Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

There's a Behind the Bastards podcast episode about Dave Grossman.

Iirc the short answer is, as always, it's a grift.

Former Dallas police officer asks appeals court to throw out murder conviction for killing Botham Jean

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/us/amber-guyger-appeal-botham-jean-murder/index.html

Fuck this noise, stay in jail

The court has to hear her appeal, but they sure as fuck don't have to grant it.

There's this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrew-brown-jr-shooting-civil-rights-investigation-fbi/

And this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/mario-gonzalez-alameda-police.html

The latter seems like a clear case of a man who had altered mentation and was probably in need of mental health and addiction treatment. But now, he's dead.

Alameda is a racist shithole, tho, ngl.

If I had a child that was special needs in any way shape or form, I would feel terrified calling the police in any scenario that involved them.

they outright don't know how to handle them and will kill them when they don't comply because they simply don't understand what's going on.

like the infamous Down's syndrome child who was gunned down in a movie theatre for 'refusing to leave the movie'.

During the Adam Toledo marches, I saw signs about justice for Anthony Alvarez. Another video coming out likely today.

Mayor Lightfoot and Anthony Alvarez’s lawyers have released a statement calling for peace as city prepares to release video of police shooting Alvarez — per family lawyer, it was while he was running away pic.twitter.com/2ZPKmzuKcI

— Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) April 28, 2021

like the infamous Down's syndrome child who was gunned down in a movie theatre for 'refusing to leave the movie'.

― Filibuster Poindexter (Neanderthal), Wednesday, April 28, 2021 9:57 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

He was an adult with Down's syndrome and he was asphyxiated by the police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-police-department-quietly-hired-a-deputy-involved-in-the-death-of-a-man-with-down-syndrome-then-one-man-decided-to-make-noise/2020/08/05/f0af5940-d73e-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html

thanks peace man, I misremembered the details - and yet the reality is even more terrifying.

I live in Frederick County, where the killing of the autistic man happened. Our sheriff is a Trumper who, since we're close to DC, gets to be on Fox News occasionally. He's a racist who profiles Latinx people, and he used to run unopposed until recently, but the reform candidate gets creamed. (when he was unopposed one election, I wrote in "A monkey with a tuxedo" as my vote).

we passed a referendum to amend the county charter to make the sheriff an appointed rather than elected position, elected sheriff is such a wacky throwbacky america thing

We also vote for “Circuit Court Clerk” and “Register of Wills” lol.

Good news!

Yes

kind of moot at this point, but this was an interesting side note to the Chauvin case and how the current admin is looking at this stuff

https://www.startribune.com/feds-plan-to-indict-chauvin-other-three-ex-officers-on-civil-rights-charges/600051374/

special level of shitty human here
https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/cop-accused-of-hurting-womans-arm-ready-for-the-pop/

Unfortunately that “special level” is basically SOP

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/arresting-officer-two-others-resign-after-lawsuit-says-they-celebrated-violent-arrest-of-73-year-old-woman-with-dementia/

Introduce caning but only for cops (in addition to prison sentences).

sometimes i like to think about the time my best friend (a lawyer at a fancy midtown Atlanta firm) watched three cops spend about a half hour gently coaxing a young white man who was almost certainly on drugs out of the water fountain in the roundabout in front of her office. and not a taser nor a gun was drawn.

seee not all cops are bad lol

fuck technology, while we're at it

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/tech/nijeer-parks-facial-recognition-police-arrest/index.html

fuck technology and specifically fuck the cops who figured "ehhh, this is close enough/good enough, it's only fucking up someone's whole life we're talking about here"

can someone more knowledgeable than me explain why this is no big deal? because it's making me concerned

https://www.startribune.com/chauvin-juror-defends-participation-in-march-on-washington-after-social-media-post-surfaces/600053102/

The picture shows Mitchell, 31, standing next to two cousins in Washington, D.C. He is wearing a Black T-shirt with a picture of King surrounded by the words, "GET YOUR KNEE OFF OUR NECKS" and "BLM" (Black Lives Matter). Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds.

