Black Teen in Indianapolis Police Brutality Case Released on Home Detention

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Black teen at the center of a high-profile police brutality investigation in 2010 was placed on house arrest Monday pending trial on a gun charge.

Brandon Johnson, 16, and his two older brothers, Miketavious Jackson, 19, and Terrell Jackson, 18, were arrested Wednesday night at the family's home in the 7700 block of Mountain Stream Way, where police said they found a gun, bullets, drugs and gang paraphernalia. 

Johnson was arrested on preliminarily charges of criminal gang activity and dangerous possession of a firearm but was only formally charged with the latter Monday, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported.

His attorney said the firearm charge is based on a cell phone picture of a gun, not an actual gun, found in Johnson's home. Johnson was at the center of a firestorm of racial tension in Indianapolis last summer when he suffered a swollen eye, bruises to his face and chipped teeth in an encounter with police who were arresting his brother.

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Latino Man Claims He has Videotape of San Bernardino Deputies Beating Him Unconscious

According to the lawsuit, the deputy tried to run Cruz's license through the computer in his squad car, but the system was down so he placed Cruz in handcuffs, had Cruz's car towed, and took him down to the station.

Cruz claims that when he got to sheriff's building, a white officer slammed his head into a wall and then five deputies placed restraints around his legs and assaulted him, causing him to lose consciousness.

The next thing Cruz remembers was waking up in a hospital.

Cruz was charged with assaulting an officer and eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, says Carrillo. But he's hoping the discovery of a videotape of the incident will prove that the officers used unnecessary force and lied about what happened in order to charge Cruz.

"We have the video," says Carrillo. "It shows excessive use of force was used against Mr. Cruz and against an unrelated female who was also there at the time."

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Lawyer says Arrest of Brandon Johnson is Retaliation for Lawsuit Against Indianapolis Police

From [HERE] and  [HERE] A Black teenager whose beating at the hands of white Indianapolis police officers spurred protests by community groups and aggravated racial tensions has been arrested on drug- and gang-related charges.

Indianapolis Metropolitan police said they arrested 16-year-old Brandon Johnson and two of his older brothers Wednesday night at a home on the city's east side where they found marijuana, a handgun and items with gang insignia as well as gang photos and paperwork and a police scanner.

Johnson's attorney, Stephen Wagner, said police targeted his client unjustly. "We have serious questions about both of these charges, about the entire police action," he told Massee.

 Wagner said 14 officers stormed the house and that charges against Johnson are retaliatory. Wagner claimed that the only gun in the house was properly registered and that he suspects the gun charge was related to a cell phone picture of a gun. Wagner also claimed that the criminal gang activity charge related to a sweatshirt Johnson was wearing in memoriam of a friend who died in a shooting.

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Burge panel off to slow start - Racist Chicago Cop Tortured More than 200 Suspects between 1972 and 1991

From [HERE] A state commission created by statute more than a year and a half ago to deal with the last of the allegations of torture against disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and [MORE] and officers under his command is still months from reviewing its first case.

Even some members of the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission at a recent meeting expressed frustration at the slow pace. Lawyers for some Burge accusers raise more fundamental concerns, saying they fear that while the commission is well-intended, it is destined to fall short because of its limited authority and resources.

Illinois' criminal justice system has come under intense scrutiny in recent years, culminating in the state's abolition of the death penalty last week. The ban came less than a decade after then-Gov. George Ryan emptied death row and pardoned four condemned inmates who said they confessed after being tortured by Burge or his men. Lawyers who specialize in police brutality cases estimate that as many as 20 alleged Burge victims may still languish in state prison.

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Lawsuit questions DC police policy of arrests for disorderly conduct

From [HERE] WASHINGTON — Washington police routinely arrested people who talked back to them, improperly charging citizens with disorderly conduct, a lawsuit in federal court contends.

The lawsuit revolves around the 2005 arrest of a woman who cursed at police outside a 7-Eleven. But the case, which continues Monday for the second week before a jury, goes beyond one person to what lawyers say were broader problems. The city's American Civil Liberties Union chapter is involved in the case, and ACLU legal director Arthur Spitzer says his group hopes to use a victory in case to ensure police are more careful about future disorderly conduct arrests.

"We think it's happening still today, and we're concerned," Spitzer said, explaining that just cursing at an officer isn't grounds for arrest and officers are supposed to have a thick skin.

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Blame widespread for lag in adopting U.S.-mandated reforms for Detroit police

From [HERE] All of the above. That's who is to blame for the City of Detroit's repeated failure to adopt federally mandated reforms at the Detroit Police Department, several people involved in the effort said Thursday in an unusual forum at Wayne State University.

