Why is White TX Cop Still on Duty After 3 Unlawful Force Incidents Result in Settlements? Racism/White Supremacy

Enabling & Empowering White Cops to Harm & Kill Non-Whites. In photo racist suspect Steve Adler Mayor of Austin, Texas. He is a Democrat. Austin is 48% non-white.

What is Collective White Power?  Anon explains, Collective power is the institutions and systems that benefit one group at the expense of another group, and allow one group to dominate another group in all areas of human activity.

For example, when a white policeman uses unlawful force to harm or kill a non-white person, his fellow officers, the police chief, internal affairs, the union, the media, the prosecutor, the judge, and the jury will support, defend, and finance that white police officer’s “right” to do so - use unlawful force in service of white domination. That is white collective power. [MORE]

From [PhotographyisNotaCrime] A white Texas cop remains on the job after the department he works for settled the third excessive force lawsuit against him Thursday.

Austin police officer Eric Copeland was sued three times for using excessive force between April of 2011 to April of 2015. Austin City Council members approved the latest $150,000 settlement November 9 for unnecessarily tasering Adrian Aguado, 20 yr old Latino man after removing him from handcuffs and telling him to exit the police cruiser.

Video from inside the patrol car shows Copeland tasering Aguado immediately as he slowly exits the vehicle.

He also tells Aguado he seemed “slow” and can be heard asking if he takes any medication for “mental retardation.” Excellent public service from a public servant or contempt from your public ruler?

Instead of firing Copeland after yet another excessive force lawsuit, former Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo suspended him for 90 days, allowing him back on the job and ultimately enabling him to commit another act of excessive force in the future.

Copeland was also sued in 2012 after fatally shooting 37-year-old Black man, Ahmede Bradly during a traffic stop. 

Bradley fled in his vehicle, then on foot, before Copeland “intentionally struck Bradley in the face, head and body at a time when Bradley had not assaulted Copeland,” according to a lawsuit filed by Bradley’s family.

He then shot Bradley, who was unarmed, three times in the chest, killing him.

A judge awarded Bradley’s surviving family members $1,000,000 for that incident, according to KXAN.

In 2011, Eric Copeland and another Austin cop, Russell Rose, used excessive force against Carlos Chacon, a Latino man, after Chacon called 911 to report suspicious activity at a Motel 6.

Chacon was surprised when he approached officers to assist with their investigation and found himself on the other end of the officers’ guns while still on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.

“Their guns were drawn, pointed at me. They were shouting at me. They were cursing at me. I was trying to identify myself as a person that called the police. They did not listen or engage in the conversation,” Chacon told Fox7.

Chacon was beaten, tasered and charged with resisting arrest.

“What I did is, as a good citizen, is I called the police and I reported it. I identified myself fully with a description of my vehicle and myself. I stayed on the phone the whole time with the operator and I waited for the police to arrive,” he explained. The white judge explained to him & the court "the worst thing he did was call 911." [see video below]

A federal jury awarded Chacon $1 million in March 2015, but white Federal Judge Sam Sparks reduced the amount to $60,000 a few months later.

Austin City Council members later agreed to increase the amount to $154,000.

Newsweek Asks, Why Are So Many Native Americans Killed By Police? Answer = System of Racism White Supremacy

What is Racism/White Supremacy? Newsweek is a part of it. 

From [Newsweek] A 14-year-old Native American boy was shot and killed by a sheriff deputy on Wednesday — a fate all too common for Native Americans in the U.S.

The number of Native Americans killed by police doubled from 2015 to 2016. Per capita, Native Americans are more likely to be killed by police than any other demographic in the U.S., according to a 2014 study by The Center of Juvenile and Criminal Justice. And that’s probably undercounted.

In the most recent case of alleged police brutality against Native Americans involves the death of Jason Pero, an 8th grader gunned down on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation. Pero’s family describes him as loving and kind, according to the Associated Press.

He was walking down the street around noon on Wednesday, when someone called the police and said he had a knife. The Ashland County Sheriff’s Office, which helps the tribal police department, responded. The deputy shot Pero, who died at a hospital.

The deputy was not injured, and the investigation is ongoing.

It might seem odd that the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office responded to a case on a reservation when the reservation has its own police department and is itself a sovereign nation. But this Wisconsin reservation is one of 70 percent of Native American reservations that are under the legal authority of police and sheriff’s departments from nearby communities. This is because tribal courts can’t prosecute major felonies, and they can’t do anything to people who aren’t members of their tribe.

