Sacramento protesters say Stephon Clark should not have been shot – CNN
hmmm
Category: American Injustice System,
Philando Castile charity wipes out school lunch debt in district where he worked
Philando Castile, who was killed by a police officer during a 2016 traffic stop, used to help kids who couldn’t afford lunch. The school nutrition supervisor would dip into his pocket and pay the bill.
Now a charity run in his name has multiplied his mission by thousands, wiping out the lunch debt of every student at all 56 schools in Minnesota’s St. Paul Public Schools, where Castile worked.
…Pam Fergus, the Metro State University educator who runs the fund with her students, dropped off a check for about $35,000 this week at the school district’s office, she told CNN.
The money will clear every cent families owe for school lunches. That’s important because until the debt is paid, students’ caregivers cannot submit paperwork to request free to reduced-price lunches, based on need, Fergus said.
“They just keep accruing the debt, every day getting (further and further) into debt,” she said, adding that some families owed as much as $1,000.
Philando Castile charity wipes out school lunch debt in district where he worked – CNN
sigh….
Sacramento police release video of fatal shooting of unarmed man
Community activists and relatives of Clark have questioned why officers needed to fire 20 shots. In a statement, police said: “At the time of the shooting, the officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them.”
In the three law enforcement videos — one from each of the two shooting officers’ body cameras and one from a sheriff’s helicopter that aided them in tracking down the suspect — officers report several times before they confront the man that they believe he is armed.
…At no time can the officers be heard identifying themselves as police.
…Police acknowledged in their statement Wednesday that no weapon was found.
…They said, ‘Put your hands up, gun,’ and then they just let loose on my nephew,” Durham said.
“They didn’t give him a chance to put his hands up or anything, and then when they shot him down.”
Sacramento police release video of fatal shooting of unarmed man – NBC News
Incompetent, lawless, murderous thugs like these have no business wearing a badge. The idea that murdering someone is OK because you are scared is bullshit. If an officer can keep calm in a tense situation they have no business being an officer in the first place.
Sessions Says to Courts: Go Ahead, Jail People Because They’re Poor
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions retracted an Obama-era guidance to state courts that was meant to end debtors’ prisons, where people who are too poor to pay fines are sent. This practice is blatantly unconstitutional, and the guidance had helped jump-start reform around the country. Its withdrawal is the latest sign that the federal government is retreating from protecting civil rights for the most vulnerable among us.
The Justice Department helped shine a light on the harms of fine and fees when it investigated Ferguson, Mo., three years ago after the killing of the teenager Michael Brown by a police officer.
…Ferguson used its criminal justice system as a for-profit enterprise, extracting millions from its poorest citizens. Internal emails revealed the head of finance directing policing strategy to maximize revenue rather than ensure public safety. Officers told us they were pressured to issue as many tickets as possible.
Even the local judge was in on it, imposing penalties of $302 for jaywalking and $531 for allowing weeds to grow in one’s yard. He issued arrest warrants for residents who fell behind on payments — including a 67-year-old woman who had been fined for a trash-removal violation — without inquiring whether they even had the ability to pay the exorbitant amounts. The arrests resulted in new charges, more fees and the suspension of driver’s licenses. These burdens fell disproportionately on African-Americans.
At the time of our investigation, over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants from Ferguson, a city of 21,000. Untold numbers found themselves perpetually in debt to the city and periodically confined to its jail.
These problems were not unique to Ferguson.
…Sessions pulled 25 guidance documents last week. Sixteen of those involved civil rights protections — including 10 related to the Americans With Disabilities Act and one on the special harms that unlawful fine and fee practices can have for young people. Withdrawing these documents is consistent with the Trump administration’s hostility to civil rights in a host of other areas: abandoning oversight of police departments, reinterpreting anti-discrimination statutes to deny protection to L.G.B.T. individuals and switching sides in key voting rights cases.
Opinion | Sessions Says to Courts: Go Ahead, Jail People Because They’re Poor – The New York Times
Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Elgin residents rally outside police headquarters, demand to know why Decynthia Clements was killed
Many wanted to know why they were not being allowed see the video taken of the shooting, in which Decynthia Clements, an African-American Elgin resident, was shot by Lt. Christian Jensen, a white police officer, in an incident that took place about 2 a.m. on Interstate 90, near Route 59.
…An autopsy conducted Tuesday determined Clements had been shot multiple times. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office deemed her death a homicide, but declined to provide information on how many times she was shot or if toxicology exams will be conducted.
The police’s version of this story is fishy as hell. Police departments and organization around the country have reasonable expectation of respect and cooperation if they are so willing to sling absolute bullshit to protect their officers and their ability to commit malfeasance. Policing can’t work without the community’s trust and the communities cannot trust when they are being jerked around and lied to.
Prosecutors Reviewing Request to Issue Arrest Warrant for Trump’s New CIA Director
Federal prosecutors in Munich are currently reviewing a request to issue an arrest warrant for Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump‘s recently named director of the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”).
…On June 6, 2017, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (“ECCHR”) initiated a request for legal action against Haspel by filing an intervention with the German Federal Public Prosecutor, the foremost law enforcement authority in the Federal Republic of Germany.
