Lawless thugs…
At what point in this country did we start sanctioning law enforcement acting like they are above the law?
Category: American Injustice System,
Alabama police leave black woman topless after violent arrest, video shows
Alabama police leave black woman topless after violent arrest, video shows | US news | The Guardian4
All three officers should be immediately stripped of their badges and arrested for assault. But if they are not stripped (immediately and permanently)of their badges then Saraland cannot claim to be a place of law and order.
IF it occurs to you to ask whether or not I think due process should slow that process? You show me officers in one of these situations that did not go immediately to violent extremes and appoint themselves judge, jury and executioner. If that is the kind of law they are upholding, then that is the kind of law that they deserve to experience.
Philly: the two men in question respond to Starbucks racism arrest
According to Robinson, he and Nelson were held by police for eight hours and did not have their Miranda rights read to them.
Philly Starbucks arrest: the two black men respond to ‘racism’ | Centre Daily Times
sigh…
Philadelphia’s top cop apologizes to black men arrested at Starbucks – CNN
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross apologized Thursday to two black men who were arrested while waiting for a business meeting at Starbucks, saying he made the situation worse by initially defending his officers’ actions.
…”The optics are not lost on me. It is obvious the issue of race is indicative of a larger problem in our society, and I should not at all be the person that is a party to making anything worse relative to race relations. Shame on me if in anyway if I have done that. … I have to do better.”
No charges were filed against the men.*****
Philadelphia’s top cop apologizes to black men arrested at Starbucks – CNN
Damn straight, you should have done better!
***** = IT’s important to note, especially in light of this apology, that the reason these men were not charged with a crime is not be cause the police decided on their own to release them. It is because the DA’s office declined to prosecute.
Diante Yarber: Police kill black father with barrage of bullets in Walmart parking lot
Aghgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Until our police officers are prosecuted for the cold-blooded murders and inexcusable and life-endangering lapses in judgement they make we might as well be a nation without any laws.
Philadelphia mayor ‘heartbroken’ after black men arrested at Starbucks
Mayor Jim Kenney said the coffee giant’s apology was not enough and that the city Commission on Human Relations will examine the firm’s policies and bias training provided its employees.
“I am heartbroken to see Philadelphia in the headlines for an incident that — at least based on what we know at this point — appears to exemplify what racial discrimination looks like in 2018,” Kenney said in a statement.
…“What did they get called for, because there were two black guys sitting here to meet me,” Yaffe says on the video. “What did they do? What did they do?”
A woman can be heard saying, “they didn’t do anything, I saw the entire thing.”
Starbucks: Philadelphia police chief backs cops who arrested black men
The police chief’s loyalty to the thin blue over the community he serves and the law they are supposed to uphold is gross. He needs to go.
The Starbucks Arrests and the Toll of Routine Bias
Over the weekend, a viral video showing the unwarranted arrests of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks led to protests and calls for a nationwide boycott of Starbucks.
…In her tweets highlighting the episode, Melissa DePino, who is white, said that the police had been called since the men hadn’t ordered anything, but they hadn’t ordered anything because they were still waiting to meet a friend. That friend, a white real-estate developer named Andrew Yaffe, arrived after the police and can be seen confronting the officers in both videos, asking them why they were called, and wondering aloud if it was “’cause there are two black guys sitting here meeting me?” Other people in the Starbucks can also be heard saying that the men did nothing wrong.
In the longer video, before the men are handcuffed, Yaffe tells the police that he and his friends will just leave and go somewhere else, but one of the officers dismisses the idea.
“They’re not free to leave,” the officer replies. “We’re done with that.”
The officers then handcuff the men, who do not resist, and take them outside.
…The Philadelphia police later said that the men were arrested for “defiant trespassing,” but were released about nine hours later, at 2 a.m. Friday, after the Starbucks employees and the district attorney’s office declined to press charges.
…One patron who spoke with WPTI-TV confirmed that the incident began after the men were refused access to the restroom, but she claimed that the Starbucks manager did not ask the men to buy something or leave, and just called the police instead. She also said that she had seen a white woman obtain the code for the bathroom without buying something right before the men were arrested, and that during the incident, another person in the Starbucks announced that she had been sitting in the location for hours without purchasing anything.
…No witnesses have described anything the men did that could qualify as causing a “disturbance.”
…[Melissa DePino]is trying to raise white awareness about white cluelessness when it comes to understanding racial discrimination and bias.
“Ever since I posted [the video],” she tweeted on Friday, “I’ve had white strangers AND friends say ‘there must be something more to this story.’ That assumption is a big part of the problem.”
