Chicago May Pay $4.5M in Police Murder of Unarmed Black Woman & $1.8M for Police Torture Induced Confession of Black Man Beaten for 10 hours

From [HERE] Chicago taxpayers may be paying $4.5 million to the family of a Black woman who was killed by an off-duty police officer.

Chicago's City Council Finance Committee will address the proposed lawsuit settlement at their meeting Monday, along with another $1.8 million settlement, according to the committee’s agenda.

The family of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd, who was fatally shot in the back of the head by an off-duty officer in March 2012, filed a wrongful death lawsuit last April.

According to the family's attorney, James Montgomery, the off-duty officer, Dante Servin, got into an argument with the man with whom Boyd was walking. Words were exchanged and Servin pulled his gun and fired shots, hitting both Boyd and her friend.

Neither victim was armed, Montgomery said.

The committee will also address a settlement for $1.8 million in the case of James Andrews who allegedly confessed to two murders because of police torture. The suit names the officers involved, former police lieutenant Jon Burge and former police detectives Daniel McWeeny and Raymond Madigan along with the City of Chicago - all white men.

On April 26, 1983, Chicago police detectives  brought 21-year-old James Andrews in to the Area Two police headquarters on Chicago’s South Side, saying they wanted to question him about a dogfight. But the questioning quickly turned to the unsolved murders of 19-year-old Kevin Lewis and 20-year-old Floyd Jenkins, who had been shot to death in separate incidents on the city’s South Side.

The detectives accused him of the murders. When Andrews – who had no criminal record -- denied involvement, they beat him, using their fists and a flashlight, over a period of nearly 10 hours. Andrews finally signed a confession saying that he and a 22-year-old acquaintance, David Fauntleroy, had robbed Lewis and that Andrews had fatally shot Lewis on March 30, 1983.

The police continued their physical assault as they questioned him about the Jenkins murder. Andrews soon signed a confession to that murder as well. Andrews was convicted of the murder of Jenkins on March 8, 1985. He was convicted of the murder and robbery of Lewis on April 10, 1987. He served 23 years in prison before he was released and exonerated. [MORE] and  [MORE] 

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Three White Homestead Police officers Fired in brutality cases, cover-up of Attack on Latino men

From [HERE] and [HERE] Two police officers accused of assaulting men outside of Celio's Cuartel Latino bar in Homestead were fired along with another officer who allegedly covered up the incident, a police spokesman said Friday afternoon. The police brutality incident happened nearly three years ago. It involved three officers -- who were fired in February and suspended with pay in April 2011 until last year when they were arrested in July. They have cases pending with the Miami-Dade state attorney's office.

 "You abused your power and preyed on those that you were entrusted to protect," Assistant City Manager Allyson Love wrote in the officers' termination letters. [MORE]

Sgt. Jeffrey Rome is accused of kicking a 69-year-old man in the head until he was unconscious and pepper-spraying an undocumented Guatemalan in the face from close range. While Officer Giovanni Soto allegedly beat up another man so badly with a nightstick that he disfigured his face. Meanwhile, Sgt. Lizanne Deegan is accused of failing to report the beatings.

Immigrant farm workers frequent Celio's Cuartel Latino bar. Homestead detectives who were investigating human trafficking caught the attacks on video and took Arcadio Sosa Rodriguez, 69, to a nearby hospital.

According to a warrant Rodriquez spent a night in the hospital and had cuts and bruises on his ankle, knees and elbow. Rome is also accused of pepper-sprayed another man in the face, handcuffing him to a fence, and sending away an ambulance that the man had called for, according to an arrest warrant.

Soto, who faces a felony battery charge and Deegan are accused of misconduct.

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American Drug War: The Last White Hope

Local Police, Armed with the Weapons of War, Too Often Mistakenly Shoot and Kill Non-White People

From [HERE] Nine-year-old Aiyana Jones was sleeping on the couch next to her grandmother when a SWAT team threw a “flashbang” through the window of her Detroit, Michigan home. The “flashbang” – a stun grenade originally developed for wartime raids – immediately set fire to Aiyana’s blanket.  Seconds later, the SWAT team stormed through the door, and confused by the deafening and blinding effects of the “flashbang,” mistakenly shot Aiyana through the neck, killing her.

Questions abound in the wake of this 2010 tragedy. Did the Detroit police truly need amped-up military equipment routinely used in nighttime raids in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did access to the tools and tactics of a combat theater unnecessarily encourage more aggressive policing? If the police had not used a “flashbang,” would Aiyana still be alive?

