From [HERE] One of the Cleveland police officers involved in the fatal shooting of two suspects Thursday night fired 30 to 40 rounds, a lawyer representing the officers said Tuesday.
That would mean the officer had to reload his handgun at least once.
Attorney Pat D'Angelo said another officer fired 17 rounds and a third fired 12 times at the end of a high-speed car chase. Some of the officers, he claimed, had been warned that the suspects were armed and were under the perception that shots had been fired at officers.
"He was fighting for his life and fighting to protect other officers," D'Angelo said of the officer who fired at least 30 rounds into the car the suspects had driven on a 25-minute chase. The Black people killed were unarmed and therefore did not shoot at anyone.
All told, 47 of the 137 rounds fired by 13 Cleveland officers hit their targets -- 43-year-old Timothy Russell and 30-year-old Malissa Williams, according to the Cuyahoga County medical examiner. Dr. Thomas P. Gilson reported Tuesday that 24 of the rounds riddled the head, neck, body and an arm of Williams, who was a passenger in the Chevrolet Malibu SS, and 23 rounds struck the head, neck and extremities of driver Timothy Russell. 12 of the 13 officers involved were white.
From [HERE] Ever since Eugene Ellison was shot dead two years ago by an off-duty police officer in his home in Little Rock, Arkansas, his family have tried to convince the authorities to take action. The unarmed 67-year-old African American was killed by Donna Lesher, a white officer, who entered his home with another off-duty officer after spotting that his door was open. She was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal inquiry.
But the Guardian has learned of new testimony from another police officer who witnessed the shooting, which has cast doubt on Lesher's account and raised important questions over the original police inquiry and the county prosecutor's subsequent decision to rule the shooting justified.
In his testimony to lawyers for Ellison's sons, Vincent Lucio, one of four officers present when Ellison was shot, said he did not believe Ellison posed a deadly threat, according to the documents seen by the Guardian.
Lucio maintains that all of the officers, including Lesher, were outside Ellison's apartment when she fired inside his apartment at him – in apparent violation of the Little Rock police department's own rules on the use of deadly force.
LRPD general order 303 forbids officers from firing inside a building "unless the officer or someone else is drawing deadly fire and the suspect can be identified and is clearly visible".
Lucio also said that the four officers could have walked away from the scene, but instead Lesher opened fire, without issuing any warning to Ellison that she had a gun and would shoot.
DPD says Dashcam Video Does Not Exist From [HERE] The family of a man who was shot and killed by a Dallas police officer this summer has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer and the police department. The grand jury hasn't yet received the case against Officer Leland Limbaugh, who shot John Robert Husband, III. In all police shootings, a grand jury decides if the force was justified or not.
Still, a lawsuit filed in state court last week claims Husband's civil rights were violated and that Officer Limbaugh used excessive force. His family claims eyewitness accounts of the shooting contradict Limbaugh's statements about what happened. Police said the officer stopped Husband with two passengers following an illegal turn. The officer said he smelled marijuana, asked if there were weapons in the car and instructed Husband to exit the vehicle.
When he got out, Limbaugh said he saw a weapon in Husband's waistband, told him not to reach for it and attempted to handcuff him. According to police the men struggled. Limbaugh said Husband reached for his gun. Fearing for his life, he fired. Husband was shot in the back near the left shoulder blade.
From [HERE] A Border Patrol agent in Southern California who shot and killed a Latino mother of five after she allegedly hit him with her vehicle fired his gun 10 times from the hood of her car as he tried to get the woman to stop, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.
Valeria "Munique" TachiquinAlvarado, 32, suffered 14 gunshot wounds to her upper body, the San Diego County Medical Examiner said. Some bullets may have caused more than one wound. The autopsy determined the Sept. 28 death was a homicide and lists multiple gunshot wounds as the cause.
Alvarado left a friend's apartment in Chula Vista when agents came with an arrest warrant for someone else, according to the autopsy, mirroring previous statements from police. At the time she left the apartment she had not committed any crime, she was not the subject of the warrant, not under investigation and there was otherwise no legal basis for police to stop, detain or block her in. As such, she was within her rights to leave.
According to police, who are investigating themselves about the incident, a group of plainclothes agents went to an apartment on Moss Street near Oaklawn Avenue shortly before 1 p.m. with an arrest warrant for a felon who had been previously deported and had a history of drug charges. Alvarado was one of several people inside the apartment when four of the agents approached and identified themselves as law enforcement, Wedge said.
