Victim Treated Like the Criminal - Sean Bell Trial Continues: Unarmed Black Man Shot 50 Times by NY Police

 
Whitewash of Sean Bell’s Murder by Police Continues in Court
“This whole thing is so twisted. You’ve got the victims—Sean and the other two with him that night—being attacked like they’re the criminals, and the criminals—the cops who killed Sean—being treated like they’re the victims. But you know, I’ve been at other trials of police who’ve murdered Black people and here’s the thing. It plays out pretty much the same way every time.”

This comment, made to me by a Black woman as she and I waited for a 15-minute recess at the Sean Bell trial to end, reflected the feelings of others who have come to the Queens, N.Y., courthouse almost every day since the trial began on Febrary 25, to hear testimony in the case of the three NYPD detectives indicted in the killing on November 25, 2006, of 23-year-old Sean Bell. Bell was the unarmed African American man killed by undercover police in a hail of 50 bullets in Queens New York two weeks ago. He died hours before he was supposed to be married and two of his friends were seriously wounded.

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Brutality Case Against Austin Police Officers Set to Begin: Handcuffed Latino Man Lying Face Down Beaten by Cops on Videotape

Three police officers cleared in a brutal beating must now face their accuser again in court.

Former Austin Police Officers Joel Follmer, Brad Heilman and current officer Christopher Gray were caught on dash-cam video beating a suspect in September of 2005. The suspect, Ramon Hernandez, was held down on a bed of fire ants. Gray and Heilman were cleared of criminal charges by jury. Charges against Follmer were later dropped. On Monday all three will once again be defendants in court.

The last time Ramon Hernandez was in a court room, he left disappointed. But on Monday Hernandez believes his new civil case will play out much differently. Hernandez still can’t believe how the 2006 criminal case ended.

“It was pretty shocking and unbelievable,” said Ramon Hernandez. “It is to push for justice and accountability, so we can hold them responsible for what they did.”

Nearly 3 years later Hernandez will face the 3 officers again, this time in a federal court room.

The incident happened after Hernandez left the scene of an accident on Burnet Road in North Austin. The argument used during the 2006 criminal trail to justify how the arrest went down will most likely be used again during the federal civil trail. At that time, defense attorney Terry keel told the jury that, off camera, Hernandez made threatening moves and refused to cooperate. Hernandez was handcuffed and face down in an ant pile.

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Oakland Police Gun Down 15 Year Old Latino Boy: Witnesses said he had his hands up

OAKLAND — Witnesses said Thursday that Jose Luis Buenrostro-Gonzalez, 15, had his hands in the air and was unarmed when he was fatally shot by Oakland police Wednesday.

"I saw the boy (with his) hands up and saw bullets flying," said witness Luis, who declined to give his last name for fear of retribution.

When he rounded the corner, Luis said, he saw Buenrostro-Gonzalez facing the police.
"I didn't see a gun," he said.

Another witness, Ricardo Pedroza, 17, said that when he was coming to meet Buenrostro-Gonzalez from a block away, he heard an undercover police vehicle screech to a halt and an officer on a loudspeaker warn Buenrostro-Gonzalez to put his hands in the air.

"He had his hands up and they were still shooting him," Pedroza said.

Pedroza ran to tell his sister and told her to call for an ambulance. His sister, Maria Pedroza, 24, then went to check on Buenrostro-Gonzalez before police ordered her away, Pedroza said.

"I ran down the street and saw him flat on his stomach. I asked the police 'Why did you shoot him?' The police said that he had a gun on him," Maria Pedroza said. "That is when they reached in his waistband and pulled something silver out. ... He never had a gun (when he left the Pedroza's house minutes earlier)."

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Feds Take a Look at SC Highway Patrol - Video Shows Redneck Officers Driving Cruisers into Black Suspects, Using Racial Slurs

A federal investigation was launched into the South Carolina Highway Patrol after dashboard camera videos showed a trooper using a racial slur and two others ramming their cruisers into fleeing suspects, a prosecutor said Thursday.

"I've reviewed some of the videos, and based on that review, felt that it was appropriate to have our office involved," said Kevin McDonald, acting U.S. attorney for South Carolina.

McDonald wouldn't say whether indictments could come from the investigation, which was first reported Thursday by The State newspaper of Columbia.

Highway Patrol Col. Russell Roark and his boss, Public Safety Director James Schweitzer, resigned last month after a tape surfaced showing a trooper using a racial slur in 2004.

"You better run," then-Lance Cpl. Daniel C. Campbell said to a suspect, using a derogatory term for blacks, "because I'm fixin' to kill you."

Campbell was reprimanded, suspended and ordered to undergo anger and diversity training, but Gov. Mark Sanford said Roark and Schweitzer should have fired him.

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Ironton Police Officer who Dragged Black Man to Death Under his Car Not on Drugs

AP A southern Ohio police chief has released test results showing an officer was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he dragged a man beneath his police cruiser earlier this month.

Ironton Chief Jim Carey also says state investigators have completed their work on the case and will turn their findings over to the county prosecutor's office on Monday.

Carey has said Officer Richard Fouts didn't realize he'd run the man over in the snow until he arrived at the police department on March 8 and saw the body. Forty-six-year-old Guy Thomas was pronounced dead in the parking lot.

A nephew said Thomas had epilepsy and may have suffered an attack in the road.

