Blacks are Subjected to Random Terror & Arbitrary Punishment in White over Black System of Unequal Power. From [HERE] Muskogee police released body cam video of an officer using pepper spray on an 84-year-old woman. Officers were chasing the woman’s son when he ran into the house. They asked to him to come out and he refused.
They then went into the home and used a Taser on the suspect. The women then came out and police commanded her to turn around. FOX23 counted about 40 seconds in the video between that command and when she was pepper sprayed.
White cops were chasing the young Black man because he allegedly ran a stop sign and did not pull over when cops tried to effectuate the stop. [check out the white police chief in video trying to justify this bullshit. A white individual within a system of racism/white supremacy has the implicit or explicit support of that system IF they choose to practice racism. MORE]
Because We Said So Nigger. From [HERE] Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel offered an update on Monday morning, August 22nd on the investigation into the officer-involved fatal shooting of 23-year-old Sylville Smith. Schimel said the video in this case, that so many in the community want to see, will not be released anytime soon. Also no video or other details about why the cops stopped the car or what made it "suspicious" to cops has been released.
Smith was fatally shot near 44th and Auer on Saturday afternoon, August 13th. The incident touched off several days of unrest in Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood. Authorities have said Smith was fleeing police and that footage from the officer's body camera clearly shows Smith holding a handgun and turning toward an officer when he was shot.
Schimel indicated he is not releasing the body camera video associated with this case at this time. He said there were two officers with body cameras in close proximity of Smith at the time of the shooting.
"The body camera video is just one piece of information among many sources of information. They give only a narrow and incomplete glimpse of the overall picture. I can tell you now, viewing the body camera videos will not answer all of your questions," Schimel said.
Schimel said release of the videos would compromise the integrity of the investigation, which is ongoing.
"It is sometimes necessary to confront witnesses with information they didn't know or they didn't know we knew," Schimel said. "We are still collecting information and we will have follow-up questions for some of the witnesses who were interviewed already." Whah? Smith is gone. An investigation into what crime? Oh a crime by a cop! Its just cops protecting cops from lawsuits.
Schimel indicated all critical witnesses have been interviewed at least once. A neighborhood canvass has been done. Schimel said the unrest that occurred after the shooting of Smith did slow the investigation.
Schimel said this case remains a top priority for the DCI Milwaukee office.
Schimel said the family of Smith will be the first to see the body camera video once it's cleared for release. That won't happen until a decision is made as to whether the officer who shot Smith will face any charges. That decision will be made by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. A spokesman for Chisholm's office did not comment on Monday's press conference.
"It will be released after the district attorney is done with his final determination," Schimel said.
Schimel indicated there have been requests from officers to see the video -- but Schimel said the investigation is better served by not showing them the video.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said shortly after this officer-involved shooting that he was shown a still image from the body camera video, and said he saw a gun in Smith's hand.
FOX6 News asked Schimel why the DOJ won't release that still image.
"The way the gun is positioned, the position of Mr. Smith when the officer made his decision to discharge his weapon, all of those things are part of that important determination. Releasing more than what the mayor has stated, I believe, could compromise the integrity of the investigation," Schimel said.
Schimel said reviewing the body camera footage from this incident is challenging because the first parts don't include sound.
"I believe it`s a 30-second delay before the audio starts after the incident recording begins," Schimel said.
Schimel told reporters he expects the Milwaukee Police Department is conducting its own internal investigation relating to disciplinary matters, but he had no information related to that. He said it is necessary to have a strong "firewall" between an internal and criminal investigation.
"In an internal discipline investigation, those interviews are compelled. Either talk to us and answer our questions or be fired," Schimel said. "In a criminal investigation, all interviews must be voluntary if we are ever to use them. Therefore, we can't know what's happening in the internal investigation."
Sylville Smith's sister told FOX6 News her brother knew the officer in this case, adding that they went to high school together.
Milwaukee Public Schools officials said there are no records of the two ever attending the same high school.
Schimel on Monday would not comment as to whether Smith and the officer knew one another, but he did say investigators are looking into that possibility.
"We are piecing together detailed histories for both the officer and Mr. Smith to determine if there is any pre-existing relationship that may have affected the events that day," Schimel said.
As for a timeline for a decision, there were no specifics offered Monday, but Schimel said he believes a charging decision will come faster than it did in the Dontre Hamilton case in 2014. That took about six months.
