http://www.dailykos.com/user/Shaun King/rss/index.xml News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Mon, 27 Feb 2017 06:05:46 +0000 Mon, 27 Feb 2017 06:05:46 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/14/1432305/-A-love-letter-to-liberal-America <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/161543/large/thumb-revolution-love-twitter-header-headers-4804.jpg?1440819453" alt="" width="300" height="150" /></span></div> Dear Liberal America, <p>For the past year, it has been my honor and privilege to write for you day in and day out here at Daily Kos. I believe in this platform, the team behind it, and where it's going. I have truly learned as much about what makes the political world tick during my year here as I hope you have learned about racial injustice from my writings.</p> <p>On my last day on the staff, I wanted to thank you for fighting for progressive issues, for taking stands on the environment, for healthcare, for women's rights, for voting rights, for equal pay, for immigration reform, and for a fair and just America.</p> <p>I say "fighters" because I've learned during my time at Daily Kos that liberal America is scrappy, tough, and always willing to put up a good fight. Don't ever let that ethic slip away.</p> <p>I want to be sure, though, that you never get so hooked on the battle, on the war, on the fight, that you forget the people who need us to actually get some good shit done. Yes, we should be fighting the good fight, but immigrants need meaningful reform way more than they need us to fight for generations over it.</p> <p>Americans, particularly young America, needs us to do more than fight for gun control, we have to make some meaningful, substantive progress and actually close the gun show loophole, etc. It's not enough to fight for it. Our fighting didn't stop Sandy Hook or Oregon and it won't stop the daily mass shootings that are surely coming.</p> <p>Listen, the problems with the American justice system are severe. Millions of families are being torn apart about by mass incarceration and police brutality. It may be the case that 99% of you reading this have never closely experienced either of those things, but my dream is that you will fight for hardcore reforms on those issues like your own life depends on it.</p> <p>You saw the presidential debate last night. We have credible options. Our leaders aren't reality TV stars or doctors who point gunmen toward cashiers at a Popeye's Organization (smile). However, I've learned the hard way that whatever those leaders, or your local leaders get done, is going to be fueled by our grassroots momentum and influence.</p> <p>Organize! Organize! Organize!</p> <p>I believe in our future and know that all of our fighting can lead to more than just a bunch of exhausted fighters, but real change.</p> <p>Love you! Let's keep it going.</p> <p>Shaun</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Recommended ShaunKing _1432305 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:25:51 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/14/1432193/-Asked-whether-Black-Lives-Matter-or-All-Lives-Matter-Bernie-Sanders-absolutely-nailed-the-answer <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/170304/large/RTS4CJF.jpg?1444835139" alt="Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on during the first official Democratic candidates debate of the 2016 presidential campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson - RTS4CJF" width="550" height="343" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Bernie broke it down</div> </div> During the first Democratic presidential debate of the year on Tuesday, one moment stood out above all others. <p>Bernie Sanders was asked what really amounted to a trick question. His answer was bound to either piss off all of conservative America, or the passionate women and men behind the Black Lives Matter movement. The entire panel was asked, via a video submission, to basically choose between Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter.</p> <p>Bernie nailed the answer. Watch it below, then I'll share some thoughts with you.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Bernie Sanders BernieSanders Black Lives Matter BlackLivesMatter Recommended ShaunKing _1432193 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 15:20:13 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/14/1432132/-Inspired-by-the-book-The-New-Jim-Crow-Mark-Zuckerberg-visits-San-Quentin-prison <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/170289/large/12079944_10102423007510321_1805454851579468512_o.jpg?1444828675" alt="Mark Zuckerberg visits San Quentin" width="550" height="366" /></span></div> On Tuesday afternoon, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, visited California's San Quentin Prison. Zuck <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102423008982371">posted about his visit on Facebook and stated</a>:<br /> <blockquote>Today Priscilla and I visited San Quentin State Prison. Earlier this year I read <em>The New Jim Crow</em>, a study of how the US justice system disproportionately criminalizes and jails Blacks and Latinos. We wanted to see first hand what prison conditions are like for people -- and we got a chance to speak with inmates and staff. <p>US jails hold around 2.4 million people -- about 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Blacks and Hispanics are significantly more likely than whites to be arrested for possession and sale of marijuana and to receive a conviction and criminal record, even though the majority of marijuana users are non-Hispanic whites. Almost 40 percent of prisoners are black. More than half the people entering prison live below the poverty line. Our entire society pays the price for an unfair, broken system.</p> <p>San Quentin has one of the best track records of people not returning to jail in the country. They run programs to teach valuable skills to help inmates find jobs and avoid criminal activity.</p> <p>In this photo, I'm talking with inmates who are taking a coding course. I was impressed by their spirit to return to their communities and provide for their families, as well as the dedication of the staff to help them reclaim their lives.</p> <p>Making our criminal justice system fairer and more effective is a huge challenge for our country. I’m going to keep learning about this topic, but some things are already clear. We can’t jail our way to a just society, and our current system isn't working.</p> </blockquote> This visit to San Quentin comes just two months after President Obama became the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/16/423612441/obama-visits-federal-prison-a-first-for-a-sitting-president">first sitting president to visit a federal prison</a>. Now, visits from President Obama and the CEO of Facebook aren't going to change all of the problems that fuel mass incarceration. But it's an important step in the right direction to have such prominent leaders showing that they care. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) MarkZuckerberg SanQuentin _1432132 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 14:29:15 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/13/1431577/-Fix-is-in-Investigator-hired-by-Cleveland-for-Tamir-Rice-murder-cited-by-DOJ-for-extreme-bias <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/125758/large/Tamir_Collage.jpg?1422041942" alt="" width="550" height="183" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Tamir Rice, alive and well</div> </div> Tamir Rice was shot and killed by Cleveland Police 11 months ago. The case of his death has been passed around like a hot potato from office to office to office in Cleveland and local prosecutors claim they are still investigating it. <p>On October 10, Prosecutor Tim McGinty released results from investigators he hired to look at the case and offer their own "expert" opinion.</p> <p>As it turns out, the prized investigator he hired, a former FBI agent, <a href="http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/investigations/2015/10/12/investigator-video-records-show-tamir-rice-experts-held-pro-police-stance/73833152/?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter">was actually cited by the Department of Justice for outrageous bias</a> benefitting police on the issue of the use of force—the very thing at play in this case. In fact, Kimberly Crawford was seen as so biased that her testimony was flat-out rejected in a separate case being considered by the DOJ.<br /></p> <blockquote>In a past case of police use of deadly force, Crawford's opinion was rejected by the Department of Justice for being outside the law, "overly protective of law enforcement" and going "too far to exonerate the use of force."</blockquote> Local media made this discovery within hours of the "expert" reports being released to the media. In other words, it was widely known and easily discoverable that the expert hired by the prosecutors would come back with such a finding. <p>In fact, what's difficult is finding a case where Kimberly Crawford said a police officer was unreasonable in their use of force. I've searched for days now and can find no such thing.</p> <p>This is tragic, and in my opinion, makes it clear that Prosecutor Tim McGinty should be pulled off of this case. On its face it's ridiculous for him to release these findings and prejudice local jurors, but the discovery of the bias of his experts is damning.</p> <p>Again, we've reached the point where it is painfully obvious that local prosecutors are unable to adjudicate police violence fairly.<br /></p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Cleveland McGinty Recommended ShaunKing TamirRice _1431577 Tue, 13 Oct 2015 16:43:00 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/13/1431428/-Bloody-strapped-to-chair-video-shows-police-tasering-Matthew-Ajibade-in-the-testicles-before-death <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/170058/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-13_at_7.11.55_AM.png?1444734759" alt="The execution of Matthew Ajibade" width="550" height="309" /></span></div> <iframe width='275' height='353' src='https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1188.embed' style='box-shadow: 0px 3px 10px 6px #EBEBEB;margin: 0px 15px 10px 15px;float:right;' defang_overflow="false" frameborder="0"></iframe>It is now abundantly clear that Matthew Ajibade was murdered by police in Savannah, Georgia. For over 10 months, police and prosecutors have concealed the video evidence of his murder not only from the public, but from Ajibade's closest friends and family members. His death in police custody was ruled a homicide by coroners, but the whole of Savannah's government has colluded in covering up the sadistic and brutal murder of a beloved artist and photographer who was a student at Savannah College of Art and Design. <p>The video below is awful and is confirmation that the United States tortures and kills its prisoners on American soil. Torture is not something that happens far away in Abu Ghraib: It's happening here.</p> <p>In case you can't stomach the video, here's an explanation of what happens, so that you can understand it and prepare to speak out against it.</p> <p>On New Year's Day 2015, Matthew Ajibade was arrested after a mental health crisis. Instead of being taken to a hospital, Ajibade, who was otherwise in perfect physical condition, was taken to jail—against his family's wishes. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429354/-10-months-after-his-in-custody-death-video-shows-police-kicking-and-punching-Matthew-Ajibade">In a video we received last week</a>, police are seen punching and kicking Matthew Ajibade in the face and head before restraining him.</p> <p>Now, after Ajibade was stripped of his clothes and handcuffed to a restraining chair, we see the worst. The police Taser has a camera attached to it that is automatically triggered when the device is turned on.</p> <p>Strapped to the chair after already being beaten and stunned with a Taser multiple times, we see a red light, the target of the Taser, continually pointed at Matthew's groin. The audio from the Taser camera is distorted, but we see little to no movement from Ajibade.</p> <p>It gets much worse.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) MatthewAjibade Police Brutality PoliceBrutality Recommended _1431428 Tue, 13 Oct 2015 11:55:45 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/12/1431064/-Exonerated-from-death-row-in-Louisiana-Glenn-Ford-received-nothing-more-than-a-20-gift-card <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/169882/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-12_at_2.06.11_PM.png?1444673223" alt="Glenn Ford" width="550" height="302" /></span></div> <iframe width='275' height='353' src='https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1451.embed' style='box-shadow: 0px 3px 10px 6px #EBEBEB;margin: 0px 15px 10px 15px;float:right;' defang_overflow="false" frameborder="0"></iframe>On October 11, <em>60 Minutes</em> aired one of the most moving, disturbing, flagrant stories of injustice I've ever seen in my life. This is one of those posts where <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/30-years-on-death-row-exoneration-60-minutes/">you just need you to see it for yourself, okay</a>? <p>In it, you will meet Glenn Ford, who recently died of Stage 4 lung cancer after serving 30 years on death row in Louisiana's notorious Angola prison. He was completely exonerated and set free after spending half of his life behind bars for a crime he did not commit.</p> <p>You will also meet two other people, and they must be seen to be believed.</p> <p>One is Marty Stroud, the repentant prosecutor who helped convict Glenn Ford and is about the only man on earth you'll ever hear express remorse for such a thing.</p> <p>The other is Caddo Parish District Attorney Dale Cox, who I've long believed to be an evil human being.</p> <p>This interview proved it—so much so that it was stranger than fiction. If I wrote a fictional prosecutor and made him say the things that Dale Cox says, people would call me heavy-handed. He is truly a sick man.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/30-years-on-death-row-exoneration-60-minutes/">Please watch it</a> and see how they somehow justify Glenn Ford not receiving any compensation from the state other than a $20 gift card. It's horrible.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DaleCox DeathRowLouisiana GlennFord Recommended _1431064 Mon, 12 Oct 2015 18:09:49 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/12/1431010/-A-monument-to-Dr-King-will-soon-be-placed-on-Stone-Mountain-critics-say-he-s-not-Southern <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/150300/large/Children_with_Dr._Samuel_Green__Ku_Klux_Klan_Grand_Dragon__July_24__1948.jpg?1435202583" alt="Two children wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods stand on either side of Dr. Samuel Green, a Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, at Stone Mountain, Georgia on July 24, 1948." width="542" height="422" /></span></div> For millions of years, all the way up through 99 percent of human history, Stone Mountain didn't have a racist rock in its body. However, after American slavery ended and it was replaced with Jim Crow, the beautiful bulge of granite became a meeting place for the Ku Klux Klan. Soon, as a middle finger to both southern progress and the Civil Rights Movement, it was horrifically defaced with an enormous carving of confederate generals—making what was a universal mountain for all into a very divisive place for millions. <p>Now Atlanta is the black capital of America and the city of Stone Mountain is a majority African-American town. But a deeply painful symbol stands smack in the middle of it, placing the park in quite a precarious position.</p> <p><a href="http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/10/11/a-monument-to-mlk-will-crown-stone-mountain/">Park officials have announced</a> they will be placing a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the apex of the mountain to mark a moment in his "I have a dream" speech in which he mentions Stone Mountain (as a bastion of racism, it should be noted).<br /></p> <blockquote>On the summit of Stone Mountain, yards away from where Ku Klux Klansmen once burned giant crosses, just above and beyond the behemoth carving of three Confederate heroes, state authorities have agreed to erect a monument to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. <p>Specifically, an elevated tower — featuring a replica of the Liberty Bell — would celebrate the single line in the civil rights martyr’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech that makes reference to the 825-foot-tall hunk of granite: “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.”