On October 27, 2011, Baltimore police officer Joe Crystal witnessed two fellow cops beating up a drug suspect after the suspect, fleeing from the officers, kicked in the door of a home belonging to another officer’s girlfriend. After doing the right thing and turning in his fellow officers, Crystal was labeled a “snitch” and a “rat cop” by many other BPD officers and subjected to threats and intimidation — including having a dead rat placed on his car’s windshield. Eventually, in 2014 he bowed to the pressure and resigned from the Baltimore PD.
In this edited portion of a longer interview with The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur, Crystal describes how today’s urban police forces have come to resemble street gangs, the difference between “us vs. them” urban policing and “customer service” policing that occurs in suburban areas, and wonders when police will start being given awards for challenging corruption in their own departments.
Follow Joe Crystal on Twitter: @Det_JoeCrystal
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: @CenkUygur
In the chaotic last moments of John Berry’s life, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies attempted to pull him from his car and shot him with a Taser as a woman screamed at them to stop. Then came the gunfire that sprayed the windshield of his BMW . Minutes later, the 31-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene — the curb just outside his Lakewood home.
In the aftermath of the mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of Randall Kerrick, the former Charlotte-Meckenberg police officer who shot and killed 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell in September 2013, you will inevitably hear law enforcement experts providing explanations about why the jury did not vote to convict Kerrick and possibly send him to prison for 11 years. Many of these experts will be current and former police officers. This is what you need to know about these “experts.”
Sonia Martinez of Denver, CO has taken the public by storm after reporting yet another case of racial discrimination. As part of the Facebook group “Uber’s Woman Driving Network”, Martinez was attacked by Rene Hunter, another alleged Uber client, concerning her identity as a Muslim Driver for Uber. Her post containing racist sentiments has gone viral, spreading across Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Reditt, and many other forums. Here, she shares her thoughts concerning the recent incident.
ST. LOUIS • An autopsy on Mansur Ball-Bey, whose death from police gunfire this week stirred protests, showed that he died from a single wound in the back, police officials said.