She replied that the man they wanted was in the shower in back, then she brushed past the agents and walked toward her car, Wedge said. The agents alerted two other agents who were guarding the perimeter of the apartment, and they tried to stop her(for what lawful purpose?) as she got into her Honda. She allegedly struck one of them with the car as she started to pull away, police said.
From [HERE] Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine (white man in photo) is asking for the public’s help in the investigation involving 13 Cleveland police officers who fired 137 rounds into a car driven by Timothy Russell last week.
Russell, 43 yr. old Black man, was killed along with Malissa Williams, 30 yr. old Black woman, after the two lead police on a nearly 25-minute chase from Cleveland to East Cleveland. An officer along with another woman claimed they heard a shot being fired and believed it came from the car Russell was driving. The car had a bad muffler.
“Our BCI experts will aggressively and fairly piece together the facts from the evidence," DeWine said. “Some of those facts may come from witnesses who haven't yet come forward to share what they know. I encourage anyone who thinks they might have some information that could help call the Attorney General's BCI."
Eighteen BCI staff members, including 16 agents, have been dedicated solely to this case. The AG's office said witnesses are being interviewed; they are reviewing video camera footage, and processing evidence. The information, when complete, will be turned into newly-elected Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty's office.
New video released from the day of the shooting does not show much. It was taped sometime between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Nov. 29. It shows an officer pulling up on in front of a building on St. Clair Avenue and talking with someone. Moments later the officer is seen rushing to his cruiser then pulling a U-turn. East Cleveland police said there was not a gun in Russell’s car. They also did not find any shell cases.
Gun-shot residue tests have not been released. DeWine's office would not say if the test was completed.
From [HERE] The benefit of a court-appointed attorney is typically reserved for criminal defendants who have no assets, source of income or family willing to front the money for private counsel — and not plaintiffs who want to sue another person, the government or a business. But one could be granted to 23-year-old Brandon M. Winters, a convicted felon from Lafayette, in a civil lawsuit he has filed against the city of West Lafayette and the police officer who shot him during a robbery investigation three years ago.
In an order signed Nov. 27, Chief Judge Philip P. Simon of U.S. District Court in Hammond wrote that the unusual move might be necessary to even simply decide whether the lawsuit should proceed to trial.
“... It has become apparent to me that there is an official capacity claim against the city and that Winters is not capable of adequately proceeding pro se on this claim, which he asserts he does not understand,” Simon wrote.
“To prove this claim, or even obtain the facts necessary for me to determine if it is a valid claim that deserves to go to trial, will require discovery and analysis that appears to be beyond Winters’ abilities.”
The judge stayed the case for 90 days, during which he plans to attempt to find Winters someone to represent him, court records show. The Nov. 27 ruling reverses a prior order he issued that denied Winters’ request for a court-appointed attorney, since “there is no constitutional or statutory right to counsel in a civil case,” Simon wrote in June.
The change of heart came while Simon was reviewing a request by attorneys for the city of West Lafayette and patrolman David Smith (in photo) to dismiss the lawsuit because Winters missed a deadline to hand over discovery.
Simon denied the defendants’ request on grounds that the missed deadline — medical records from Winters’ stay at an Indianapolis hospital were among the documents that the defendants asked for — was due to Winters’ lack of legal comprehension and not from bad faith. Winters’ lawsuit alleges that Smith used excessive force and violated Winters’ rights against unreasonable searches and to due process — as guaranteed by the Fourth and 14th amendments — when he shot Winters on Sept. 17, 2009.
In photo, racist suspect Jeffery Follmer, Cleveland police union president, speaks to media at the CPPA hall, in response to the police chase and shooting that killed 2 Black people, Saturday, December 1, 2012. [MORE] From [HERE] and [HERE] One mysterious gunshot adds up to more than 137 bullets fired and two Black people dead. Dash camera video released to shows East Cleveland Police fired on the suspects for longer than 20 seconds.
The Black people killed by the police are Timothy Ray Russell, 43, of Maple Heights, who was driving, and Malissa Williams, 30, who was the passenger. Russell's family members held a news conference this afternoon and called for a federal investigation into the shooting.