</p> <p>“It is one of the best-known speeches in U.S. history,” said Bill Stephens, the chief executive officer of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. “We think it’s a great addition to the historical offerings we have here.”</p> <p>The “freedom bell” will, in fact, sound from the mountaintop. How often, or when, hasn’t been determined.</p> </blockquote> Of course, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/king-memorial-planned-georgias-stone-mountain-atlanta-paper-183152510.html">racists will be racist and have already expressed</a> their sad but strangely humorous disapproval. <p>Read on.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Recommended ShaunKing StoneMountainDrKingKKK _1431010 Mon, 12 Oct 2015 17:21:01 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/12/1430894/-No-police-killing-12-y-o-Tamir-Rice-wasn-t-reasonable-it-was-a-heartless-murder-backed-by-lies <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/132069/large/Screen_Shot_2015-03-02_at_4.05.39_PM.png?1425331067" alt="Last known photo of Tamir Rice before he was killed by Cleveland PD. Taken just a few weeks before his murder." width="550" height="339" /></span></div> On November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by Cleveland Police while he was playing in his local neighborhood park. Now, a full 11 months after his death, prosecutors who claim they're still investigating the case have started leaking random "expert" reports they commissioned, stating that the murder was reasonable. <p>Really? What the hell does reasonable mean? Because this shooting was anything but reasonable.</p> <p>Released on a Saturday night, these reports appear to be prepping the city for the reality that the prosecutor's office has little intention of presenting charges to the grand jury.</p> <p>Here are seven reasons why the police murder of Tamir Rice was completely unreasonable, and Officer Timothy Loehmann should be fired immediately and charged with his murder. You must consider all of the facts in concert with one another to see just how criminal Rice's murder truly was.</p> <p><strong>1</strong>. Years before Officer Timothy Loehmann shot and killed Tamir Rice, he was fired from his local police department in Independence, Ohio, just 12 miles away from Cleveland.</p> <p><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/09/1356660/-The-outrageous-tragic-hiring-of-Officer-Timothy-Loehmann-by-the-Cleveland-PD">In their final report on his termination, which included statements on his poor performance in gun training, his extreme emotional instability, and his willingness to lie</a>, his supervising officers detailed infraction after infraction and concluded "I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies."</p> <p>There's much more.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) ClevelandPolice McGintyProsecutor Recommended ShaunKing TamirRice TimothyLoehmann _1430894 Mon, 12 Oct 2015 15:16:29 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/09/1429926/-How-Georgia-has-made-it-effectively-impossible-to-convict-cops-who-kill-171-murders-0-convictions <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/153092/large/Georgia_state_flag.png?1436465096" alt="" width="550" height="344" /></span></div> When American police brutality is discussed, people now think of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ferguson, Cleveland, Tulsa, and even Albuquerque. But curiously, the entire state of Georgia has pretty much gotten a pass. <p>It shouldn't.</p> <p>Atlanta's leading paper, the <em>Atlanta Journal-Constitution</em>, in partnership with Channel 2 Action News <a href="http://www.myajc.com/news/news/crime-law/ajc-investigation-why-fatal-police-shootings-in-ga/nnxfx/">did an incredibly deep dive into police brutality in my home state</a>. What they found is deeply disturbing.<br /></p> <blockquote>The AJC/Channel 2 investigation found that: <p>Not a single fatal police shooting since 2010 has gone to trial.</p> <p>Two-thirds of police shooting cases never went to a grand jury because district attorneys used their discretion not to bring charges.</p> <p>Of 48 cases that went to grand jury, only nine involved the presentation of a criminal indictment. In the rest, the prosecutor simply asked the grand jury to determine if the shooting was justified or unjustified.</p> </blockquote> Consequently, only one officer has ever been indicted in Georgia and less than 24 hours after the indictment, a judge overturned it. It's the Georgia way. Not one case of police murder has even gone to trial. <p>When it comes to using lethal force, Georgia police are absolutely above the law. As expected, the study found that the majority of times police used lethal force, it was often when they were faced with extremely dangerous circumstances. This is fine. This is fair.</p> <p>What crosses the ethical boundaries of fairness is the completely unrealistic and downright ridiculous possibility that of the 171 times Georgia police officers killed someone, they were never in error. According to the record, Georgia police are mathematically perfect when it comes to lethal force.</p> <p>That, though, is why such a deep dive is critical. They aren't perfect. Egregiously unethical cases of police violence exist in Georgia, but even in those cases ... crickets.</p> <p>This is by design. Here's how ...</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Georgia Police Brutality PoliceBrutality ShaunKing _1429926 Fri, 09 Oct 2015 17:44:30 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/09/1429884/-As-Charleston-pays-family-of-Walter-Scott-6-5-million-true-justice-is-as-elusive-as-ever <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/137607/large/CCE8I5NUkAAS34x.jpg?1428511196" alt="Officer Michael Slager executing Walter Scott" width="550" height="257" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Walter Scott shot and killed in cold blood by Officer Michael Slager</div> </div> We've seen this before. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/10/08/north-charleston-reaches-6-5-million-settlement-with-walter-scotts-family/">In its largest police brutality settlement ever</a>, the city of North Charleston paid the family of Walter Scott $6.5 million because of his wrongful death at the hands of Officer Michael Slager. Aside from discussing how the cost of a life is calculated, we've seen this before. <p>The family of Freddie Gray <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;ved=0CCwQFjACahUKEwjDr8iD5LXIAhXHmIAKHSnlDQU&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.baltimoresun.com%2Fnews%2Fmaryland%2Ffreddie-gray%2Fbs-md-ci-boe-20150908-story.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNEX-LVV4HpoI9CMFwifMmNgTAl3-g&amp;sig2=dQqLGIQTmg30OPcYYAf_tg">just settled for $6.4 million</a>.</p> <p>The family of Eric Garner just <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=5&amp;ved=0CDcQFjAEahUKEwjmrqiU5LXIAhUDlA0KHUcGAb4&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fct-eric-garner-police-chokehold-case-settlement-20150713-story.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNFzOa_P-2OiFnOJsBzSKvMLD-6aSg&amp;sig2=ElDOdKcV0oJ6JELe4YpF3Q">settled for $5.9 million</a>.</p> <p>Rekia Boyd: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;ved=0CCgQFjACahUKEwiYgLCv5LXIAhVMmYAKHad3C6k&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsone.com%2F2278454%2Frekia-boyd-chicago-settlement%2F&amp;usg=AFQjCNGJsk6uIWlSyzqsvKKDzErS22IVGg&amp;sig2=IxYOGVtYMBTuIyBOWvYPLw">$4.5 million</a>.</p> <p>Laquan McDonald: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;ved=0CCUQFjABahUKEwjX6N-_5LXIAhWBr4AKHQytA7E&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fbreaking%2Fct-million-dollar-police-settlement-met-20150410-story.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNFSHe65JF00uULDz5nXL7kX-kH6Kg&amp;sig2=ZLCIlyTuvF_wGQgUrnjuZQ">$5 million</a>.</p> <p>Jonathan Ferrell: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwi8gOXR5LXIAhUF1IAKHQBuB3o&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charlotteobserver.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fcrime%2Farticle20983929.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNHmNtsmoFdRmSvYN-JlnbFfjO085w&amp;sig2=BpIVyEdsjvohMjwZqJowOg">$2.5 million</a>.</p> <p>This list could have thousands of names on it.</p> <p>New York City alone <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;ved=0CCUQFjABahUKEwjGpbXA5bXIAhWIlQ0KHaeiBUk&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2015%2F05%2F15%2F1384993%2F-Let-s-stop-saying-bad-police-officers-are-rare-Fact-is-they-re-plentiful-from-coast-to-coast&amp;usg=AFQjCNFBhwLnpHacJJQvfpupWz4rCUOImA&amp;sig2=9E0G8Y2x4tubneREQtb7fw">has paid <em>billions</em> of dollars in settlements</a> for police brutality, and Chicago is not far behind.</p> <p>Wanna know the one consistent theme in all of those cases?</p> <p>Not one officer was found guilty of a crime. Not one.</p> <p>How could it be that billions of dollars are spent in an admission that wrongdoing took place, but nobody is ever held truly responsible for that wrongdoing?</p> <p>Even the officers who fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo were found not guilty. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;ved=0CCEQFjABahUKEwi_76T75bXIAhVC1YAKHUg2BGs&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2004%2F01%2F07%2Fnyregion%2F3-million-deal-in-police-killing-of-diallo-in-99.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNHliVxgE636eqGkQme5-FrUmI8wFw&amp;sig2=Gh3UDAFDCG2VLelDV4IuCQ">The city paid millions for it</a>, but the officers all got off.</p> <p>It's simply not enough for these families who are destroyed by police brutality to receive huge taxpayer-funded settlements. Officers and departments must be held truly accountable for their actions.</p> <p>This isn't justice. These are payoffs.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Charleston MichaelSlager Police Brutality PoliceBrutality ShaunKing WalterScott _1429884 Fri, 09 Oct 2015 16:24:17 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/09/1429809/-Conservatives-pretend-to-have-a-principled-problem-with-looting-to-justify-attack-on-DeRay-McKesson <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/169373/large/deray.jpg?1444401784" alt="DeRay McKesson" width="550" height="309" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">DeRay McKesson</div> </div> Over the course of the past year, DeRay Mckesson has become the most visible activist and spokesperson for racial justice in America. So it isn't surprising that those who oppose what he stands for would attempt to discredit him every chance they get. What's wild about this is that Mckesson is about the most calm, measured, methodical, thoughtful spokesperson this movement could ever have and instead of seeing him as such, conservative pundits and politicians have consistently attacked him as the enemy. <p>The <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/darrensands/deray-mckessons-yale-students-rand-paul-was-wrong-about-the?utm_term=.xcQRk5JQg#.udNpZJ61G">recent attack comes from Rand Paul</a> and Fox News. After Mckesson was invited to be a guest lecturer for a few days at Yale University in early October, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/11/black-lives-matter-activist-to-teach-special-course-at-yale-this-fall/">Fox News first began blasting Yale</a> for hiring a "race hustler" as a professor. Facts don't matter at Fox, because DeRay wasn't hired as a professor and the term "race hustler" is a demeaning, derogatory slur used to describe anyone who truly cares about addressing racism in America.</p> <p>Soon, presidential candidate (if you can honestly call him that) Rand Paul decided he needed to weigh in on the content of the guest lecture. In the course, DeRay had required reading for the students. One such article, among many, was entitled "<a href="http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-defense-of-looting/">In Defense of Looting</a>." It's a fascinating and important read about a topic that is far more complicated and nuanced than soundbites want to make it.</p> <p>It was a small part of the lecture, but important nonetheless.</p> <p>Because no conservative talking heads actually took the course, they just caught wind that the article was used in it. Conservatives then do what they do and reduced, in the most racist way possible, the entire experience to Mckesson teaching Yale students how to loot.</p> <p>Read on to find out what conservatives were <em>really</em> objecting to.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DerayMcKesson Looting RandPaul Recommended YaleDivinitySchool YaleUniversity _1429809 Fri, 09 Oct 2015 14:58:22 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429414/-Scientific-study-shows-that-when-white-people-hear-black-names-they-imagine-big-violent-criminals <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/169251/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-08_at_1.53.34_PM.png?1444326830" alt="Life Cornbread Meme" width="550" height="314" /></span></div> I wish I was joking. <p>I wish this was <em>The Onion</em>.</p> <p>I wish this was satire.</p> <p><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151007110735.htm">It's not</a>. The results of a large UCLA study just published in the <em>Official Journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society</em>, are, to say the least, disturbing.<br /></p> <blockquote>In a study exploring racial bias and how people use their mind's-eye image of an imagined person's size to represent someone as either threatening or high-status, UCLA researchers found that people envisioned men with stereotypically black names as bigger and more violent. <p>The study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, sought to understand how the human brain's mechanism for interpreting social status evolved from the same mental systems that our early ancestors originally used to process threats. In a series of studies involving more than 1,500 people, the researchers found that an unknown black male is conceived of similarly to an unknown white male who has been convicted of assault.</p> </blockquote> And the participants in the study, it is worth noting, were overwhelmingly liberal.<br /> <blockquote>During one version of the study, the mostly white participants, aged 18 to mid-70s, from all over the United States and self-identifying as slightly left of center politically, read one of two nearly identical vignettes. One featured a man named Jamal, DeShawn or Darnell, and the other featured Connor, Wyatt or Garrett -- monikers selected based on prior research into names most commonly associated with various ethnic groups.</blockquote> In their own imagination, Jamal, DeShawn, and Darnell tended to be large men with violent tendencies while men named Connor, Wyatt, or Garrett were imagined as small, calm, men with a bent toward peace. <p>In other words—based on names alone—African American men start off as superhuman thugs in the imagination of white folk.<br /></p> <blockquote>"I've never been so disgusted by my own data," said lead author Colin Holbrook, a research scientist in the anthropology department in the UCLA College. "The amount that our study participants assumed based only on a name was remarkable. A character with a black-sounding name was assumed to be physically larger, more prone to aggression, and lower in status than a character with a white-sounding name."</blockquote> America. 2015. Wow.<br /> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) LifeCornbread RacialInjustice ShaunKing stereotypes _1429414 Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:05:45 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429354/-10-months-after-his-in-custody-death-video-shows-police-kicking-and-punching-Matthew-Ajibade <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/146858/large/Matthew-Ajibade.jpg?1433513855" alt="Matthew Ajibade" width="550" height="550" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Matthew Ajibade, alive and well</div> </div> On January 1, 2015, Matthew Ajibade died in custody after his family called police for assistance. He was having a severe mental health crisis and his family begged police to take him to the hospital, along with his medicine. <p>Police in Savannah, Georgia decided to take him to jail instead.</p> <p>For the past 10 months the police, the jail, and prosecutors have refused to release any videos from Ajibade's brief time in custody that would shed light on the circumstances surrounding his death. Now that several officers are on trial, <a href="http://wsav.com/2015/10/07/ajibades-violent-jail-encounter-aired-in-court/">a short segment of video was played for those that were present in open court</a>.