Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

A message from MIchael Johnson, CEO of the Madison Boys and Girls Club:

"Message to Chief Koval, My Fellow Madisonians and Madison Police Department.

First, let me say my deepest sympathy and prayers go out to the friends and family of Tony Robinson, Jr., in this very difficult time as they grieve his loss. My thoughts are also with the hundreds of police officers who serve and protect our streets, and the citizens of Madison. Our police chief, Mike Koval, has certainly earned my vote of confidence and I appreciate how he is handling the aftermath so far.

I have been meeting with Chief Koval and offering advice and counsel, as he will undoubtedly face some tough conversations and decisions in the months ahead. He will surely need the community’s support and prayers, as our city will be challenged as a result of this tragic incident. Further, as a leader in the community, many African American boys are in my care and it’s important that I do what I can to ensure a similar incident doesn’t happen again.

Over the last few days, I have watched Chief Koval and the Madison Police Department handle protestors with respect and dignity. His personal outreach to our communities of color has not gone unnoticed. I believe he understands the anger and distrust.

On the night of the shooting, I called Chief Koval around 1 o’clock in the morning and asked him to join me and another community leader on a visit to the family of Tony Robinson, Jr. Without hesitation, he jumped in my car en route to the other side of town. He agreed that, as the Chief of Police, his immediate communication with the family was important.

When we reached the home, Tony’s grandparents were quite vocal, extremely concerned and understandably angry. Chief Koval apologized, and shortly thereafter they all prayed together. Tony’s grandfather pleaded with the chief, asking him to “please do the right thing.” Chief Koval responded by saying, "I will." That was a powerful and humbling moment.

Ultimately, a thorough investigation will be conducted by the state's Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Dane County District Attorney will then review that investigation. In spite of the divisiveness that currently exists in our community, I know that Chief Koval, along with his department, is committed to helping this great city of ours as we travel the road to healing. As long as our community keeps the lines of communication open, we can collectively begin to make sure that Anthony (Tony) Robinson, Jr.'s death is not in vain.

Shortly before he was killed, Robert Kennedy shared these wise words of counsel in response to the loss of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”

I am calling on all young people, elected officials, the faith based community, law enforcement officials, YGB and others to join us tonight at the candle light vigil."

Chief Koval apologized, and shortly thereafter they all prayed together.

Vomitous.

Yeah that's not helpful and it's completely disrespectful of a family that just lost a child.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/03/8563947/edits-wikipedia-pages-bell-garner-diallo-traced-1-police-plaza

NYPD attempt to sanitize past, have never heard of proxy server ,etc

seems the best thread for this, feds and all

Members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force tracked the time and location of a Black Lives Matter protest last December at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, email obtained by The Intercept shows.

The email from David S. Langfellow, a St. Paul police officer and member of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, informs a fellow task force member from the Bloomington police that “CHS just confirmed the MOA protest I was taking to you about today, for the 20th of DEC @ 1400 hours.” CHS is a law enforcement acronym for “confidential human source.”

Jeffrey VanNest, an FBI special agent and Joint Terrorism Task Force supervisor at the FBI’s Minneapolis office, was CC’d on the email. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces are based in 104 U.S. cities and are made up of approximately 4,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The FBI characterizes them as “our nation’s front line on terrorism.”

Activists had planned the protest at the mall to call attention to police brutality against African Americans. “Our system disproportionately targets, profiles and kills black men and women, that’s what we are here talking about,” organizer Michael McDowell told a reporter at the time. “We wanted to show people who have the everyday luxury of just living their lives that they need to be aware of this, too.”

According to an FBI spokesman, Langfellow’s Confidential Human Source was “a tipster with whom Mr. Langfellow is familiar” who contacted him “after the tipster had discovered some information while on Facebook” that “some individuals may engage in vandalism” at the Mall of America protest. Upon receiving the email, Bloomington police officer and task force member Benjamin Mansur forwarded it to Bloomington’s then-deputy police chief Rick Hart, adding “Looks like it’s going to be the 20th…” It was then forwarded to all Bloomington police command staff. There is no mention of potential vandalism anywhere in the email chain, and no vandalism occurred at the Mall of America protest.