While the state Justice Department reported that a knife was found at the scene, family members don’t believe it. Holly Gauthier, Pero's mother, told the Duluth station WDIO-TV that she believes her son was murdered.

“[There is] no reason you can justify shooting a 14-year-old boy,” she said.

Robert Blanchard, the chairman of the Bad River Band tribe, told the Associated Press that the sheriff’s office hasn ’t told them anything about why Pero was shot and killed.

“This is a tragedy that should not have happened,” Blanchard told the AP. “There’s other ways to do things than to pull out a gun and shoot him.”

Pero played in the school band and was a member of the drumming group. He'll be honored at a Veterans Day assembly Saturday.

Is That What La David Signed Up For? Villagers say Black Soldier Was Bound, Tortured & Executed in Niger

"He Knew What He Signed Up For" - President Trash on speakerphone to La David's wife [in photo]. Racists hate patriotic niggers too, even the ones who sacrifice themselves for Uncle Brother.

Undeceiver Dr. Blynd explains in FUNKTIONARY,

soldiers - tools (living human resources—walking fodder); corporate mercenaries used by the legistraitors, wordsymthologists, journalists, and politicians to impose the will of their Corporate masters and imperialistic soothsayers (i.e., Crimethlnc). "It is impossible to give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter.   His natural foe is the government that drills him." ~H.D. Thoreau.  Anyone overstanding the real cost of war (not counting the costs of perpetrating it) and the fictitious nature of Corporate State and the real benefactors behind the scenes—has to become a conscientious objector or an enemy outpost in one's own (controlled by another) mind. The ideologues of vanity manipulate the power-hungry purveyors of profit-motive insanity into perpetrating crimes against humanity. (See: GI Bill, Citizen DUPE, CABS, Class, Mass & Souldier)

From [WashPost] The body of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four U.S. soldiers killed in an ambush by Islamist militants in Niger last month, was found with his arms tied and a gaping wound at the back of his head, according to two villagers, suggesting that he may have been captured and then executed.

Adamou Boubacar, a 23-year-old farmer and trader, said some children tending cattle found the remains of the soldier Oct. 6, two days after the attack outside the remote Niger village of Tongo Tongo, which also left five Nigerien soldiers dead. The children notified him.

When Boubacar went to the location, a bushy area roughly a mile from the ambush site, he saw Johnson’s body lying face down, he said. The back of his head had been smashed by something, possibly a bullet, said Boubacar. The soldier’s wrists were bound with rope, he said, raising the possibility that the militants — whom the Pentagon suspects were affiliated with the Islamic State — seized Johnson during the firefight and held him captive.

The villagers’ accounts come as the Niger operation is under intense scrutiny in the United States, with lawmakers expressing concern that they have received insufficient or conflicting information about what happened. The Pentagon is conducting an investigation into the attack in Niger, where the U.S. military is helping the Nigerien government confront a threat by militants associated with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Boubacar, a resident of Tongo Tongo, said in a phone interview that he informed the village’s chief after seeing Johnson’s body. “His two arms were tied behind his back,” he said. The chief called Nigerien military forces, who dispatched troops to retrieve Johnson’s remains.

The village chief of Tongo Tongo, Mounkaila Alassane, confirmed the account in a separate phone interview.

“The back of his head was a mess, as if they had hit him with something hard, like a hammer,” recalled Alassane, who said he also saw the body. “They took his shoes. He was wearing only socks.”

A U.S. military official with knowledge of the investigation into the ambush acknowledged that Johnson’s body appeared viciously battered but cautioned against reaching any conclusions until the probe is completed.

“When the Americans received Johnson, his hands were not tied,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The two Tongo Tongo villagers said they also saw the bodies of the three other American soldiers — Staff Sgts. Bryan Black, Jeremiah Johnson and Dustin Wright — who U.S. officials say were killed in action. One was slumped inside the team’s pickup truck, they said. The bodies of the other two were on the ground, one clutching a walkie-talkie, they said.

They were wearing T-shirts and boxer shorts, the two men said. It was unclear whether the militants had stripped off their uniforms.

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White Supremacy, the Ultimate Affirmative Action: Trump Nominee for Federal Judgeship Has Never Tried a Case

Dumbocracy. From [NYTimes] A 36-year-old racist suspect lawyer who has never tried a case and who was unanimously deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association has been approved for a lifetime federal district judgeship by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The lawyer, Brett Talley, is the fourth judicial nominee under President Trump to receive a “not qualified” rating from the bar association and the second to receive the rating unanimously. Since 1989, the association has unanimously rated only two other judicial nominees as not qualified.