Schimel on Monday confirmed that some of the state investigators working this case are retired from the Milwaukee Police Department. Schimel said he does not see that as a conflict of interest because there is no direct relationship to the officers involved.
Video of the immediate moments after police killed Manuel Diaz. In the video Diaz was still alive--and police stood there for over three minutes and did nothing. Instead, they seem more concerned with pushing witnesses away from the scene. [MORE]
From [HERE] The Ninth Circuit ordered a new trial Wednesday after a jury that heard inflammatory evidence sided with the Anaheim, California, officer who shot Manuel Diaz to death in 2012.
Diaz, 25, was killed after a short foot chase by police on July 21, 2012, sparking days of violence and street protests in Anaheim.
Nicholas Bennallack, the officer who fired the fatal shots, testified that he suspected Diaz was in a gang based on the way he dressed. Based on his experience in the area, he believed criminal activity was afoot.
Though Bennallack said he feared Diaz had a gun and was preparing to shoot him, authorities did not recover another firearm at the scene. One of the bullets Bennallack fired Diaz passed from his right buttock to his left thigh. The other entered just above and behind Diaz's right ear, exiting out the other side of his head.
Genevieve Huizar, Diaz's mother, tried to hold Anaheim and Bennallack liable for excessive force and other claims, but a federal jury ruled for the defendants after a six-day civil trial in March 2014.
The Ninth Circuit reversed that decision on Wednesday, saying an error in the trial's layout caused the jury to hear inflammatory evidence that may have improperly shaped their verdict.
By failing to split the liability phase from the compensatory-damages phase, U.S. District Judge James Selna allowed the jury to consider material that was not relevant to whether Bennallack used excessive force, the appellate panel found.
Selna had deemed evidence regarding Diaz's gang affiliation and drug use relevant as to damages because the evidence could undermine the strength of his mother's love for him and their relationship.
In making that ruling, however, Selna conceded that the evidence was irrelevant as to liability because Bennallack was not aware of either Diaz's gang affiliation or his drug use at the time of the shooting.
"I just moved the door like this [gently], he's back there, he's throwing his hands up at me, he wouldn't obey my commands, he's trying to charge at me, wouldn't obey my commands" and more solid gold nonsense at 7:33.
From [HERE] and [HERE] A white Rockwood police officer at the center of a $1.2 million federal lawsuit for pepper-spraying a 20-year-old Black college student submitted his resignation a day after the lawsuit was filed, according to records.
Xavier Howard wasn't happy about it but when a white Rockwood police officer told him to put his hands in the air and walk toward him, he did.
The white officer doused him with pepper spray anyway, footage from the officer's body camera revealed.
That same footage captured audio of officer Chris Kennedy pondering exactly what charge to place against the 20-year-old black college student to justify the use of force, and it contradicted Kennedy's written account of the incident in which he said he sprayed Howard because the young man refused his command to "back away."
Now, Howard, who lost his basketball scholarship at Roane State Community College as a result of the July 2015 arrest, is suing the Rockwood Police Department, Kennedy and Kennedy's supervisor, Sgt. Randy Keahy. Among the more than $1.2 million in damages he seeks is the value of both his lost scholarship and the job opportunities a college education would have afforded him — pegged in the U.S. District Court lawsuit at $731,000.
In Howard's case, the body camera footage is at the heart of his bid to show he was subjected to unnecessary force, wrongfully arrested and his life left in tatters as a result. When he lost his scholarship, he was forced to drop out. He racked up more than $5,000 in bond and legal fees.
Howard lived with his girlfriend, Brandy Harris, in the Meadows Place Apartments in Rockwood. Howard attended Roane State on a basketball scholarship. Harris worked at a nursing home. In July 2015, the couple argued. A neighbor phoned police about the noise. Kennedy knocked and, when Harris partially opened the door, pushed on it.
The video showed Kennedy immediately focused on Howard. Harris can be heard explaining the pair had a "stupid argument" but no blows were exchanged. Howard also protested the officer's presence in the apartment and turned toward the kitchen, saying he was going to call his mother, according to documents.
The video footage showed Kennedy, who saw a small knife on top of a television near the kitchen, ordered Howard to put his hands into the air and walk toward him. Howard, still arguing, did, but — just three minutes after the encounter began — Kennedy sprayed him with pepper spray, handcuffed him and placed him in his cruiser without rendering any aid, which is required by the Rockwood policy manual.