The FBI spokesman emphasized that “As for any ‘FBI interest’ in the Black Lives Matter campaign, the FBI had (has) none,” and “makes certain its operational mandates do not interfere with activities protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” The spokesman acknowledged that vandalism does not fall under the Memorandum of Understanding establishing the parameters under which local police officers are detailed to Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the task force mission of “prevention, preemption, deference and investigation of terrorist acts.” Asked why VanNest, the Joint Terrorism Task Force supervisor, was CC’d on Langfellow’s email, the spokesman responded “I don’t know” but speculated it was “as a matter of courtesy.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/12/fbi-appeared-use-informant-track-black-lives-matter-protest/

of course they did

ugh

Middle aged dad beaten to death by cops in Oklahoma

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/horror-five-cops-beat-innocent-unarmed-father-death-outside-cinemas

That was a while back, but yeah.

Just fucking heart breaking.

OK only saw that today. So fuckin upsetting.

Fells like every week now there's something though

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150317/morrisania/mom-arrested-after-asking-police-talk-young-son-about-stealing-suit

Fells like every week now there's something though

There was always something every week, it just wasn't considered newsworthy. :/

^^^^

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/blog/2015/03/new-video-shows-massachusetts-cop-hailed-as-a-hero-actually-beat-man-he-saved/

Video evidence in quantity made the crucial difference in the way news organizations cover this stuff. Film & video of cop brutality has always been newsworthy (Chicago 68, Rodney King), they just were never continuously available like this before.

Video here is much better quality; you can jump ahead to ~2:00
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/18/man-saved-transit-police-detective-claims-video-shows-used-excessive-force/NoTeOQ2lt7upV0MEyZh24J/story.html

If anything, it looks like he was just gonna fall into the train tracks because he got scared by the top in the first place!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/us/atlanta-police-shooting-victim-tried-to-live-a-life-that-mattered.html

racial elements aside, that story has shades of:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/son-deceased

Times story is horrific... Why shoot an unarmed, naked man?

it would literally seem like they would rather shoot someone than touch a random naked man.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/essay-i-go-uva-you-f-ing-racists-martese-johnson-n327241

"I go to UVA" isn't just a statement of fact, it's a magical rhetorical talisman, it's a message to cops, to racist townies, to store owners and even visiting old alumni that you are one of the "good ones."

It means you're protected — I could be a star athlete, or have rich parents, or be on student council, you can't just treat me like any other black person living in Charlottesville. In your gut you know it feels awful to use, playing into this trope, especially surrounded by white kids whose behavior is often worse than yours, who are oblivious to the invisible protection that UVA provides.

"I go to UVA" is a nasty little golden ticket, born of a frothy mix of classism and institutional racism, and it's doled out to only those certain African Americans that ventured into the hallowed white spaces deemed off limits just a generation before (UVA didn't integrate until 1972). I used it exactly twice, once while being harassed by a shop owner at a store across the street from where Martese Johnson was beaten, and once more when I was being stared down by a cop that pulled me over.

I was lucky it worked.

"I go to UVA" is used sparingly, as a black person you know that at best it bestows a few minutes of privilege upon you that white kids at UVA take for granted. The image of Martese Johnson beaten and bloodied, screaming "I go to UVA" exposes the greatest, deepest fear that every single one of us had at UVA — that nothing protects us. That no matter how well-spoken you are, what clubs you're a part of, or who you're with, you can be infantilized, emasculated, and stripped of all your hard work, and public status in the blink of an eye.

I grew up there, and every single word of that essay is OTM

that's a hell of a piece.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/violent-arrest-floyd-dent_n_6941714.html

more soldiery crazy cops

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/methods-that-cops-use-with-the-mentally-ill-are-madness/388610/

murder charges: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Whoa- that video. Probably shouldn't have watched it for reasons of my mental equilibrium.

Yeah, I'm not watching the video, but having read the description of it in three different articles, there seems to be very little ambiguity about what took place. Of course, the same could be said about the video evidence in the death of Tamir Rice and Eric Garner and we know what happened in those cases. At least this fucker has murder charges and has been denied bail.