The Senate committee’s vote on Thursday to approve Mr. Talley, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 2007 and is a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, fell along party lines; Republican members outnumber Democrats on the committee 11 to nine. Mr. Talley will now face a full hearing in the Senate. If confirmed, he would serve as a trial judge in his home state of Alabama.

Mr. Talley’s nomination is just one of the latest examples of Mr. Trump’s efforts to reshape the nation’s courts, packing them with young, deeply conservative judges.

Mr. Talley’s lack of experience drew searing questions from Democratic members of the committee. Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the minority whip, asked Mr. Talley in a written questionnaire, “Do you think it is advisable to put people with literally no trial experience on the federal district court bench?”

Mr. Talley demurred. “It would be inappropriate for me as a nominee to comment on the advisability of any nomination,” he wrote.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking member of the committee, asked if Mr. Talley had ever argued a motion in Federal District Court, given that he had never tried a case. He had not.

Ms. Feinstein also pointed to Mr. Talley’s prolific social media presence before his nomination. He once referred to Hillary Clinton as “Hillary Rotten Clinton” on his public Twitter account, which is now private.

In 2013, he wrote on his blog that armed revolution was an important defense against tyrannical government. Ms. Feinstein asked in her written questions when Mr. Talley believed it would become appropriate for American citizens to participate in an armed uprising against the government.

He replied that he did not believe any situation in American history — with the “possible exception” of slavery — had called for armed rebellion.

At the committee vote on Thursday, Ms. Feinstein took greatest issue with Mr. Talley’s professed views on gun control. In 2013, about a month after a gunman killed 20 children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Talley on his blog pledged his total support to the National Rifle Association, “financially, politically and intellectually.”

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Emergency Manager Resigns in Puerto Rico; US Army Ends Its Unaccomplished Mission

From [ThinkProgess] and [NyTimes] The head of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency resigned Friday, the same day that the Army general in charge of the military’s response to the hurricane announced that his mission on the island had ended.

It’s been nearly two months since Hurricane Maria first hit Puerto Rico, creating a humanitarian emergency. Today, only 44.5 percent of the population has electricity, and nearly 13 percent of the island still doesn’t have access to clean drinking water, according to a site maintained by the governor’s office. The capital of San Juan also had a massive power outage on Thursday, showing the challenges the island continues to face in recovery.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan arrived in Puerto Rico about a week after Hurricane Maria pummeled the island, in the midst of fierce criticism of the federal response. He quickly acknowledged that not enough federal troops were on the island and vowed to do more to help Puerto Rico.

On Friday, he said the federal government had distributed 51 million gallons of water and 20 million meals and had tended to 5,000 sick residents.

“FEMA is going to be here, very much for the long term and the rebuilding,” General Buchanan said. “We in the military generally don’t do that.”

Shortly afterward, the government announced that Abner Gómez, the commissioner of the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency, had resigned.

He said that the military’s missions, primarily clearing roads, attending to medical emergencies and helping restore communications, were complete. Other agencies, like the National Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency, would continue the work. Some military officials would remain on the island to wind down operations.

Puerto Rican authorities and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will now take over by helping to rebuild roads, bridges, and houses, according to Buchanan. “That’s not really what the military is here to do,” he said. “It doesn’t make good sense to keep us for the long term for recovery.”

Gov. Ricardo Rossello did not give a reason for Gomez’s resignation. Last month, El Nuevo Dia newspaper reported that Gomez went on a two-week vacation less than one month after the hurricane first hit. It was unclear whether Mr. Gómez’s resignation was an indication that the government had recognized a failure in its response to Hurricane Maria, or that he had simply lost influence at the agency. Mr. Gómez’s profile had diminished this year when the governor created a cabinet position over him. He had not been a visible figure since the storm and rarely appeared at news conferences.

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Confederates Stand Behind Roy Moore United in the Their Hatred of Niggers, Child Molestation Claims Be Damned

I'm Good to Go. In November 2016, Moore argued that the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling which legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States was worse than the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling which declared that African-Americans whether enslaved or free, were property and could not be American citizens. The Dred Scott ruling is widely considered as the worst Supreme Court ruling. [MORE] [Nigger is a non-white person who is subject to the system of White Supremacy."]

We Know What He Signed Up For. From [WashPost] GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore spoke defiantly Saturday morning at a political gathering in Alabama that allegations against him amounted to “fake news” perpetrated by The Washington Post and political opponents engaged “in a desperate attempt to stop my campaign.”