Kennedy told Howard he was being arrested for "resisting," the lawsuit stated. The officer later asked Sgt. Keahy, who arrived after the spray was used, "what can I get him for," the video showed. Keahy suggested domestic assault. But a judicial magistrate refused to approve the charge because there was no evidence of an assault, the lawsuit stated. Kennedy then drafted a warrant for underage consumption, alleging Howard was "the primary aggressor" in a "physical domestic" and claimed Howard refused his commands to "back off" so he was forced to use pepper spray, according to documents filed in the case.
A review of the officer's personnel file shows Kennedy, a part-time hire who had been with the department less than two years, submitted a letter of resignation July 6. According to the letter, Kennedy accepted a full-time position with the Oliver Springs Police Department, beginning July 18. [MORE]
From [HERE] A Black man at the scene of a fatal shooting by a white police officer of a Black man in 2011 said he told inquiring FBI agents a few months later that his friend had recorded its immediate aftermath on a cellphone, and they could get a copy from him.
But the man with the cellphone told the Post-Dispatch last week that investigators never asked him for the video and he never volunteered it.
“I didn’t want to be in the spotlight,” he said.
The video, obtained by the Post-Dispatch and posted on STLtoday.com in June, shows about eight minutes immediately following the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith, 24, in December 2011.
Smith was shot by then-Officer Jason Stockley after a suspected drug deal turned into a police pursuit and crash. Stockley was charged in May — more than four years later — with murder.
The men with the video agreed to interviews if their names were not publicly revealed. They said they fear retribution from police.
The one with the cellphone said that shortly after the shooting, he gave a copy of the video to one of Smith’s relatives, whom he would not identify.
The video never surfaced until June, when the Post-Dispatch obtained it from activists, who would not reveal where they got it. Local and federal prosecutors said they had never seen it before.
Statements by the two men cast new doubt on how thorough the law enforcement inquiry was at the time, given that investigators knew of the video’s existence but did not find it.
U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan insisted in an interview Friday that the FBI agents pursued their search for the cellphone video as far as they could.
“I can assure you, there was nobody we failed to quiz about a possible video. We were trying to track down any video that existed.”
Callahan indicated the federal agents believed that the shooting witness was the man who shot the video and that their search ended when that witness said the phone was lost.
But in an interview last week, the shooting witness insisted that he had told the FBI 4½ years ago that his friend had made the video, and they could still track it down from him.
The friend, also interviewed last week, said federal agents never came looking for the cellphone video.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce charged Stockley in May with first-degree murder, citing the discovery of “new evidence,” which she has not revealed.
The man who said he recorded the aftermath said he recently testified before the St. Louis grand jury that indicted Jason Stockley on Aug. 11 on the murder charge.
But the man who said he witnessed the shooting said he was never asked to testify.
Callahan said that man had so many inconsistencies in his FBI interview four years ago that agents doubted he actually saw it.
Stockley, 35, has said he fired in self-defense after Smith pointed a gun at him. Police said a revolver was recovered in Smith’s car. Officials found Stockley’s DNA — but not Smith’s — on that gun.
The cellphone video — on which both men’s voices can be heard — shows key movements of police at the scene, including Stockley as he walks from Smith’s car and returns to the police SUV, where he leans into the back door. Then he goes back to Smith’s car and, immediately after the body is pulled out, climbs into the driver’s seat and stays there about 30 seconds. The view does not show the inside of the car.
Some believe that provided an opportunity for Stockley to retrieve and plant the weapon.
Stockley has said he started to get a “clot pack” from the police vehicle to treat Smith’s wounds but then realized it was futile. His attorneys have said the officer handled the gun while recovering and unloading it.
Taking a break
The shooting witness said he was doing work inside a second-floor business on West Florissant Avenue near Goodfellow Boulevard on Dec. 20, 2011, when he took a break and looked out a window.
He saw a car speeding down West Florissant with a police SUV close behind. He said the SUV hit the car with an impact that jolted the driver, Smith, to the point that he slumped over the steering wheel as if he were unconscious, or at least impaired.
“He just lost control of the vehicle at that point,” the witness recalled. The car rolled to the opposite side of the street for about 50 yards until it hit a curb near a utility pole. Then, the man said, the police SUV rammed the back of the car.
He said he saw the officer who was driving get out in a daze and approach the car with his handgun drawn. Police SUV dashboard video, viewed by the Post-Dispatch years ago but not publicly released, contradicts this memory, showing Stockley exit the passenger side of the SUV and approach Smith.
