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.

Diante Yarber: Police kill black father with barrage of bullets in Walmart parking lot | US news | The Guardian

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.

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.

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……..

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