The Post reported earlier this week that four women said Moore had pursued sexual or romantic relations with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

“These campaign attacks are false and completely untrue,” Moore told an audience of more than a hundred supporters, who gave Moore several standing ovations during his speech at the Veterans Day breakfast.

“More than being completely untrue, they are deeply hurtful to me personally.” He talked about his marriage, four children and five granddaughters. “I have the highest regard for the protection of young children,” he said.

“To be attacked on allegations for sexual misconduct contradicts my entire career in law. I want to make it clear: . . . I have not been guilty of sexual misconduct with anyone. These allegations occur 4½ weeks before the election. Why now?” [MORE]

From [MediaMatters] Racist suspect Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed that his “comments on the topic of Judge Roy Moore were clear and unambiguous both on radio and on TV” with regard to the Washington Post report that the Alabama Republican Senate candidate had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old when he was 32. Here are the “clear and unambiguous” things Hannity and his guests said on his TV and radio programs the day the story was published:

1) Hannity and his guests repeatedly said that it's possible the women are lying

Hannity: “Then you have false allegations that are made, and you know -- how do you determine? It's ‘He said, she [said].’" [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 11/9/17]

Hannity: “How do you know if it's true? How do we -- what's true? What's not true? How do you ascertain the truth?”

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Here's some really fascinating questions. How do you know if it's true? How do we -- what's true? What's not true? How do you ascertain the truth? What happens when it's 38 years later? It's a serious topic, and -- because if it’s true and people act like this, it's disgusting, it's despicable, it's criminal. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 11/9/17]

Hannity: “We do have Ten Commandments. One of the commandments is ‘thou shalt not bear false witness.’ We know human beings break, with regularity, the other nine commandments. Did they break this one?”

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): If people -- you know some people -- do people lie? Now we do have Ten Commandments. One of the commandments is “thou shalt not bear false witness.” We know human beings break, with regularity, the other nine commandments. Did they break this one? I mean, it's something to think about. Why is it so bad? Because you can ruin somebody’s reputation with an allegation. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 11/9/17]

Daily Mail’s Katie Hopkins to alleged victim: “I am pointing my finger” at Moore’s accuser “and I’m saying to that woman, you disgust me.”

KATIE HOPKINS: I am pointing the finger straight at -- let's just pick this one woman that’s been talking about with Roy Moore allegedly -- I am pointing my finger at her, and I'm saying to that woman, you disgust me. You spent 38 years thinking about this before you said anything; now you decide to speak. You disgust me. Because what you're doing, woman, is you're making it so that every other woman like me, who likes working with men, who's happy just cracking on next to men, who actually finds men rather better to work for than women, because the sisterhood doesn't exist -- you're making women poison to work for. If I was employing someone now, would I employ a woman, especially if I was a man? No, I would not. And women like this do women like me a massive disservice.

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Nebraska Govt Notifies Unrepresented Latino Man that It Will Murder Him w/Untested Drugs that May Cause Suffocation

From [DPIC] As Nebraska announced its intention to use a never-before-tried four-drug execution combination featuring the opiod pain medication fentanyl and the paralytic drug cisatracurium, a Nevada judge issued a stay of execution that put off the nation's first attempted execution using those drugs. On November 9, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services provided notice to death-row prisoner Jose Sandoval that it intends to execute him using a combination of the drugs diazepam (Valium), fentanyl citrate, cisatracurium besylate, and potassium chloride.

Later that day, Clark County (Las Vegas) District Judge Jennifer Togliatti granted a request by lawyers for the Nevada Department of Corrections to stay the scheduled November 14 execution of Scott Dozier to permit them to appeal her order directing the state to remove cisatracurium from its also untried execution protocol of diazepam, fentanyl, and the paralytic. Dozier, who has waived his appeals and asked to be executed, is only contesting the state's method of execution.

The judge issued her order after considering medical evidence that the cisatracurium could cause Dozier to experience "air hunger" and suffocate to death, while masking signs that he was conscious and suffering during the execution. Doctors testified that a paralytic drug would be unnecessary if the other two drugs, fentanyl and diazepam, were administered properly.

In staying the execution to permit Nevada to appeal to the state supreme court, Judge Togliatti said: "They're going to have to be the court to make that determination that we as a state are OK with a paralytic."

Nebraska law requires the state to give a prison notice of the drugs to be used in the execution at least sixty days in advance of issuing a death warrant. The state attorney general's office has indicated it will ask the Nebraska Supreme Court to issue a warrant after that time has passed.