…As Owens and many others have tried to explain this weekend, some variation of what happened in that one Starbucks happens every day all over the country to a lot more people than most of us realize. Addressing it will demand attention and empathy, from outside communities of color, at times when there is no spectacle or novelty to focus on, or corporation’s app to delete, or white woman’s cell-phone video to share.
The Starbucks Arrests and the Toll of Routine Bias
First off, so much for the bs story from Philly’s top Uncle Tom, err, I mean top cop’s story that the officers didn’t want to arrest the two gentlemen involved.
And secondly?
sigh……..
SCOTUS nixes part of law requiring deportation of immigrants convicted of some crimes
The Supreme Court on Tuesday invalidated a provision of federal law that requires the mandatory deportation of immigrants who have been convicted of some “crimes of violence,” holding that the law is unconstitutionally vague.
…As expected after the oral argument, Justice Neil Gorsuch joined with the more liberal justices for the first time since joining the court to produce a 5-4 majority invalidating the federal statute. In doing so, Gorsuch was continuing the jurisprudence of Justice Antonin Scalia, who also sided with liberals when it came to the vagueness of statutes used to convict criminal defendants.
SCOTUS nixes part of law requiring deportation of immigrants convicted of some crimes – CNNPolitics
hmmmm
US Army vet to move to daughter’s birth-land if legally and officially adopted daughter is forced to leave her homeland, the United States
Kansas Army vet to move if adopted daughter forced to leave | The Kansas City Star
Adoptions that leave immigration issues for the children involved are draconian. …And very telling of exactly who is valued and welcome in this society.
Trump judicial nominee refuses to say if landmark civil rights opinion was correctly decided
Wendy Vitter..who is the General Counsel of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans and is married to former Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, who was implicated in the sex scandal concerning the so called “DC Madam” back in 2007… [Vitter]refused on Wednesday to say whether a landmark civil rights opinion was correctly decided, triggering outrage and renewed criticism of the President’s efforts to reshape the judiciary.
….Brown v. the Board of Education — a seminal opinion that held that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Constitution.
“I don’t mean to be coy,” Vitter, who is up for a seat on the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, said at her confirmation hearing, “but I think I can get into a difficult, difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme Court decisions — which are correctly decided and which I may disagree with.”
…That fuck?!!
Stephon Clark shot 8 times, mostly in the back, private autopsy finds
Unarmed Stephon Clark was shot eight times — mostly in the back — by two Sacramento police officers in his grandmother’s backyard, according to an independent autopsy released Friday.
…”This independent autopsy affirms that Stephon was not a threat to police and was slain in another senseless police killing under increasingly questionable circumstances,” said Benjamin Crump, a high-profile civil rights attorney hired by Clark’s family.
…Crump said the results directly contradict the narrative from Sacramento police and shows Clark wasn’t a threat.
…The narrative that had been put forth is that they had to open fire because he was charging at them.
…Clark didn’t immediately die from his wounds, he said, even though just one of the wounds could have been fatal on its own.
Authorities have said several minutes passed before Clark was treated because of fears he was armed.
“Whether you’re fatally wounded or not you should receive immediate and timely medical and surgical intervention,” Omalu said, citing the 2011 shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
She survived after being shot in the head “because of the timely, immediate medical and surgical intervention,” he said, adding “every minute you wait decreases the probability of survival.”
Stephon Clark shot 8 times, mostly in the back, private autopsy finds
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
We’re at a point in our society where officers sworn ot uphold the law and protect the citizenry from harm routinely murder the very citizens they are sworn to protect and afterwards lie about the circumstances of these cold-blooded killings to justify their actions and normalize their dangerous incompetence, inability to think calmly under pressure, and clearly racist paranoias.
If a civilian committed these acts we would be calling for the death penalty. Until we treat violent murderers in police uniforms the same as we would a poor person of color we are a nation without law and order.
Black Marjory Stoneman Douglas students feel overlooked
Black students gathered in Parkland Wednesday said they felt overlooked and underrepresented by both the media and their peers leading the charge for more gun control. And some of the solutions meant to keep them safer in the wake of a gunman slaughtering 17 of their classmates leave them feeling more afraid than before.
Kai Koerber, a 17-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, returned to school after the shooting to see his slain classmates’ empty desks turned into memorials — and a campus swarming with police officers. To him, extra cops around doesn’t mean more people to protect him; it means more chances to become a victim of police brutality.
…Kai worries that police will racially profile students and treat them as “potential criminals,” particularly students of color.
“It’s bad enough we have to return with clear backpacks,” he said. “Should we also return with our hands up?”
