Abuse of Power

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Fake cop shows teen weapon in Palo Alto

 

A man impersonating a police officer pulled a weapon on a teenager, chastising him for the way he was riding his bike, police said Friday.

The incident happened about 4 p.m. Sept. 5 as two teenage boys, both high school students, rode their bikes in a bike lane on Channing Avenue near Rhodes Drive.

They heard a voice on a public-address system in a car behind them ordering them to ride single file instead of side by side. When they looked back, they saw a car with no police markings, but assumed it was an unmarked police vehicle.

The teens complied with the stranger’s demands and separated at Greer Road.

That’s when the man followed one of the youths and again used the PA system, this time ordering the boy to stop, police said.

“When the student looked back, he saw flashing police-style lights emanating from inside the car,” police said.

The teen stopped his bike and the man pulled up alongside him, displayed a badge and “proceeded to angrily lecture him about his riding habits,” police said. The man then pointed either a stun gun or handgun at the roof of his car so the student could see it before driving away.

Police released a sketch of the man, described as a white male in his 60s with balding, short gray hair. He was about 5-foot-10 with a heavy build and wore a light blue collared shirt, similar to a uniform shirt.

The badge he displayed was silver but had a color design on it, with a green tree in the center. The man’s car was a cream-colored, four-door sedan with radio antennas on the roof.

Anyone with information is asked to call Palo Alto police at (650) 329-2413.

 

Source: blog.sfgate.com

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How Police Caught The Cop Who Allegedly Sexually Abused 8 Black Women

 

“Prosecutors say Officer Daniel Holtzclaw made a mistake after a series of sexual assaults on black women in Oklahoma City — he profiled the wrong woman. His family says he’s a victim of “solicited testimony” from women who have “personal motives” to lie. BuzzFeed News reports from the Oklahoma County courtroom where, Wednesday, prosecutors described a pattern of sexual harassment and assault.”

 

– Click through for more –

 

Source: www.buzzfeed.com

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John Crawford and the right to bear arms – for White People

The screen shot below is only a small part of Shaun King’s story.

Please read his whole story here, then cut and paste his quote along with the URL and share to your social networks.

“I want to share a painful, ugly story with you and then connect it to the police murder of John Crawford last month in Wal-Mart.” -Shaun King

http://thisiswhiteprivilege.tumblr.com/post/97235258163/poldberg-while-there-is-a-lot-of-appropriate

John Crawford

John Crawford

 

 

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Witnesses: Brown put his hands up

 

(CNN) — Two men, shocked at what they saw, describe an unarmed teenager with his hands up in the air as he’s gunned down by a police officer.

They were contractors doing construction work in Ferguson, Missouri, on the day Michael Brown was killed.

And the men, who asked not to be identified after CNN contacted them, said they were about 50 feet away from Officer Darren Wilson when he opened fire.

An exclusive cell phone video captures their reactions during the moments just after the shooting.
“He had his f**n hands up,” one of the men says in the video.
– Click through for [VIDEO] –

Source: www.cnn.com

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Chicago to settle police abuse lawsuit for $150,000

 

This week, the Chicago City Council Finance Committee approved a $150,000 settlement of a lawsuit filed by the manager of a tanning salon who was slapped and verbally abused by an officer during a police raid last year. Caught on camera.

 

Source: blog.angryasianman.com

 

How the police are when they think that no one is recording.

 

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Death and Racism

 

The article on The Root hit me hard;

 Reject the “He was a good kid” or “He was a criminal” narrative and lift up the “Black lives matter” narrative.Those who knew him say Brown was a good kid. But that’s not why his death is tragic. His death isn’t tragic because he was on his way to college the following week. His death is tragic because he was a human being and his life mattered. The good-kid narrative might provoke some sympathy, but what it really does is support the lie that as a rule black people, black men in particular, have a norm of violence or criminal behavior. The good-kid narrative says that this kid didn’t deserve to die because his goodness was an exception to the rule. This is wrong. This kid didn’t deserve to die, period. Similarly, reject the “He was a criminal” narrative surrounding the convenience store robbery because even if Brown did steal some cigars and have a scuffle with the shopkeeper, that is still not a justification for his killing. All black lives matter, not just the ones we deem to be “good.”

It caused me to think back about why, during the George Zimmerman case, I did not debate nor defend against accusations that Trayvon was a “thug.”   Here we are again with Michael Brown, and there are folks trying to posture Michael as deserving of death because he was not a “good kid. “

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com

 

Thank you @XenaBb7 for the HT

 

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Doubts cast on witness’s account of black man killed by police in Walmart

 

‘He was stood so still’
Crawford was a high school graduate who had two young sons. On the evening of 5 August he was at the Walmart in a suburb of Dayton, with his girlfriend, Tasha Thomas. They were to buy ingredients to make S’mores for a family cookout, according to his family’s attorneys.

The couple separated inside the store. Crawford began a conversation on his mobile phone with LeeCee Johnson, the mother of his two sons. Walking in the sporting goods section, he approached a shelf and picked up a MK-177 BB/pellet air rifle, which was already unboxed.

“He never put the phone down,” said his father. “He just kind of picked the rifle up and carried it, was walking around with it.”

From this point, the Crawford team’s description of what is shown in the surveillance footage differs radically from Ritchie’s recollection, which he insisted was also backed up by the recordings from the Walmart cameras.

Crawford’s father and attorneys said that the footage showed the 22-year-old walking from one aisle to the next with the BB rifle at his side and in his left hand, pointed at the floor except for one notable movement.

“I would think that the rifle maybe got heavy to him,” said his father. “He kind of swung it like you carry it on your shoulder, then he immediately put it back down.”

“You can clearly see people walk past him, and they didn’t think anything about it. Everybody was just kind of minding their own business,” his father added. “He wasn’t acting in any type of way that he would have been considered menacing, if you will.”

Ritchie, however, says Crawford was “waving the weapon around”, causing the muzzle to move in the direction of passersby, including him and his wife, April. “And even still, it’s a gun in Walmart, in a public place, inducing panic,” said Ritchie.

The Crawford family’s attorneys contend that Ohio’s “open-carry” law means that he could have been legally holding the rifle in the store even if it had been a full-powered firearm. “We never saw him waving this rifle in front of kids or people,” said his father.

Crawford arrived at the pet products section in the next aisle, estimated at 60 yards from where he had picked up the item. Then, his family and their attorneys say, at about 8.20pm, he stopped and stood still for about six minutes. “With the rifle pointed down and the cell phone up in his right hand,” said his father, he stayed there facing a shelf, apparently preoccupied by the call.

“He didn’t move,” said his father. “He was stood so still, in fact, we thought the track had actually stopped. I asked the technician ‘what’s going on?’ and he said ‘Well, the reel is still running Mr Crawford, look at the time’.”

Ritchie, on the other hand, stated that at this stage, Crawford was “pointing [the BB rifle] at things, like moving things around the shelf with the gun.”

At about 8.26pm, armed police officers responding to Ritchie’s 911 call five minutes earlier come into view on the footage, according to those who viewed it. Within seconds, Crawford was shot twice and pounced on. He was taken to hospital but died from his wounds.

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: www.theguardian.com