Showing posts with label murder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label murder. Show all posts

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Six Baltimore Police Officers Indicted by Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby

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Previous Related Post:
Baltimore Burning Over Death of Freddie Gray

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It was an epic day for justice in Baltimore, Maryland, when State Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby stepped up to a microphone and stunned the world by announcing the indictment of six officers charged with the death of Freddie Gray.



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From the Baltimore Sun
State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby charged the driver of the van with second-degree murder and the other officers with offenses that included involuntary manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, second-degree assault, false imprisonment and misconduct in office. The officers were taken into custody Friday and released on bail.
"These charges are an important step in getting justice for Freddie," said Richard Shipley, stepfather of the 25-year-old Gray, who died April 19, one week after he was injured in police custody.
. . . After weeks of tension and occasional violence, it felt as if many exhaled in relief Friday. Gray had become the focus of massive demonstrations, here and in other cities, as the latest in a string of African-American men who died during confrontations with police.
The case stood in stark contrast to others across the nation in which police officers were cleared of wrongdoing in the deaths of black men. Grand juries declined to indict the officer who put a chokehold on Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., or the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

From Jennifer Bendery on Huffington Post

Who Is This Objectively Badass Attorney Running The Freddie Gray Investigation?
. . . Mosby's news marks a huge turning point for people around the country demanding justice for yet another black man killed by police, for a city torn apart by the drug war and economic disparity, and for Mosby herself.
She was just four months into her job when she was tasked last month with investigating Gray's death. She had never held elected office before November. And at 35, Mosby is the youngest chief prosecutor of any district.
Those details gave city residents reason to doubt her abilities, something even her biggest supporters have conceded. Before her current job, Mosby had been counsel for Liberty Mutual Insurance for three years and an assistant state's attorney for five years.
On Friday, though, Mosby emerged as the voice that so many in Baltimore needed to hear. She gave a detailed description of what happened to Gray the day he was arrested and said officers ignored his requests for medical attention. She let the findings speak for themselves.

Huffington Post Headline 5-2-2015

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Thursday, April 9, 2015

The Murder of Walter Scott in Charleston SC



Walter Scott was murdered by police officer Michael Slager in Charleston, South Carolina. Like so many sad killings we've had this year, this is another white cop shooting a black man.

And he might have gotten away with it "Scott Free" if not for one brave soul, a young man named Feidin Santana, originally from the Dominican Republic, who stood filming with his camera while the policeman first tazed Scott on the ground, then shot him multiple times in the back as he fled.

In an interview Santana said he had considered deleting the video, fearful for his own life, then he decided to take it to the police. But when he got there and the police told him to wait while he went to get more officers, he got nervous and left to find a lawyer. After that, the video was released to the family and the media.

There are gruesome details gleaned from the video - the original police report said that CPR was given to Scott after the shooting, but the video showed none given by Slager or the assisting officer who arrives moments later. The taser was moved by Slager from where it was originally used and then thrown down beside the body, probably to justify the shooting. And the worst - Slager put handcuffs on Scott as he lay on the ground, probably after he died. Why do cops do that? I call that abuse of a dead body!

(Note: Cops in St. Louis also put cuffs on the dead body of Kajieme Powell.)

The only good thing out of this is that local Charleston officials immediately arrested Slager, then fired him. His own lawyer quit in the middle of the day. Good and good. Then tonight, the website GoFundMe shut down Slager's defense fund. Good for them too!

From the New York Times
The shooting unfolded after Officer Slager stopped the driver of a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight, according to police reports. Mr. Scott ran away, and Officer Slager chased him into a grassy lot that abuts a muffler shop. He fired his Taser, an electronic stun gun, but it did not stop Mr. Scott, according to police reports.

Moments after the struggle, Officer Slager reported on his radio: “Shots fired and the subject is down. He took my Taser,” according to police reports.

But the video, which was taken by a bystander and provided to The New York Times by the Scott family’s lawyer, presents a different account. The video begins in the vacant lot, apparently moments after Officer Slager fired his Taser. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from Mr. Scott’s body as the two men tussle and Mr. Scott turns to run.

