The Day Ferguson Cops Were Caught in a Bloody Lie

The Police Are America's Terrorists
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--mzoluRoa--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/mxinn4ktbt2d13jxpgy5.jpg


Last Saturday, Walter Scott was driving his Mercedes in North Charleston, S.C., when he was pulled over by police officer Michael Slager for driving with a broken taillight. Scott had a complicated life, as many of us do. He was employed and engaged; he owed back child support; in all likelihood he really didn’t want to go to jail. When Slager approached, Scott ran.


............................



As long as there have been white people and black people and brown people in America, the slaughter of black and brown people has been used as a form of control. For centuries, on a population level, the racial majority has voted and lobbied to give agents of the state more power to act without sanction, to militarize, to kill. Functionally, this has enabled them to wage war on behalf of the majority of the public; to express hatred and fear and aspire to power through campaigns of terror and carnage.

The slaughter of black and brown people is, in this light, a political act, political violence enacted for political purpose against a civilian population to raise fear and obtain compliance. That Slager probably never thought of things in these terms doesn't matter; what does is that he was trained and given incentives in line with the interests of a particular class intent on preserving its power. The violence he enacted is a kind that keeps one class of citizens terrorized and fearful of random violence for the benefit of another. It's meant to keep that class in line and intact, even as the sands of time shift and racial minorities slowly crawl toward majority status. It's little different from what we've see in India, or Israel and Palestine, or Ireland—a dominant class using the instruments of power against a subjugated one.

It is, in essence, the final expression of an idea. Unlike people, ideas are impossible to kill.



the rest:
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-police-are-americas-terrorists-1696463523/+gabriellebluestone

Media Had Already Bought Police's Fantasy Version of Walter Scott Killing Before Video Surfaced

*Before this shocking video surfaced, however, most of the local press coverage, per usual, followed the police’s official narrative and amplified a storyline that, in retrospect, was entirely made up.

The Scott shooting, as Think Progress’s Judd Ledgum pointed out, provides unique insight into the way the police use inherent asymmetry of information to assert their narrative:

Between the time when he shot and killed Scott early Saturday morning and when charges were filed, Slager — using the both the police department and his attorney — was able to provide his “version” of the events.

He appeared well on his way to avoiding charges and pinning the blame on Scott.

Then a video, shot by an anonymous bystander, revealed exactly what happened.

In all police killings, one side–the victim–is, by definition, dead. So the “both sides” type of reporting we’re so often used to almost invariably becomes a one-sided airing of accounts, facts and selective details from the police side that the corporate media repeats without question. Indeed, Charleston’s local ABC affiliate would begin their report with, what turned out to be, an outright lie:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — A man involved in a traffic stop that turned into a physical altercation with a North Charleston police officer died Saturday after being shot by the officer."

http://www.alternet.org/media/media-had-already-bought-polices-fantasy-version-walter-scott-killing-video-surfaced

NY Civil Liberties Union: Erie County Sheriff Records Reveal Invasive Use of “Stingray” Technology
http://www.nyclu.org/news/erie-county-sheriff-records-reveal-invasive-use-of-stingray-technology

Erie County Sheriff Records Reveal Invasive Use of “Stingray” Technology

April 7, 2015 — The New York Civil Liberties Union released today records it received from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office on its use of ”stingrays,” devices that can track and record New Yorkers’ locations via their cell phones. The records showed that of the 47 times the Sheriff’s Office used stingrays in the past four years, it apparently only once obtained a court order, contradicting the sheriff’s own remarks.

“These records confirm some of the very worst fears about local law enforcement’s use of this expensive and intrusive surveillance equipment,” said NYCLU Staff Attorney Mariko Hirose. “Not only did the Sheriff’s Office promise the FBI breathtaking secrecy to keep information about stingrays as hidden as possible, it implemented almost no privacy protections for the Erie County residents it is sworn to protect and serve.”

Stingrays can collect information on all cell phones in a given area as well as precisely track particular phones, locating people within their own home, at a doctor’s office, at a political protest or in a church.