State Senator Ernie Chambers, one of the leaders of the Nebraska legislature's repeal of the state's death-penalty statute and its override of Governor Pete Ricketts's [racist suspect in photo] veto of the measure, criticized the notice as politically motivated and called the timing of its issuance "suspicious." The notice was issued almost a year to the day after the voters brought back the death-penalty law in a voter iniative bankrolled by Rickett, and as the governor gears up for a re-election campaign in 2018. Sandoval is currently unrepresented. The Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, which typically represents death-row prisoners, cannot represent Sandoval because it represented other defendants in the case. But the commission's executive director, Jeffery Pickens, said Sandoval "has to be given some sort of opportunity to challenge [the drug protocol]." [MORE]

Sentencing Project Brief says Louisiana’s Felony Disenfranchisement Policy Disproportionately [63%] Harms Blacks

Election Hoax. From [SentencingProject] The Sentencing Project, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed an amicus brief in a Louisiana appellate court in support of plaintiffs-appellants, who are challenging Louisiana’s felony disenfranchisement policy. More than 71,000 Louisianans under probation or parole supervision are prohibited from voting, disproportionately harming Black Louisianans.

Although Black people account for 32 percent of the state population, they make up 63 percent of individuals who have lost voting rights because of a felony conviction. 

The amicus brief provides historical context for the racial discrimination inherent in felony disfranchisement laws, including Louisiana’s, and explains the present-day impact of such laws, on the Black community in Louisiana, particularly.

“After the Civil War, Louisiana and other states passed felony disenfranchisement laws, alongside voter qualifications that are now illegal like literacy tests, poll taxes, and lengthy residency requirements, with an intent to exclude Black and other people from the political process,” said Leah Aden, senior counsel at LDF. “The successor felony disenfranchisement laws that legislatures in Louisiana and elsewhere adopted, continue—whether in design or effect—to have a disproportionate impact on Black Louisianans’ ability to exercise their fundamental right to vote.”

“Felony disenfranchisement laws prevent the very people who are likely be the most knowledgeable about injustices in the criminal justice system from voting for representatives of their choice who have the power to fix those injustices,” added Ajmel Quereshi, senior counsel at LDF. “To deny people with felony convictions of the fundamental right to vote is at odds with ample evidence showing that the expansion of voting rights not only leads to safer communities, but has widespread public support.”

“Nationally, six million Americans are barred from voting due to a current or past felony conviction,” stated Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. As is true in Louisiana, the vast majority of these people are living in the community, yet are still treated as ‘second class citizens’ due to the denial of this fundamental right of citizenship.”

Click here to read the full amicus brief.

Liar Cop Bloopers: Bodycam Video Captures White LA Cop Putting Bag of Cocaine in Black Man's Wallet During Arrest

President Trash Meets President Psychopath: Trump Praised Duterte, whose Death Squad Cops Committed 7000 Murders

Deterring Democracy Everywhere. From [HRW], [TheIntercept] and [NYTimes] U.S. President Donald Trump met Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for the first time at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam on Saturday.

The meeting was "short but was warm and cordial," Duterte's spokesman, Harry Roque, told reporters.

"The leaders were generally pleased to finally meet each other in person," he said.

Trump told Duterte "see you tomorrow," Roque said.

Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has carried out a “war on drugs” resulting in the deaths of over 7,000 suspected drug dealers and users by January 2017. The government has attributed nearly half the killings to the Philippine National Police, and the remainder to “unidentified gunmen.” Cases investigated by the media and rights groups invariably found unlawful executions by police or agents of the police typically acting as “death squads.” Duterte has been outspoken in support of the anti-drug campaign and has sought to silence its critics, notably Senator Leila de Lima. No meaningful investigation into the killings has been undertaken. [MORE]

Trump, who has been criticized at home for neglecting rights issues in dealings abroad, in May praised Duterte for doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem". Read the Full Transcript of Trump's Call With Duterte [HERE] The White House readout describes the call as a “very friendly conversation.”

According to the NY Times, "human rights, rule of law and due process were among topics Trump and Duterte would likely discuss during their bilateral talks, Sung Kim, U.S. ambassador to Manila, had said last month." k. 

Acording to the Intercept, Duterte, whose bloody war on drugs has led to the deaths of more than 12,000 Filipinos, boasted on Thursday that he is no more concerned with killing now than he was at the age of 16, when he said he stabbed a man to death just because he looked at him the wrong way.

Duterte, who is preparing to make President Donald Trump feel at home in Manila this weekend, made the remarks in an address to Filipinos living in Vietnam, where he was attending an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

According to the Filipino news site Rappler, Duterte’s boast was made to illustrate that he had no fear of going to jail for overseeing his government’s rampage against suspected drug dealers and users, which has been widely criticized by human rights groups.

