Police Brutality

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Why All Communities Must Demand an End to Police Brutality

 

The images out of Ferguson, Missouri, these past two weeks have been shocking: tear gas blanketing suburban streets, law enforcement creating a war zone and defiant protesters braving it all. But it is important to remember that what started Ferguson’s fight is far too common: the police killing of an unarmed black teen.

African-Americans are the primary targets of law-enforcement profiling and violence, as the killings of Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, Jonathan Ferrell and Eric Garner all attest. But during this past week, Latino, Asian-American, Arab-American and Muslim organizations have all released statements of solidarity informed by similar experiences with discriminatory law enforcement practices, as well as an urgency to collectively identify and implement solutions.

 

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Source: www.thenation.com

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Death by Law Enforcement: What the data tells us – and what it doesn’t

 

“When a police officer kills someone while trying to stop a crime or make an arrest, government agencies classify the death as a legal intervention. The death of Mike Brown, the 18-year-old and unarmed teenager killed by a police officer earlier this month in Ferguson, Missouri will likely be classified under this term when it comes time to report the circumstances of his death to the national databases that track such information.”

 

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Source: sunlightfoundation.com

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A disarming approach to protests

 

“…it seems every time there’s a questionable officer-involved shooting… a code of silence is enforced and the general public gets the message: “Yes, this was a tragedy. But it wasn’t personal. It was protocol.”

No admission of responsibility. No acknowledgment of how the situation could have been handled differently. And, certainly, no apology.

It’s a dead-end conversation. And the result is predictable: More public outrage, more distrust, more lawsuits.

It’s no doubt one reason why many Sonoma County residents were frustrated last week at the news that Deputy Erick Gelhaus, the officer responsible for the shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez was put back out on patrol. Yes, 10 months later, the community appears to be moving toward some significant changes, including putting cameras on deputy uniforms, improving oversight of officer-involved shootings and, possibly, creating a public park at the corner of Moorland and W. Robles avenues where the shooting occurred. But putting the deputy back on patrol was a harsh reminder that we’re no closer to having assurances that what happened on Oct. 22, 2013 won’t happen again.


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Source: www.pressdemocrat.com

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Man Savagely Beaten By Police On Video May Now Be Deported [VIDEO]

 

“A man brutally beaten by police in June after he surrendered and lay down on the ground is now at risk of being deported.

Police officers in Santa Ana, California, beat Edgar Vargas Arzate on June 20, according to surveillance video of the incident and interviews with Arzate’s attorney. Arzate, who has struggled with addiction and mental health issues, went to visit the house of a friend, apparently not realizing that the friend no longer lived there, according to his attorney, public defender Frank Bittar. The new residents saw Arzate mumbling incoherently outside their house and called police.

Arzate ran when he saw the officers, leading them on a roughly four-block chase before he surrendered in the front yard of a neighbor’s home, Bittar said. In the video, Arzate can be seen lying facedown on the ground. The officers then begin to savagely beat Arzate, punching, kicking and swinging a flashlight at him.


In the video, two officers on the opposite side of the fence look up and appear to notice the surveillance camera, then say something to the officers beating Arzate, who quickly move him out of view of the camera.

“He’s lucky he wasn’t put in a wheelchair,” Bittar told HuffPost.

Once he was taken into custody, Arzate was charged with assaulting a police officer. The charge was then enhanced to a higher-level felony when police accused him of having “personally inflicted great bodily injury” on one particular officer who claimed to have broken his hand, according to the charging document.

On Monday, Arzate, 27, who came to the U.S. without documentation as a teenager, was riding with family members to a preliminary hearing to face the charges. Suddenly, three unmarked cars pulled the family over and Arzate was quickly taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“They stopped them and made everyone get out of the car and then arrested my brother,” said Araceli Vargas, Arzate’s younger sister. “Right now he’s under immigration hold and we’re just waiting on a bail so we can get him out of jail again. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, honestly.”

“My mom told me that the ICE agents made her feel less than human,” Vargas continued. “My dad was so disappointed in the system. My grandpa was so scared, he’s been in bed since. My aunt started crying. Nothing had happened since June, he was just living his normal life, but we have cameras here and we saw the cars that stopped my brother yesterday morning — it was a gray Chevy Impala — they didn’t have markings, but they had been spying on us. They passed by the house at least four times that morning, so they knew what they were doing. Why did they wait until we were leaving the house and going to court?””

 

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Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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EDITORIAL: Ferguson, Michael Brown and the Renewed Mission of Good Black News

 

“As the editor of a website dedicated solely to providing and promoting Good Black News, it has been admittedly hard in the past week to bring myself to post what were starting to seem like frivolous accomplishments and events in the wake of a soul-stirring grass roots movement against tyranny and injustice.  This unrest in particular feels like it has the makings of a sea change from the status quo into a new era of human rights, where systemic and commonplace brutality is voted down and rooted out of any and all policing bodies that are meant to Protect and Serve, not Terrify and Dehumanize.”

 

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Source: goodblacknews.org

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Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans

 

“For weeks I have been in awe of the organizers and writers – Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, Jamala Rogers, Malkia Cyril, Ta-Nehesi Coates, john a. powell, Falguni A. Sheth, and so many others – who have placed the situation in Ferguson into critical historical and political context. This despite persistent attempts by police, elected officials, and mainstream media to erase that context with vilifications of black political protest and black life. I write this post to express my solidarity and rage, and to offer a response to the disturbing question that I’ve heard asked, and that demands an answer: Does Ferguson matter to Asian Americans?”

 

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Source: www.racefiles.com

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Cops Filmed Beating Man During Arrest At Walmart

 

Deputies in South Carolina are being probed after a suspect was beaten during an arrest caught on video Saturday.

Witnesses filmed two Greenville County Sheriff’s Office deputies as they appeared to punch a man more than 10 times during the arrest, which occurred at Walmart.

According to WSPA, deputies responded to a call about a man acting erratically at Walmart. They said he appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Although they struck the man twice with a stun gun, cops said the shock failed to incapacitate him

 

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Source: www.huffingtonpost.com