In March, a Supreme Court Justice ruled that the Sheriff’s Office must disclose information about stingrays after the NYCLU sued the office for failing to follow the law and respond to public information requests about how it uses the devices.

It look like murder and that is what he is being charge with so at the moment there seems little to be complaining about as far as the legal system is concern.

Are we talking about the same incident? I brought up another one: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/07/nj-police-allow-their-dog-to-fatally-maul-a-man.html There's no mention of anyone being charged in that case.

Sorry my fault, as I was thinking of the recent South Carolina shooting.

They tried it over here too, using terrorism as an excuse, it also failed.

American Cops Just Killed More People in March than the UK Did in the Entire 20th Century

By Matt Agorist on April 6, 2015

A new report by ThinkProgress.com unearthed disturbing figures when it came to the number of police-related deaths that occurred in America in the month of March alone.

Just last month, in the 31 days of March, police in the United States killed more people than the UK did in the entire 20th century. In fact, it was twice as many; police in the UK only killed 52 people during that 100 year period.

According to the report by ThinkProgess, in March alone, 111 people died during police encounters — 36 more than the previous month. As in the past, numerous incidents were spurred by violent threats from suspects, and two officers were shot in Ferguson during a peaceful protest. However, the deaths follow a national pattern: suspects were mostly people of color, mentally ill, or both.

This high number in March increased the average for police killings from every 8.5 hours, to nearly 1 police killing every 6.5 hours in the US.

These numbers are staggering and show a serious problem of the violent tendencies within the US policing apparatus.

Let’s look at our immediate neighbors to the north, Canada. The total number of citizens killed by law enforcement officers in the year 2014, was 14; that is 78 times fewer people than the US.

From 2010 through 2014, there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, N.M., with a population 1 percent the size of England’s, had 26 fatal police shootings in that same time period.

China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014.

On average, US police kill people at a rate 70 times higher than any of the other first world countries as they “protect and serve” the American citizens.

So much for the Land of the Free…..



Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/american-cops-killed-people-month-march-uk-entire-20th-century/#Fiz6kXds78YRSQrg.99

We can't allow them to operate in the dark. I think we need a nation of witnesses.

One just for carpfart:

SC officer who shot man had prior excessive force complaint

Apr 9, 7:38 AM (ET)

By MITCH WEISS and MICHAEL BIESECKER

(AP) Protestors hold candles in remembrance of Walter Scott during a protest in front of...
Full Image

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The white South Carolina police officer charged with murder for shooting an unarmed black man in the back was allowed to stay on the force despite a 2013 complaint that he used excessive force against another unarmed black man.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Mario Givens recounted Wednesday how he was awakened before dawn one morning by loud banging on the front door of his family's North Charleston home.

On the porch was Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager, the officer now charged in the shooting death of Walter Lamer Scott, which was captured in dramatic cellphone footage by a bystander.

Givens, who was clad only in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, cracked open his door and asked what the officer wanted.

"He said he wanted to come in, but didn't say why," said Givens, now 33. "He never said who he was looking for."

Then, without warning, Slager pushed in the door, he said.

"Come outside or I'll tase you," he quoted the officer as saying, adding: "I didn't want that to happen to me, so I raised my arms over my head, and when I did, he tased me in my stomach anyway."

Givens said the pain from the stun gun was so intense that he dropped to the floor and began calling for his mother, who was also in the home. At that point, he said another police officer came into the house and they dragged him outside and threw him to the ground. He was handcuffed and put in a squad car.

Though initially accused of resisting the officers, Givens was later released without charge.

(AP) A sign is attached to a fence near the site where Walter Scott was killed in North...
Full Image
Asked about the 2013 incident on Wednesday, North Charleston police spokesman Spencer Pryor said the department now plans to review the case to see if its decision to exonerate Slager was correct. He had no timetable on when that review might take place.

Relatives remember the encounter vividly.

"It was very devastating," said Bessie Givens, 57, who was awaked by her son's piercing screams. "You watch your son like that, he's so vulnerable. You don't know what's going to happen. I was so scared."