</p> <p>In it, two things appear to be obvious:</p> <p>1. Ajibade appears physically fit and severely delusional. He is disturbed by the colors of the chairs in the room. He just can't get past it. This is just further confirmation that he was in urgent need of medical intervention.</p> <p>2. Ajibade, who died within hours of this incident, is seen being punched repeatedly and kicked in the back of the head by police. This is extremely relevant because <a href="http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/06/coroner-matthew-ajibade/#">his autopsy revealed blunt force trauma</a> to his head and upper body. His death was ruled a homicide.</p> <p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/09/matthew-ajibade-deputies-fired_n_7246562.html">Nine officers were fired</a> for a variety of offenses in Ajibade's death, but answers are still hard to come by.</p> <p>The partial video is below. Officers claimed they suffered a broken nose and concussion from their altercation with Ajibade. Is that from the confrontation shown below? It doesn't appear so.<br /></p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) MatthewAjibade Police Brutality PoliceBrutality SavannahPolice ShaunKing _1429354 Thu, 08 Oct 2015 16:29:41 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429247/-Rupert-Murdock-Ben-Carson-and-the-twisted-white-supremacist-notion-of-the-good-blacks <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/164612/large/RTX1RPSM_(2).jpg?1442340436" alt="Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks to the press after speaking at the Commonwealth Club at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, California, September 8, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam - RTX1RPSM" width="550" height="392" /></span></div> Really? A "real black President," huh? <p>The level of foolishness and aloofness in this tweet from Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, is maddening.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" defang_xml:lang="en"> <p lang="en" dir="ltr" defang_xml:lang="en">Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black President who can properly address the racial divide? And much else.</p> — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) <a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch/status/651924724960874497">October 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <p>1. What he really means is: Ben Carson is a negro that conservatives love, and that makes him real. For centuries, white folk have made it their business to define the humanity of black folk—from the 3/5ths clause until now. Rupert: You don't have the power to define what or who is real, and what or who is black.</p> <p>2. A long-held view is being advanced here. That's the feeling that certain African Americans—"the good blacks"—who play by certain rules, are paid by particular people, and always color within the lines set by white supremacy are more valuable than others. When Rupert used the word "real" he was subscribing value and showing that he has a mental calculation of what makes an African American high on his chart or not. Paul Barrett, in his book entitled <em>The Good Black</em>, spells out what these rules are and how they can sometimes allow one to advance in a system not created with them in mind.</p> <p>3. "Properly address"—what Rupert means here is that Uncle Ben will well-represent white needs to black folk. Because not a single word has come out of Ben's mouth that addresses the real root causes of the so-called racial divide that Rupert references.</p> <p>4. Black folk, almost universally, reject Ben Carson—not because he's a Republican, but because he is not a spokesperson for issues that truly matter to black people. The same is true for you, Rupert. We reject you.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BenCarsonRupertMurdock GoodBlack Recommended ShaunKing _1429247 Thu, 08 Oct 2015 13:45:52 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/07/1429020/-After-firing-137-shots-at-an-unarmed-couple-it-s-doubtful-any-Cleveland-Police-will-even-be-fired <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/145248/large/Michael_Brelo_trial6_1428490845011_16367106_ver1.0_640_480.jpg?1432655166" alt="Crime scene photo of car after shot up by Officer Michael Brelo" width="550" height="413" /></span></div> This, ladies and gentlemen, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/10/07/3709483/will-the-cleveland-cops-who-fired-137-rounds-at-2-unarmed-people-be-fired/">is your America</a>.<br /> <blockquote>In 2012, an unauthorized police chase involving one-third of Cleveland’s police force and 59 unsanctioned officer vehicles ended with 13 officers firing 137 rounds at two unarmed black people, killing them on the spot. Only one of the 13 cops who shot at Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams was brought to trial, and he was found not-guilty in May. <p>Now, having successfully avoided criminal charges for the deaths of Russell and Williams, who were initially pulled over for a turn signal violation, the 13 cops face termination from the city’s police department for firing their weapons. Internal disciplinary hearings initiated by the safety director began this week.</p> </blockquote> Often called the <em>Brelo case</em>, after Cleveland Police Officer Michael Brelo, who was the lone officer charged in the egregious shooting, few people have any faith whatsoever that any officers will be disciplined for their reckless actions. Initially claiming that Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams shot at them, it turned out they were completely unarmed and that their car, a much older model, simply made a loud backfiring noise. <p>It's outrageous that it has taken three years for the safety hearings to even begin. But the fact that such egregious actions may or may not result in the termination of the officers involved is a sad sign of the state of American policing. Officers, particularly in Cleveland, can get away with damn near anything at this point.</p> <p>And almost one year after Cleveland Police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, prosecutors claim they are still investigating.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Brelo ClevelandPolice Recommended ShaunKing _1429020 Wed, 07 Oct 2015 20:44:00 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/07/1428795/-Say-what-Investigation-proves-these-4-men-are-innocent-but-must-serve-their-life-sentences-anyway <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/169061/large/Chicago_Innocent.jpg?1444236620" alt=" Roberto Almodovar, 40, Robert Bouto, 39, Jose Montanez, 48, and Armando Serrano, 43," width="550" height="550" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Roberto Almodovar, 40, Robert Bouto, 39, Jose Montanez, 48, and Armando Serrano, 43,</div> </div> This is a tough story to wrap your mind around, so let's try to break it down in the simplest way possible. It's a tragic mess of injustice of the highest magnitude. <p>Four Latino men from Chicago are serving sentences of 45 years to life for three different crimes committed 20 or more years ago.</p> <p>Roberto Almodovar, now 40 years old, was convicted 21 years ago, when he was 19, for killing two different people in Chicago.</p> <p>Robert Bouto, now 39 years old, was convicted 22 years ago, when he was just 17, of killing a popular 15-year-old boy.</p> <p>Armando Serrano, 43, and Jose Montanez, 48, were convicted 22 years ago, when they were 21 and 22, of killing a 27-year-old man.</p> <p>For decades, each of these men have proclaimed their complete innocence. A major investigation commissioned by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel was launched into these cases and others. The results <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/melissasegura/officials-doubt-these-men-are-guilty-but-they-cant-go-free#.seaE7bM2V">determined that all four of these men are very likely completely innocent</a> of the crimes they were convicted for.</p> <p>This would seem to be an enormous—albeit tragic—victory. Exhaustively thorough reports were leaked to Buzzfeed detailing each investigation and the final conclusions that these men were framed for murders they didn't commit.</p> <p>Preposterous right?</p> <p>It is preposterous, until you learn who was refusing to reopen their cases or vacate their sentences. Then it all makes sense.</p> <p>Anita Alvarez may be the worst, most corrupt prosecutor in America. The <em>Washington Post</em>'s Radley Balko agreed. Read on.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) 39 40 43 48 AnitaAlvarez ArmandoSerrano JoseMontanez Recommended RobertBouto RobertoAlmodovar ShaunKing _1428795 Wed, 07 Oct 2015 17:45:15 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/07/1428748/-Definition-of-white-privilege-9-people-killed-20-shot-no-murder-charges-everybody-released <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/143724/large/10994605_816733141708577_355984240111120626_n.jpg?1431899667" alt="" width="550" height="412" /></span></div> <iframe width='275' height='271' src='https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1013.embed' style='box-shadow: 0px 3px 10px 6px #EBEBEB;margin: 0px 15px 10px 15px;float:right;' defang_overflow="false" frameborder="0"></iframe>If you are not yet familiar with the term <em>white privilege</em>, here's your introduction to it <p>On May 17, 2015 in Waco, Texas, 170 people were arrested after a shootout/brawl in which nine people died and 20 were seriously injured. The story took over the news and was covered in an endless loop for days.</p> <p><a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20151004-of-170-held-after-waco-biker-shooting-all-are-now-out-of-jail-with-none-charged-in-killings.ece">Every single person who was arrested has been released</a>. Not one person has been charged with murder.</p> <p>This, ladies and gentlemen, is the epitome of white privilege.<br /></p> <blockquote>Of the 135 people originally ordered to wear GPS ankle monitors, all but 22 have been allowed to remove them, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported Sunday. Their lawyers have reached agreements with prosecutors to modify the conditions of their pre-trial release.</blockquote> Let's now juxtapose these men, who killed nine people just a few months ago, up against Kalief Browder, an African-American high school sophomore who was arrested for stealing a man's backpack. Read on. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BobbyReed KaliefBrowder Recommended ShaunKing WacoBikers _1428748 Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:59:20 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/06/1428336/-The-new-police-brutality-law-that-Congress-the-Department-of-Justice-absolutely-refuse-to-enforce <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/126391/large/RTR4NBQW.jpg?1422481891" alt="Loretta Lynch is sworn in to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on her nomination to be U.S. attorney general on Capitol Hill in Washington January 28, 2015. Lynch, nominated in November, has stirred little controversy in her" width="550" height="339" /></span></div> On December 18, 2014—in the immediate aftermath of the police killings of Eric Garner, Mike Brown, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, and Akai Gurley—Congress passed a law entitled the Death In Custody Reporting Act. It's embedded below or <a href="https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ242/PLAW-113publ242.pdf">you can see it here</a>. President Obama signed it. <p>That makes it a law. In fact, "Public Law 113-242."</p> <p>Here's an essential paragraph of the law:<br /></p> <blockquote>The State shall report to the Attorney General, on a quarterly basis and pursuant to guidelines established by the Attorney General, information regarding the death of any person who is detained, under arrest, or is in the process of being arrested, is en route to be incarcerated, or is incarcerated at a municipal or county jail, State prison, State-run boot camp prison, boot camp prison that is contracted out by the State, any State or local contract facility, or other local or State correctional facility (including any juvenile facility).</blockquote> After this paragraph, it specifically details what information is required, how and when it should be submitted, etc. <p>Here's the thing: Our government is refusing to enforce this law. Attorney General Loretta Lynch all but said that the collection of this data, as mandated by law, is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/02/loretta-lynch-reports-killed-by-police">a very low priority for her</a> and that she will not push it.</p> <p>Read on for more on this unbelievable development.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DeathinCustodyReportingAct LorettaLynch Police Brutality PoliceBrutality ShaunKing _1428336 Tue, 06 Oct 2015 16:21:14 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/06/1428261/-Yes-I-know-the-context-of-this-t-shirt-and-yes-it-is-still-ridiculous <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/168867/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-06_at_10.19.48_AM.png?1444141204" alt="Meryl Streep Slave T-shirt" width="550" height="298" /></span></div> It wasn't until 24 hours after seeing this photo of Meryl Streep that I found out why in the hell she was wearing the shirt, and <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/meryl-streep-suffragette-shirt-is-unfortunate.html#">where the phrase originally came from</a>. In 2015, that's how social media is shared—particularly statement photos like this. They aren't given a nuanced explanation. They aren't preceded with an asterisk or a warning or even a caption. <p>When I first saw the photo, I was disturbed and confused. It seemed to be making a very bad statement about slavery and how, if given the choice to either be enslaved or be a rebel, that Meryl, a middle-aged white woman who takes shit from nobody of course, would choose the rebellion over captivity any day of the week.</p> <p>Here's the actual context:<br /></p> <blockquote>A week after notable humanist Meryl Streep distanced herself from the word feminist in her Suffragette interview with Time Out London, photos have begun to circulate of the cast wearing T-shirts with a quote from Emmeline Pankhurst, the woman Meryl portrays in the film. The T-shirt, which says, "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave," is meant to inspire women to fight for the right to vote. Here's the complete wording: <p>"Know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion. I would rather be a rebel than a slave."</p> </blockquote> All of that considered, the shirt and the campaign are ridiculous. It may have sparked a conversation. But before doing that, it deeply offended thousands of people who took it at face value and assumed it was a privileged white woman making a peculiar statement on slavery. <p>Words have resonance and deep cultural meaning that must be considered when creating a fashionable campaign. For instance ...</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) MerylStreep Rebel Slave t-shirt _1428261 Tue, 06 Oct 2015 15:13:01 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/06/1428245/-A-critique-of-this-ridiculous-but-popular-meme-on-Michelle-Obama <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/168863/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-06_at_9.34.20_AM.png?1444139451" alt="Michelle Obama meme" width="550" height="505" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Sigh.</div> </div> <iframe width='275' height='331' src='https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1460.embed' style='box-shadow: 0px 3px 10px 6px #EBEBEB;margin: 0px 15px 10px 15px;float:right;' defang_overflow="false" frameborder="0"></iframe>This photo and its ignorant caption just won't go away. It's been shared over 6,000 times on Twitter, but the levels upon levels upon levels of bullshit being expressed in the caption must be addressed. <p>1. Michelle Obama is badass. For almost their entire adult lives, she made more money than he did. In her last role as a VP at the University of Chicago Hospital she was making over $300,000 per year, and that was in 2005.</p> <p>2. Michelle Obama has a bachelor's degree from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. Nobody— not her husband, or anybody else—<em>gave her the world</em>. Even being the first lady in general doesn't equate that, but it sure as hell doesn't mean that for her. They are equal partners in life. Right now, and during most of his presidency, she has been more popular than he. She campaigned for his presidency like a woman possessed. Barack didn't give her the world. STOP!