Something — it is not clear whether it is the stun gun — is either tossed or knocked to the ground behind the two men, and Officer Slager draws his gun, the video shows. When the officer fires, Mr. Scott appears to be 15 to 20 feet away and fleeing. He falls after the last of eight shots.

The officer then runs back toward where the initial scuffle occurred and picks something up off the ground. Moments later, he drops an object near Mr. Scott’s body, the video shows.




















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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Protests Continue over Killer Cops

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Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho,
These Killer Cops
Have Got to Go"
~ Chant During Washington D.C. Die-In
Screencap Via Reuters Video

Protests are continuing night after night over the Eric Garner decision in New York, as well as the cumulative numbers of police shootings that continue each day.






New Video Shows a Lack of Medical Response
And NO CPR
For Eric Garner
According to CBS News, Two EMTs were Suspended



People are Blaming Everyone EXCEPT the Cops
























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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Mike Brown Memorial in #Ferguson Burns Down

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One of the memorials for the slain Mike Brown burned in Ferguson, Missouri, yesterday. This spurred new unrest and questions about police involvement in the act. Or at least they could have tried harder to put out the fire! By nightfall, more protests began, leading to arrests of course.

One way healing could start would be to arrest the murderer of Mike Brown, police officer Darren Wilson. But so far authorities have shown no sign of arresting their colleague, who is still walking free, although apparently in hiding.

From St. Louis Today
For weeks after the shooting of Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, burning candles have been part of the memorials near the shooting site on Canfield Drive, but it was unclear if the fire at the roadside memorial was intentionally set or an accident. One photo showed an empty, overturned votive candle next to the burn site.
In a press release, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said the cause of the fire is unknown and authorities are investigating.
Residents of the area gathered at the scene Tuesday morning. Many were upset, claiming the fire was intentionally set by someone in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday. One witness said the fire started sometime after 5 a.m., when he drove by and saw no problem, and 6 a.m., when he saw the memorial ablaze. Another said it started between 6:30 and 7 a.m.
. . . Some began rebuilding the memorial Tuesday morning with a blanket and a new collection of stuffed animals, T-shirts, flowers and one unlit votive candle next to the soot-stained pole.

Video of the fire was taken by Piaget Crenshaw and posted on Facebook. She was also a witness to the killing of Mike Brown in the same place on the street. Unfortunately, her assumption that police burned the memorial down on purpose drew criticism and may have tainted her credibility as a witness. However, few have denied that the white policemen on the scene stood and watched the memorial burn.


Post by Piaget Crenshaw.




























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Sunday, August 24, 2014

Lies of Darren Wilson ~ No Broken Eye Socket and No Police Report

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Previous Related Posts:
Racist Rescue for Darren Wilson with @GoFundMe
Monday Night Mayhem in Ferguson
Heading to #Fergustan ~ Gov. Calls Out National Guard
Ferguson Update: Shooter Identified, Tanks Return
Journalists Attacked and Arrested in Ferguson
Ferguson Missouri Uses Militarized Police on Protestors

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Twitter was abuzz last week after material was released saying that Michael Brown had given police officer Darren Wilson an eye-socket fracture during their tussle through the window of a police car. Somehow Darren Wilson supporters thought that would mitigate or explain the way he shot the young man down in anger or pain or whatever.

The source was This post by Gateway Pundit
The Gateway Pundit can now confirm from two local St. Louis sources that police Officer Darren Wilson suffered facial fractures during his confrontation with deceased 18 year-old Michael Brown. Officer Wilson clearly feared for his life during the incident that led to the shooting death of Brown. This was after Michael Brown and his accomplice Dorian Johnson robbed a local Ferguson convenience store.
. . . Local St. Louis sources said Wilson suffered an “orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket.” This comes from a source within the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and confirmed by the St. Louis County Police.



The bogus eye report was accompanied by what appeared to be some type of diagram or X-ray of Wilson's head injury.