It turned out that Given's arrest was a case of mistaken identity. Officers had been looking for his brother, Matthew Givens, whose ex-girlfriend had reported that he came into her bedroom uninvited, then left when she began screaming and called 911.

That woman, Maleah Kiara Brown, told the AP on Wednesday that she and a friend had gone to the Givens home with the police officers and were sitting outside when Slager knocked on the door. The second officer had gone around to the back of the house.

(AP) Shanalea Forrest, right, holds her son Ezahn Mahammed as she speaks during a protest...
Full Image
She had provided the officers with a detailed description of Matthew Givens, who is about 5 feet, 5 inches tall. Mario Givens stands well over 6 feet.

"He looked nothing like the description I gave the officers," Brown said. "He asked the officer why he was at the house. He did it nicely. The police officer said he wanted him to step outside. Then he asked, 'Why, why do you want me to step outside?' Then the officer barged inside and grabbed him."

Moments later, she saw the police officers drag Givens out of the house and throw him in the dirt. Brown said she kept yelling to the officers that they had the wrong man, but they wouldn't listen. Though Givens was offering no resistance, she said, she saw Slager use the stun gun on him again.

"He was screaming, in pain," she said. "He said, 'You tased me. You tased me. Why?' It was awful. Terrible. I asked the officer why he tased him and he told me to get back."

"He was cocky," she said of Slager. "It looked like he wanted to hurt him. There was no need to tase him. No reason. He was no threat — and we told him he had the wrong man."

(AP) Jasmine Huber, left, of North Charleston, S.C., observes a moment of silence during...
Full Image
She said she later told a female police supervisor what she had seen.

The next day, an angry Mario Givens went downtown to police headquarters and filed a formal complaint. He and his mother say several neighbors who witnessed what happened on the family's front lawn also contacted the police, though they say officers refused to take their statements.

The incident report filed by Slager and the other officer, Maurice Huggins, provides a very different version of events. In the report, obtained by the AP through a public-records request, Slager wrote that he could not see one of Givens' hands and feared he might be holding a weapon. He wrote that he observed sweat on Givens' shirt, which he perceived as evidence that he could have run from Brown's home, and then ordered him to exit several times.

When Givens didn't comply, Slager said he entered the home to prevent him from fleeing, and was then forced to use his stun gun when Givens struggled with him. The officers' report describes the Givens brothers as looking "just alike."

After Mario Givens filed his complaint, the department opened an internal investigation. A brief report in Slager's personnel file says a senior officer was assigned to investigate. After a couple of weeks, the case was closed with a notation that Slager was "exonerated."

(AP) A man takes a photo as others look at a memorial and flowers placed near the site...
Full Image
Brown is listed as a witness in the investigative report, but her purported statement included none of the details she said she provided about Slager shocking Givens while he was on the ground. She said she was never contacted as part of the police investigation and had not spoken with anyone about that night until she was contacted by an AP reporter on Wednesday.

The report includes statements from Givens and from another woman who was there that night, Yolonda Whitaker, who said she saw Slager stun Givens "for no reason." Efforts to reach Whitaker by phone and the addresses listed for her in the police report were unsuccessful.

Givens said he was never contacted as part of the internal investigation and learned the case had been closed only after he went to the station about six weeks later and asked what happened.

"They never told me how they reached the conclusion. Never. They never contacted anyone from that night. No one from the neighborhood," Givens said.

Givens shook his head Wednesday when asked about his reaction to learning Slager had been charged with murder. Slager is being held without bail.

"It could have been prevented," Givens said of Scott's death. "If they had just listened to me and investigated what happened that night, this man might be alive today."

---

Biesecker reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Jeffery Collins in North Charleston, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

---

Follow Biesecker at http://Twitter.com/mbieseck

Compare and discuss.