</p> <p>3. The caption in this photo implies that Michelle found a scrub, she stuck with him, and he eventually became a king. That's a damn lie too. She was already working at a law firm and they met <em>at a law firm</em> while Barack was a summer associate. He was completing his education at Harvard Law School at the time. He was the opposite of a scrub: He was the ambitious editor of the Harvard Law Review and was already serving the community in meaningful ways. They were peers and they are still peers to this day.</p> <p>Hell—I'm convinced that if she ran for president, she could win it.</p> <p>That's all.</p> <p>Foolishness sometimes need to be ignored, but in this case, it needed to be addressed head on.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Memes MichelleObama MichelleObamaMeme Recommended _1428245 Tue, 06 Oct 2015 13:57:38 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/05/1427924/-More-proof-of-a-cover-up-in-the-St-Louis-Police-murder-of-Vonderrit-Myers <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/168676/large/1413351960964_Image_galleryImage_An_18_year_old_man_has_di.jpg?1444060686" alt="Vonderrit Myers" width="550" height="512" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">VonDerrit Myers—alive and well</div> </div> Evidence continues to mount that the St. Louis Police Department is covering up what truly happened when they shot and killed VonDerrit Myers in October 2014. <p>His family <a href="http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_aaaa0b5c-5b11-11e4-8b2c-ffa5bf7c7d4b.html?mode=jqm">just released the autopsy results</a>, which show that Myers appears to have been shot from behind.<br /></p> <blockquote>Myers’ family hired pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht to conduct a study of the gun wounds from October 8, when Myers was shot and killed by an off-duty St. Louis Metropolitan Police officer. <p>Six bullets struck Myers on the rear part of his body and the other two were “not directly frontal,” Wecht said. One shot hit him on the right side of the face, between the eyebrow and the ear. Another shot struck him on the side of his left thigh.</p> <p>Wecht said he did not know the order in which the wounds were inflicted. However, he said the head wound would have rendered him unconscious immediately. Wecht also investigated the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley and JonBenet Ramsey.</p> <p>One of the family’s lawyers, Jermaine Wooten, said the report’s findings – showing almost all shots from behind – contradict the story of the police officer, who has not been identified. Police representatives have said that Myers was facing the officer the entire time.</p> </blockquote> In addition to these troubling autopsy results, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/02/1427216/-Is-this-a-potential-break-in-the-St-Louis-police-murder-of-Vonderrit-Myers">several other factors</a> continue to point to something extremely peculiar in this case. They include the fact that Myers' DNA was not on the gun police claimed to find; eyewitnesses and other geo-locating evidence contradict the entire police narrative of chasing Myers; and an earlier video taken minutes before he was killed appears to show Myers completely unarmed. <p>Finally, the partner of the man who shot and killed Myers appears to be caught in a scandal himself. A jury believes <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/02/1427216/-Is-this-a-potential-break-in-the-St-Louis-police-murder-of-Vonderrit-Myers">he also planted a gun on a young black man in St. Louis</a>, and attempted to frame him for something he didn't do.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) ShaunKing StLouisPolice Vonderrit Myers VonderritMyers _1427924 Mon, 05 Oct 2015 16:07:38 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/05/1427877/-Why-in-the-hell-did-it-take-a-random-viral-video-for-McGraw-Hill-to-fix-this-mistake-on-slavery <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/168663/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-05_at_10.01.03_AM.png?1444053706" alt="McGraw Hill Textbook on Slavery " width="550" height="487" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Screenshot of the actual textbook</div> </div> Welcome to America: Where in 2015, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/04/living/mcgraw-hill-slavery-textbook-mom-complaint-feat/index.html">even our textbooks are racist</a>. <p>Disgusted at what she saw in her ninth-grade son's high school geography textbook, Roni Dean-Burren <a href="https://www.facebook.com/roni.deanburren/videos/10208248919206996/">took to Facebook</a> to express how outraged she was to see the horrors of American slavery glossed over and rewritten. Her video, seen below, has received nearly 2 million views, sparked a serious nationwide dialogue, and finally garnered a response from McGraw-Hill, the maker of the textbook itself.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) McGraw-Hill RacistTextbookSlavery Recommended ShaunKing Slavery _1427877 Mon, 05 Oct 2015 14:22:28 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/02/1427216/-Is-this-a-potential-break-in-the-St-Louis-police-murder-of-Vonderrit-Myers <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/110346/large/BzhqX0RCYAA3xXq.jpg_large.jpeg?1412950468" alt="Vonderrit Myers" width="550" height="309" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Vonderrit, without a gun, buying a sandwich moments before being killed by St. Louis Police</div> </div> On October 8, 2014, VonDerrit Myers, who was beloved by his family and community, was shot and killed by off-duty St. Louis Police Officer Jason Flanery, who was working as a paid private patrolman. For the past year since Myers was murdered, nobody in the community has felt like the official police story added up. Two days after he was killed, I concluded the same thing <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/10/1335651/-Why-does-the-St-Louis-PD-keep-changing-their-story-about-the-murder-of-VonDerrit-Myers">in a thorough breakdown of his last hour alive</a>. <p>Yesterday, writers for the <em>St. Louis American</em> <a href="http://www.stlamerican.com/news/political_eye/article_c900bdfc-67af-11e5-b376-cbe5b4f8724d.html#.Vg1EvGSLZm0.twitter">broke a very important story</a> that may truly provide some extra insight into what could've happened on October 8 in the police shooting death of Myers.<br /></p> <blockquote>On September 23, a St. Louis city jury acquitted 20-year-old Keyon Bennett, who is black, of all four felony charges for which he was charged, based on the testimony of a white city police officer. The jury did not believe that on June 11, 2014 Bennett pointed a gun at Officer James Zwilling before he fired one or possibly more shots at Bennett in the Greater Ville neighborhood. They did not believe that Bennett was carrying a gun at all, as Zwilling testified. <p>The other officer who assisted Zwilling that day was Officer Jason Flanery, who shot and killed VonDerrit Myers Jr. less than four months later while working private security in the Shaw neighborhood on October 8, 2014.</p> </blockquote> Let me translate that for those of you that may not be living and breathing this case. <p>A young brother named Keyon Bennett was arrested on four felony counts stemming from aiming and firing a weapon at a St. Louis Police officer, but when it went to court last week, the jury flat out concluded that the officer made the whole damn thing up and dropped all of the charges.</p> <p>All by itself, that is newsworthy. That never happens. In fact, I can't recall another instance where this has happened.</p> <p>All things considered, prosecutors should now press charges against Officer James Zwilling—but that's not really how St. Louis rolls. They literally have <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/22/1338366/-How-can-Gov-Nixon-call-for-peace-in-Ferguson-when-Jeff-Roorda-is-his-closest-ally">a corrupt cop as their spokesperson</a>.</p> <p>Now, this becomes extremely relevant for Myers because the man who killed him, Jason Flanery, was with Officer James Zwilling when he basically attempted to frame Keyon Bennett.</p> <p>It's doubly relevant because what the jury believed Officer James Zwilling was lying about is almost completely identical to the story Jason Flanery gave for why he chased, shot, and killed Vonderrit Myers. It's uncanny how similar the stories are.</p> <p>If Zwilling was willing to frame an innocent man and Flanery went along with it, it's not illogical that Flanery would be willing to pull this mess on his own as well.</p> <p>Myers, 18, had just purchased a sandwich with his friends from the local Shaw Market on the night he was shot and killed. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-st-louis-braces-after-latest-shooting-of-black-man-20141009-story.html#page=1">In an interview</a> with Matt Pearce of the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, the manager of the market, Berhe Beyet, said:<br /></p> <blockquote>Like six minutes after I sold him a sandwich, he got shot... He wasn't armed when he was here. He didn't have a hoodie.</blockquote> This observation from the store manager is confirmed by the still images and recently released video of Myers and two of his friends taken just minutes before he was killed. It raises a series of questions about exactly what transpired between the time Myers purchased a sandwich, not wearing a hoodie, and then got shot at 17 times by a St. Louis police officer just minutes late—in possession of a gun and wearing a hoodie. <p>This is essential because jurors in the case of Keyon Bennett <a href="http://www.stlamerican.com/news/political_eye/article_c900bdfc-67af-11e5-b376-cbe5b4f8724d.html#.Vg1EvGSLZm0.twitter">believed that police may have planted a gun on him</a>.</p> <p>Below the fold is the video from the Shaw Market.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) ShaunKing StLouisPolice Vonderrit Myers VonderritMyers _1427216 Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:05:27 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/02/1427150/-Never-a-goodbye-we-re-family-now <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/168031/large/247545_2110928979710_6828142_n.jpg?1443811498" alt="" width="400" height="300" /></span></div> (This is not simply a cut and paste of my Facebook post!) <p>Hey Everybody. I have a bittersweet announcement.</p> <p>After an amazing year on the staff of Daily Kos I am leaving to become the Senior Justice Writer for the New York Daily News. I start later this month and will be covering social inequality, police brutality, and racial injustice in America and around the world.</p> <p>I love Daily Kos and think of the team here as my family. I always will. Not only have they taught me so much about the industry, they've had my back through so many battles this past year...and they were many!</p> <p>I particularly want to thank all of my editors, the close knit editorial team (thinking of you Barb, Laura, Kerry, Joan, Jen, Kerry, Hunter Tim, David, and crew), the social, campaign, and activism teams, the trusty web crew, Denise in HR, Will for being such a great leader, and two people that I'm deeply grateful to know, trust, and admire - Susan &amp; Markos. Thank you for believing in me and for being there when I needed you the most. When you two reached out to me one year ago, I was deeply humbled and grateful. I still am. We all work hard here, but working with and for you has been nothing but a joy. I mean that.</p> <p>You've helped me grow as a writer and as a person. THANK YOU.</p> <p>Markos - your example of courage and boldness in the face of opposition has inspired me often over this past year. Thank you for not just being an awesome boss, but a brother and friend.</p> <p>Also, I want to offer a special thank you to the Daily Kos community and supporters. You all are the best. I honestly came here as an outsider to a very networked community, but you all have supported me when I needed it and critiqued me where you saw fit. I'm better for it. I will now remain a member of this community, but just in a different role.</p> <p>I'll be starting at the Daily News later this month. As you may know, the New York Daily News isn't a decidedly liberal outlet. The audience is also very different, but I hope to bring much of what you have welcomed here to the New York Daily News audience.</p> <p>Keep pushing, keep fighting, keep advancing the issues and causes that we all believe in so much. Also, I have three very selfish requests...</p> <p>1. As you may know, we have an amazing new writer on our team, Josie Duffy. She's awesome. Read and support everything she does. Her specialty is tracking prosecutorial misconduct, but she covers so much more than that and is one of my favorite writers out right now.</p> <p>2. We're going to be hiring a strong replacement for the work I'm doing and I hope you welcome her/him with open arms and give them a running start. We're looking at strong candidates already.</p> <p>3. So many of you have told me that I'm your primary voice on police brutality. Please don't let my absence here cause your passion about the issue to change. Of course I'll still be covering it, but our team here will too, and our country has SO much work to do on this issue and I truly believe that Daily Kos will be a real part of the process.</p> <p>Thank each and every one of you again.</p> <p>Your friend and brother,</p> <p>Shaun</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Civil Rights CivilRights DailyKos NewYorkDailyNews Recommended ShaunKing _1427150 Fri, 02 Oct 2015 18:50:31 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/02/1427068/-Chicago-police-and-prosecutors-caught-lying-as-they-cover-up-their-murder-of-Darius-Pinex <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/167987/large/darius_pinex.jpg?1443799169" alt="Darius Pinex" width="550" height="413" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Darius Pinex, alive and well, before being murdered by the Chicago Police Department</div> </div> The Chicago Police Department is <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/24/1424510/-The-deep-ugly-and-damn-near-unbelievable-rabbit-hole-of-violence-corruption-within-the-Chicago-PD">the most corrupt police department in America</a>. With every day that passes, this conviction only grows deeper. We've now learned that police and prosecutors told blatant lies to cover up the 2011 police murder of Darius Pinex—a beloved young father from the south side of Chicago. He was shot after allegedly hitting and dragging an officer with his car following a traffic stop. <p>The day after police shot and killed Pinex, the public coverup leaked to the media. <a href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Police-Officer-Dragged-By-Fleeing-Suspect-113072339.html">The first news story stated</a>:<br /></p> <blockquote>Police said officers pulled over 27-year-old Darius Pinex just after 1:30 a.m. after noticing his vehicle matched the description of one used in an earlier shots fired call.</blockquote> Except this was <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-police-shooting-trial-evidence-20150925-story.html">a complete fabrication</a>. New evidence shows that the arresting officers, their superior officers, and prosecutors all knew this wasn't true and that the car Pinex was driving didn't match the vehicle they claimed it did.<br /> <blockquote>Hours after the fatal shooting of the driver of an Oldsmobile Aurora, two Chicago police officers assigned to one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods explained to investigators why they had pulled the car over early that morning and approached with their guns drawn. <p>"Well, this um, the car we were approaching fit the description of a vehicle that was wanted from a shooting in another district," Officer Gildardo Sierra said in a recorded statement to investigators from the city agency that investigates police shootings, records show. "It came across the wire from our ... police radios."</p> <p>Now, nearly five years later, their account of what precipitated the encounter with Darius Pinex at that dark Englewood intersection has fallen apart amid allegations of a cover-up by the police and the city. The controversy threatens to overturn a jury verdict in the officers' favor, potentially exposing the city to millions of dollars in liability.</p> </blockquote> A second account of the day confirms this, and that the lawyer for the city in the civil case, Jordan Marsh, <a href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Family-of-Man-Killed-by-Chicago-Police-Seek-New-Trial-329706411.