatized

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Modern Parenting,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

The little boy, about 7 or 8, was under the delusion that his dad had been killed. And he thought he was next.

Other children believed their parents had abandoned them. And some suffered physical symptoms because of their mental trauma, clinicians reported.

…Already distressed [by events] in their home countries or by their journey, [many] showed more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress symptoms than children who were not separated [from their families.

…Thousands of childcare workers were given direct access to migrant children before completing required background and fingerprint checks.

…A second Office of Inspector General report found 31 of the 45 facilities reviewed had hired case managers who did not meet Office of Refugee Resettlement requirements, including many without the required education. In addition, the review found 28 of the 45 facilities didn’t have enough mental health workers.

…Children were being given psychotropic medications. …About 300 children overall between May and July of 2018 were prescribed antidepressants. Staff described some concerns that dosages or types of medication may not have been right.

…Federal investigators also found some shelters relying on employees to report their own criminal histories. A background check found one employee — who “self-certified” that she had no history for crimes involving child abuse — had a third-degree child neglect felony on her record.

…Only four of the 45 shelters reviewed by the U.S. Health and Human Services inspector general met all staff screening requirements.

…During a time when sponsors had to be fingerprinted, children were held in facilities for as long as 93 days.

…The watchdog said the longer children were in custody, the more their mental health deteriorated, and it recommended minimizing that time, …creating better mental health care options, and hiring more trained staff.

…”Significant factors”  [the agency refused to own to any responsibility for contributed to the problems.] Those included a surge in children at the border, the children’s …mental health needs and a [lack of the foresight needed to do things like bring in more] qualified bilingual [staff of every kind,] especially in rural areas.

‘Can’t feel my heart:’ IG Says Separated Kids Traumatized

agggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Journalists Blocked from Attending Secretive Immigration Tent Courts

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, The Americas,Leave a comment

The Trump administration is conducting asylum hearings in makeshift tent facilities by the ports of entry in Laredo and Brownsville for migrants who have been forced to wait months in Mexico under the chaotic Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program.

…Court data show that almost no migrants have …lawyers …[representing] them.

…Over 6,000 migrants who arrived in Laredo have been returned to Mexico under MPP; more than 6,000 in Brownsville have also been sent back across the border. Nationwide, more than 42,000 have been returned. In some cases, they have been sent to the city of Monterrey and even as far as Chiapas, well over 1,000 miles away from the U.S. border. Migrants have faced numerous ordeals in Mexico—everything from homelessness to assault.

…Members of the press are normally allowed to observe immigration court proceedings.

…DHS has kept its port courts shrouded in mystery. …[Reporters] have emailed both DHS and the Department of Justice dozens of times to ask when MPP hearings would begin and whether press would be allowed. They have stubbornly refused to provide information.

…DHS finally provided a statement, in which a spokesperson said the tent facilities “will not be open to in-person public access, including media access.”

Journalists Blocked from Attending Secretive Immigration Tent Courts – The Texas Observer

Grrrrrrrrrr

California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Currently, one company, the Geo Group, operates four private prisons in California under contract with the California department of corrections and rehabilitation. The contracts for these four prisons expire in 2023 and cannot be renewed under AB32, except to comply with a federal court order to reduce crowding in state-run facilities.

…The bill’s author, the assemblymember Rob Bonta, originally wrote it only to apply to contracts between the state’s prison authority and private, for-profit prison companies. But in June, Bonta amended the bill to apply to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s four major California detention centers.

…Two of Ice’s largest immigrant detention centers in California are operated by the Geo Group through complicated contracts that use cities as middlemen.

…This complicated subcontracting model allowed Ice and Adelanto to forgo competitive bidding for the center’s operations subcontract.

…“To expand their detention center, Geo Group and Ice would have to cut their ties with the city of Adelanto,” said Jose Servin, the communications coordinator of the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance.

Geo Group asked both cities to break off their Ice contracts and the cities agreed. Ice then provided Geo Group with temporary contracts to operate Adelanto and Mesa Verde. Both agreements expire next March, after AB32 is expected to go into effect.

“My understanding is AB32 would prevent new contracts for these facilities,” said Panah. “The fact they’re on a one-year bridge, it won’t allow them to move from the one-year contract to a longer-term contract.”

…Servin said that while the new law was a significant victory, there was one other thing immigrants rights groups were concerned about. When several sheriffs’ departments canceled their contracts to house Ice detainees last year, instead of freeing the detainees, Ice moved many of them to prisons in Colorado and Hawaii.

California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers | US news | The Guardian

hmmmm

Kamala Harris’s record on criminal justice

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

A generation after Democrats embraced “tough on crime” policies that swelled prison populations, progressive activists are pushing to make the criminal justice system less punitive and racist — and polls show a majority of Democrats support such efforts. 

…A close examination of Harris’s record shows it’s filled with contradictions. She pushed for programs that helped people find jobs instead of putting them in prison, but also fought to keep people in prison even after they were proved innocent. She refused to pursue the death penalty against a man who killed a police officer, but also defended California’s death penalty system in court. She implemented training programs to address police officers’ racial biases, but also resisted calls to get her office to investigate certain police shootings.

But what seem like contradictions may reflect a balancing act.

…Her race and gender likely made this balancing act even tougher. In the US, studies have found that more than 90 percent of elected prosecutors are white and more than 80 percent are male. As a black woman, Harris stood out — inviting scrutiny and skepticism, especially by people who may hold racist stereotypes about how black people view law enforcement or sexist views about whether women are “tough” enough for the job.

Still, the result is the same: As she became more nationally visible, Harris was less known as a progressive prosecutor, as she’d been earlier in her career, and more a reform-lite or even anti-reform attorney general. Now critics have labeled her a “cop” — a sellout for a broken criminal justice system.