They blamed the administration of ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for failing to get behind the reforms, police executives for resisting them and a federal judge for failing to crack the whip when the efforts stalled soon after they began in 2003.

"The initial reaction of the city was tremendous resistance," Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Levy, the Justice Department's point person on the reforms, said in her first public criticism of the department in the seven-year reform effort. "We shook hands, and we began to fight."

Ron Scott, of the Coalition Against Police Brutality -- which pushed for the reforms to curb excessive force, mistreatment of prisoners and mass arrests of homicide witnesses -- faulted U.S. District Judge Julian Cook for refusing to let his group become a party to the legal proceedings to keep up pressure on the city to comply.

"We felt we were stepchildren to something we pushed for," Scott said. "We're the victims, and we're not involved in the process."

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Weak Seattle Prosecutors Refuse Grand Jury Request - No Justice for Native American Man Murdered by Police

From [HERE] and [HERE] SEATTLE -- The Seattle city attorney and King County prosecutor have declined a request by family members of slain woodcarver John T. Williams to convene a grand jury. 

The family had called for a grand jury hearing to consider criminal charges against former Seattle police officer Ian Birk in Williams' shooting death. 

In declining the request, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg reiterated his previous reasoning -- that state law provides police officers more protection against criminal prosecution for homicide than it gives to ordinary citizens. 

Satterberg added even though the Seattle Police Department's Firearms Review Board found Birk had "erred in several ways leading up to the shooting of Mr. Williams," he could not prove Birk acted with malice. 

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Charges Dismissed Against Slain Pace University Student’s Teammates - Unarmed Black Student Killed by Police

 Henry, a 20-year-old student at Pace University, was killed by Mt. Pleasant (NY) Police in October as he sat in his car with his friends. He was unarmed. 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – Prosecutors sought Wednesday to dismiss charges against four teammates of a Pace University college football player arrested after he was fatally shot by a police officer.

Convicting the four teammates of slain student Danroy “D.J.” Henry would “not serve the ends of justice,” prosecutors with the Westchester County district attorney’s office wrote in a motion filed in Mount Pleasant Town Court. Three teammates of the slain Pace University athlete are accused of misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct and obstruction. They are Joseph Garcia of Floral Park, N.Y.; Yves Delpeche of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Daniel Parker of Lauderhill, Fla. A fourth teammate, Joseph Romanick of Slidell, La., is charged with criminal mischief, a felony.

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Indefensible Detention: The Supremes Should Hold Ashcroft Personally Liable for Jailing Black Man for No Reason

The facts are that, without a claim he had broken any law and as one of four seized as part of the F.B.I.'s wider ''Idaho probe,'' Mr. Kidd was arrested, strip-searched, shackled and jailed for 15 days -- handled like a suspect, not a witness. Against him and others, the Justice Department used the statute, Mr. Kidd's lawyers inferred and others must as well, ''to detain and investigate suspects for whom the government lacked probable cause of wrongdoing, and not to secure testimony.''

The government contends that Mr. Ashcroft didn't have to intend to use Mr. Kidd as a witness to detain him because the then-attorney general's motivation was irrelevant. But to the former prosecutors, it is ''settled understanding'' that the statute has ''no other legitimate purpose'' except to hold a witness for testimony.

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Attorney says Framingham (Mass) SWAT Police are Lying - 68 Yr. Old Black Man Fatally Shot During Home Search

Do you suppose if Mr. Stamps had been a wealthy, politically connected, white man the police chief, elected officials, State Police and medical examiner would be participating is this systemic governmental cover-up? [MORE] 

From [HERE] and [HERE] and [HERE] FRAMINGHAM  There are new details in the January shooting death of a Framingham grandfather. Officials say a swat officer accidentally fired his rifle, killing the man.

Investigators say Officer Paul Duncan pulled the trigger after tripping during a search of the home of 68-year-old Eurie Stamps. At the time, police were conducting a drug raid at the home where Stamps lived. Investigators say officer Duncan lost his balance and accidentally fired the shot that killed Stamps. Police were looking for Stamps' stepson when the accident happened. Officer Duncan will not face any charges, but is on paid leave as the investigation continues.

Duncan's family  is now pushing for a civil rights investigation into his death. An attorney for Stamps family says he doesn't buy the police's story. 

“I don’t think it’s right,” said Adia Boston, Stamps’ niece by marriage. “I think he should be suspended, at a minimum. There should be job loss, if not jail. That wasn’t an accident. . . . It shouldn’t be an accident if it’s the SWAT team. They’re supposed to be trained.”

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