Prosecutor says Manslaughter Charges Appropriate in Baltimore Police Killing of Black Teen

From [HERE] Only James D. Laboard knows his intentions the night Baltimore County police said the off-duty officer chased a group of teens who had thrown a rock at his home. But as authorities considered charges in the ensuing death of Christopher Brown, they had to try to discern Laboard's intentions. Laboard was charged with two counts of manslaughter — one involuntary — in the asphyxiation death of the Randallstown High School teen; either count could carry a 10-year sentence.

The victim's mother expressed outrage that the officer isn't facing more severe charges, alleging that the officer received preferential treatment and calling for an outside investigation. But several legal experts said the manslaughter charges may be the strongest possible, given what's known about the case. The difference between manslaughter and murder charges centers on whether a suspect intended to kill. Experts pointed out that according to the information that has been made public, there appear to be few witnesses and little evidence to provide insight into Laboard's intent on June 13.

According to police, Laboard was at home on June 13 when he heard a loud noise, went outside and found his front door damaged — and three or four people running, police said. He ran outside after them and caught up with Brown after chasing him for several blocks. Brown was hiding in bushes outside a home on Starbrook Road. Brown wore a knee brace so may have been slower than other boys. When Brown did not come out, Laboard grabbed him out of the bushes, and the two got into a physical confrontation. The officer then struggled with the teen and Brown eventually fell unconscious.

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Baltimore Co. Officer Indicted on Manslaughter Charges in Death of Unarmed Black Teen Hiding from Police

From [HERE] A Baltimore County police officer was indicted Wednesday on manslaughter charges in the death of a teen after a chase and a struggle sparked by youths throwing rocks at his Randallstown home while he was off-duty. A grand jury indicted Officer James Laboard on manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of 17-year-old Christopher Brown. Both charges are felonies, with each carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. County officers facing felony charges are suspended without pay. Laboard was arrested and released on personal recognizance after a court appearance Wednesday, police said.

According to police, Laboard was at home on June 13 when he heard a loud noise, went outside and found his front door damaged — and three or four people running, police said. He ran outside after them and caught up with Brown after chasing him for several blocks. Brown was hiding in bushes outside a home on Starbrook Road. Brown wore a knee brace. When Brown did not come out, Laboard grabbed him out of the bushes, and the two got into a physical confrontation. The officer then struggled with the teen and Brown eventually fell unconscious. Today the Police claimed that Laboard called for help when the teen lost consciousness. No radio run or call was released to the media. Brown was later pronounced dead at a hospital and his death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation.

Brown’s family is unhappy that Laboard is not facing more-serious charges, according to attorney Russell Neverdon, who represents Brown’s family. Based on neighbors’ accounts of what happened that night, Laboard should have been charged with at least second-degree murder, he said.

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4 DC Police Officers Indicted on Charges Stemming from Assault on Black Man

From [HERE] Four District of Columbia police officers have been indicted on charges stemming from a brawl outside a downtown nightclub last year during which a man reported losing his eye.

Two of the officers are accused of repeatedly beating and kicking a Black man while off duty outside the Lotus Lounge. A third officer is accused of failing to arrest anyone in the fight, and a fourth is charged with lying to a grand jury that investigated the June 10, 2011, assault. The officers were indicted Wednesday.

The beating victim, Walter Blair II, alleged in a lawsuit filed this month that a brawl was unfolding as he was leaving the club and that he was surrounded and attacked by off-duty officers working as bouncers. The grand jury indictment says two of the officers, Kenneth McRavin and Thaddeus Modlin, Jr., repeatedly beat and kicked Blair even after he fell to the ground and that Keith Goins, another officer, witnessed the assault but did nothing. Detectives who reviewed videotape of the brawl identified the three as members of the department. A fourth officer, Yolanda Lampkin, lied to the grand jury when she said she heard McRavin identify himself as a police officer, prosecutors said.

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File Under Genocide Watch: Bloomberg asks 'Should Cops Give Out Flowers After Finding Guns During Stop And Frisk?'

Simpleton Mayor does not believe that the 4th Amendment applies to Blacks & Latinos. Similar to the restrictions in Arizona, Bloomberg wants to stop or detain all non-white people because they are non-white. The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although only one sentence long, protects people against unjustified detentions by the government. It reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Stop & Frisk is Unconstitutional and factually unsupportable. According to the department's own data:

• The NYPD stopped and questioned 685,724 people in 2011 - a 600 percent increase since Mayor Bloomberg took office.
• Of the 685,724 stops, only 1.9 percent resulted in the recovery of a weapon.
• Nine out of 10 people stopped were not charged with any crime or infraction. 
• 87 percent of people stopped were Black or Hispanic.
• And while Blacks and Latinos were far more likely to be stopped, whites were almost twice as likely to be found carrying a weapon. [MORE] and [MORE]

From [HERE] A teenager who was caught with a gun during a stop and frisk in the Bronx in 2010 had his conviction overturned by an appeals court, infuriating the Bloomberg administration. Darryl Craig, 14, had been sentenced to 18 months’ probation, but yesterday the appeals court ruled that the cop had no legal grounds for the search. It just so happens that three months after that arrest, Craig allegedly used another gun to shoot a gang rival in Queens. Now NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and his house organ the NY Post are up in arms, as is Mayor Bloomberg, who was asked about the appeals court decision at the McCarren Park Pool ribbon-cutting today.

"It was a loaded gun," Bloomberg incredulously told reporters in response to a question about the appeal. "Are you supposed to give the kid a flower and send him on his way? I don't know what these judges were thinking." Today the Post has two articles on the decision, which is being framed as some sort of emblematic lesson about the virtues of stop and frisk and the recklessness of those who criticize the policy.

