“Sonoma County supervisors this week unanimously approved the allocation of $40,000 from the county’s general fund to compensate members of an appointed task force studying law enforcement issues in the wake of the fatal Andy Lopez shooting last year.”
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Source: www.pressdemocrat.com
“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.
“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
Filmmaker Spike Lee speaks exclusively to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Source: www.cnn.com
Bob McCulloch (c. 1952- ), an American lawyer, has been the county prosecutor for St Louis County, Missouri since 1991. St Louis County is a suburban county just west of the city of St Louis.
On August 20th 2014 McCulloch began presenting the Michael Brown shooting case to a grand jury. Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri by Darren Wilson, a White police officer.
The grand jury will determine what crime, if any, Wilson should be charged with. It will only hear what McCulloch presents.
McCulloch seems to side with Officer Wilson, the killer:
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Source: abagond.wordpress.com
“After three years of litigation, Jabbar Collins, a man who spent 16 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, has reached a $10 million settlement with New York City.”
Source: goodblacknews.org
An autopsy of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, provides “ample” evidence for the arrest of the police officer who shot him, a family attorney says. Bullet shot in top of head came out of his right eye #MikeBrown #Ferguson http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/18/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 – Click through for [VIDEO] – Source: www.cnn.com
Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Erick Gelhaus will return to patrolling the streets next week, nearly 10 months after he shot and killed 13-year-old Andy Lopez, sparking protests that revealed deep distrust of law enforcement among some residents, especially those in the Latino community.
The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office in July cleared Gelhaus of any criminal wrongdoing for his actions in the fatal Oct. 22 shooting, which ignited an emotional debate about officers’ use of deadly force and the dangers of toy guns made to look like real firearms.
Lopez was shot while walking down a residential street on Santa Rosa’s southwest outskirts carrying an airsoft BB gun made to resemble an AK-47 assault rifle. Gelhaus told investigators he ordered the boy to drop the gun, then opened fire when Lopez turned toward the deputy, partially raising the barrel of the gun.
Gelhaus did not return a call seeking comment about his return to patrol duties. His attorney Terry Leoni said in an email that the veteran deputy welcomed “this assignment, and knows his nearly 25-years in law enforcement will continue to benefit the community.”
“He will continue to proudly serve the people of Sonoma County, as he has always done,” Leoni said.
Gelhaus, a firearms instructor in the Sheriff’s Office, has been back at work since December, largely in administrative assignments within the department. His return to patrol, including a wide range of duties interacting with the public, marks another potent moment in what has been a painful and tumultuous chapter in Sonoma County history.
For those who have continued to protest the deputy’s actions, news of Gelhaus’ return to patrol was met with surprise and a sense that their concerns had gone unheard.
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Source: www.pressdemocrat.com
Tiffany Mitchell, eyewitness to the shooting of Michael Brown, tells Lawrence O’Donnell about the night Michael Brown was shot to death by a Ferguson police officer.
Source: www.msnbc.com
This is among the earliest video shot of Mike Brown laying dead on the street after being gunned down.According to the videographer, Brown was gunned down just before filming. Voices on the video highlight that Brown had no weapon, and had his hands in the air when shot.
Residents are heard around the 1:00 mark explaining the chain of events and clearly state that Michael Brown was unarmed and not fighting with police when he was shot.
Note how the Ferguson PD do nothing to give Brown aid or even to secure his body at the scene beyond roping off the general area. Note the nonchalant behavior of the PD as Brown lays dead.
At the 3:00 mark, a man appearing to be either Michael Brown’s father or his uncle runs to the scene but is stopped by the PD.
While this video is only 10 minutes long, eye witnesses and reporters have stated that Brown’s body wasn’t moved for 4 hours. Other video clearly taken after this one show Brown’s still on the ground.
This video along with other facts coming to light disprove the Ferguson PD’s initial claims of Michael Brown being armed as there are no weapons at the scene in this video and no officer is scene doing anything to document evidence, or interview witnesses who are heard throughout the video recounting the events in disbelief. There is no CSI on the scene to examine the body or crime scene.
It’s as if the Ferguson PD on the scene had already made up their minds as to what happened and what story they were going to go with regardless of the facts or the truth.
Source: www.youtube.com
Any cop who is so scared of a large Black man their only recourse is to kill them, is a coward and has no business with a badge and a gun.
Source: jeffwinbush.com