Russell and Willims were killed after they led the police on a chase that began about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday outside the Justice Center. A police official said two Cleveland officers heard a gunshot and believed it came from a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu that Russell owned. David Russell Jr. said he gave the car involved in the chase to his brother, and that it had a bad muffler - which could account for the sound. Then the car sped away and the officers chased them.
Officers from Bratenahl, East Cleveland, the State Highway Patrol and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office joined in the pursuit. It ended on a dead-end access street in East Cleveland, near Heritage Middle School, where police claim Russell “violently rammed a police car and almost struck an officer,” Follmer said.
The chase continued for 25 minutes, reaching speeds of 120 miles-per-hour, before ending in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School. Russell ended up on a dead-end access road to an East Cleveland middle school. There approximately 25 polcie officers converged on the Black man's car. They surrounded the Malibu, and some officers were out of their cars when Russell rammed another police car, Gardner said. Officers then unloaded on the car firing at least 137 shots in about 20 seconds.
In photo, mostly white Cleveland police officers listen to their union president Jeffery Follmer speak to media at the CPPA hall on December 1, 2012. [MORE]
During the chase on the highway, an officer reported also seeing something in the passenger’s hands, Gardner said. (what amazing eyesight to see objects through car doors at 100 mph!) No weapon was found in the vehicle. No shell casings were found in the car, and police did not find a gun or bullet or shell casings near the Justice Center. Investigators are, however, searching (planting evidence) the chase route to see if they can locate any evidence that may have been thrown from the vehicle.
From [HERE] Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard (a Black man or victim of white supremacy who works for racist suspects in photo) announced Monday that his office had concluded a white MARTA police officer was justified in shooting a Black man he believed was armed following a massive street brawl outside a rail station last year.
Former MARTA Officer Robert Waldo (in photo below), 31, killed 19-year-old Joetavius Stafford when he shot him three times nearly 14 months ago. Some witnesses said Stafford was unarmed and surrendering. Howard contended Waldo was pursuing an armed felon and shot Stafford because he believed he was going to shoot him, both of which would make the shooting lawful. Rodney Stafford, who witnessed the shooting, said that Waldo shot his brother while he was on the ground. “Intense interviews of several witnesses established that was simply untrue,” Howard said in a prepared statement.
"I witnessed that he was shot in the back," Rodney Stafford said. "My little brother had his hands up, and they shot him in the back." He said the officer shot his brother in the back two more times when he was on the ground. [MORE]
Howard said he hired an expert to reconstruct the shooting who found that the angles of the bullets were consistent with Stafford being upright when he was shot. The reconstruction contended Stafford was shot first in the chest and then twice in the back when his body spun around, Howard said. Stafford family attorney Gregory Feagle said Howard had selected facts to justify the shooting while ignoring other witness accounts, some of which were independent of Stafford’s family and friends.
“Certain conclusions of the district attorney are presented as established fact when in reality there are contradictory witness statements,” said Feagle, who represents the Stafford family in a wrongful death lawsuit against MARTA. “He was perceived as a threat when in fact he was not, and the district attorney appears to be resolving factual disputes. “We believe the evidence will show that Joetavius was attempting to surrender with his hands up when he was shot.”
From [HERE] A Black man who was held at gunpoint and then shocked with a Taser by two Seminole County deputies is now filing a civil lawsuit against the Sheriff's Office, claiming the deputies violated his civil rights.
Deputies Erik Ducharme and Chris Clutter have since been fired over the incident, but both are petitioning to get their jobs back. Robert Wilds was driving a black vehicle with tinted windows when he was pulled over in Sanford because the deputies suspected he was not wearing a seat belt.
Dashboard videos from the deputies' patrol car show both deputies immediately jump out of their squad cars with guns drawn. Clutter grabs a shotgun from the trunk and points it at Wilds as Ducharme drags Wilds from the car. Video then shows Clutter pointing the shotgun at Wilds as Wilds was being shot with a Taser.
"(They) had no rights at the time, whatsoever," Wilds said. "Might as well had been a stray dog on the streets that the dog catchers just got." Wilds was initially charged with resisting arrest with violence, but prosecutors dropped the charges after they saw the video.
"They unlawfully arrested me, unlawfully stopped me, and the force they use, can I say back in the 60s, 70s, police brutality, isn't necessary," said Wilds. Wilds' attorney, Shayan Modarres, believes what happened to his client might have gone unnoticed if it weren't for the dashcam video.
Monday, December 10, 2012 at 01:02AM 