The police dashboard video was running during the shooting, but the view is badly obscured by Smith’s car and the airbags that deployed when the vehicles collided. That video has since been placed under a court protective order.
The witness said the officer tried to open Smith’s door at least twice, but couldn’t, and then backed up slightly and started firing into the vehicle.
“He didn’t even give that man a chance,” he said. “There were no words, he just shot into the car.”
The other man said the sound of the crash drew him to the same window. He would not say exactly what he saw, but the shooting was over before he started recording.
He said he testified about it to a grand jury.
“I understand that tensions were running high but that officer reacted the wrong way,” he said. “What he did was wrong. We couldn’t believe what we seen with our own eyes.”
The maker of the video became emotional when explaining that his mistrust of the police was the reason he did not share the video with them. Both men, who are black, said they believe police treat minorities unfairly. The investigation into the death of Smith, who was black, by Stockley, who is white, is just another example, he said.
From [HERE] and [HERE] After an hours-long standoff with police, an armed white suspect who fired at officers was arrested Monday evening, KABC reported. Authorities said they responded to a call of a despondent man at the Hyland Motel in the 700 block of South Brea Boulevard at about 3 p.m. When officers arrived at the scene, they said the man fired at them through the door.
Lt. Darrin Devereux of the Brea Police Department told the Orange County Register the suspect was taken into custody based on the attempted murder of a police officer.
The man barricaded himself while the SWAT team remained outside of the motel. No police officers were injured during the incident. After being barricaded for several hours with SWAT outside the motel, the man was eventually shot with bean bags and tackled by SWAT.
According tothe Brea Police Department, the white man was taken to the hospital but sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
The use of "less lethal" bean bags begs the question from Mic.com: Why aren't these rounds used for people like Alton Sterling and Philando Castile or Milton Hall, (shot 46 times by white cops in Saginaw after a "standoff" - see video)— black men who were killed by police in Louisiana and Minnesota?
The Psychopathic Racial Personality. Dr. Bobby Wright explains that by and large, white people treat each other humanely. But in their relations with non-white people, racists function as psychopaths. 'Psychopaths simply ignore the concept of right and wrong. The racist has no morality where race is the variable.' [MORE] When white cops brutalize other whites, white prosecutors, white judges, white jurors and the white media usually ensure that the cop is held accountable.
Dr. Welsing explained, "always, in the presence of color, whites will feel genetically inferior." [MORE]
Neely Fullerexplains "Most white people hate Black people. The reason that most white people hate Black people is because whites are not Black people. If you know this about white people, you need know little else. If you do not know this about white people, virtually all else that you know about them will only confuse you."
Undeceiver Osho Rajineesh states,
'It Would Be Better If They Had No Eyes' (then there would be no possibility of misunderstanding.) When racist white cops are in the presence of color, especially Black men, they can no longer see things as they really are. Their eyes are filled with thoughts, mind is filled with smoke and all sorts of programming all sorts of idiocy about non-whites [dangerous, inferior beasts doing this and that] take over. "A mind that is filled with belief is a mind which can project anything according to the belief. When you see things always remember this." If he is an unaware person, in the presence of non-whites his mind is blown, full of smoke, shit and in attachment to his weakness. Anything he does in this sleeping state will be stupid and dangerous b/c he is unconscious has a belt full of weapons, the power of the state and he is licensed to kill.
False Flag Operation in Dallas? From [HERE] Dallas Police Department officials want to block the release of "highly intimate or embarrassing" information regarding the use of a bomb disposal robot to kill a sniper who murdered five officers last month, saying it is of no legitimate concern to the public.
City officials asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for an advisory opinion on July 19, in response to at least 17 public information requests by journalists. The requests want access to robot and body camera footage, among other things.
Armed with a brick of C-4 explosive, the robot detonated and killed Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, in the early hours of July 8 on the campus of El Centro College in downtown Dallas.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters at the time that hours-long negotiations in a garage with Johnson had failed. "Our bomb robot detonated a bomb where the suspect was," Brown said. "Other options would have subjected officers to great danger."
During the standoff at a garage, Mr. Johnson told police negotiators that “he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” Chief Brown said. “he said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. He stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.” He aslo said that Johnson was singing, laughing and taunting officers during prolonged negotiations. [MORE] Thus far, no police or city camera video footage has been released to corroborate the DPD's story. Although multiple officers were present during the stand off, apparently, Brown is the only officer who has publicly spoken about what exact statements were allegedly made by Johnson. It is also unclear how police communicated to Johnson. It is unknown whether police reports or notes made in connection with the incident contained Johnson's statement.