Aiyana’s sad story is just one piece of evidence showing that our state and local police departments are becoming increasingly militarized – too often with devastating consequences. This trend is worrisome because wartime weapons and counter-terrorism strategies mark a shift in the very nature of policing strategies – and policing should be about community protection, and not about combat.

If the anecdotal evidence is any indication, tanks and counter-terrorism strategies encourage overly aggressive policing. SWAT teams have become a key part of increasingly militarized policing strategies. While only a fraction of SWAT-style raids result in actual charges of any kind, they often provoke fear, hurt individuals and families, and result in damages to personal property.

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"please don't do me like that." Video Shows White Chattanooga Overseers (Officers) Brutally Beating Unarmed Black Man

Two large white officers beat Mr. Tatum, a Black man, so forcefully that they broke both of his legs in multiple places.  There was no indication that he was resisting arrest or causing harm to himself or others. Nevertheless, the officers overreacted by grabbing him from behind in a choke hold and then hitting him mercilessly no less than 60 times while he sat helplessly on the ground. [MORE] The cops actually get physically tired while beating him. Video was released on Friday. [MORE]  

"The subjugation of people based on color, and/or, by using factors “associated with” color, has resulted in the establishment, maintenance, expansion, and ofttimes refinement of the greatest and MOST EFFECTIVE form of INJUSTICE in the known universe. This injustice is offtimes referred to as “Racism”, and, more specifically referred to as “White Supremacy”.

• In the process of making “non-white” people subject to them, those “white” persons who participate in the practice of White Supremacy do so through the greatest and most sophisticated use of deceit, direct violence, and/or the threat of violence, ever devised by people, among the people of the known universe.

• White Supremacy (Racism) is now the dominant socio-material force among the people of the known universe, NO major problem(s) in the areas of Economics, Education, Entertainment, Labor, Law, Politics, Religion, Sex or War can be SOLVED as long as White Supremacy exists." Neely Fuller [theCode]  

A white supremacist assumes that all non-whites are "enemies of the state" and potential threats to the status quo. The police and court systems are used to intimidate and terrorize non-whites to keep them from rebelling against a racist system." [MORE] 

Philly Cop Videotaped Punching Latino Woman in Face Found Not Guilty by White Judge b/c Videotape Might Have Missed Moments where Cop Wasn't Punching her in Face

From [HERE] Here is a videotape of a (now former!) Philadephia police officer, Jonathan Josey, punching Aida Guzman after that city’s Puerto Rican Day Parade on September 30, 2012. Guzman was part of an unruly crowd that had gathered following the parade, but the videotape does not show her doing anything to Josey, who believed she had thrown beer at him. On Tuesday, Josey’s non-jury trial for simple assault ended with Municipal Judge Patrick Dugan (in photo) finding Josey not guilty. Dugan said that the video was insufficient evidence:

Dugan said that the media “sensationalized” the incident, which, he added, was captured on an “infamous” 10-second video clip that did not capture the incident in its totality.

Despite being “shocked” by the video, Dugan said, he concluded that Josey had acted within reason when he took a swipe at Guzman.

Racist suspect Judge Dugan is married to Philadelphia Police Officer Nancy Farrell Dugan, who has been on the force since 1997, city payroll records show. She also attended Josey's Feb. 12 nonjury trial, sources said.[more] Dugan made the application of the simple assault jury instruction look impossible: 

Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Criminal Jury Instructions 

The Pennsylvania Bar Institute © 2012. PART TWO - INSTRUCTIONS UNDER THE CRIMES CODE   CHAPTER XV - SPECIFIC OFFENSES UNDER THE CRIMES CODE  

SUBCHAPTER B - OFFENSES INVOLVING DANGER TO THE PERSON

 Pa. SSJI (Crim) 15.2701B

15.2701B - SIMPLE ASSAULT--BODILY INJURY CAUSED

1. The defendant has been charged in count [count] with simple assault. To find the defendant guilty of this offense, you must find that all of the following elements have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt:

First, that the defendant caused bodily injury to [name of victim]. "Bodily injury" means impairment of physical condition or substantial pain; and

Second, that the defendant's conduct in this regard was intentional, knowing, or reckless. A person acts intentionally with respect to bodily injury when it is his or her conscious object or purpose to cause such injury. A person acts knowingly with respect to bodily injury when he or she is aware that it is practically certain that his or her conduct will cause such a result. A person acts recklessly with respect to bodily injury when he or she consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that bodily injury will result from his or her conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and intent of the defendant's conduct and the circumstances known to him or her, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the defendant's situation.

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