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/texas-republicans-trying-to-make-it-a-crime-to-record-police/
As America comes to grips with the cold-blooded shooting of a South Carolina man by a police officer, and the fact that the only reason the cop has been charged with murder is that a witness filmed the event, it very disturbing that Texas Republicans are passing a bill, HB 2918, to ban the filming of police. Right away, anyone can see how this is a very alarming attempt to restrict the First Amendment rights of the press and concerned citizens, repressing the public’s ability to hold our police forces accountable for their actions. The need for oversight is making itself more clear as the tragedies that befell Walter Scott and twelve-year-old Tamir Rice happen more and more often.

The bill itself is on very shaky legal ground, as the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in 2011 that Simon Glik had every right to record police officers beating a suspect on his cellphone, and rejected the cops’ demand for immunity. In a similar case, the Supreme Court ruled in City of Houston v. Hill: “To oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.” There is even a counter-bill, HB 1035, which would enshrine the right to film police actions and make it illegal for the police to tamper or repress that right, currently on the Texas docket in direct opposition to 2918.

Mr. Villalba claims that the bill aims to protect police officers from interference in contentious situations, but anyone can see it for what it truly is: a shield for police officers to behave and conduct themselves however they may feel appropriate, and when there are so many cases of police killings without trial or arrest cropping up across the nation, many with a very upsetting racial component, it is clear that this is not the kind of legislation that America needs.





The bill has received serious criticism from the largest police union in Austin because it rids the officers of the benefit of the doubt. While a few bad apples respond poorly in tense confrontations, the vast majority are hard-working men and women who put their lives at risk to protect their communities. If the police have nothing to hide, why would they need a law casting a veil over their actions? Relationships between the police and the policed are very tense in certain places, and the last thing honest law enforcement officers need is a bill to further deepen the suspicion and fear with which the citizens view them. Charley Wilkinson, director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, had this to say: “Texas law enforcement officers are highly trained and highly capable…”Let’s respect their experience and trust their judgment when it comes to enforcing the law and keeping the public safe. Any unneeded tinkering with the law is risky and unnecessary.”

The fresh pain of Walter Scott’s tragic murder in South Carolina should be more than enough to remind us all why the power of citizen journalism and our right to free speech is so important. It helps keep America honest. It’s hard to understand why Texas Republicans are trying to take that away from us.

So will a video of a cop shooting an unarmed man, 5 times, in the back, be enough to get a conviction?

I wish we could be sure of it -

On Thursday, a new witness emerged in the case. Gwen Nichols told CNN's Brian Todd that she saw a scuffle between Scott and Slager at the entrance to a vacant lot.



"It was like a tussle type of thing, like, you know, like, 'What do you want?' or 'What did I do?' type of thing," Nichols said. "I didn't hear Mr. Slager saying: 'Stop!' "

Feidin Santana, the witness who captured the killing on a cell phone video, has also said he saw a brawl between Scott and Slager.

Criminal defense attorney Paul Callan says he believes Slager's defense will play up the scuffle in arguing that this is not a murder case.

"Defense attorneys will say this was a heat of passion shooting -- (that) this was something that he did suddenly after some kind of an altercation, a physical altercation with a suspect," Callan said. "And that would constitute manslaughter under law, as opposed to murder, and it makes a huge difference in sentencing."

In South Carolina, a murder conviction requires "malice or forethought," Callan said. Some other states say a murder requires premeditation.

Slager, who has been fired from the North Charleston Police Department, faces up to life in prison or the death penalty if he is convicted of murder.

CNN's Jim Sciutto contributed to this report.

Another White SC Cop Arrested For Killing An Unarmed Black Man
Author: Shannon Barber April 9, 2015 10:36 am

For the second time this week, a white South Carolina police officer has been arrested for unjustifiably murdering an unarmed black man. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced on Tuesday that Justin Gregory Craven, a (now former) public safety officer from North Augusta, has been arrested on charges of unlawfully discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle in the shooting death of Earnest Satterwhite.

Apparently, Craven was led in a chase from the highway to Satterwhite’s home in February 2014 several miles away, as he suspected the 68-year-old Satterwhite of driving under the influence. Originally, Craven was only charged with in-office misconduct, but, once again, video and other evidence saved the day. Craven originally reported that he and Satterwhite had been engaged in a battle over Craven’s service weapon in Satterwhite’s driveway.