Mother of beating victim watches deputy's case unfold: Black Man Hogtied, Beaten into Vegatative State by Shelby County Police

Pat Brunson-Ware's vigil began as one night of grieving. It has stretched into 17 years of hope with her lawyers' words echoing in her mind.

"The lawyers who fought the case called it a 'fate worse than death,' " says Brunson-Ware, mother of Bert Brunson. He was 22 when arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol in 1991.

Two sheriff's deputies, including rookie deputy Chris M. Jones, stopped their cruiser at a service station near Knight-Arnold and Mendenhall while taking Brunson to jail. The officers said they were letting Brunson use the restroom when he tried to take away one of their guns and escape. Two other deputies were soon involved.

In the seconds that followed, Brunson was struck in the head with nightsticks, hog-tied and placed on his stomach in the back seat of a cruiser, says his mother and one of her attorneys, Andy Clark. Clark was soon involved in his first civil rights lawsuit. It accused the sheriff's deputies and the county of using unnecessary and unconstitutional force in an arrest that all but stole the life of Brunson-Ware's only son.

The oxygen supply to his brain was cut off, leaving him in what his mother says is a persistent vegetative state.

All of those memories flooded back for her a week ago when she was walking through her home and heard a TV newscast in the background. The name "Chris Jones" pierced her ears. He was charged with murder in connection with two shootings at the Windjammer club. A customer was critically injured, and disc jockey Donald Munsey died trying to stop Jones from shooting another customer.

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Judge allows civil suit to advance in fatal Milwaukee Police shooting of Unarmed Black Man

 
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A federal judge has refused the city's request to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of a man who was shot in the back by an officer as he drove away from police.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller ruled Tuesday in the fatal shooting of Justin Fields, 21, by Officer Craig Nawotka.

Stadtmueller questioned Nawotka's version that Fields had been trying to run him over. The judge said there is evidence that neither Nawotka nor anyone else was in danger from Fields.

"If Nawotka fired his weapon while the car was driving away from him, he was not in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury," Stadtmueller wrote. "Under these facts and in light of clearly established law, a reasonable officer in Nawotka's position would not have believed that exercising deadly force was lawful."

Court records said Fields' car had been partially blocking a street, preventing a fire truck trying to get through.
The lawsuit, filed in December 2003, could now move to trial. However, the city could also appeal Stadtmueller's order or settle.

Mark Thomsen, an attorney for Fields' family, said "the judge's decision confirms what we have believed all along, that this city for far, far too long has failed to conduct adequate administrative reviews and discipline police officers for violating citizens' constitutional rights," he said.

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Trooper who Snitched on Officers who Killed Black Teen Can't Get Job Back - Lawsuit Dismissed

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a state trooper who claimed he was forced to retire after he raised questions about the official version of a state police shooting of an unarmed 12-year-old boy.

James Baranowski's suit was filed too late and the concerns he raised were part of his job duties, and therefore not protected speech under the First Amendment, federal Judge Nora Barry Fischer ruled Tuesday.

Earlier this month in a separate case, a federal jury awarded $28 million the father of Michael Ellerbe, who was fatally shot on Christmas Eve 2002 during a police chase in Uniontown.

That night, two officers pursued Ellerbe as he ran from a stolen vehicle and the jury concluded that both of them intentionally shot Ellerbe.

Baranowski's attorney, Timothy O'Brien, said Baranowski was considering an appeal.

"It should be of great concern to all of us that when a police officer comes forward as did Mr. Baranowski to report wrongdoing — putting his career on the line — that his speech does not have the same protection afforded to other citizens under the First Amendment," O'Brien said in a statement.

The two troopers, Samuel Nassan and Juan Curry, claimed that Nassan shot Ellerbe — and then only because the officer believed Curry had been shot by the boy. Nassan said he later learned that Curry's gun had gone off while climbing a fence.

Baranowski was the incident commander until a member of the crime unit arrived to take over the investigation.

Baranowski said he noticed discrepancies in the troopers' account and eventually spoke up. When Curry demonstrated what had occurred, the barrel of the gun was close to his face — but Baranowski noticed Curry's face bore no powder burns.

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Judge rules Hartford Police Officer to face trial in fatal shooting of Black Teen

A judge has refused to dismiss manslaughter and assault charges against a former Hartford detective in the fatal shooting of a teenager.

The charges were filed after a one man grand jury found there was sufficient evidence to bring charges against Lawlor.

Lawlor was working as part of an anti-gun task force on the night of the shootings. Lawlor says he saw Bryant reaching for a gun while in the passenger seat of a car, but a gun was not found. [MORE]

S.C. Troopers ram Black Suspects on Tape

Videos have surfaced showing two members of the South Carolina Highway Patrol using their cruisers to ram fleeing suspects, just weeks after two leaders of the agency resigned because of a furor over a trooper's use of a racial slur.

In one of the two new dash-cam videos, which were first reported Wednesday by The Post and Courier of Charleston, Lance Cpl. Steven C. Garren drives after a man on foot, striking him when he crosses in front of Garren's cruiser. The man flips over the car's hood and into high grass on the roadside.

"Yeah, I hit him. I was trying to hit him," Garren, who is white, can be heard telling another trooper.

In the other, Lance Cpl. Alexander Richardson drives between apartment buildings, on sidewalks and past onlookers in an attempt to run down a suspect. After about a minute, Richardson's car bumps the man, who grabs the vehicle in an attempt to steady himself. The man doesn't fall and takes off running again.

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