…ECCHR’s legal intervention was made by way of a 6-page document titled, “CIA Torture: Submission on Gina Haspel to German Federal Prosecutor.”
Prosecutors Reviewing Request to Issue Arrest Warrant for Trump’s New CIA Director
hmmm
Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant To Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House
Alabama has a Depression-era law that allows sheriffs to “keep and retain” unspent money from jail food-provision accounts. Sheriffs across the state take excess money as personal income — and, in the event of a shortfall, are personally liable for covering the gap.
…Sheriffs across the state do the same thing and have for decades. But the scale of the practice is not clear: “It is presently unknown how much money sheriffs across the state have taken because most do not report it as income on state financial disclosure forms,” the Southern Center for Human Rights wrote in January.
…”A couple people I knew came through the jail, and they say they got meat maybe once a month, and every other day, it was just beans and vegetables,” Qualls told Sheets. “I put two and two together and realized that that money could have gone toward some meat or something.”
…In 2009, then-Sheriff Greg Bartlett of Morgan County was briefly tossed in jail after acknowledging that he had personally profited, to the tune of $212,000, from a surplus in the jail-food account. Prisoners testified about receiving meager meals.
To cut corners, Bartlett used charitable donations and “special deals,” as CBS put it — including once splitting a $1,000 truck full of corn dogs with a sheriff of a nearby county and then feeding the inmates corn dogs twice a day for weeks.
…In 2015, a sheriff in Morgan County loaned $150,000 from the inmate food fund to a corrupt car lot. The loan was revealed when the business, facing theft and scam charges, went bankrupt.
Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant To Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House : The Two-Way : NPR
hmmmm
McCain: Trump’s CIA pick was involved in ‘one of the darkest chapters in American history’
“The torture of detainees in U.S. custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history,” McCain said. “Ms. Haspel needs to explain the nature and extent of her involvement in the CIA’s interrogation program during the confirmation process.”
…The American Civil Liberties Union said Haspel was “up to her eyeballs in torture, both in running a secret torture prison in Thailand and carrying out an order to cover up torture crimes by destroying videotapes.”
McCain: Trump’s CIA pick was involved in ‘one of the darkest chapters in American history’
hmmmm
How for-profit prisons have become the biggest lobby no one is talking about
via How for-profit prisons have become the biggest lobby no one is talking about – The Washington Post
(An old article but it is circulating again.)
How? For starters, I’m going to go with the fact that advocating for convicted criminally isn’t the sexiest job out there….
And yes, Rubio is a bought and paid for hack. Not exactly breaking news. Even back in 2015, not exactly breaking news. Why is this a surprise to anyone? Have they never watched him speak???!
California Coffee Shop Policy: No Uniformed Police
This California coffee shop has a policy: No police
For me, the most interesting part about this story is not explicitly included. A uniformed officer is refused. He is offended or what-have-you and puts the word out in the law enforcement community, apparently expecting the pressure to gain him an apology and/or a reversal of the policy.
…And all that happened was the shop owners doubled down.
It would seem that -at the very least- the local police need to step up their diplomacy game, if not make changes in policy and procedure would lead to them being seen -by the actual community and its citizens- as actually working with and protecting the community.
How Trump changed the rules to arrest more non-criminal immigrants
In Trump’s first year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 109,000 criminals and 46,000 people without criminal records — a 171% increase in the number of non-criminal individuals arrested over 2016.
…The Trump administration has subtly blurred the distinction between criminals and those with final orders of removal, which is a civil, not criminal charge.
…Critics say including people with decades-old final orders of removal as priorities is more about boosting numbers by targeting easily catchable individuals than about public safety threats.
…Sandweg said that people with final orders, especially those who are checking in regularly with ICE, are easy to locate and can be immediately deported without much legal recourse. Identifying and locating criminals and gang members takes more investigative work.
…”We shouldn’t spend one penny on low-hanging fruit,” said Sarah Saldana, the most recent director of ICE before Trump’s inauguration. “What we should be spending money is on getting people who are truly a threat to public safety.”
…If 20 officers are assigned to identify targets with final orders, “those are 20 officers who won’t be out focused on finding gang members or criminals,” said Bo Cooper, a career official who served as general counsel of ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
“When there are a finite amount of resources, choices you make come at the expense of other choices,” Cooper said. “It really is a significant policy choice.”
How Trump changed the rules to arrest more non-criminal immigrants – CNNPolitics
hmmm
Secret documents show 319 NYPD staffers should have been fired for misconduct
…BuzzFeed gained access hundreds of pages of internal documents that revealed more than 300 staffers of the New York Police Department lied, cheated, stole or even assaulted people while on the job.
The “secret” employment files lists at least 50 staffers for lying on official reports or under oath, and 38 have been found guilty of excessive force by an internal police tribunal, fighting or firing their weapon unnecessarily. That adds to the 57 staffers found guilty for driving under the influence and 71 found guilty of ticket-fixing.
REVEALED: Secret documents show 319 NYPD staffers should have been fired for misconduct
sounds about right….
