Prison & Punishment for Crimes

“Not only are the policing killing us, but they are exercising state power to terrorize black communities.”
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“Not only are the policing killing us, but they are exercising state power to terrorize black communities.”

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Video shows police tasing a bloody, restrained Matthew Ajibade in the testicles before his death

by Shaun King

 

It is now abundantly clear that Matthew Ajibade was murdered by police in Savannah, Georgia. For over 10 months, police and prosecutors have concealed the video evidence of his murder not only from the public, but from Ajibade’s closest friends and family members. His death in police custody was ruled a homicide by coroners, but the whole of Savannah’s government has colluded in covering up the sadistic and brutal murder of a beloved artist and photographer who was a student at Savannah College of Art and Design.
The video below is awful and is confirmation that the United States tortures and kills its prisoners on American soil. Torture is not something that happens far away in Abu Ghraib: It’s happening here.

 

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Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.dailykos.com

#MatthewAjibade

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Sandra Bland update

 

On December 21th 2015, the grand jury said it will bring no charges in the death of Sandra Bland. She died in jail last July, three days after a traffic stop in Waller County, Texas. Two videos of the stop went viral. The medical examiner said she had hanged herself using a trash bag.

Her family seriously doubts it was suicide. Jail officials did not think she was depressed either, even after she told them that she had tried to take her life last year after a miscarriage. They did not put her on suicide watch.

Assata Shakur:

“In prisons, it is not at all uncommon to find a prisoner hanged or burned to death in his cell. No matter how suspicious the circumstances, these deaths are always ruled “suicides.” They are usually Black inmates, considered to be a “threat to the orderly running of the prison.” They are usually among the most politically aware and socially conscious inmates in the prison.”

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Sourced through Scoop.it from: abagond.wordpress.com

#PrisonReform Tweets 12.21
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#PrisonReform Tweets 12.21

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The assistant warden who got too close to the prisoners | Miami Herald

Marty Martinez was ousted as assistant warden of Lowell after an investigation found he had inappropriate interactions with inmates.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.miamiherald.com

#CJreform Tweets 12.11
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#CJreform Tweets 12.11

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After Video Surfaces, Innocent Man is Exonerated for Assault on an Officer

Boston, MA — A violent cop, who beat an innocent man in front of fellow officers, and then charged him with assault, pleaded guilty to battery last week, but only after video of the incident surfaced.

 

Officer Felix Rivera, Jr. 34, of the Chelsea police department, responded, along with several officers, to a call about a man with a gun on September 26, 2014. The victim, who was 20-years-old at the time, was not the man with a gun.

 

When multiple officers showed up at the victim’s location, he is dragged from the doorway, and the supervisor on the scene told his fellow officers to place the man in protective custody as he appeared to be intoxicated. However, the ‘custody’ was anything but ‘protective.’

 

According to Rivera’s police report, the victim pushed another officer and was taken to the ground, where his multiple injuries would occur. The victim was then arrested and brought to jail.

 

After three days in jail, the victim was arraigned on Sept. 29, 2014, on charges of assault and battery on a police officer, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. He was then released on his own recognizance to face the false charges later that year.

 

Had an anonymous witness not come forward, this innocent man would have likely been convicted on all charges.

 

Luckily for the victim, however, the anonymous witness was filming. What the video shows is the exact opposite of what Rivera claimed. The man was placed in handcuffs with no resistance. As he was being escorted from the scene, Rivera began to repeatedly bash in his face and then knocked him to the ground for no reason.

 

The victim suffered cuts to his face, malalignment of the jaw and still suffers from blurred vision because of this attack.

 

After the video was shown to prosecutors, all charges were dropped, and Rivera was placed on administrative leave.

 

An investigation found that none of the other officers hit the victim, and one, in fact, tried to stop Rivera. However, after watching their fellow cop assault an innocent young man and then lie about it, not one of the officers dared to cross the blue line and report their fellow brother.
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Sourced through Scoop.it from: thefreethoughtproject.com

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DC Agrees to $16.65M Settlement with Donald Gates, Wrongly Imprisoned for 27 Years

The District of Columbia agreed Thursday to pay $16.65 million to a man who spent 27 years in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit.
The amount is about $617,000 for every year Donald Eugene Gates spent in prison. Gates was freed in 2009 after DNA evidence cleared him in the 1981 rape and murder of 21-year-old Georgetown University student Catherine Schilling. A federal jury on Wednesday found that two city police officers fabricated and withheld evidence in the case, and city officials agreed to a settlement Thursday as the jury was getting ready to decide damages in the case.
According to court records, former homicide detectives Ronald S. Taylor and Norman Brooks, both now retired, fed information to an unreliable informant. The informant claimed Gates confessed to him while in jail and that he was tied to DNA evidence. This led to a D.C. Superior court finding Gates guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. During this time, Gates maintained his innocence and suffered until 2009. It was then that he was cleared based on DNA evidence and the real culprit was identified. Because of the conduct of the officers and his wrongful imprisonment, Gates was earlier awarded $1.4 million under a law that gives $50K per year of imprisonment of innocent people who waive their rights to sue the US government.
In response to the jury verdict, Gates is quoted as saying, “It feels like the God of the King James Bible is real, and he answered my prayers.” Gates, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., added as he left the courtroom, “Justice is on the way to being fulfilled. . . . It’s one of the happiest days of my life.”

Sourced through Scoop.it from: goodblacknews.org