The Day Ferguson Cops Were Caught in a Bloody Lie

Texas police caught in an enormous lie about their murder of unarmed mother Yvette Smith

by
Shaun King



Yvette Smith
attribution: Family photo of Yvette Smith - used with permission


On February 16, 2014, Yvette Smith, a 47-year-old mother beloved by her family and community, was shot twice by an AR-15 assault rifle and killed on the spot by local police as she opened the front door of her home. A full 18 months later, as her case finally came before a jury, it's disturbingly clear that the police lied, repeatedly, in an attempt to cover up their murder of Smith.

First off, Smith called 911 for help because two men in her home were arguing over a financial dispute and she felt it was getting out of hand. She had nothing to do with the dispute and was an innocent bystander—a victim, even. When the police showed up, both men were already in the front yard and it appeared that the dispute was settled. This should've been case closed, but it wasn't.

When Smith opened the front door of her home, she was shot twice with a high-powered .223 caliber rifle in less than two seconds by Officer Daniel Willis of Bastrop County, Texas, outside of Austin.

The lies and the coverup began immediately. The entire department was involved.

Below, see the initial statement from Sheriff Terry Pickering, issued just hours after Smith died.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/208230113/Yvette-Smith-Shooting-First-Police-Statement

As you may have seen, police not only claimed that Smith emerged from the home with a firearm, they stated that she ignored police commands. In essence, Smith came out of that house, according to police, ready to bring hellfire and damnation on police and they acted out in self-defense from an incredibly dangerous woman.

This is a lie. A complete fabrication. When Sheriff Terry Pickering issued the statement, he was fully and completely aware that Yvette Smith wasn't armed. No weapon was found on or near her. He knew this. The officers on the scene knew this, but Sheriff Pickering issued that statement anyway. It sounded better.

Knowing that the evidence and scores of eyewitnesses saw that she was unarmed, police later retracted the statement, but have given absolutely no answers or held anyone responsible for the earlier lie—which was the primary reason given for shooting Smith in the first place.

It may be hard to believe, but the lies get worse—much worse.

As you saw in the initial statement released by police, they claimed that Smith ignored their commands. On September 17, in open court, we learned that this was also an elaborate lie told to justify police misconduct.

Deputy Scott Gaskamp, who arrived at the scene just moments before the shooting, had told investigators and written reports stating that they had ordered Smith to show them her hands, to open the door and come out of the house, Gaskamp testified Thursday.

Recordings of the incident showed no commands were ever issued.

When pressed to explain this in court, Officer Gaskamp literally admitted that he made the whole damn thing up. He also stated that he couldn't remember telling this lie to the lead investigator, until they played him the recorded interview where he stated the lie over and over again.

Gaskamp told the court he never amended any of his reports or came forward to investigators to correct his errors. After reviewing the dashboard camera footage caught from his patrol vehicle and Willis’ vehicle, he realized his written reports were wrong and that he had never told Smith to put her hands up or issued any other command.

“I did not say those words. It must have been a figment of my imagination,” Gaskamp said.

Are you tracking this? Let me summarize it for you . . .

Yvette Smith called 911 for help.

She opened the front door of her home and was almost instantly shot twice by police with an AR-15 assault rifle.

The officers on the scene lied and said she was armed.

The supervising officer doubled down on the lie and spread it in a press release.

The officers then lied and said they made multiple commands that Smith ignored, but the dashcam footage shows that none of those commands were made. Not one of them.

The coverup continued . . .

A few weeks after the shooting, an investigation by BCSO revealed that several supervisors had modified Willis’ field training records after the shooting in an effort to make sure the records were completed accurately. A lieutenant and a sergeant were demoted to patrol deputy and five additional supervisors also faced disciplinary action because of the record changes.

Lastly, and this may be the most disturbing fact of all, it was discovered that the officer who shot and killed Smith was found incompetent by another police department.

Before working for Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office, Willis, 29, was employed by Travis County. A Travis County 2012 evaluation of Willis stated that Willis needed more development in handling explosive situations and in the utilization of common sense.

Yes, you read that correctly: The damn evaluation said the police officer who killed Yvette Smith struggled with "common sense," but was hired by a neighboring department anyway.

While Officer Willis has been charged in Smith's death, it is increasingly clear that the entire Bastrop County Sheriff's Office conspired to protect one another and cover up this crime. All of them should be immediately fired and a statewide investigation needs to be launched into the corrupt actions that we can clearly see in the murder of Yvette Smith.

I consider it fair treatment when they are prevented from murdering police officers.

Oh please. As if it were injustice to tell blacks that they aren't allowed to murder police officers.

Woman ticketed because of HIV status settles for $40,000 with Michigan police

Newsweek
Newsweek
23 Sep 2015 at 07:36 ET

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September 22, 2015
Polly Mosendz
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Republish Reprint

Shalandra Jones, who sued after a Dearborn, Michigan, police officer asked if she had HIV, has settled with the city for $40,000, the city and her attorney announced Tuesday.

Jones was in a car that was pulled over for a routine traffic stop in January 2014 and questioned by police officer David Lacey for having marijuana in the car, as first reported by the Detroit Free Press. Jones had a medical marijuana card as part of her HIV treatment, though the card had expired at the time of the incident.