The entire shooting was captured on video, but SLED will not release it, saying that it is evidence in an investigation that is still open. While Craven says in an unreleased police report that Satterwhite, quote, “grabbed my gun,” a lawsuit that has been filed in amounts of more than $1 million by the family of Earnest Satterwhite “vehemently denies” that any such struggle for the officer’s service weapon took place.

Originally, state prosecutors went for a manslaughter charge against Craven, but he was only indicted on charges of “misconduct in office.” The felony charge is recent, and the misdemeanor is still pending. Craven was taken into custody and booked on Tuesday, according to SLED, the same day that Michael Slager, the North Charleston officer who murdered Walter Scott, was charged with murder after a cell phone video showing the cop shooting the unarmed man in the back as he fled for his life.

While the Slager case is getting national attention, the case of the death of Earnest Satterwhite has not, though it should. A life was senselessly lost here as well, in a similar manner, and both killings were potentially racially motivated. Perhaps the eeriest similarity in both incidences is that neither man had a history of violent criminal activity, though both had outstanding legal issues that did not involve violence. In the case of Walter Scott, he had overdue child support payments. In the case of Earnest Satterwhite, there were multiple arrests and convictions due to traffic violations.

The Associated Press says the following of the Satterwhite case:

Police records show Satterwhite had been arrested more than a dozen times for traffic violations, most of them for driving under suspension or under the influence. Most of the charges led to convictions. He also was charged at least three times for failing to stop as officers tried to pull him over. But his record shows no evidence he ever physically fought with an officer.

So, in both cases, white police officers killed unarmed black men they had no reason to fear. On the contrary, the fact that the officers are alive and the black men are dead shows that it was the black men who had something to fear from the police. And people wonder why the cops are the last people we as African-Americans would ever call if we needed help.

All I can do is hope that Satterwhite’s family wins their lawsuit, and that Walter Scott’s family follows through with their plans to file one. I also hope that both now-former cops are convicted of their respective charges and spend a long, long time behind bars. While these things will not bring Earnest Satterwhite or Walter Scott back, they should, at the very least, send a message that the days of cops murdering black people with impunity are coming to an end, and bring some relief and a sense of justice to their grieving families. In both cases, may justice be served.



H/T: Washington Post | Featured Image: Justin Craven courtesy of Edgefield County Detention Center

11 cops beat the **** out of suspect as news helicopter captures it all

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon ordered an immediate internal investigation Thursday into an arrest by deputies after a horse pursuit caught on camera by NewsChopper4.

Deputies appeared to use Tasers to stun a man and then beat him after the pursuit in San Bernardino County Thursday afternoon.

Aerial footage showed the man falling off the horse, and then being stunned with a Taser by a sheriff's deputy.

The man appeared to fall to the ground with his arms outstretched. Two deputies immediately descended on him and began punching him in the head and kneeing him in the groin.

The group surrounding the man grew to 11 sheriff's deputies.

In the two minutes after the man was stunned with a Taser, it appeared deputies kicked him 17 times, punched him 37 times and struck him with batons four times. Thirteen blows appeared to be to the head. The allegedly stolen horse stood idly nearby.

The man did not appear to move from his position lying on the ground for more than 45 minutes. He did not appear to receive medical attention while deputies stood around him during that time.

<snip>

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Man-on-Stolen-Horse-Stunned-by-Sheriffs-Deputies-in-IE-299250951.html

Cops challenge black student to basketball game, lose, arrest him

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/philly-cops-challenge-black-college-student-pickup-basketball-game-and-arrest-him

They challenged 21-year-old Samir hill, point guard in his college team, to a game, 2-on-2. He won without problems.

The cops vowed to return for a rematch the next day. They didn't show up.

Samir's friends had filmed the game and shared it online.

Two days after the match they arrest him because the thought they saw him with contraband, get him to the precinct and search his car, all the while claiming that they are doing this because they suspect one of his friends to be a criminal. (Samir denies this, he mostly hangs out with other college students.) He was released after one-and-a-half hours without charge.