Police also claimed that the concept of the killing episode was planned in a “fairly voluminous” journal found in the home of Micah Johnson. While the journal did not specifically lay out plans for that assault, officials said, it "showed how the gunman planned to adapt the combat tactic." [MORE]. As far as BW knows, only the police have been able to view this secret journal of admissions. Apparently its entries contained details about so-called "shoot and move tactics" and plans about a non-specific assault at an unknown time and location? How many pages could this be? [MORE] If there were an actual trial Johnson's alleged facebook page and his murder plans journal would have to be authenticated - a witness familiar with his handwriting would have to confirm that his writing in fact was in the journal and that he in fact created the Facebook page and made entries on it (anyone can create a facebook page, anywhere).
As with other "terror" incidents in a matter of hours the case is closed - dead man's confession to cops of multiple crimes and murders, revelations about the exact location of key evidence and crime plans, loads of anecdotal information that would never be admissible in court but sounds credible on TV, unverifiable statements from anonymous neighbors, co-workers & "friends"- - and missing video, audio, notes, witnesses and forensic evidence. Here, there is also a missing dead body - since he was allegedly blown to bits by the robot bomb.
The detonation was the first known use of a bomb disposal robot to kill a suspect by a U.S. police department.
Authored by Assistant City Attorney P. Armstrong, the letter to Paxton argues that some of the requested information "is protected by common-law privacy," which protects information that is "highly intimate or embarrassing, such that its release would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person, and it is of not legitimate concern to the public."
The letter states that some of the requested information is considered confidential under the law. It also invokes "special circumstances," and the release of the information would endanger officers working undercover, Armstrong writes.
"The disclosure of the requested information that includes such information could jeopardize the safety and well-being of these officers and the confidential informants used by DPD," the letter states. "As well, it may subject them to retaliation for offenses attained from the location if this information is disclosed."
The letter says some of the requested information is protected by the Texas Homeland Security Act, since it involves operating procedures of the department's Homeland Security and Special Operations Division.
"This information is vital in coordinating and dispatching police and fire personnel to emergencies," the letter states. "As such, it is critical that DPD be able to protect information directly related to the operating procedures of this division."
From [HERE] A disturbing video making the rounds on Instagram Friday, but recorded back in early May, shows a plainclothes New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective brutally beating a black man being pinned to the floor of a McDonald's in the Bronx by two other men, one of whom is also an NYPD detective.
What the video doesn't show — according to a spokesman for the NYPD — is that the suspect, identified as 27-year-old Darnell Simmons, was fighting with detectives for 7 minutes prior. Simmons broke one detective's nose so severely, the NYPD spokesman said, that it required plastic surgery. In other words, the Black man defended himself while he was jumped by three thugs.
The detainee does not appear to be resisting arrest when his head is mushed against the floor, kneed and punched in the face. As such, even if what these racist suspects say is true, the white cops were no longer defending themselves at the point of bashing him over and over again.
"It's not an assault," the police spokesman said Friday afternoon, as the video racked up thousands more views. "We did not assault him."
With so many screens over their eyes, White prosecutors and jurors probably will agree. ['Mind is a very subtle game. A mind that is filled with belief is a mind which can project anything according to that belief.' pdf. Mind is a motherfucker.]
The auxiliary police force. From the video it appears that the third white man is just a random white guy at McDonald's who jumps in to help brutalize the Black man. In the video he is helping to hold the Black man while the maniac cop goes off. Check out how he talks he sounds like he is mentally impaired (or McCrazy).
Blacks & Latinos should recognize that many white folks act as an auxiliary police force and they are watching you whenever you are in their presence. They are ready to report anything you do that they believe is unusual (think of the white guy who called 911 on Tamir Rice, he described the 13 year old as a "a guy" with a gun (toy) pointing it at everybody (no one there)... like Desert Storm" or the provocative white man who called 911 on Alton Sterling) - which could be damn near anything you do (think of the the white person who called the cops on the Black man reading CS Lewis in his car.)
Similarly, during Nazi Germany, Germans who classified themselves as white or pure white functioned as an auxiliary police force; monitoring, arresting and watching Jews (German Jews were classified as 'not pure white' - the Jews were not considered to be white people or Aryans [MORE], This "watch" of the Jews enabled Nazi control because Jews vastly outnumbered them.