Mitchell said he answered "no" to two questions in the juror questionnaire sent out before jury selection that asked about participation in demonstrations.

The first question asked, "Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd's death?"

The second asked, "Other than what you have already described above, have you, or anyone close to you, participated in protests about police use of force or police brutality?"

Mitchell said he answered "no" to two questions in the juror questionnaire

It can be used among Chauvin's grounds for appeal. How big a deal it becomes will be up to the appeals court.

Juror could also conceivably get done for perjury because you’re under oath for voir dire, I don’t know if that ever happens in practice

it was an anniversary march for MLK march on washington, so not SPECIFICALLY a police brutality rally, but that shirt, i dunno...

i am not a minnesota lawyer but the law is probably similar--it's really hard to get a verdict overturned for this reason. it sounds like this may have been a matter of interpretation because it said the march or protest had to be about a very narrow thing and maybe he didn't see it that way. hard to say when you can't see how the answers he gave actually came out, but if he said his opinion of blm was "very favorable" it would be reasonable for appeals court to say the topic was covered elsewhere and there was no prejudice.

also the first question specifically says "took place in Minneapolis", and this photo is from DC, so no interpretation needed, "no" was the correct answer

read the next paragraph...

Mitchell can say he is a strict constructionist and therefore he interpreted the wording of the questions in the narrowest possible way.

part of why this makes me nervous is mostly because the right is taking it as a chance to gloat with certainty about what happens next. we unfortunately have to be honest with ourselves

what the fuck is this headline

A baby boy died from injuries suffered when Mississippi police gunned down his murder-suspect father, authorities say. https://t.co/oihjXQZEMq

— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 5, 2021

guess until they can "definitively rule out" that the murder-suspect did NOT shoot his own baby, they have to talk around it like that

Andrew Yang's plan for reforming the police in NYC, as mayor: infiltrate every community with plainclothes spies, encourage people to report their neighbours for thoughtcrimes, then threaten the reportees that they'll be hauled in regardless of evidence if any crimes are committed

he really might be the worst of the technocrats, and that's a tough field to compete in

Anyone have thoughts about this? Is this set of stuff a decent first milestone to push for?

I'm getting questions on the new law passed by Brooklyn Center tonight, so here's your cheat sheet. It's one of the most audacious overhauls of policing I've ever seen. Won't fix everything but goes long way 2 limit police power & create alternative community safety structures 1/

— Udi Ofer (@UdiACLU) May 16, 2021

This article talks about the fact that it wouldn't remove cops from all traffic stops: https://theappeal.org/brooklyn-center-police-traffic-enforcement-plan/

Cops only being able to arrest people for felonies seems like a big deal? idk

Yang getting closer to giving the police eugenics powers.

ahh yes, mulligans for killing special needs people, real great development there Yang

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/opinion/george-floyd-duante-wright-police-race-class.html

The entire Portland police unit assigned to protests has resigned from the team, a day after a grand jury indicted one of their own. https://t.co/uCPH7Btd3x

— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) June 17, 2021

you absolutely love to see it

They’ll be back at the protests tho with the Pr*ud B*us and P@triot Pr@yer

this is the same thing they did in buffalo though. they're still cops they just don't want to be on the g.i. joe military combat police team anymore because their feelings got hurted

o no who will shoot tear gas at us now?

hahahahaha

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/us/police-resignations-protests-asheville.html

so many great lines, but this is my favorite

"It takes roughly a year to train new officers in Asheville, and of seven who started in December, six have already quit, Chief Zack said."

officers said they were asked to handle too much; they were constantly thrown at tangled societal problems like mental health breakdowns or drug overdoses, they said, for which they were ill-equipped

It’s almost as if these problems require a different solution other than a police officer