In a year dominated by heated debate over police use of force, the Los Angeles Police Department has seen a significant uptick in the number of times officers have fired their guns.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.latimes.com
Disarm the police.
Los Angeles Police Department
LAPD deploys 7,000 officer bodycams to curb police abuses
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Progress. Now, they need to turn the cameras on – for every encounter.
LAPD’s long-awaited body cameras will hit the streets on Monday
Starting Monday, many Los Angeles police officers will hit the streets with new equipment: body cameras.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.latimes.com
Progress. Now I hope they turn them on.
LAPD Officer Sentenced To 3 Years For Excessive Force on #AlesiaThomas
Los Angeles Police Department officer Mary O’Callaghan was sentenced to 36 months in prison on Thursday after being convicted of assault caught on her police cruiser dash cam, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The 35-year-old victim, Alesia Thomas, died after the altercation, which began when officers went to Thomas’s home to investigate claims that she had abandoned her children, says The Guardian.
As you can see on the video, O’Callaghan kicked Thomas in the crotch and struck her with an open hand. Thomas then lost consciousness and fell to the ground, as O’Callaghan apathetically smoked a cigarette. The surveillance shows the officer assaulting Thomas both outside of and as she was entering the vehicle.
As Thomas is taken to the back of the car by the officer, she can be seen on the video, saying “I can’t breathe. I can’t move.”
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Sourced through Scoop.it from: newsone.com
Why the deaths of Latinos at the hands of police haven’t drawn as much attention
Kris Ramirez never saw police as a threat. Growing up, his body didn’t tense with us-versus-them dread when police cruisers drove through his Southeast Los Angeles neighborhood.
“If someone is wearing a uniform,” Ramirez said, “you show respect.”
Then last year, four days before Halloween, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed his brother, Oscar Jr., along railroad tracks near Paramount High School. Deputies said the 28-year-old didn’t comply with orders and moved his arm in “a threatening manner.” Ramirez was unarmed.
Police killings of Latinos in L.A. County since 2000
The Ramirez family marched in front of the Paramount sheriff’s station and held vigils, but they struggled to find wider support for their cause. As the family grieved, the national Black Lives Matter movement picked up energy, bolstered locally by the fatal shooting of Ezell Ford, a mentally disabled black man, by LAPD officers.
Watching the protests over Ford’s killing, Kris Ramirez felt frustrated: “Why can’t we get that same type of coverage or help?”
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Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.latimes.com
We know #OscarGrant, unarmed, was shot in the back by Bart police, but did you know #OscarRamirez, unarmed, was shot in the back by police?
#LatinosAreHuman #BlackLivesMatter
Man with towel-wrapped arm shot by LAPD in Los Feliz was unarmed
Los Angeles police shot and critically wounded a man after he raised his arm, wrapped in a towel, toward officers Friday in Los Feliz, police said.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.latimes.com
LAPD kills unarmed #BrendonGlenn at Venice Beach
Los Angeles (CNN)The fatal shooting of an unarmed man this week by Los Angeles police is drawing controversy after the police chief quickly questioned whether the killing was justified.
“Any time an unarmed person is shot by a Los Angeles police officer, it takes extraordinary circumstances to justify that, and I have not seen those extraordinary circumstances at this point,” Police Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday.
Beck made that remark after viewing a videotape of the incident, which occurred Tuesday night near Venice Beach. Police aren’t releasing the video, Beck said.
The victim was identified as Brendon K. Glenn, 29, and an autopsy is pending, said Ed Winter of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.
Source: www.cnn.com
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Los Angeles Police Department Fires Detective Over Racially-Charged Recordings
LAPD Det. Frank Lyga. (KTLA)
Lyga said. “I could have killed a whole truckload of them and I would have been happy doing it.”
Source: goodblacknews.org
Los Angeles Police Have Averaged One Kill Per Week For 14 Years
As the detective in the old LA Dragnet show use to say – “just the facts”. Between Jan. 1, 2000 and August 31, 2014, the report found, law enforcement officers in Los Angeles County used lethal force resulting in the deaths of at least 589 people. That’s almost one death a week, for nearly 14 years.
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