Does anyone doubt at this point that he will get off?

it's a disturbing video, although it's not gruesome (no blood or screaming). what's amazing about the footage is the 4 minutes after the shooting. the cop glances at whoever is taking the video, then walks over to the victim, and realizes he just murdered him. then he jogs back to where he was standing when he was shooting, and picks up something off the ground. soon, after his backup arrives, he drops the object onto the ground besides the guy he shot. the NYT video highlights this in detail.

anyway, obviously trigger warnings apply (although it's much, much less violent than the kennedy assassination video), but the video is going to be important beyond just the footage of him shooting an unarmed man who is running away during the first few seconds of it.

has there ever been publicly viewed video of a cop planting evidence on someone he just killed before this?

I don't think the cop saw that there was someone shooting video--otherwise that guy would be dead too

really hoping the blatant planting of the taser (to backup his official story that the guy stole it) helps convict this bastard

the object in the video hasn't been 100% identified as the taser, i don't think. but yeah, certainly looks like it, and it makes sense.

can we post this at the top of the thread or what:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCBy2hWWAAIgh7O.jpg

the cop glances at whoever is taking the video, then walks over to the victim, and realizes he just murdered him

And yet still screams "Put your hands behind your back."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/04/north_charleston_shooting_how_investigatory_traffic_stops_unfairly_affect.html

http://gawker.com/walter-scott-and-the-american-slaughter-1696507544

That Gawker piece describes my current level of fatigue very well.

I very carefully avoided watching the Walter Scott execution video online, which makes me even more furious that network news keeps showing it multiple times during every teaser. It's fucking disgusting.

I've been avoiding it too, but I watched the NBC news last night, and I swear they showed the video at least 10 times during the newscast (and without any kind of "what you're about to see is graphic and shocking" warning).

"Fucking disgusting" is otm.

I'm waiting to see how long it takes for someone to dredge up any possible minor infraction in the cameraman's past and try to shift the focus to that in order to discredit him.

Napolitano on FOX said, "This is what people said Ferguson was."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/us/north-charleston-police-shooting-not-justified-experts-say.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The court case at the center of the issue of shooting a fleeing suspect, Tennessee v. Garner, a Supreme Court ruling from 1985, held that the police in Memphis had acted unreasonably in shooting an unarmed suspect in the back and killing him as he fled from a house he was suspected of burglarizing. The ruling effectively set a national requirement that officers shoot only when life is endangered and established that they cannot shoot unarmed, nondangerous suspects solely out of concern that they might escape.

yeesh

Also I dont think cameras everywhere on police is going to solve much, mostly because this

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/07/local/la-me-lapd-tamper-20140408

Los Angeles police officers tampered with voice recording equipment in dozens of patrol cars in an effort to avoid being monitored while on duty, according to records and interviews.

An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture what officers say in the field. The antennas in at least 10 more cars in nearby divisions had also been removed.

Dan, I agree, and I empathize with you as well - it's violence pornography and although I wouldn't begrudge somebody for watching the video to understand what happened, the way the networks are using the video is inappropriate (and as noted above, viewers are getting sandbagged into watching it).

I'm waiting to see how long it takes for someone to dredge up any possible minor infraction in the cameraman's past and try to shift the focus to that in order to discredit him.

― joygoat, Friday, April 10, 2015 1:27 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that or the narrative that will emerge is "if he had not fled his vehicle and followed instructions, he would still be alive". though being that the officer's own employer fired him and condemned the shooting, I am hoping this doesn't turn into another Ferguson, he's convicted, and it's a small victory, a move in the right direction.

I've learned not to get too optimistic about these things though.

xpost yeah the Onion joked today that one Pro in regards to body cameras is that you would know exactly the cop's exact location at the moment he disabled his body cam

serious question here, but these internal investigations that investigate all officer-related shootings, is it overseen by any third party or is it typically all done in-house in states? Because it would seem to me this is the type of thing that really requires an outside source to investigate but it feels very insular in all cases.

Wisconsin passed a law to require independent investigation of police custody deaths last year. They're the only state to mandate it. Should be everywhere.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/23463-wisconsin-passes-first-state-law-requiring-independent-investigations-of-police-custody-deaths#