Black Marjory Stoneman Douglas students feel overlooked | Miami Herald
hmmmm
Alton Sterling shooting: Baton Rouge officer is fired for excessive force
One of the two white officers who wrestled Alton Sterling to the ground and killed him outside a Louisiana convenience store was fired after an excessive force investigation. The second officer will be suspended for three days.
…Salamoni, the only officer to open fire, was terminated.
…After the announcement Friday, the department released graphic body camera footage showing Salamoni calling Sterling a variety of profanity-laced names while the injured man lay bleeding to death on the concrete.
Alton Sterling shooting: Baton Rouge officer is fired for excessive force
Not enough. A three day suspension is an embarrassment to the city of Baton Rouge and advertisement of a city and its police department’s willingness to shield murderers in their midst.
It’s nice that the fired the shooter but if he isn’t in jail for this violent crime all it amounts to is a slap on the wrist and a tacit nod of permission to officers to act above the law and commit violent crime with clearly racist undertones without fear of consequences.
No police officer who takes the law into their own hand is qualified to uphold the law. Period.
New Indiana law requires doctors make women confess abortion history or go to jail
This truly is straight out of the Handmaid’s Tale. Indiana has a new law which requires doctors and hospitals to interrogate women about whether they’ve had an abortion when they are seeking “treatment for a physical or psychological condition that is in any way connected to a past abortion.” Any provider who fails to submit an “abortion complications” report to the State Department of Health “risks being charged with a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, for each instance of noncompliance.”
New Indiana law requires doctors make women confess abortion history or go to jail
My god….
Alton Sterling case: No charges for La. officers in black man’s shooting death
Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot to death July 5, 2016, as two white officers pinned him to the pavement outside a Louisiana convenience store where he had been selling CDs.The officers were responding to the report of a man with a gun. Officer Blane Salamoni shot and killed Sterling during the struggle. Officer Howie Lake II helped wrestle Sterling to the ground, but Lake didn’t fire his gun.
The killing was captured on cellphone video and circulated widely online, sparking demonstrations across Baton Rouge.
Alton Sterling case: No charges for La. officers in black man’s shooting death – CBS News
Apparently murdering black men is legal in Louisianan, as long as it is done by a police officer.
State Police pay higher than reported, data hidden for years
Revelations about an alleged overtime scam, a wave of suspensions, and hefty pay for Massachusetts State Police troopers have sparked scrutiny of the state’s largest law enforcement agency.
…Payroll records for an entire 140-trooper State Police division — including some of the department’s highest earners — have been hidden from public view and weren’t filed with the state comptroller for several years, the Globe has found.
…The records also show that 393 troopers normally assigned to other State Police divisions worked detail and fill-in shifts for Troop F, collecting another $6.4 million.
In the entire department, at least 299 troopers — about 14 percent — made more than $200,000 last year.
…On Tuesday, Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin revealed that 20 active troopers and one retiree face sanctions in an overtime abuse scandal in Troop E. The troopers allegedly logged hours they did not work, with some alleged violators putting in for as many as 100 no-show shifts.
On Friday, State Police said nine of those troopers were suspended without pay, nine more retired, and one was kept on active duty.
…There has also been infighting within the State Police, with unionized troopers arguing that higher-ranked nonunion workers should not be assigned to work overtime shifts.
…At least 79 percent of Troop F made more last year than Governor Charlie Baker, who earned $151,800. The percentage would be even higher if you included the pay that some workers received in 2017 for time spent in other State Police divisions.
Fourteen Troop F members earned more in overtime than in base pay.
State Police pay higher than reported, data hidden for years – The Boston Globe
Oi…..
Army veteran deported to Mexico after drug conviction
A veteran who did two tours of Afghanistan has been deported to Mexico after his citizenship was denied due to a felony drug conviction.
…Perez-Montes was sentenced to 15 years in prison and had his green card taken away after he was found guilty of delivering cocaine to an undercover cop, CNN reported. He served half of his sentence when deportation proceedings took place.
…“This case is a tragic example of what can happen when national immigration policies are based more in hate than on logic and ICE doesn’t feel accountable to anyone,” Duckworth said in a statement on Saturday.
Perez-Montes reportedly arrived in the U.S. when he was 8-years-old with his parents and sister who are now naturalized U.S. citizens. He has another sister who is an American citizen by birth.
Perez-Montes said his conviction was the result of his PTSD, according to CNN.
Army veteran deported to Mexico after drug conviction | TheHill
Sigh….
Marijuana Arrests Outnumber Those for Violent Crimes, Study Finds
Marijuana Arrests Outnumber Those for Violent Crimes, Study Finds – The New York Times
Because that’s a good use of tax pay dollars?
…Um, no.
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