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_CHBrand">also knowingly concealed it</a>. &nbsp;<br /> <blockquote>But that dispatch actually aired in a different radio zone, so the officers did not hear it, according to court records. A different call that aired in the officers' zone involved an Oldsmobile Aurora that didn't match Pinex's car and wasn't wanted in a shooting. <p>Marsh recently admitted under oath that he violated court rules by failing to turn over that recording, and he did not tell other members of his trial team, records show.</p> </blockquote> Let's make sure this is clear ... <p>1. Police lied about why they ever pulled Darius Pinex over in the first place, and</p> <p>2. When the family sued the city over his death, attorneys for the city knowingly concealed evidence. The family ended up not receiving any settlement from the city.</p> <p>More below.<br /></p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Chicagopolice DariusPinex Recommended _1427068 Fri, 02 Oct 2015 15:43:29 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/02/1427046/-Video-shows-negligence-by-Indianapolis-Police-as-handcuffed-teenager-has-a-heart-attack <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/167980/large/Screen_Shot_2015-10-02_at_10.15.43_AM.png?1443795368" alt="Terrell Day" width="550" height="333" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Terrell Day, dying of a heart attack, neglected on the ground as officers stand by</div> </div> On September 26, high school senior Terrell Day had a heart attack and died in police custody. <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2015/10/01/new-video-shows-terrell-day-slumped-before-death-police-custody/73153968/?hootPostID=42fed6109b111d9ebd8ef55a6438ad15">A disturbing new video of his arrest has emerged</a> and it calls into question everything we were told about the arrest by police earlier in the week. <p>The video, taken by a bystander, is just under six minutes long and clearly shows Day in obvious physical distress—often slumped over, unable to stand, and, at times, appearing only semi-conscious. Throughout this entire time, Day, who police admit stated dozens of times that he could not breathe, had his hands cuffed behind him and was placed on his back.</p> <p>In the video, what you will not see is any urgency on behalf of the police or the EMTs who casually come up and talk to police throughout the video.</p> <p>Attorneys for Day's family <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-nathaniel-lee-dies-police-custody-indiananapolis-20151001-story.html">believe it was the police's severe negligence</a> that led to his death.<br /></p> <blockquote>Day family attorney Nathaniel Lee said the teen ran more than 400 yards and was exhausted when officers found him. He called the way the youth was handled by officers "tantamount to a form of torture." <p>Lee said police handcuffed the 5-foot-6-inch high school senior who weighed more than 250 pounds behind his back, placed him on his back and kept him in that position even as he struggled to breathe.</p> <p>"This is an 18-year-old who died, I think, unnecessarily," he said during a Thursday news conference with Day's mother and other relatives.</p> </blockquote> Based on police reports, it appears that Day was actually in distress for over 40 minutes while in police custody and that the video only shows a portion of this. <p>The bottom line is this: When a suspect repeatedly states that he is in distress, and the signs of this distress are obvious, he should receive the emergency medical attention that is needed. What we see on this video is a group of men who seem not to give even a small shit about whether Day lives or dies.</p> <p>See the video below.<br /></p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) IndianapolisPolice TerrellDay _1427046 Fri, 02 Oct 2015 14:39:20 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/01/1426745/-Horrifying-60-seconds-from-Donald-Trump-where-he-yearns-for-the-wonder-of-1950s-America <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/164609/large/RTS140B.jpg?1442340012" alt="Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Dallas, Texas September 14, 2015. &amp;nbsp;REUTERS/Mike Stone - RTS140B" width="550" height="330" /></span></div> Oh my God. <p>You have to see and hear this with your own eyes to believe it. In the middle of a New Hampshire rally, Donald Trump ventured into a truly horrific twilight zone in which he openly yearned for 1950s America in ways that were sincerely frightening and specific.</p> <p>Of course, the crowd cheered.</p> <p>Here's the transcript of that clip. The video is below.<br /></p> <blockquote>"You know, Dwight Einsenhower was a wonderful general, and a respected President - and he moved a million people out of the country, nobody said anything about it. When Trump does it, it’s like ‘whoa.' When Eisenhower does it, 'well that was Eisenhower, he’s allowed to do it, we can’t do it.' <p>That was also in the 50s, remember that. Different time, remember that.</p> <p>That’s when we had a country. That’s when we had borders; you know, without borders you don’t have a country, essentially. We don’t have a country. Without borders, you just don’t have it.</p> <p>But Dwight Einsenhower, this big report, they used to take them out and put them on the other side of the border and say, 'you have to stay here.' And they’d come right back, and they’d do it again and again, so they said 'Wait a minute, this doesn’t work.' And they took them out and moved them all the way South; all the way. And they never came back again; it’s too far. Amazing.</p> <p>And I’m not saying this in a joking way — I’m saying this happened. It wasn’t working, they were coming back, and then they literally - literally - moved them all the way. A lot of the politicians - they never came back, it was too far. They’d put them on boats and move them all the way down South, and that was it."</p> </blockquote> Yeah. <p>He said that shit and he specifically made it clear that he wasn't joking.</p> <p>This isn't a joke. Trump's candidacy isn't a joke. It is actually resonating with millions of Americans.</p> <p>See and hear it for yourself starting at about 17:25 in the video below.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DonaldTrump1950s DonaldTrumpImmigration Recommended ShaunKing _1426745 Thu, 01 Oct 2015 17:34:53 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/01/1426662/-5-Miami-officers-fired-after-being-caught-bribing-incarcerated-teens-to-brutally-assault-each-other <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/167761/large/WTVJ_000000019809853_1200x675_517505603705.jpg?1443711039" alt="Elord Revolte" width="550" height="310" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Elord Revolte, alive, before he was beaten to death in police custody</div> </div> Four days after being arrested this past August, teenager Elord Revolte left the Miami lockup on a stretcher, beaten to a bloody pulp by as many as 20 other incarcerated teens. He died with too many injuries to name here. Now, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article37157142.html">we've just learned that five officers (including supervisors</a>) inside of the jail have been fired for falsifying reports and bribing kids with drinks and snacks to brutally beat one another. <p>Sometimes it was for payback. Other times it appears the officers did it just as a cruel, cheap form of entertainment. Whatever the case, officers are literally using $1 honey buns to entice kids to beat and kill one another. In a deeply disturbing special report from Carol Marbin Miller of the <em>Miami Herald</em>, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article37157142.html">many human rights violations are detailed</a>.<br /></p> <blockquote>The Miami Herald first learned of the alleged connection between honey buns and beatings the day after Elord died, when his short-term foster mother described the practice in detail to a reporter, who then asked the public defenders in Miami-Dade and Broward counties if they were aware of it. <p>The next day, an assistant public defender told Osborne, his boss, that detainees at the Miami lockup — most of whom are represented by their office — had disclosed being offered honey buns by guards looking for someone to hurt another detainee.</p> <p>“When I asked [the lawyer], ‘Why honey buns?’ he stated these kids are incarcerated, so they don’t get anything like that in here. In here, a honey bun is like a million dollars,” Osborne told the Herald.</p> </blockquote> The system was so horrific that when any of the kids even thought of speaking out, guards let them know that it might just have lethal consequences and repercussions for them as well.<br /> <blockquote>“I will put a honey bun on your head if you don’t do what I say,” one detainee quoted a guard to his lawyer. <p>“Sometimes it’s Skittles,” Osborne said. “It’s not always honey buns. Sometimes it’s Snickers. If they really want a child hurt, and they really want to ensure a kid will do it, the big treat is any kind of fast food, like a cheeseburger.”</p> </blockquote> Now, kids, parents, public defenders, and community leaders from all across the region <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article37157142.html">are confirming the practice</a> of guards using honey buns and other snacks to enforce violent vendettas inside of the jails.<br /> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) ElordRevolte Miamipolicebribeteens MiamiPoliceBrutality Recommended ShaunKing _1426662 Thu, 01 Oct 2015 15:22:19 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/01/1426652/-In-jest-Ben-Carson-tells-the-whole-truth-about-police-shootings-then-quickly-backs-off-of-it <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/164612/large/RTX1RPSM_(2).jpg?1442340436" alt="Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks to the press after speaking at the Commonwealth Club at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, California, September 8, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam - RTX1RPSM" width="550" height="392" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Many a true word is spoken in jest</div> </div> <iframe width='275' height='353' src='https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1188.embed' style='box-shadow: 0px 3px 10px 6px #EBEBEB;margin: 0px 15px 10px 15px;float:right;' defang_overflow="false" frameborder="0"></iframe>On Wednesday, Sept. 30, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/carson-jokes-about-taunting-cops-back-day-n436536">reflected on his youth</a>. Remembering when he and his friends would be chased by police for mischief, he said, "That was back in the day before they would shoot you." <p>There was laughter from the almost exclusively white crowd. Carson, perhaps sensing that he went too far, then immediately backed off of the statement and said, "I'm just kidding, you know they wouldn't do that."</p> <p>Except that is exactly what police do nowadays. They shoot and kill young black men and women in instances where lethal force was absolutely preposterous.</p> <p>Rekia Boyd, Tamir Rice, Kendrec McDade, and hundreds of other completely unarmed African Americans have been shot and killed by American police in the years since they playfully chased Ben Carson and his buddies.</p> <p>In fact, you should hear Ben Carson tell his story below. It only takes about a minute, and pretty much illustrates exactly how things have changed—including Carson's unwillingness to let the whole truth be told without reservation.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Ben Carson BenCarson Police Brutality PoliceBrutality Recommended ShaunKing _1426652 Thu, 01 Oct 2015 14:31:53 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/30/1426364/-Corrupt-Tulsa-Sheriff-Stanley-Glanz-indicted-resigns-immediately-to-avoid-termination <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/139990/large/sheriff-glanz.jpg?1429901191" alt="Tulsa Sheriff Stanley Glanz" width="550" height="367" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Goodbye Stanley Glanz</div> </div> On Wednesday afternoon, September 30, Tulsa Sheriff Stanley Glanz resigned after a grand jury indicted him on multiple charges. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" defang_xml:lang="en"> <p lang="en" dir="ltr" defang_xml:lang="en">BREAKING: <a href="https://twitter.com/TCSO">@TCSO</a> Sheriff Stanley Glanz indicted for willful violation of the law &amp; violating law for not releasing internal report. <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsOn6">@NewsOn6</a></p> — Allison Harris (@allisonlharris) <a href="https://twitter.com/allisonlharris/status/649299382999777281">September 30, 2015</a></blockquote> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" defang_xml:lang="en"> <p lang="en" dir="ltr" defang_xml:lang="en">BREAKING: Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz says he will resign. <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsOn6">@NewsOn6</a></p> — Allison Harris (@allisonlharris) <a href="https://twitter.com/allisonlharris/status/649302722102095873">September 30, 2015</a></blockquote> <p>It was Sheriff Stanley Glanz who appointed his booster and friend, senior citizen Bob Bates, as a Deputy Sheriff. Bob Bates then shot and killed an unarmed father, Eric Harris, during a rather routine arrest.</p> <p>On its face, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/13/1377380/-VIDEO-Shot-unjustly-and-gasping-for-air-Tulsa-police-officer-tells-dying-man-Fuck-Your-Breath">the police murder of Eric Harris</a>, a 44-year-old father in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was wrong. Surrounded by police, Harris had surrendered and was on the ground when Bob Bates, a deputy, claims to have accidentally shot him with a handgun instead of his Taser. For what he claimed was a mistake, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/13/1377523/-Deputy-who-shot-and-killed-Eric-Harris-in-Oklahoma-charged-with-manslaughter">Bates was charged with second-degree manslaughter</a>.</p> <p>With no other details, that story was bad. But then the video was released showing Harris nervously gasping for air, screaming that he couldn't breathe, and asking why he was shot <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/sheriff-s-office-confirms-names-of-deputies-in-video-says/article_5e492153-5a2a-55c4-9fee-afc92dbd3a4d.html">Another officer, Joe Byars, tells him, "Fuck your breath</a>." The video made it increasingly clear that this was not just a mistake, but something deeply inhumane and troubling on a scale that the country wasn't quite prepared for.</p> <p>But, it turns out, the true story is more scandalous than any of us could've ever imagined.</p> <p>Not only is Bates a fake volunteer police officer (Tulsa calls them "reserve deputies"), it turns out Bates <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/14/tulsa-shooter-was-sheriff-s-sugar-daddy.html">was lavishing the department with international cruises to the Bahamas and Mexico</a>, took regular fishing trips with the lead sheriff, Stanley Glanz, and <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2015/04/robert-bates-tulsa-reserve-deputy-sheriff-arrested-charged-manslaughter-shooting-eric-harris-oklahoma-accident-video-volunteer-cop-insurance/">was also chairman</a> of the sheriff's recent campaign.<br /></p> <blockquote>“Bob Bates came on board because he had all this money,” one former reserve deputy said, adding that the sheriff and other higher-ups would “go on these cruises in the Bahamas and in Mexico all the time.” <p>“[Bates] foots the bill,” the deputy added. “The sheriff just gave him free rein because he was treating him right. He bought his way into this position.”</p> <p>Another former full-time deputy said Bates was “getting glad-handed” around the office because of his wealth.</p> <p>“This is your typical Southern good ol’ boys system,” he said, adding that before the shooting Bates planned to take Glanz on a fishing trip to Florida.</p> </blockquote> It gets deeper. Now, not wanting to go down with a sinking ship, <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepage1/sources-supervisors-told-to-falsify-reserve-deputy-s-training-records/article_a6330f10-a9fb-51e3-ab5e-4d97b03c6c04.html">people inside the department are talking</a>, as you can read below. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) EricHarris FuckYourBreath Recommended ShaunKing StanleyGlanz _1426364 Wed, 30 Sep 2015 19:30:03 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/30/1426282/-NY-Times-Editorial-Board-calls-for-federal-investigation-into-Orange-County-California-prosecutors <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/111236/large/prison-fence.jpg?1413429457" alt="Prison fence with barbed wire." width="550" height="340" /></span></div> The prosecutors in Orange County, California are among the most corrupt in the nation. We first covered this corruption back on May 29, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/29/1388819/-Judge-disqualifies-all-250-prosecutors-in-Orange-County-CA-because-of-widespread-corruption">when a judge forcibly disqualified all 250 prosecutors</a> from having anything to do with a murder case that was being badly mangled. As it turned out, this was only the very tip of the iceberg in Orange County, and the corruption is finally being noticed nationally. <p>On Wednesday morning, the Editorial Board of the <em>New York Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/opinion/dishonest-prosecutors-lots-of-them-in-southern-calif.html?mtrref=undefined&amp;assetType=opinion&amp;_r=0">published a position piece</a> calling for the immediate federal investigation into the dangerous unchecked corruption and dishonestly coming from the Orange County District Attorney's office. It's that bad.</p> <p>Here's the opening statement:<br /></p> <blockquote>Prosecutors who bend or even break the rules to win a conviction almost never face any punishment. But even given lax controls, the blatant and systemic misconduct in the Orange County district attorney’s office in Southern California stands out. In a scheme that may go back as far as 30 years, prosecutors and the county sheriff’s department have elicited illegal jailhouse confessions, failed to turn over evidence that is favorable to defendants and lied repeatedly in court about what they did.</blockquote> This doesn't appear to have happened in a case or two, but in hundreds of cases over the course of decades. The corruption in Orange County is so deeply ingrained that genuinely good people, locally, apparently can't tell where the corruption ends and the honesty begins. It's baked into how justice is done there. Read on for more. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) JudgeThomasGoethals OrangeCountyDistrictAttorney Recommended ShaunKing TonyRackauckas _1426282 Wed, 30 Sep 2015 16:03:01 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/30/1426162/-Top-Miami-cop-running-their-youth-program-arrested-for-child-pornography-and-misconduct-with-minors <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/167389/large/WPTV-Joe-Mendez_1443556120526_24546265_ver1.0_640_480.jpg?1443611373" alt="Miami Police Officer Joseph " width="550" height="413" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Miami Police Officer Joseph "Joe" Mendez</div> </div> South Miami Police Department Officer Joe Mendez was an award-winning cop. Twice named Officer of the Month in his department, Mendez was also a finalist for his community policing efforts as the coordinator of the Miami Police Explorers Program. <p>Except Mendez also <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article36920664.html">had a child pornography fetish</a>, regularly gave alcohol to teenage girls in his program, and attempted to fondle and kiss them whenever he had the chance.</p> <p><a href="http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/09/29/officer-arrested-for-inappropriate-conduct-with-underage-girls/">After receiving complaints from another officer</a> and the underage female cadets, an investigation was launched in June 2014. During that investigation, multiple young girls complained of his repeated grooming behaviors, his insistence that they drink alcohol, and let him touch them sexually. When his phone was seized, dozens of images of underage girls were found, including sexually explicit child pornography.<br /></p> <blockquote>Authorities said a complaint of misconduct from a fellow officer in June 2014 triggered an investigation into allegations he had inappropriate interactions with a number of female cadets in the program and that the interactions may have been sexual in nature. He is also accused of buying alcohol for the girls. <p>His arrest affidavit said on more than one occasion with a minor female he would play a game of truth or dare or a game of chair-air. According to the affidavit, he would ask them to flash him (show their breasts). If they did not, he would tell them to drink and hand them alcohol. It allegedly didn’t stop there.</p> <p>FDLE Special Agent Donald Cannon said agents searched Mendez’s home and they took several electronic devices.</p> <p>“We found what we know to be child pornography on there,” Cannon told CBS 4 News.</p> </blockquote> More charges are pending.<br /> <blockquote>State agents believe there may be more alleged victims. They are urging anyone with information to call FDLE Miami Regional Operations Center at (800) 226-3023.</blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) JosephJoeMendezArrested MiamiPoliceChildPornography Recommended ShaunKing _1426162 Wed, 30 Sep 2015 11:30:31 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/29/1425940/-The-extremely-shady-push-behind-Oklahoma-s-scheduled-Wednesday-execution-of-Richard-Glossip <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/164777/large/o-GLOSSIP-facebook.jpg?1442424399" alt="Richard Glossip, convicted murderer on Oklahoma death row." width="550" height="275" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Richard Glossip</div> </div> <iframe width='275' height='353' src='https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1451.embed' style='box-shadow: 0px 3px 10px 6px #EBEBEB;margin: 0px 15px 10px 15px;float:right;' defang_overflow="false" frameborder="0"></iframe>I can't tell you for sure if Richard Glossip paid for his boss to be killed in 1997. What we do know is that he didn't physically kill his boss, several witnesses have said for years that the man who did it concocted Glossip's role in planning the murder, and prosecutors have now been caught doing some pretty damn shady shit surrounding the case. <p>As of this writing, Richard Glossip is now just about a day away from his scheduled execution at 3 PM on Wednesday, Sept. 30. I am fundamentally against the death penalty, but three other factors surrounding this scheduled execution are deeply concerning.</p> <p>1. Two men who don't know Richard Glossip but were in prison with the man prosecutors claim he hired to kill his boss have signed repeated affidavits stating they heard the killer, Justin Sneed, <a href="http://www.prosecutorialaccountability.com/2015/09/28/prosecutor-appears-to-threaten-witnesses-claiming-richard-glossip-is-innocent/">state that he set Glossip up</a> so that he could avoid the death penalty in the case.</p> <p>2. The Oklahoma County District Attorney's office has been caught <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/09/29/glossip-to-die-tomorrow/">clearly intimidating</a> these two witnesses over the past week. <a href="http://www.prosecutorialaccountability.com/2015/09/28/prosecutor-appears-to-threaten-witnesses-claiming-richard-glossip-is-innocent/">Multiple sources</a> have confirmed this intimidation. This intimidation has been universally panned as inappropriate and unethical.</p> <p>3. The prosecutor claims that the eyewitnesses who are stating that they heard Justin Sneed say he framed Richard Glossip <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/09/29/glossip-to-die-tomorrow/">are unreliable</a> because they've committed crimes, taken drugs, and lied before. What's preposterous about this is that the primary witness against Richard Glossip, Justin Sneed himself, had also committed many crimes, taken drugs, and lied before.</p> <p>The idea that a potentially innocent man could be executed tomorrow is deeply disturbing and is the primary reason why we should abolish the death penalty altogether. It leaves no room for error and cannot be corrected.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DeathPenalty Recommended RichardGlossip _1425940 Tue, 29 Sep 2015 17:45:29 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/29/1425912/-Suburban-police-outside-of-Chicago-caught-on-camera-calling-black-family-bunch-of-fucking-niggers <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/167198/large/Screen_Shot_2015-09-29_at_12.35.59_PM.png?1443544597" alt="Montgomery Police and George Taylor" width="550" height="309" /></span></div> Yeah. <p>Ladies and gentlemen: This is your America.</p> <p>In Montgomery, Illinois, about 45 minutes outside of Chicago, <a href="http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/09/28/2-investigators-man-claims-cops-used-racial-slurs-in-two-run-ins-with-him/">two police officers have been caught on camera</a> targeting, harassing, assaulting, and wrongfully arresting an African American family in the overwhelmingly white town—including calling the family a "bunch of fucking niggers."</p> <p>But they were fired, right? Because this would be damning evidence of racial bias unfit for officers of the law, right?</p> <p>Nah. Not even close. The officers were given a three-day suspension.</p> <p>Yeah. For real.</p> <p>Please see the horrendous video below, which shows George Taylor being illegally targeted by police over and over again.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) GeorgeTaylor MontgomeryPolice Police Racism Recommended ShaunKing _1425912 Tue, 29 Sep 2015 16:41:42 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/29/1425808/-Requests-be-damned-city-of-Chicago-refuses-to-release-multiple-police-videos-of-murders-on-duty <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/167140/large/Chicago.jpg?1443529093" alt="Laquan McDonald, Ronald Johnson" width="550" height="275" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Laquan McDonald and Ronnie Johnson...alive and well.</div> </div> On Oct. 12, 2014, Chicago Police Department officers shot and killed Ronald Johnson, <a href="http://socialistworker.org/2014/12/11/ronnieman-wont-be-forgotten">a 25-year-old father of five</a> who was beloved in his community.<br /> <blockquote>On the night in mid-October, Johnson had been with his cousin and other friends when he came across flashing police lights. He recognized a Chicago police presence in his neighborhood as a danger, so began to run. Plainclothes officers ran after him and opened fire. <p>Witnesses have told Dorothy Holmes that the officers didn't identify themselves, and that Johnson stopped and asked why they were shooting at him. When he received no answer, he turned and continued running. Police shot him as he fled--his death from multiple gunshot wounds has been ruled a homicide.</p> </blockquote> Apparently a police dash cam filmed the shooting, but the police and the city refuse to release it <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/7/71/852094/motion-seeks-release-video-fatal-chicago-police-shooting">in spite of repeated requests</a> from Johnson's family and a Freedom of Information Act request from their attorney. <p>This isn't the only video being concealed by Chicago officials.</p> <p><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/15/1377912/-The-police-murder-video-Chicago-has-paid-5-million-for-us-not-to-see">Laquan McDonald</a> was shot 16 times and killed by Chicago police on Oct. 20, 2014. His family received $5 million in a settlement, but officials refuse to release the video of his killing. <a href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/laquan-mcdonald-investigation-305105631.html">It has since been reported</a> that police deleted 100 minutes of video from a nearby Burger King.</p> <p>Ultimately, it's my strong belief that every video of police brutality and murder should be released immediately—not after prosecutors decide not to do anything, not after all charges are dropped, but as soon as it is humanly possible to upload them to YouTube. The videos are public property, paid for by tax dollars, and inform the public far better than fictional press releases ever will.</p> <p>If videos record people being wrongly murdered by police, the public deserves to know and these police officers should be held accountable. That this is even a conversation is preposterous.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BodyCamerasPolice ChicagoPoliceVideos policemisconduct Recommended RonaldJohnson ShaunKing _1425808 Tue, 29 Sep 2015 12:19:37 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/28/1425616/-Latrell-Sprewell-Jonathan-Papelbon-Race-thugs-competitors-and-the-tale-of-two-chokes-in-sports <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166996/large/CQAOw9xWwAAcf-B.jpg?1443462408" alt="Jonathan Papelbon choking Bryce Harper" width="550" height="394" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Jonathan Papelbon choking Bryce Harper</div> </div> In 1997, after a deep dispute with the coach of the Golden State Warriors, four-time NBA All-Star Latrell Sprewell lost it and choked coach P.J. Carlesimo during a closed door practice. Players quickly broke it up and Carlesimo wasn't injured, but it ruined Sprewell's career. To this day, <a href="http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Sprewell_Latrell.html">ESPN states it's what he's most known for</a>. <p>Sprewell was suspended from the NBA for 82 games—which is an entire year. He lost over $6.2 million, was dropped from virtually every endorsement deal, and never played another game for the Golden State Warriors again. They voided over $30 million remaining on his contract, Converse dropped him, and virtually overnight the image of Latrell Sprewell became that of a thug who needed to be put in his place.</p> <p>The racism wasn't even veiled. Tim Keown of the <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> <a href="http://www.daveyd.com/spreewellhubpol.html">wrote</a>:<br /></p> <blockquote>"Just look at Sprewell. His appearance has gone full gangster this year, with his braids and wispy sideburns. He is a hard shadowy figure."</blockquote> As a senior in high school at the time, I saw Sprewelll, who was actually a very soft-spoken dude and played college ball at Alabama, as trendy—not a gangster. <p>Race, though, colors how Americans see the world way more than most of us would ever admit. What happened between Sprewell and Carlesimo was a private conflict that had little to nothing to do with race. The fallout, though, had everything to do with Sprewell being a black man who local and national media flat-out called a gangster because of the way he looked. That included being black.</p> <p>So, when Jonathan Papelbon, a 6-foot-4 inch, 230-pound (bigger than Sprewell, by the way) pitcher with arms as strong as they come <a href="http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25318969/jonathan-papelbon-bryce-harper-have-altercation-in-dugout">put his hands around the throat of teammate Bryce Harper and began choking him</a> on live television on Sunday, Sept. 27, the attack, like the one between Sprewell and Carlesimo, also had nothing to do with race or racism.</p> <p>But don't be mistaken: The response to it has <em>everything</em> to do with race.</p> <p>Papelbon wasn't even thrown out of the dugout. In fact, he went in to pitch later.</p> <p>Hell, the next morning Boomer Esiason flat-out said he took Papelbon's side in the matter.</p> <p>The audio is below.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) JonathanPapelbonChokeBryceHarper LatrellSprewell ShaunKing _1425616 Mon, 28 Sep 2015 18:33:30 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/28/1425591/-Terrell-Day-an-Indianapolis-teenager-accused-of-shoplifting-dies-in-police-custody-asked-for-help <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166984/large/Indianapolis_Metropolitan_police_cruiser_1.jpg?1443459421" alt="Indianapolis Police " width="550" height="367" /></span></div> An 18-year-old Indianapolis teenager died in police custody on Sept. 26 <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/indianapolis-teen-shoplifting-suspect-terrell-day-dies-police-custody-n434696">after repeatedly asking for medical help</a>.<br /> <blockquote>Day's mother, Shanika Askew, said her son had not been suffering from any health problems or ever had asthma. <p>"I just want answers to why they didn't send him to the hospital when he said he was hurting the first time," Askew told NBC station WTHR on Sunday. "Why did they leave and have to come back?"</p> </blockquote> Something's not adding up. Like Freddie Gray and Eric Garner before him, police opted to proceed with the arrest of Terrell Day in spite of their own admission that he repeatedly asked for medical help and told them he couldn't breathe. <p>Was he Tasered by police? Beaten? Were they wearing body cameras? Was he handcuffed and experiencing an obvious medical emergency while restrained?