John Crawford is dead because ONE paranoid white man and his wife decided he was a threat to public safety and called 911. The story he originally gave police is falling apart because — SURPRISE! —- there are security cameras, so now he’s changed his tune.
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Source: soletstalkabout.com
(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.
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Source: www.cnn.com
Marc Thompson of “If These Halls Could Talk” missing.
His car found burning in the Chico / Oroville area.
A dead body was found inside that cannot be identified.
We are fearful that the body found is Marc.
If anyone has seen or heard from cast member Marc Thompson please contact the Chico, California, police (530-538-7321)
Please share and hold the police department accountable for a thorough investigation.
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Source: communityvillageus.blogspot.com
‘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.
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Source: www.theguardian.com
Comparing examples of white and black Americans’ encounters with police seems to present undeniable evidence of injustice. But does this type of footage ever make a difference?
Source: www.theroot.com
On August 29, 2014, I wrote that when searching for a copy of the $40 million lawsuit filed against the Ferguson, MO police department, that I discovered other lawsuits that name various Ferguson police officers as defendants. In that post, I also wrote that the U.S. Department of Justice has a division to receive and investigate complaints against law enforcement who violate civil rights under color and claim of official right. Considering that some citizens of Ferguson stated that no private attorney was willing to go against Ferguson, it was my opinion that their only option was to file complaints with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference announcing that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the Ferguson police department. The video is below. Please note that he says the investigation includes if the Ferguson police department has violated the constitution and/or federal law. Those are two different things under the DOJ.
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Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com
Media outlet Gawker is currently running an ongoing series documenting horror stories of reader run-ins with the NYPD. With “NYPD Harassment Stories,” writer Jason Parham is attempting to shed light on some of the department’s under-reported incidents of brutality.
“Police brutality, which we believe should be treated as a national crisis, is not limited to streets of New York or Los Angeles,” writes Parham. “But examining the actions of the country’s largest and most famous police force, and giving a voice to the victims of its violence, is a start.”
Here’s one reader’s story:
The incident happened about 2 years ago to my husband. My husband is a Dominican of dark complexion. He was exiting the 4 train in the Bronx after a long day of work, at the time he was working security. He saw some one he knew being stopped by the cops made eye contact with the police and kept it…
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None of the suits involves the Brown case; all allege excessive force, some predating officers’ time in Ferguson.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
A forum Thursday evening peering into Ferguson’s longstanding tensions as well as the St. Louis region’s racial divisions became angry and heated, with most of a crowd’s ire directed at the town’s mayor.
Audience members expressed searing criticism of Ferguson’s governance and leadership, both of which have come under fire since one of the Ferguson’s police officers shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
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Source: news.stlpublicradio.org
She has a name; Patricia Cook. She was killed in Culpeper, Virginia on February 9, 2012.
Patricia was 54 years old. No one knows why she was in the parking lot of Epiphany Catholic School, but while there, she was approached by Culpeper Police Officer Daniel Harmon-Wright. Officer Harmon-Wright said he received a call of a suspicious vehicle.
Wright fired two shots into Patricia’s vehicle. The first two rounds, fired at point-blank range, tore into Cook’s face and arm. Patricia managed to drive away, but Harmon-Wright did not stop shooting. He shot Patricia 5 times; a round entered her brain, and the another round severed her spine and veered into her heart.
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Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com