The police officer asked if either the driver or Jones had any diseases while searching through Jones’s purse. Her companion said Jones has HIV. “She’s got earrings and **** I’m touching, and I don’t want to get anything,” Lacey said on a video recorded by his dash camera. “That might be something you want to tell a cop,” he said to the driver. Lacey then compared Jones to “drug addicts” who use needles to inject drugs.

Jones is not obligated to mention her HIV status to any law enforcement officials, according to any state or federal law.

“I’m still pissed about the HIV thing,” the officer said. He added that he would cut the driver “a break” on his tickets. Jones was given a ticket and charged with possessing marijuana, a misdemeanor that was later dropped.

Joshua Moore, president of Detroit Legal Services, which represented Jones, believes the incident happened because the officer was not properly educated about HIV. “That was just three years ago—not the early 1980s,” Moore tells Newsweek. “People are uneducated about how you get this disease, and that’s what we are out here fighting.”

Moore says of the Dearborn Police Department, "I think prior to the incident, there wasn’t any training at all [about HIV]. I think they’re on notice now as to what they need to do. They very much understand that. They apologized to Ms. Jones."

Jones brought the suit because of outrage in the HIV community about how she was treated, Moore says. Because the entire incident was recorded on the dash camera, it was widely viewed online.

The officer remains with the police department, according to a statement from the city. Moore says they “didn’t get into it” when asked if Jones's suit requested that he be removed from the force. “We were more concerned about the stigma, the outrage in the HIV community and about educating people.”

“Respect for everyone is emphasized in all police department training. We believe this was an isolated incident with a single officer and not reflective of the behavior of our police department,” Dearborn Department of Public Information spokeswoman Mary Laundroche said a statement.

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2015 Newsweek

Pregnant couple on way to hospital held at gunpoint by cops for 20 minutes; almost miscarriage

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/cops-hold-couple-gunpoint-nearly-kill-them-and-unborn-child-driving-hospital-give

You know this story about a heroic cop who stops a speeding car only to find out that it was a pregnant woman on her way to the hospital and then he helps her in every way he can?

- The couple wasn't even speeding.
- The cops lied in the report. They said, they chased the car for 5 miles, it was 1 mile.
- The cops couldn't even answer why they stopped the couple in the first place.
- They held the couple at gunpoint while the woman was screaming that her water had broken.
- They handcuffed the man, slammed his head on the ground and taunted him that he won't see his child because he will be in jail.
- 15 minutes after the stop, the cops called an ambulance. 20 minutes after the stop the ambulance arrived.
- The woman was taken to hospital, where the baby was in critical condition and had to be delivered right-away with an emergency-procedure or else it would have died.
- The cops arrested the man, apparently just for fun, because he was released the next morning without charge and without knowing what happened to his wife and child.




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How many bad apples are acceptable among the ranks of cops?

They should sue the pants off the department.

Cops are people, so they should be treated as such. How many bad apples is acceptable for the US?

I think its pattern enough to establish that states by and largely cannot fulfill there obligation the regulate state and local police to the point of the Federal government being required to temporarily supervise most of the police entities in this country. Lets do it one state at a time and lets start with Texas.

Hey TonyRM - how many are acceptable to you? As long as they're minority, young and/or poor, right?

Blue on black crime ain't a crime in your book, right?

How many bad apples are acceptable among the ranks of cops?

It is now assume that anytime a non-black cop end up using force on a black citizen it must be racially motivated and not a needed response.

No one feel bad when a cop and his family have their lives turn upside down after it is indeed found that he had acted correctly.

Hell the BLM members and fellow travelers are still trying to sell the false story that Mr. Brown had his hands up when officer Wilson needed to used deadly force.

It's the lie that started this entire thread and the BLM movement.

That's because the only goal of Black Lives Matter is to allow blacks to murder police officers with impunity.

So when police officers shoot an unarmed black man you feel they are justified because the black man was about to murder a police officer?

Every case has its own unique circumstances, but in those cases where the black man was trying to beat the police officer to death with his bare hands, yes.

Once more when an unarmed person attacked an armed police officer the idea that the attacker is not trying to do serous harm is silly.

Seen one video of an unarmed man this time white who during a traffic stop almost beaten a woman cop to death. She had permanent injuries and needed months of hospital care.

Whether the attacker is unarmed or not unarmed, there is always a firearm at such scenes that can and have been used to killed the cop, his own firearm.

Now the last part of your question was limiting it to an unarmed black person as somehow I question if an officer is being beaten within an inch of his or her life it the color of the attacker skin come into it for that officer.

BLM and their supporters such as yourself seems to be the racists not the cops fighting for their lives.

No, we went over this. A crime is a crime. Period. Cops commit crimes too. When there is evidence, cops go to jail too. People who do bad things are thugs. Cop, plumber, black, white, native American, rich, poor, etc. The problem is not blacks, whites, cops, plumbers, or Muslims. the problem is thug.

You know, kill them all, let the deity sort them out.

Its not like they're white or anything.