NH House votes to ban sobriety checkpoints
The bill’s supporters argued that checkpoints are inefficient and said that according to one trooper, fewer than 1 percent of drivers who are stopped are charged with drunk driving.
Supporters also said checkpoints can erode relations between police and the public because drivers don’t like being stopped, and that because officers get paid overtime it makes the practice expensive as well.
NH House votes to ban sobriety checkpoints
hmmmm
New recovery center set to open at former Boscawen jail
The Merrimack County delegation voted in the summer of 2016 to spend a total of $6.8 million to transform the jail into a transitional center.
…The finished facility will house minimum-security inmates and provide both inpatient treatment and housing for work release. Multiple classrooms, a visitation area, segregated living quarters and a small dining hall make up the space that will be used by up to 34 men and 34 women at one time.
Monday through Friday, participants attend classes that teach them about substance abuse recovery, trauma recovery, cognitive therapy and fundamental life skills.
New recovery center set to open at former Boscawen jail
hmmmm
Bill To Overhaul Drug Sentences Faces Uncertain Fate; GOP Senator Lashes Out At DOJ
The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act would put more power in the hands of individual federal judges and pave the way for about 3,000 federal inmates punished under old crack cocaine drug laws to ask courts for leniency. It also creates incentives for low-risk prisoners to participate in programming* and ease their return to society.
The bill has attracted broad bipartisan support in the divided Senate, with nearly two dozen sponsors from both political parties. That’s a source of pride for Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
But this week, on the eve of the committee vote, Sessions went out of his way to send a letter to Grassley calling the legislation a “grave error” because he said it would “reduce sentences for a highly dangerous cohort of criminals.”
…Grassley noted that Sessions was a controversial choice to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, but that the senator had shepherded him through the process. And, Grassley added, he defended Sessions again last year after President Trump moved to fire him — only to be paid back with an unwelcome letter targeting a bipartisan compromise he had worked hard to achieve.
Bill To Overhaul Drug Sentences Faces Uncertain Fate; Senator Lashes Out At DOJ : NPR
Um, Grassley? Have you been awake at all in the past two years? What would ever possess you to think you can count on the friendship of the Cheeto in Chief or any member of his cabinet? Just desserts for just plain stupidity, maybe?
*A tiny footnote here: “Programming” is an interest choice of turn of phrase…
Ahed Tamimi’s trial gets under way behind closed doors
Ahed Tamimi, 17, was arrested in December after a video of her slapping and hitting two Israeli officials outside of her house in the village of Nabi Saleh went viral. Her mother, Nariman, was arrested soon after.
Court proceedings began on Tuesday at Israel’s Ofer detention centre, with only family members allowed into the hearing after the judge barred reporters despite a request for a public trial by Gaby Lasky, the lawyer of the Tamimis.
…Amit Gilutz, spokesperson for Israeli rights group B’Tselem, said all of the practices being used against Ahed and Nariman “are completely routine” for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“The military courts themselves are one of the most injurious mechanisms of the occupation and are not designed to seek justice or truth, but to maintain the occupation,” Gilutz told Al Jazeera.
…Ahed has since become an icon for the 330 Palestinian children currently held in Israel’s prisons, and rights groups have demanded her immediate release.
“As an unarmed girl, Ahed posed no threat during the altercation with the two Israeli soldiers who were heavily armed and wearing protective clothing,” Magdalena Mughrabi, deputy director for Amnesty International’s Middle East and Africa programme, said in a statement on Monday.
Mughrabi said Ahed had not done anything that could justify her continued detention and “the long, aggressive interrogation sessions she has been forced to endure”.
“Yet again, the Israeli authorities have responded to acts of defiance by a Palestinian child with measures that are entirely disproportionate to the incident in question,” she added.
…The village has also faced rising threats from settlers residing in Israel’s illegal Halamish settlement, located adjacent to the home of the Tamimi family.
Earlier this month, locals said Israeli settlers had snuck into Nabi Saleh in the middle of the night and sprayed graffiti around the village, including slogans such as “Death to Ahed Tamimi” and “There’s no place in this world for Ahed Tamimi”.
Ahed Tamimi’s trial gets under way behind closed doors | Palestine News | Al Jazeera
Not sure which is worse, being black in the US justice system or Palestinian in the Israeli court system. Either way, you’re pretty much fucked.
All-Male Committee Hears Bill On Feminine Hygiene Products In Prison
“In our prison system,” Rep. Athena Salman said, addressing nine of her male colleagues, “a 16-count of Always ultra-thin, long pads cost $3.20.”
“Rep. Salman, Can you keep your conversation to the bill itself? Please?” Rep. Jay Lawrence interrupted.
“Yes, Mr. Chairman,” Salman replied, and she went right on talking about tampons and pads. That was, after all, what House Bill 2222 — the bill she sponsored — is about.
Under current policy, women in Arizona prisons get 12 pads a month for their menstrual cycle. Additional pads cost more money. So do tampons.
All-Male Committee Hears Bill On Feminine Hygiene Products In Prison | KJZZ
Sigh…
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