Hmmm. At any rate, it looks like these 2 white cops were definitely not impressed by that Akai Gurley settlement and super stiff punishment NYPD officer Peter Liang received for the senseless manslaughter of an unarmed Black man- no jail time, community service and a fine of $25,000. [story below]
NYPD Cop Entered Housing Project with 9mm Drawn on "Routine Check" From [HERE] NYC has agreed to pay over $4 million to settle a wrongful death claim filed by the family of Akai Gurley, the unarmed black man who was fatally shot by a cop in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project, the Daily News has learned.
The city and NYCHA are both contributing to the settlement — and the ex-police officer who escaped jail time for Gurley’s death in the Pink Houses is paying a price too.
Former cop Peter Liang, will pay $25,000 to Kimberly Ballinger, the mother of Gurley’s young daughter Akaila.
The city’s on the hook for $4.1 million and the New York City Housing Authority is paying $400,000.
The money will be put into a fund for Akaila which can’t be touched without court approval until she is 18. But the money will be invested in rock-solid annuities that will actually provide the girl with an estimated $10 million over the course of her lifetime.
Gurley, 28, was a resident of the Louis Pink Houses in East New York. The night he died, he’d gone to the seventh-floor home of friend Melissa Butler.
The two of them decided to go out, and because the elevator wasn’t working, took the stairs to the lobby.
Liang and Landau, both 28, were performing a vertical patrol in the building and entered the pitch-dark stairwell one floor above Gurley and Butler.
Liang had his gun out (a 9-millimeter semiautomatic) and his finger on the trigger which is a violation of NYPD procedure.
Liang testified that he accidentally fired one shot that ricocheted off the wall and struck Gurley in the chest.
The mortally wounded man staggered down to the fourth floor where he collapsed.
Liang was convicted in February by a Brooklyn jury of manslaughter, but Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun reduced the charge to criminally negligent homicide and sentenced the ex-cop — the rookie was fired upon being convicted of a felony — to 800 hours of community service.
From [HERE] and [HERE] The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department acknowledged last week that a deputy shot and killed a black man who was mistakenly identified as a suspect in a carjacking, again bringing into question the appropriateness of a police agency's use of deadly force.
It was not yet dawn when the armored vehicles, black and hulking like Batmobiles, rumbled into the residential neighborhood in Compton, Calif. A carjacker had stolen a vehicle in Los Angeles, exchanged gunfire with sheriff’s deputies and then ditched his prize, disappearing on foot into a dense patchwork quilt of pink houses.
The armored vehicles — and the heavily armed deputies inside them — were there to find and capture the armed carjacker.
Instead, they found a different black man, Donnell Thompson.
As the carjacker hid in a house several blocks away, Thompson slept in a stranger’s yard. He was 27 years old but possessed the mental faculties of a much younger man. He was unarmed.
From inside one of the armored vehicles, however, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies knew none of this. When Thompson allegedly didn’t respond to commands, the deputies detonated flash-bangs. When he still didn’t move, they hit him with foam bullets.
And when he allegedly ran toward them, a deputy atop the armored vehicle opened fire with an assault rifle, striking Thompson twice in the torso.
Thompson died. At almost the same instant, the real carjacker was arrested.
That was July 28. For almost two weeks, the Sheriff’s Department insisted that Thompson was a second suspect in the carjacking.
On Tuesday, the department admitted it had killed an innocent man.
“No question this is a terribly devastating event,” Capt. Steve Katz [in photo] said during a news conference. He said there was “no physical evidence” connecting Thompson to the carjacking or shootout and promised a “thorough” and “complete” investigation into the shooting, according to the Associated Press.
Thompson’s relatives said they wanted more than an investigation, however. They wanted charges for the deputy who killed Thompson.
“I wouldn’t treat an animal this bad,” his sister Matrice Stanley told the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, according to the AP. “How is this justifiable?”
The incident raises questions about the militarization of law enforcement, as departments across the country increasingly use armored vehicles and assault rifles to fight crime [which is at historic lows nationwide].
“In a civilian neighborhood, they bring an urban assault vehicle,” Brian Dunn, an attorney representing the Thompson family, told the Huffington Post. “The BearCat, it’s like a tank. Their response to this situation was so aggressive. Their tactics were so aggressive.”
Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 01:04AM 