</p> <p>According to reports, before Day was ever placed in a police vehicle, he was in some type of distress and requested medical help. Police claim that an ambulance team came and cleared him to be transported to the jail. Was this filmed? What were their conclusions?</p> <p>Once the police left with Terrell and he went into distress and again asked for medical aid, whatever happened was fatal.</p> <p>All of these things desperately need to be filmed. Whatever the case, it just doesn't make sense that he was denied the medical help he so desperately needed.<br /></p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) IndianapolisPolice policemisconduct ShaunKing TerrellDay _1425591 Mon, 28 Sep 2015 16:58:40 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/28/1425563/-DEA-agents-distributed-drugs-committed-egregious-abuses-but-still-kept-their-jobs <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166969/large/RTX18333.jpg?1443455375" alt="An unidentified police officer surveys an indoor marijuana farm, also known as a " defang_grow="" defang_an="" defang_swimming="" defang_concealed="" defang_thick="" defang_slab="" defang_undated="" defang_handout="" defang_photo="" defang_miami-dade="" defang_county="" defang_department="" defang_on="" defang_january="" defang_arrested="" defang_and="" defang_charged="" defang_three="" defang_after="" defang_routine="" defang_traffic="" defang_stop="" defang_found="" defang_them="" defang_be="" defang_possession="" defang_five="" defang_pounds="" defang_with="" defang_further="" defang_live="" defang_plants="" defang_discovered="" defang_empty="" defang_pool="" defang_backyard="" defang_of="" defang_house.="" defang_florida="" defang_had="" defang_more="" defang_marijuana="grow" defang_than="" defang_anywhere="" defang_else="" defang_in="" defang_according="" defang_the="" defang_drug="" defang_enforcement="" defang_administration="" defang_police="" defang_via="" defang_reuters="" defang_states="" defang_tags:="" defang_crime="" defang_law="" defang_drugs="" defang_attention="" defang_editors="" defang_image="" defang_was="" defang_provided="" defang_third="" defang_party.="" defang_editorial="" defang_use="" defang_only.="" defang_not="" defang_sale="" defang_for="" defang_marketing="" defang_or="" defang_advertising="" defang_campaigns.="" defang_this="" defang_picture="" defang_is="" defang_distributed="" defang_exactly="" defang_received="" defang_by="" defang_as="" defang_a="" defang_service="" defang_to="" defang_clients="" width="550" height="310" /></span></div> As the nation continues to turn against America's War on Drugs, we're now learning that federal law enforcement officers for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have violated polices, ethical standards, and their oath of office, but <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/09/27/few-dea-agents-fired-misconduct/72805622/?utm_source=feedblitz&amp;utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&amp;utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories">appear to be completely above the law when it comes to being held accountable</a>.<br /> <blockquote>The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed its employees to stay on the job despite internal investigations that found they had distributed drugs, lied to the authorities or committed other serious misconduct, newly disclosed records show. <p>Lawmakers expressed dismay this year that the drug agency had not fired agents who investigators found attended “sex parties” with prostitutes paid with drug cartel money while they were on assignment in Colombia. The Justice Department also opened an inquiry into whether the DEA is able to adequately detect and punish wrongdoing by its agents.</p> <p>Records from the DEA’s disciplinary files show that was hardly the only instance in which the DEA opted not to fire employees despite apparently serious misconduct.</p> </blockquote> One DEA agent was actually <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2434230-150824164300-0001.html">recommended to be fired for distributing drugs</a>, but instead received a two-week suspension and is back on the job. <p>Six DEA agents handcuffed a college student, Daniel Chong, to a wall for five days and left him alone in a room with no food, water, or restrooms. All six agents later claimed they forgot he was there. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_of_Daniel_Chong">Not one of them was fired</a>.</p> <p>Keep reading, because it gets worse.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DEAfired DEAsexparties policemisconduct Recommended ShaunKing _1425563 Mon, 28 Sep 2015 16:00:54 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/25/1424910/-Drunk-Indianapolis-police-officers-are-getting-people-killed <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166477/large/David_Bisard.jpg?1443205381" alt="Indianpolis Police Officer David Bisard" width="550" height="310" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Indianapolis Police Officer David Bisard, sentenced to 17 years in prison for drunk driving</div> </div> <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2015/03/04/david-bisard-conviction-upheld-appeals-court/24366663/">Two years ago</a>, in Indianapolis:<br /> <blockquote>An Allen County jury convicted Bisard on Nov. 5, 2013 of nine counts of drunken driving, reckless homicide and criminal recklessness for driving his patrol car into a group of motorcyclists while responding to a non-emergency call in his patrol car. The Aug. 6, 2010, accident killed Eric Wells, 30, and severely injured two companions, Mary Mills and Kurt Weekly. <p>Bisard, 41, is serving a 16-year sentence at New Castle Correctional Facility. Allen County Judge John Surbeck suspended three years of that sentence.</p> </blockquote> Now, another Indianapolis police officer has killed a pedestrian <a href="http://www.ktre.com/story/30113788/officer-who-fatally-hit-man-with-cruiser-smelled-of-alcohol">and once again, alcohol is a suspected factor</a>.<br /> <blockquote>An off-duty Indianapolis police officer fatally struck a pedestrian with his cruiser, and an investigator reported smelling alcohol on the officer's breath, police said Friday. <p>The crash was reported late Thursday night on a street where, just four minutes earlier, a 911 caller had reported that a man wearing dark clothing was walking in traffic.</p> <p>The officer, seven-year police veteran Bernardo Zavalza, was placed on administrative leave while the crash is investigated, police officials said Friday. The department in a statement expressed "our sincere condolences to the victim's family." The victim's name hasn't been released.</p> </blockquote> This is a dangerous pattern for the Indianapolis Police Department. Keep reading below for a laundry list of alcohol-related offenses by Indy's finest. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DrunkDriving Indianapolis Police ShaunKing _1424910 Fri, 25 Sep 2015 18:30:36 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/25/1424863/-Jailed-for-a-small-traffic-fine-Detroit-area-man-loses-50-pounds-in-17-days-dies-in-police-custody <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166458/large/d8b6b2c8990467e3688d1c7553fc47a8.jpg?1443196554" alt="David Stojcevski soon before dying in police custody" width="550" height="310" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">David Stojcevski - starved, sick, ignored</div> </div> Months ago, David Stojcevski received a minor ticket for careless driving. Like millions of Americans, he was simply unable to pay it. His minor traffic ticket turned into an obstruction of justice charge, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Soon, he was arrested and given a harsh 30-day jail sentence—which likely cost Macomb County way more than the original unpaid ticket. <p>He didn't live for 30 days. Just 17 days after entering the Macomb County Jail outside of Detroit, David Stojcevski died in police custody. This time, though, almost every moment he spent in the jail was filmed. A powerful, sobering summary video is posted below and must be seen to be believed.</p> <p>It's cruel, but we can no longer say it's unusual in America because thousands of our most vulnerable women and men are dying in police custody.</p> <p>When Stojcevski entered the jail, he was on three prescribed medications. The jail knew this, but refused him any substantive medical care during his entire stay.</p> <p>During the first 17 days of his sentence, Stojcevski somehow <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/family-sues-after-man-dies-while-in-jail-for-unpaid-parking-ticket_56044469e4b00310edfa778b">lost an astounding 50 pounds while in custody.</a><br /></p> <blockquote>When Stojcevski began hallucinating -- a symptom of benzodiazepine withdrawal -- he told officers he felt “all his organs" had been removed and his "arms [had been] shredded," leaving "10 percent of his heart." Instead of receiving medical care, the suit claims he was placed on suicide watch, where he was stripped naked for his own safety, and officers looked on via a 24-hour-a-day camera. <p>There, the suit says, "defendants … monitored, watched and observed David spend the final ten days of his life suffering excruciating benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms.”</p> </blockquote> On the 17th day, while being filmed for the staff to see, Stojcevski died on the floor of his cell. In effect, he was given the death penalty for a traffic ticket. It's absurd that this man, who anyone could tell was in significant distress, was not rushed to a hospital at any point during the 17 days. The entire staff should be charged with criminal neglect. <p>Please watch the video below. It's very well-done local news coverage on someone dying in police custody.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BenzodiazepineWithdrawal DavidStojcevski Police Brutality PoliceBrutality Recommended ShaunKing _1424863 Fri, 25 Sep 2015 16:29:11 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/25/1424814/-Disturbing-ethical-questions-abound-as-Delaware-police-shoot-and-kill-paralyzed-man-in-wheelchair <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166450/large/Jeremy_McDole.jpg?1443190034" alt="Jeremy McDole" width="550" height="310" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Jeremy McDole, paralyzed from the waist down, seconds before being shot and killed by police</div> </div> Paralyzed from the waist down, wheelchair-bound, and a full-time resident of a local nursing home, Jeremy McDole could hardly be seen as a dire threat to many people. But for Delaware police, shooting him was their only choice. <p>I call bullshit.</p> <p>Wilmington police claim that Jeremy McDole was armed with a handgun when they shot him repeatedly on September 23. After watching the video (seen below) over and over and over again, I don't see a gun.</p> <p>I don't see a man who was threatening police—verbally or otherwise.</p> <p>I certainly don't see a man who needed to be shot and killed.</p> <p>I see a man who appears to be in duress and in need of medical attention.</p> <p>Jeremy McDole was as stationary and immobile as a man could be and would appear to be the perfect candidate—if deemed a threat—for some type of non-lethal force. But police seemed prepared to blow him to bits from the moment they saw him.</p> <p>At 0:07 in the video, it's clear that police spot Jeremy for the very first time.</p> <p>Two seconds later a gunshot goes off and voices in the video state that police shot Jeremy.</p> <p>Less than a minute later, he's surrounded by police, shot repeatedly, and is clearly dead.</p> <p>It's awful. Jeremy's mother, having seen the video, <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2015/09/24/justice-dept-investigates-police-involved-shooting/72737332/">also disputes the police account</a>. Watch the video below and judge for yourself.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DelawareParalyzedPoliceKill JeremyMcDole Police PoliceState Recommended ShaunKing _1424814 Fri, 25 Sep 2015 14:25:30 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/24/1424510/-The-deep-ugly-and-damn-near-unbelievable-rabbit-hole-of-violence-corruption-within-the-Chicago-PD <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/145434/large/Screen_Shot_2015-05-27_at_9.55.51_AM.png?1432735107" alt="Officers Timothy McDermott and Jerome Finnigan" width="550" height="482" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Chicago Police Officers Timothy McDermott and Jerome Finnigan forcing an inmate to pose for a photo</div> </div> As a beat reporter, I cover police brutality and corruption as it unfolds. The goal is to zoom in on the breaking micro-stories and attempt to uncover minute details in very specific cases. This microscopic strategy helps in telling what are often very isolated stories of police misconduct and abuse. Today, instead of zooming in, let's pull back with the hope that together we can see the Chicago Police Department for the deeply corrupt and violent gang that it truly is. <p>As Chicago continues to struggle with record-setting violence, these findings suggest that the Chicago Police Department plays a significant contributing role in the culture of violence in the city and that its corruption, from top to bottom, is as responsible for the underdevelopment of inner-city Chicago as any single institution. The physical, emotional, and financial toll that police have cost the city and its citizens is criminal.</p> <p>As you will read below, the police will stop at nothing to keep you from learning just how criminal they truly are.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) ChicagoIPRA ChicagoPoliceDepartmentCorruption GeorgeRoberts Recommended ShaunKing _1424510 Thu, 24 Sep 2015 17:55:20 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/24/1424471/-This-is-ridiculous-Unarmed-man-who-faked-prescription-shot-and-killed-by-Baltimore-County-Police <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166262/large/Screen_Shot_2015-09-24_at_11.00.46_AM.png?1443106930" alt="Baltimore County man shot and killed by police " width="550" height="284" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Police are serving as the judge, jury, and executioner for minor crimes</div> </div> Described by some onlookers as "a kid," Baltimore County Police Department<a href="http://www.abc2news.com/news/crime-checker/baltimore-county-crime/man-dead-in-reisterstown-after-officer-involved-shooting">officers chased, shot, and killed</a> a young man who they claim attempted to fake a prescription at a local pharmacy. A police spokesperson said it was unknown whether he was armed or not but hours after the September 23 incident, investigators had yet to discover a weapon. <p>This happens often in pharmacies. Sometimes it's because people really need a certain prescription, other times it's fueled by drug addiction, and occasionally it's a part of a drug hustle to get and sell drugs. Whatever the case, passing a forged prescription is a rather petty, non-violent crime in America. <a href="http://www.justanswer.com/criminal-law/250d6-caught-stealing-writing-prescriptions-narcotics.html">In Maryland, it appears to be a misdemeanor</a> and often doesn't even warrant jail time.</p> <p>But as you know, Maryland is in America, and in America our officers will shoot your face off and kill you right there in the middle of the street if they feel like it. That's how we roll here. It's actually becoming a part of the new American brand. America—<a href="http://killedbypolice.net">where police shoot and kill at least 3 people every day</a>.</p> <p>While tragically common in our land, this case and thousands just like it are simply preposterous. Police officers are serving as the judge, jury, and executioner to women and men who simply didn't deserve such a violent end to their life.</p> <p>We don't yet know the names of the officer or the victim, whether or not a body camera was worn, or if security cameras caught anything. Nonetheless, we can reasonably predict that the police were scared to death, thought the young man had a gun of some kind, and that they will claim they had absolutely no choice but to shoot him dead.</p> <p>That's the story.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BaltimoreCounty Police Brutality PoliceBrutality Recommended ShaunKing _1424471 Thu, 24 Sep 2015 15:23:36 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/24/1424445/-More-police-charged-with-murder-in-2015-than-any-of-the-past-10-years-so-far-zero-convictions <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/137779/large/michael-slager.jpg?1428585763" alt="Officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott and his public mugshot after being arrested for murder" width="550" height="309" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager (r) shooting and killing Walter Scott (l).