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Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs exposed that the picture wasn't connected to Wilson at all, but was lifted from a website and edited:
And there’s more evidence that Hoft is trying to pull a fast one again; here is the original image posted at the AAPOS site, showing a CT scan of a blowout fracture (on the left), compared to the image posted at Gateway Pundit by Hoft (on the right):

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Notice the difference? In the version posted by Jim Hoft, the text at bottom right that says “UNIV OF IOWA” has been crudely erased. Caught you, Jim.
Was Hoft trying to mislead his readers into thinking this was the actual X-ray (or CT scan) of Darren Wilson? His text does not make it clear it wasn’t Wilson’s CT scan — and the words “UNIV OF IOWA” have been blacked out, quite deliberately.
If Hoft’s intent was to mislead, it worked. All over Twitter and right wing blogs, the wingnuts are raving about “Darren Wilson’s X-ray” that shows a fractured eye socket — but this is just a generic example image of an unknown person’s CT scan.

CNN also reported that the whole story about the "Orbital Socket" injury wasn't true.

From CNN Transcript August 21, 2014
LEMON: OK. We're learning some information regarding officer Darren Wilson's supposed injuries that we have been discussing and talking about here.

One of those injuries that has not been reported by CNN, but it's making its way around other media organizations and also on the Internet -- here's the thing. So according to a source close to the investigation, the officer, Darren Wilson, did go to the hospital after the altercation and the shooting death of Michael Brown.

He did have X-rays done. He had a swollen face. But the X-rays for a broken or a torn eye socket came back negative. That source says it is not true at all. He did not have a torn eye socket. And so he is saying that unequivocally -- he unequivocally denies that, saying it did not happen. But he did have a swollen face. He did go for X-rays. And that is the very latest on that. But he said obviously there was some sort of scuffle, Brooke, because, you know, it was swollen. But that eye socket tear, whatever, it's called a tear or rupture or fracture to the orbital lobe -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. OK, so a source saying he did not have this broken or fractured eye socket.

LEMON: Did not. Did not.



That won't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed this case, since Wilson is seen casually walking around Mike Brown's dead body in the street instead of holding onto his own eye and screaming in pain. No paramedics are seen giving him assistance either.









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The Non-Report

The Ferguson Police Department finally released a "report" on the death of Michael Brown, but there are some major problems. It is barely a report at all - just a one page of fill-in-the-blanks boilerplate with nothing attached to it.

As President Obama might say, quoting Gertrude Stein, "There's no there there." It's a non-report report.

View it here, via the ACLU



From The Wire
The incident report the Ferguson Police Department has on file has little more than the who, where and when of the shooting. It doesn't say what happened, it doesn't say how, and it wasn't even reviewed by a supervisor until 10 days after Michael Brown died. The report was given final approval on August 20.
. . . It's clear now that Ferguson police knew then that they didn't have the incident report they were asked to release. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell argued that Jackson essentially admitted there was no incident report last week when he said "we've pretty much given you every bit of information that we have now — I don't think there's anything else that we have to give out."

Lawrence O'Donnell did indeed predict that there wouldn't be much of a report, and his reasoning was that Darren Wilson would be told by the Police Union attorney not to incriminate himself by putting the story of that day into writing, in effect, setting himself up to plead the fifth amendment. However, that is little consolation to the family of Michael Brown, or the citizens of Ferguson, or the country for that matter, that Darren Wilson is planning to avoid any responsibility for killing Michael Brown.









From Yahoo News
The two-page document, which the Ferguson Police Department released only after pressure from journalists and civil liberties advocates, is largely redacted or left blank. The most egregious omissions are the victim’s name and a description of the offense – the fatal shooting of Brown.
“They are breaking the law,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri.
The report, obtained by Yahoo News through the Missouri Sunshine Law, lists only the date, time and location. Fields for the type of incident, name of the complainant, and a summary of the circumstances are redacted.
. . . Missouri’s Sunshine Law states law enforcement agencies must promptly provide incident reports that include among other things, “name of the victim and immediate facts and circumstances surrounding the initial report of a crime or incident.”






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#Ferguson ~ The Shocking Death of Kajieme Powell

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Another man was gunned down this week in Missouri, this time by St. Louis cops. Kajieme Powell had stolen several items including canned drinks and a honey bun from a local market, and was talking to himself and others on the street. A bystander started filming him while talking on the phone and was shocked when cops rolled up and shot the obviously mentally ill man several times at close range.