“When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail,” Duterte said in remarks posted on YouTube by his office. “I’d have rumbles here, rumbles there.”

“At the age of 16, I killed somebody,” he said. “I stabbed him. Only because our eyes met.”

“How much more,” Duterte asked rhetorically of his willingness to kill, “now that I am president?”

“You fuck with my countrymen, I won’t let you off the hook,” he added, mixing English and Tagalog. “Never mind about the human rights advocates.”

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had canceled a scheduled meeting with Duterte last year after the Philippine president was asked how he might deal with criticism of his killing spree from the American president and responded with a profanity-laced tirade, in which he promised to call Obama a “son of a whore” to his face.

Speaking to reporters before he left Washington last week, Trump badly distorted that recent history, mistakenly claiming that his predecessor was “not exactly welcome” in the Philippines.

As The Philippine Star reported, Duterte renewed his complaints about Trump’s predecessor in his remarks on Thursday, calling Obama “so black and arrogant.”

Duterte has good reason to expect that Trump will not make his bloody rule an issue during the visit. In April, a leaked transcript showed that Trump called Duterte to congratulate him on doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem,” as my colleagues Jeremy Scahill, Alex Emmons, and Ryan Grim have reported.

Duterte’s spokesperson later claimed that the president’s boast about his murderous youth, which was met with peals of laughter from his supporters, might have been some sort of joke.

That repeats a familiar pattern, since Duterte has frequently made crude boasts about inflicting violence on his enemies or suspected criminals, delighting his hardcore fans, only for his spokespeople to later claim the remarks were in jest.

Duterte and Trump, who has adopted a similar strategy to excuse outrageous remarks spoken in earnest as jokes after the fact, could perhaps compare notes in Manila this weekend. During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump famously boasted that his supporters were so loyal that, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose not lose any voters.” [b/c the non-white votes are purged & uncounted by President Trash's GOP]

Suit says White Chicago Cop Shot Latino Man 13X w/o Provocation. Never Disciplined Despite 27 Complaints & Wrongful Death Judgement

Code of Silence. From [CBS] and [MORE] Two weeks after a federal jury ruled a white off-duty Chicago police officer shot his friend in 2010, the family of a Latino man who was killed by the same white cop has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the officer, and his partner.

Hector Hernandez, 26, was shot 13 times by police in 2014. One of the officers who shot Hernandez was Patrick Kelly, who fired 11 times.

Attorney Tony Romanucci said Kelly has a long list of complaints at the Police Department, and has been arrested twice and sued several times during his career.

“This case of Hector Hernandez presents further evidence of the chronic pattern of violent behavior and misconduct, whether on or off duty, of a certain segment of the Chicago Police Department,” he said.

On the night Hernandez was killed, officers had been called to break up a domestic argument between him and his girlfriend, Esperanza Davila.

Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) records state, after police arrived, Hernandez was threatening to kill himself. Davila said she had just gotten back together with Hernandez and she never got around to lifting an old order of protection against him from 2013.

According to the lawsuit, other officers armed with Tasers were on the scene, trying to deescalate the situation, when Kelly and Officer Antonio Corral arrived, and threatened to shoot Hernandez. The lawsuit states Hernandez never threatened the officers or anyone else in the home, and was not a threat to anyone’s life or safety, and that Kelly and Corral shot him without provocation.

Davila has said she believes Hernandez was worried police might take him to jail after they began fighting, and that is why he was attempting to commit suicide with a knife from her kitchen.

Once inside the house, Kelly and Corral fired a total of 21 shots, and 13 hit Hernandez. IPRA records stated officers fired at Hernandez after he lunged at them with the knife. Kelly reported firing 11 times until his gun jammed.

According to the lawsuit, 8 of the 13 shots that struck Hernandez entered his back or buttocks.

Kelly joined the police force in 2004, and records CBS 2 obtained show complaints against him began piling up the next year.

According to the lawsuit filed by Hernandez’s family, 27 complaints have been filed against him for excessive force, false arrest, intimidation, and other misconduct from 2005 through 2013. At least 21 of those complaints were filed before Kelly shot Hernandez.

The complaints include a 2005 allegation he attacked his girlfriend, leaving her with bruises and in need of stitches.

According to court records, he was not charged and not disciplined by the police department, either.

The Hernandez family’s lawsuit claims Kelly should have been fired before the shooting, and alleges a code of silence and a history of covering up police misconduct led to Hernandez’s death.