</div> </div> As of September 24, 872 Americans have been <a href="http://killedbypolice.net">killed by police in 2015</a>. A mere 1.3 percent of those officers have been charged in the deaths, ranging from manslaughter to murder. As wild as it sounds, the 12 officers who've been charged so far in 2015 represent <a href="http://gawker.com/report-more-cops-charged-over-fatal-shootings-in-2015-1732696918?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&amp;utm_source=gawker_twitter&amp;utm_medium=socialflow#pq=gTJiTl">the single largest number of officers charged in any year</a> over the past ten years.<br /> <blockquote>According to The Wall Street Journal, more police officers in America have been prosecuted over fatal on-duty shootings in 2015 than in any year going back a decade. <p>Citing research by Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip M. Stinson, the Journal reports that 12 officers have been charged with manslaughter or murder for on-duty shooting deaths in 2015 so far, more than twice the annual average of five officers a year since 2005.</p> </blockquote> This, on its face, absolutely <em>feels</em> like progress. In some ways, it is. More than any year in recent memory, the public is demanding that police officers be held accountable for police brutality, so having more officers charged this year than any recent year (with more than 3 months still remaining) is not coincidental. <p>However, what we really have here is something that doesn't merit much celebration.</p> <p>Not one single officer who has been charged with manslaughter or murder in 2015 has actually been convicted. Not one. While a few convictions are still up in the air, we are actually left with the very real possibility that not a single officer will be convicted. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/">It has happened hundreds of times before</a>, in some of the most egregious cases imaginable.</p> <p>Between prosecutors who don't truly want convictions of police officers and laws which seem to protect police at all costs, it's a bit futile to get your hopes up.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Police Brutality PoliceBrutality Policechargedwithmurder Policekillings ShaunKing _1424445 Thu, 24 Sep 2015 14:41:09 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/23/1424159/-Pretty-much-the-only-way-to-get-the-death-penalty-in-America-is-to-kill-a-white-person <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/80810/large/lethal_injection.jpg?1398795292" alt="lethal injection, death penalty" width="550" height="309" /></span></div> I'm against the death penalty—100 percent. <p>There's a whole host of reasons why, but <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/09/23/3704622/murderers-are-almost-never-executed-unless-they-kill-a-white-person/">recent studies showing how the death penalty is selectively applied</a> down racial and economic lines makes its continued existence in America more disturbing than ever.<br /></p> <blockquote>Black men constitute 61 percent of homicide victims in Louisiana — nearly 13,000 black men were killed in this state since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Yet only three people have been executed for killing a black man in all of this time. That’s less than 6 percent of the rate of executions for individuals who kill someone other than a black man, and 1/48th of the execution rate for people who kill white women, according to a study that will appear in the Loyola University of New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law.</blockquote> This isn't to advocate that more people receive the death penalty. But what we are learning is that killing a white person—particularly a white woman without a criminal record—is far more likely to warrant the death penalty than killing an African American, or anyone without a college degree, or anyone with a criminal record. <p>In essence, our criminal justice system has found new ways to show us that some lives are more deeply valued than others. <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/studies-victims-social-status-plays-influential-role-death-cases">For instance</a>:<br /></p> <blockquote>Scott Phillips, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Denver, published a study last month in the Law &amp; Society Review focusing on the imposition of death sentences in relation to the victim's social status. Phillips studied capital cases in Harris County (Houston), Texas, between 1992 and 1999 and found that the social status of the victim in the underlying murder had a significant influence on whether the death penalty would be sought and imposed on the defendant. In examining 504 cases, Phillips found that defendants are six times more likely to receive a death sentence if they kill the highest status victims.</blockquote> These are horrible, indisputable facts. <p>The death penalty is basically used to penalize people who are found guilty of murdering certain folk. Then there's Dale Cox, the Louisiana district attorney single-handedly responsible for sending more people to death row than any other DA in the state. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/06/1399558/-Meet-Dale-Cox-The-deadliest-most-racist-perverse-prosecutor-in-the-country">Cox has openly admitted that for him, it's all about revenge</a>.<br /></p> <blockquote>"I'm a believer that the death penalty serves society's interest in revenge. I know it's a hard word to say and people run from it, but I don't run from it because I think there is a very strong societal interest as a people," Cox said. "I think (revenge) is the only reason for it."</blockquote> This is a key clue into the mindset of those who pursue and apply the death penalty. It's hard to imagine a DA seeking the death penalty as revenge for someone they didn't truly value in the first place. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DeathPenalty Racism ShaunKing _1424159 Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:43:24 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/23/1424100/-Florida-police-shoot-and-kill-man-holding-a-black-and-chrome-stapler <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166045/large/635785195895632839-Fuller-FB1.jpg?1443017347" alt="Dominic Fuller" width="550" height="289" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Dominic Fuller</div> </div> One <a href="http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/local/2015/09/22/dangerous-felon-killed-swat-situation-polk/72616180/">headline reads</a>, "Dangerous felon killed in SWAT situation in Polk." <p>Another <a href="http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2015/9/21/auburndale_swat_call.html">states</a>, "Suspect wanted to die by suicide by cop."</p> <p>Headlines matter. And in the shooting death of Dominic Fuller on September 21, the headlines painted a picture that isn't quite true. They each failed to state that Dominic Fuller, who had a lengthy criminal history that he paid the price for, wasn't armed when police shot and killed him. He didn't have hostages or handguns—he had a stapler. Not a staple gun, not a high-powered construction tool, but a stapler used to attach a few sheets of paper together.</p> <p>The officer who shot him wasn't in danger. They weren't in a fist fight or in close proximity to one another. Dominic Fuller was shot from dozens of feet away.</p> <p>For the police to release a statement saying that Dominic "wanted to die by suicide by cop" is outrageously irresponsible. No eyewitnesses corroborate it. He didn't leave a note or record a goodbye video that we know of. The police, as they usually do, have formed a narrative that best protects their self-interest.</p> <p>Every account from people who saw Dominic Fuller actually suggests he very much wanted to be alive and was desperately trying to get away from police.</p> <p>The man was rough. That's clear.</p> <p>Regardless of his past, we must see body camera footage to determine if the police story actually matches with what really happened in this death.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) DominicFuller Florida Police Brutality PoliceBrutality Recommended ShaunKing _1424100 Wed, 23 Sep 2015 14:27:10 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/23/1424096/-Settlement-reached-over-racist-attack-from-Breitbart-on-Shirley-Sherrod <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/166035/large/RTR2GUNK.jpg?1443014578" alt="Shirley Sherrod pauses to answer a question as she takes part in a Context and Consequences Conversation during the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Annual Convention in San Diego, California July 29, 2010. Sherrod, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official, made headlines over the past two weeks for her forced resignation from &amp;nbsp;the U.S. Department of Agriculture after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted video excerpts of Sherrod's address at a March 2010 NAACP event on &amp;nbsp;his website...REUTERS/Mike Blake &amp;nbsp;(UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR2GUNK" width="550" height="409" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Shirley Sherrod</div> </div> Five years after Breitbart ran a fraudulently-edited hit piece on USDA employee Shirley Sherrod, she <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/shirley_sherrod_andrew_breitba.html">finally reached a settlement</a> in her lawsuit.<br /> <blockquote>A federal judge says former Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod has reached a tentative settlement with the widow of a conservative blogger over a video of Sherrod supposedly making racist remarks. <p>Sherrod sued blogger Andrew Breitbart and his colleague Larry O'Connor in 2011, a year after Breitbart posted an edited video of Sherrod making the remarks. She sued for defamation and emotional distress after she was asked to resign, and the video ignited a racial firestorm.</p> <p>The full video showed that Sherrod's words were an attempt at racial reconciliation, not racism.</p> </blockquote> While this is certainly progress, it does not appear that the Breitbart platform has learned any lessons whatsoever from this. The site's writers continue to post lies and false information about African-American leaders every chance they get. Having experienced this myself, I have no faith that they have any true motivation to change their fraudulent ways. It appears this isn't just a conservative smut site, but a cover for racism and white supremacy of the worst kind.<br /> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) Breitbart Recommended ShaunKing ShirleySherrod _1424096 Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:37:19 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/22/1423847/-Police-brutality-is-getting-worse-and-shows-no-signs-of-slowing-down <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/118588/large/RTR4GMXC.jpg?1417700568" alt="A man holds a sign during a protest march against the New York City grand jury decision to not indict in the death of Eric Garner, in Los Angeles, California December 3, 2014. A New York City grand jury decided not to charge a white police officer in the " width="550" height="367" /></span></div> Police brutality in America is getting worse—not better. <p>That's not pessimism. These are the facts.</p> <p>As of today—September 22—<a href="http://killedbypolice.net">at least 865 Americans</a> have been killed by police so far in 2015.</p> <p>As of the same date in 2014, the number of people <a href="http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html">killed by police was 804</a>.</p> <p>At this pace, 2015 is likely to be the deadliest year ever measured at the hands of American police.</p> <p>In 2014, 1,106 people were killed by American police. We are currently on pace to break 1,200 for this year.</p> <p>The problem is complicated, nationwide, nuanced, and deeply entrenched in the new American way of policing. No single policy will curb this trend and it is very possible these numbers may get worse for many years to come without drastic changes, including real consequences for police misconduct.</p> <p>So, here we are. It's a mess. It's on our watch and we have to do something about it.</p> <p>Below are the three biggest policy shifts are that could actually freeze or reduce this growing problem.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BodyCameras Police Brutality PoliceBrutality policebrutalityisgettingworse Recommended _1423847 Tue, 22 Sep 2015 17:54:58 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/22/1423822/-NYPD-officer-claims-he-blacked-out-when-he-walked-up-to-innocent-man-and-shot-him-six-times <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/165874/large/Officer_Brendan_Cronin.jpg?1442937472" alt="Officer Brendan Cronin" width="550" height="361" /></span> <div class="dkimg-cap">Officer Brendan Cronin</div> </div> Brendan Cronin, an officer for the New York Police Department, <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/09/21/cbs2-exclusive-off-duty-cop-shooting-victim/">is claiming that he was in an alcohol-induced blackout</a> when he walked up to a car in Pelham, New York and fired 13 shots into it. He hit Joe Felice, an innocent stranger, six times. This was in April of 2014. Seventeen months later, Officer Cronin remains on paid leave. Paid! <p>The victim and his family are now worried that the officer, who is expected to plead guilty on September 22, will somehow find a way to get off without any jail time—as NYPD officers normally do when they kill folk in New York.<br /></p> <blockquote>There was anger among the victims that the plea took so long. <p>“I feel like we have to fight the system every step of the way to get justice that should be so obvious and so forthcoming,” said Felice’s wife, Patricia Scalfani.</p> <p>The victims never saw Officer Cronin at the scene in Pelham, but surveillance video reportedly shows the officer getting out of his parked car with the victims stopped at the light. Cronin allegedly has his service weapon in his hand in the video, and he allegedly walks up, turns, and empties it into their vehicle.</p> </blockquote> Keep reading below for the sick explanation given by the officer. rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) BrendanCronin JoeFelice NeedstobeUpdated NYPD Police Brutality PoliceBrutality randomshooting Recommended _1423822 Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:13:47 +0000 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/22/1423731/-Family-confirms-California-teen-who-was-beaten-by-police-was-on-his-way-to-school-didn-t-jaywalk <div class="dkimg-c"><span class="image_container"><img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/165851/large/635782038592345771-Capture.png?1442924949" alt="Emilio Mayfield" width="534" height="401" /></span></div> <a href="http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/09/17/caught-on-video-stockton-teens-detainment-raises-questions-over-police-use-of-force/">His name is Emilio Mayfield</a> and we now know that moments before he was <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/18/1422506/-Nine-police-officers-tackle-California-teenager-for-the-crime-of-jaywalking-VIDEO">confronted, assaulted, and arrested</a> by police on the morning of Wednesday, September 16, he was catching public transportation to his local school. <p>In his first interview after the brutal and excessive assault, Mayfield opened up about what happened on that Stockton, California street and how he sees himself in spite of it all.<br /></p> <blockquote>“I see myself as a great young man, successful in school. I feel traumatized. I was beaten and slammed on the floor."</blockquote> Both Mayfield and the police also now confirm that he was not "jaywalking" as had been previously reported, but that he simply stepped into a lane adjacent to the sidewalk that was reserved for busses. No curb exists between the sidewalk and this lane and Emilio, according to eyewitnesses, stepped in the bus lane for about two seconds when he was confronted by an officer for doing so. <p>What's completely preposterous is attempting to rationalize how in the hell a 250-pound officer with his night stick drawn ended up on top a kid on his way to school because he stepped in the bus lane. This case is the epitome of excessive force and likely would not have happened to anyone other than a young black boy.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King) brutality EmilioMayfield Police Recommended ShaunKing StocktonPoliceAssault _1423731 Tue, 22 Sep 2015 13:26:54 +0000