WARNING: This video is disturbing and violent!



They say the man had a knife, but it's not clear in the video, and he was obviously outnumbered by cops. So why the overkill once again while the whole world is watching? It would seem this is just another day in the St. Louis area, and the only plan they have is "shoot to kill."

From New Republic:
If you watch the video, there’s no denying that the introduction of police was a catalyst that rapidly turned a sad and touchy situation into a violent tragedy.
. . . Powell had a knife—Police Chief Sam Dotson described it as a steak knife. But he was not wielding it in the way officers claimed (or in the way it may have felt to them in the moment). He was not two or three feet away, but perhaps eight or nine. He wasn’t charging hard or issuing threats. To the contrary, he was demanding to be shot.
But that doesn’t mean the police needed to oblige him. It's hard to watch the video and not conclude that there should’ve been some safe way to preserve his life.

When you watch the video, notice that one cop rolls him over and attempts to put cuffs on him AFTER death. It's creepy and wrong in every possible way.These cops have no respect for the dead, which they proved with Michael Brown as well, leaving him bleeding in the road for a very long time after that shooting, then loading him into a van instead of an ambulance. What is wrong with them?

And when you read the list of tweets, it's also weird that the Mayor of St. Louis is named "Slay." Sometimes I feel as if I'm having a symbolic NRA-induced nightmare.




















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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Zimmerman Juror B37 Loses Book Deal

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Yahoo News
Saying that she underestimated the depth of emotion created by the case she served on — as evidenced by last night's disturbances in Los Angeles — one of the jurors who acquitted George Zimmerman has canceled a previously announced book project about the trial. Early on Monday, it was revealed that the juror, known only as Juror B37, had secured a literary agent and would be shopping a book proposal about her experience on the sequestered jury and the issues the case raised about the legal system. (The juror's husband is also an attorney.)

From Buzzfeed
Late Monday night, Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management LLC told BuzzFeed that Juror B37 will no longer pursue a book deal.

The juror’s statement, via Martin:

“I realize it was necessary for our jury to be sequestered in order to protest our verdict from unfair outside influence, but that isolation shielded me from the depth of pain that exists among the general public over every aspect of this case. The potential book was always intended to be a respectful observation of the trial from my and my husband’s perspectives solely and it was to be an observation that our ‘system’ of justice can get so complicated that it creates a conflict with our ‘spirit’ of justice.
Now that I am returned to my family and to society in general, I have realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury.”

The juror’s announcement came after Martin — who has also represented Amanda Knox’s ex Raffaele Sollecito — decided to drop her following hours of outrage on social media.
“After careful consideration regarding the proposed book project with Zimmerman Juror B37, I have decided to rescind my offer of representation in the exploration of a book based upon this case,” Martin said in an email at the time.

From CNN
The woman, who was identified just as Juror B37, spoke exclusively to CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" on Monday night. She is the first juror to speak publicly about the case.

She said she believes Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place" the night he shot Martin, but that he didn't use "good judgment" in confronting the Florida teen.

"I think George Zimmerman is a man whose heart was in the right place, but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighborhoods, and wanting to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done," she said.
. . . An initial vote was divided. Three of the jurors first voted Zimmerman was guilty, while three voted he was not guilty, she said. Juror B37 was among those who believed he was not guilty from the start.
"There was a couple of them in there that wanted to find him guilty of something and after hours and hours and hours of deliberating over the law, and reading it over and over and over again, we decided there's just no way, other place to go," she said.





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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Shock, Anger and Grief Over Trayvon Martin Verdict ~ Updated



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Previous Posts:
Why Was Prosecutor Angela Corey Smiling?
Zimmerman Verdict: Not Guilty
Best Tweets From the Zimmerman Trial

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Why was Prosecutor Angela Corey Smiling?

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Previous Posts:
Zimmerman Verdict: Not Guilty
Best Tweets From the Zimmerman Trial

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When it was over last night, Angela Corey, the Florida state attorney, met the press with the weird smile of an event planner. Then she asked for peace.
~ Peter Gelzinis in Boston Globe

































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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Best Tweets from the Zimmerman Trial

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