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Tulsa Fails to Get Eric Harris Case Dismissed: White Cop says he Fatally Shot Unarmed, Subdued Black Man "by mistake"

White Cop to Dying Black Man "Fuck Your Breath." From [TulsaWorld] A federal judge has declined to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit filed against six defendants by the estate of Eric Harris, who was shot to death while being detained by Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office personnel.

The ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge John Dowdell clears the way for the lawsuit to move to the discovery stage.

Harris, a Black man was shot to death April 2, 2015, by white Tulsa County Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, who said he mistook his handgun for a Taser when he fired the revolver into Harris’ back while other deputies held Harris on the ground. 

Harris, a Black man was fatally shot during an undercover sting in Tulsa as he ran from authorities unarmed. While Harris was being subdued, Tulsa County Reserve Deputy Robert Charles "Bob" Bates who said he mistook his handgun for a Taser, shot Harris in the back when he was on the ground -being held down by other white deputies.

Harris had briefly fled from deputies during an undercover gun sting.

The estate of Harris filed a civil lawsuit Jan. 6, 2016, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, naming Bates, former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado and deputies Michael Huckeby, Joseph Byars and Ricardo Vaca. Huckeby is no longer employed by the Sheriff’s Office.

White Supremacy Hook Up. Harris did not have a gun when he was tackled and shot. A sunglasses-camera video shows Harris' arms flailing as he runs.

In the video, Harris can be heard saying, "I'm losing my breath," to which 38-year-old Deputy Joseph Byars replies, "Fuck your breath." 24-year-old Deputy Michael Huckeby is also shown in the video kneeling on Harris' head as the dying Harris is told, "You shouldn't have ran," and "Shut the fuck up." A third deputy restraining Harris was not identified. [MORE]

A jury subsequently found Bates guilty of second-degree manslaughter in Harris’ death.

Bates, 76, served about 18 months of a four-year sentence before being released from prison in October.

The civil lawsuit brought by Harris’ estate claims Sheriff’s Office personnel used excessive force and were deliberately indifferent to Harris’ serious medical needs after he was shot. The lawsuit alleges Glanz should be held personally liable for Harris’ death because the sheriff failed to train and supervise Bates.

Bates claimed the lawsuit should be dismissed because the shooting was accidental.

But Dowdell, in his opinion and order, noted that Harris’ estate alleged that Bates did not mistake his gun for his Taser, and that even the use of a Taser on a subdued, non-fleeing, unarmed person would have constituted excessive force.

“The facts alleged as to Bates — that he used deadly force on an unarmed, subdued person who was not fleeing — state a plausible claim for excessive force against Bates,” Dowdell wrote in his ruling.

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To Prevent Another "Katrina" Just Hide & Undercount the Number of Dead & Turn Cameras Off [Puerto Rico]

Brown Probot Undercounter says it probably wasn't the hurricane that killed all those people -because he better say that. According to FUNKTIONARY, a probot is a propagandizing programmed robot. (An official  representative from an organization, agency or institution whose assignment is to make prepared statements and answer "cooked"  (prepared)  questions at news conferences, briefings and the like. A probot is a proxymoron who conveys programmed disinformation in computerized language and bureaucratese jargon. A probot is one who disseminates lies, distortions and convenient mass truths composed by a superior overruling elite. A Brown probot, mechanically efficient but with no awareness, is a robot who has been programmed in service of white domination.  [MORE]

Undercounting Non-Whites Like Trump's Election or his Census Bureau.  From [NYTimes] On Wednesday, Puerto Rico officials, facing increasing questions about the accuracy of the official death toll from the storm, acknowledged for the first time that 472 more people died this September compared with the same month last year. The storm made landfall on Sept. 20. The government’s official death toll is 55.

The numbers confirmed what had been speculated for weeks: After the waters receded and the roads were cleared, people here continued to die at rates far beyond normal.

Having no idea of what happened the NYT speculates, "as temperatures frequently rose above 90 degrees, the lack of power in nursing homes, private houses and hospitals hit the elderly particularly hard. Soaring temperatures accelerated the deaths of people who were already seriously ill. Ambulances could not arrive, medicines ran out and oxygen tanks that ran on electricity were useless, several funeral directors said."

Even with the increase in mortality in the weeks after Hurricane Maria, authorities insisted that the official death toll remained at 55: 20 direct deaths; 31 indirect deaths, such as suicides; and four more from leptospirosis, a waterborne bacterial disease.