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Grand jury Clears Garfield Officers in fatal shooting of Black Teen - Advocates Outraged

From [HERE] and [HERE] A grand jury has cleared two police officers of wrongdoing in the shooting of a Garfield teen last year. Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli released the "no-bill" decision early Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday's decision brought an end to a seven-month investigation into the incident, and revealed new details that law enforcement officials had not yet disclosed.

The officers involved, Sgt. Jose A. Brito of the Garfield department and Kenneth J. Keenan of the Bergen County police, were pursuing 19-year-old Malik Williams on Dec. 10 after Williams fled Garfield police headquarters, where he was being processed on domestic assault charges. Police claimed Williams ran into a garage and barricaded himself inside of it. When Police forced their way in they said they saw him armed with unspecified tools. The officers responded by firing their guns numerous times, killing Williams. 

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Former Shreveport Police Officer Loses Appeal, returns to jail

From [HERE] A former Shreveport police officer is headed back to jail after losing his appeal on a perjury conviction.

The Times reports Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Morgan King's appeal Wednesday, saying he must fulfill the four-year sentence handed down in February.

King was convicted of lying on the witness stand regarding his actions in May 2006 when he left the scene of an officer-involved shooting. A fellow officer was involved in a shootout with a man who was shooting at a woman.

Prosecutors say King lied when called to testify during a hearing for the suspect. King was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. He's been out on bond awaiting his appeal.

Advocates Demand Probe in Brutal Beating Death of Black Man by North Chicago Police: Darrin Hanna Plead for his Life

From [HERE] A petition urging federal and state investigations of the North Chicago Police Department has gained an estimated 1,500 signatures since it was first circulated last week. The petition, which is also circulating online at change.org, calls for U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to conduct investigations “relating to the torture, cover-up and death of Darrin Hanna.

Hanna, 45, died Nov. 13, a week after he was arrested inside his apartment by six North Chicago police officers on a domestic battery charge.  He was beaten and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun by North Chicago police. In police recordings from the scene, an anguished Hanna can be heard pleading, “Put me down, please, I was down,” while an officer tells him, “You are OK ... relax.” Advocates have said the recordings show Hanna was cooperative, still conscious and understandable after being arrested, though he was barely conscious and unintelligible by the time he was carried out of his apartment on a stretcher.

Both unofficial and official autopsy reports showed that physical and Taser “restraint” contributed to Hanna’s death, which caused an outcry that sparked rallies and protests. Hanna’s survivors  filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the city and its police department on December 13, 2011. 

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Suit Settled for $150,000: Seattle Police Caught on Video Making Racial Taunt, Kicking Latino Man

From [HERE] A civil-rights lawsuit stemming from a Seattle police officer’s threat to beat the “Mexican piss” out of a Latino man during a robbery investigation in 2010 has been settled for $150,000, the man’s attorney announced at a news conference this morning.

The suit, brought by Martin Monetti Jr., the target of the comment, alleged that Officer Shandy Cobane also kicked him in the head and hand during the incident caught on video. The lawsuit sought unspecified general and punitive damages for alleged civil-rights violations, unreasonable use of force, assault and battery, outrageous conduct, emotional harm and intentional discrimination. Cobane sparked a public outcry when video emerged of the April 17, 2010,  incident in which he was heard telling Monetti he was going to “beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?”

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NAACP Seeks Another Federal Investigation into Austin Police; ACLU files lawsuit against Puerto Rico police

From [HERE] Saying that Austin officers continue to use excessive force disproportionately against minority residents, two community groups have filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, asking federal authorities to reopen their investigation into the Police Department. The Austin chapter of the NAACP and the Texas Civil Rights Project announced Wednesday that they will again ask federal officials to examine whether police are systematically violating residents' civil rights.

The groups say that since the Justice Department closed its investigation last year — an inquiry they called for in 2004 and received in 2007 — stops and searches of minority suspects have risen and two more fatal police shootings of minority suspects have occurred. In late May 2011, saying they could not find evidence that the Austin Police Department was violating the law or the U.S. Constitution, federal officials closed their four-year investigation into the department.

"We're human beings.  Even if we're not respectful, we have rights under the law," said Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder. "Those rights should be protected in every situation.  APD must understand that."

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Parents Demand Arrest of Baltimore County Police Officer for Murder of Black Teen: Unarmed 17 yr Old Choked to Death by Cop

From The Baltimore Sun 6/26/12 and [HERE] The family of Christopher Brown -- the Randallstown teenager who died 2 weeeks ago after an altercation with an off-duty Baltimore County police officer -- is demanding the officer be charged.  "An arrest needs to be made," Brown's mother, Chris, told reporters Monday afternoon.

She said that even though her 17-year-old son was buried over the weekend, "nothing's been done." Brown, whose death has been ruled a homicide by the state medical examiner's office, was asphyxiated during an altercation with Officer James D. Laboard on June 13, police said. No charges have been filed. Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger said in a statement that his office is investigating the death and warned that such investigations can take time.

Brown had been with a group of teens when one threw a rock at Laboard's house, police said. The officer ran outside after them and caught up with Brown after chasing him for several blocks. Brown was hiding in bushes outside a home on Starbrook Road. Brown wore a knee brace. When Brown did not come out, Laboard grabbed him, and the two got into a physical confrontation, police said. The officer then struggled with the teen after pulling him from the bushes and Brown eventually fell unconscious. The officer has been placed on administrative leave. 

“I think he should have been arrested immediately. If it was a civilian, if it was you or I, we would have gone to jail that night,” said the Rev. Dr. Paris Evans, of the National Action Network.

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