…The climate at the time was far less open to progressive criminal justice policy. 

…Still, Harris did embrace some “tough” policies while in the district attorney’s office, such as an anti-truancy program that targeted parents of kids who skipped school and threatened them with prosecution and punishment to push them to get their children to class.

…Based on Harris’s record, supporters easily could have expected her to come into the California Department of Justice as attorney general and really shake things up. But that didn’t happen: Her office’s handling of over-incarceration, the death penalty, and wrongly incarcerated people were among the several issues in which Harris by and large maintained the status quo.

She implemented some reforms: She expanded her “Back on Track” program to other parts of the state. After Black Lives Matter took off, she introduced and expanded what her office described as “first-of-its-kind training” to address racial bias as well as procedural justice — earning praise from local newspapers. She made the California Department of Justice the first statewide agency to require body cameras. And she launched OpenJustice, a platform that, among other data, allows the public to track reported killings by police officers.

…For example, Harris’s office fought to release fewer prisoners, even after the US Supreme Court found that overcrowding in California prisons was so bad that it amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. At one point, her lawyers argued that the state couldn’t release some prisoners because it would deplete its pool for prison labor.

…“There are cases … where there were folks that made a decision in my office and they had not consulted me, and I wish they had.” But Harris could have changed department policy and become more hands-on in pushing reform, if she was willing to risk a potential backlash from the people under her.

…She often described herself as one of them, calling herself California’s “top cop” and writing in her 2009 book that liberals need to move beyond “biases against law enforcement.”

Harris also overlooked and defended law enforcement officials accused of misconduct. In one such case, a state prosecutor, Robert Murray, falsified a confession, using it to threaten the defendant with life in prison. After a court threw out the indictment, Harris’s office appealed it, dismissing the misconduct because it did not involve physical violence.

Harris also resisted some attempts to hold police accountable for shootings, including a bill that would have required the attorney general’s office to investigate killings by police and efforts to create statewide standards for police-worn body cameras. She also defied calls to have her office quickly investigate certain police shootings in California.

…She’s described her support for criminal justice reform as pushing for a better return on investment, pointing out that US prisons see recidivism rates as high as 70 percent or more.

…In the Senate, Harris has consistently backed reforms, although her leadership role on these issues hasn’t been as extensive as that of some other senators.

 

Democratic debate: Kamala Harris’s criminal justice record, explained – Vox

hmmmm

Patrick Crusius mother: Suspected El Paso shooter’s mother called Allen Texas police about son

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,Leave a comment

Patrick Crusius mother: Suspected El Paso shooter’s mother called Allen Texas police about son – CBS News

…And they not only did nothing but they are pretending she wasn’t calling because was concerned and wanted them to do something.

American police forces ne ver accept responsibility for their mistakes and shortcomings. They like they were Donald Trump or something.

There will never be law and order or justice until all American police departments undergo a complete culture change.

…Perhaps they should be banned from having lobbyists or a police union to speak for them? The peanut gallery is usually prounion law enforcement talking heads are a major part of the problem.

‘Straight Pride Parade’: Andrea Campbell wants Boston to review permitting

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Boston,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

While the parade itself went without major incident, some protesters clashed after the event with the hundreds of police officers. The event resulted in 36 arrests and criticism of officers’ use of force, including pepper spray, to disperse the crowd. 

…“While I am a firm believer in free speech, I’m not okay with wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for a group to come into Boston from out of state to create chaos and spread hate,” the District 4 councilor wrote on social media Tuesday.

…The second-term Democrat added that she had received complaints from constituents who were “disturbed and upset by the way some officers responded” and planned to share their messages with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner William Gross.

‘Straight Pride Parade’: Andrea Campbell wants Boston to review permitting | Boston.com

Walsh and company played right into the hands of the parade organizers. Any use of force or waste of resources was exactly their plan/ In the end, BoPo (again!) showed its true colors as a group of lawless armed thugs and city leadership got played like a fiddle.

Mississippi raids: ICE still detaining breastfeeding, single parents

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Modern Parenting,, Race,Leave a comment

For the first three days, Elizabeth refused, wailing each time as she pushed him away. On the fourth day, when hunger overwhelmed her, she finally accepted the bottle. 

“I didn’t know what to do,” Ramirez said. “She kept crying and crying. She was so hungry but she wouldn’t take the bottle. I thought she was going to die.”

Her mother, Norma Cardona Ramirez, was among the 680 people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Aug. 7 during raids at food processing plants in central Mississippi.

…ICE denied that the woman had been breastfeeding. The agency claimed the woman had responded “no” when she was asked if she was breastfeeding. The agency said it had a nurse examine the mother after the story was published – 12 days after her arrest – and that the exam showed she was not lactating.

The woman’s attorneys and her husband maintained that the woman was lactating and had not been asked by agents whether she was. 

Ramirez says his wife also was not asked whether she had children or was breastfeeding.

Ramirez said his wife told him during a phone call that when she was first apprehended in Canton, she was only asked for her full name, her date of birth, her country of origin and her parent’s names. As she continued to be transferred, officials again only asked her those four questions, Ramirez said. At no point was she asked whether she had a child that she was breastfeeding, and she repeatedly tried to tell the agents.

…The day after the raids, Hurst’s office announced about 300 suspected undocumented immigrants were released on “humanitarian grounds.”

If immigration officials encountered two alleged undocumented immigrants with minor children at home, they released one of the parents and returned the individual to the place from which they were arrested, said a news release from Hurst’s office. They did the same thing for single parents with minor children at home, the release said.

At least one woman says that’s a lie.

Mississippi raids: ICE still detaining breastfeeding, single parents

hmmmm