The government said it was up to doctors to certify whether other conditions — such as lack of air conditioning or dialysis because of the blackout — contributed to a person’s death. If families believe an error has been made they should file a report, Héctor M. Pesquera, the secretary of public safety, told reporters Wednesday. But the government, he said, would not be influenced by anecdotal reports or suppositions.

“We are not going to question 29,649 doctors who signed all those death certificates,” Mr. Pesquera said, referring to the number of people who died in the past year. “There’s a process, and there’s the law, and we follow the process and the law.” [MORE]

Journalists at El Vocero, VOX and USA Today have explained that the death toll probably ranges from 450 - 1000. [MORE]

Public Radio International recently interviewed Vox editor Eliza Barclay about the facts and fiction of what’s happening on the ground. When asked about the method officials are using to tally the number of fatalities, Barclay said that “we don’t have a super clear sense of exactly how they’ve been doing it. But one thing they’ve been doing is requiring that every single body be inspected by officials from the Institute for Forensic Science. And then they’re also saying that they need to do interviews with family members to confirm that a death definitely resulted from the hurricane. So it seems, at least, like a pretty strict set of requirements in order to attribute a death directly to the storm.” [MORE]

NJ Supreme Ct Releases 2 Innocent Black Men Locked Up 24 Years After White AG's Ignored Exonerating DNA Evidence

From [InnocenceProject] Today, Innocent Project client Eric Kelley and Centurion client Ralph Lee walked out of a New Jersey prison, experiencing freedom for the first time in more than 20 years. Back in September, a New Jersey Court vacated their convictions for a 1993 felony murder and robbery based on DNA evidence identifying another suspect. After the court set a bail that the two men could make, the prosecution appealed their release. Today the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected the prosecution’s arguments, paving the way for the men to post the bail. The prosecution also appealed the court’s order vacating their convictions, but now they will be free while the appeal proceeds through the courts. 

In 1996, Kelley and Lee were sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 murder of Tito Merino in Paterson, New Jersey. But DNA testing of a hat found at the crime scene excluded both Kelly and Lee and matched to another man—Eric Dixon—who matched to the age and physical description of the person a witness observed in the store around the time of the murder.  Just three months prior to the crime, Dixon had been released from prison after serving three years for a similar knifepoint robbery of a nearby store.

Nevertheless prosecutors in Passaic County refused to even question that felon, who is still on the loose. Despite compelling scientific evidence local prosecutors were unconvinved of Kelley’s and Lee’s innocence. 

The Christie administration and his Attorney General, Chris Porrino did nothing and failed to step in despite the new exculpatory evidence. 
 
TIf not for a judge's order, prosecutors wouldn't even have sought the rap sheet of the convict who matched the DNA hit. In legal filings, they argued this felon, Eric Dixon, did not commit the murder, without even having spoken to him - undermining any future prosecution. 
 
They also didn't bother to notify the victim's family. And a detective on the original case, still on the job, refused to even say whether he would have investigated Dixon at the time if he knew his DNA matched; what a judge called "the best example of tunnel vision." 
 
That judge found this new evidence powerful enough to toss out the convictions, after listening to both sides for a year. [MORE] and [MORE]

[White Supremacy is a Global System] 'It’s a Black Thing’: Quip by News Anchor Now is a Rallying Cry in Brazil

From [NyTimes] Black Brazilians have reappropriated an insulting quip by a prominent television anchorman, using his words — “It’s a black thing” — to draw attention to contributions of Brazilians of African ancestry and to the lingering impact of racial subjugation in Brazil.

The quip was made in a video that was recorded last year but that only surfaced this week in Brazil.

In the video, William Waack, an anchorman for Brazil’s largest television network, Globo, was preparing for a live shot with a guest, with the White House in the background, while covering the presidential campaign in the United States.

In response to loud honking from a nearby car, Mr. Waack said to his guest, “It’s a black thing. No doubt,” and laughed about it with his guest.

Reaction on social media was swift and indignant after the video started to circulate.

By Wednesday evening, #ÉCoisaDePreto — Portuguese for “It’s a black thing” — was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in Brazil.

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888. Over three centuries, some four million Africans were brought here and forced to work in fields, mines and private homes.

Brazil is a country where the life expectancy of black men is considerably lower than for their white counterparts, and where people of African descent earn 36 percent less than nonblack Brazilians.

The Ny Times writes, "in recent years, Globo and other television networks have used their powerful positions to combat racism with more prominent roles for black Brazilians on soap operas and reality TV shows." [translation showcase Blacks are in heavy rotation on television to minimize the effects of white supremacy -sound familiar?]  

what is racism/white supremacy?