Minneapolis officers put on leave as handcuff video studied

Two Minneapolis police officers were placed on paid administrative leave Thursday after a video surfaced this week showing them involved in an altercation with a handcuffed man, police said. The two officers are Sgt. Carroll Holley, who has been on the force since 1973, and officer John Laluzerne, who has been on it since 1999.The video shows a group of Minneapolis officers standing around a handcuffed man lying on the ground. One officer appears to kick the man in the head before officers put him in a squad car. The video shows the man kicking out the car and an officer closing the door on his leg. The incident occurred in the Warehouse District in the summer of 2003. [more ]

NAACP holds rally in Ferriday for Black Man Killed by Police

NAACP representatives encouraged the people of Ferriday and the family of Ron Lollis to continue the fight Thursday night. Close to 200 gathered at Greater Saint Reed Baptist Church to hear state NAACP leaders talk about the killing of Lollis on Aug. 23 on Doty Road. Lollis was walking on Doty Road when a Concordia Parish Sheriff's deputy stopped him in response to a complaint earlier in the night. Sheriff Randy Maxwell has said Lollis pulled a gun on the deputy. The matter is under investigation by the state police and the district attorney's office. "This is not over by a long shot," Ferriday NAACP President Justin Conner said. "We will not be quiet. This community has been shaken but we have not fallen." Most gathered at the church Thursday think the shooting was a racial incident. The deputy is white and Lollis was black. [more ]

Tribal cop involved in fatal shooting of teen is also target of another lawsuit

Killed 17-year-old on reservation
A tribal police officer being investigated for shooting a teenager to death is also the target of a separate probe into a civil rights violation. Norman Boney Junior, 17, also known as "Manny," was shot twice in July by Walker River Paiute Indian Reservation tribal police officer Walter Valline in the Las Vegas town of Schurz. He died at the scene. A later examination showed Boney was hit in the neck and the right side. Valline is being sued for violating the rights of a motorist during a traffic stop in Crescent Valley in August 2003, according to the Lahontan Valley News. The suit alleges Valline assumed the motorist had been drinking and illegally searched his vehicle. The motorist was let go a short time later. Valline was working for the Eureka County Sheriff's Office at the time. [more ] and [more ]

Critic' of McKinney Police charged with threatening officer

• Community Beleives  Police are Arresting Leaders who Ctiticize Cops

McKinney police charged a 48-year-old woman with threatening an officer Wednesday, the second east side resident arrested on the charge within a week. Evelyn Smith, who neighbors describe as a vocal critic of police tactics in the community, faces criminal retaliation charges brought after officers arrested the woman for trespassing. The incident occurred about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday as police responded to loitering violations at the Manor House apartment complex in the 700 block of Bumpas Street, officials said. Officers arrested Smith for criminal trespass as she stood outside of the apartment's gate videotaping their activity. Apartment management had forbidden her from entering the complex, and she had received a prior warning to stay off the property, police said. On the way to jail, Smith told the officer "that the streets were going to take care of him. That she was going to make sure that he got got," Capt. Randy Roland said.  Manor House Apartments is a site of mounting racial tension between police and many black residents, who say the arrest are meant to quiet opposition to police harassment. [more and [more ]

Federal Agents Round Up and Arrest Poor Disabled Blacks in LA

Dessie Robinson, a 55-year-old welfare recipient who suffers from a heart ailment, diabetes and ulcers, had just finished showering in her room at a downtown homeless shelter early one morning in July when she heard a loud knock at the door. Throwing on some clothes, she opened the door and was confronted by half a dozen armed federal agents who proceeded to arrest her on a misdemeanor charge of cheating the government out of $746.10, the monthly payment she receives under the federal program to aid the blind, disabled or elderly poor. Robinson was among 21 people arrested at gunpoint that week during a sweep targeting individuals who said they hadn't received their monthly Supplemental Security Income checks, but who allegedly cashed the original and the duplicate checks, according to prosecutors. Most of those taken into custody were physically or mentally disabled and frightened out of their wits as they were handcuffed and hauled off to court, according to lawyers from the federal public defender's office.

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Burge Pleads The Fifth in Chicago Police Torture Lawsuits

• Alleged that Burge or people working for him tortured 108 Black and Latino suspects
  

After allegedly eluding authorities for more than a day, former Area 2 Police Cmdr. Jon Burge was slapped Wednesday with a subpoena ordering him to testify before a grand jury in an ongoing criminal investigation of police torture. Burge, who now lives in Florida, allegedly had evaded prosecutors since arriving in Chicago on Tuesday but was served with the subpoena while at his attorney's downtown office for depositions in civil lawsuits. He spent about four hours refusing to answer questions in those suits. They allege Burge and detectives routinely tortured suspected criminals while prosecutors and the city let it go on. Burge invoked the Fifth Amendment to nearly every question except to give his own name and that of his boat and to say that he still receives about $30,000 annually.[more ] and [more ] Pictured above: Protesters came out in full force to confront a former Chicago police commander accused of torturing suspects. [more ]


Torture allegations Dog ex-police officer

• "It has been for many years an open secret that at the police headquarters where Burge worked, a large number of African-American citizens were detained and subjected to horrific forms of abuse," said Locke Bowman, legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago and a lawyer for a man who says Burge's detectives abused him. [more ]

Former Death Row inmates sue Burge

Burge is being sued in separate lawsuits by former Death Row inmates Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange. He was also questioned in a parole revocation case. Separately, Special Prosecutor Edward J. Egan was appointed more than a year ago to investigate torture allegations within the Police Department. Burge was subpoenaed in that matter. Authorities would not say when he is scheduled to testify before the grand jury. His attorney, Richard Sikes, said he instructed his client to invoke the Fifth Amendment in the civil cases Wednesday, arguing that by answering questions, Burge could trigger new charges of "furthering a conspiracy" in the criminal case. [more ]

Norfolk Police say Videotapes of Jefferson Beating are OFF limits to the Public

• After confrontation with 7 Police Officers Black Man is Dead.  VideoTape begins after he is already subdued.
  

13News got to watch the dash cam videotape of a man who died after being taken into police custody in Norfolk. It's not being shown to the public because, according to the city attorney, it's considered a personnel file and they don't want to show the last minutes of Kenny Jefferson's life on TV. While we can't show images from the tape of the August 14 incident, we can tell you what we saw: -several officers cuffing Jefferson's hands behind his back. -He's kicking his legs in the video. -Officers cuff his ankles together and bind his ankles to his wrists. -Jefferson is moved from his stomach to his back while police check for weapons. -At one point, an officer checked for his pulse, monitored him and began CPR. NAACP president John Wesley Hill watched the tape as well. He wants to see other tapes rolling from other police cars that day. This tape didn't show Jefferson getting pepper sprayed. Signed affidavits from some witnesses on Chesapeake Boulevard say they saw Jefferson's hands and legs cuffed together in a hog tied position. There are several other tapes from officer's cars during this arrest. When we asked to see the other tapes, the city attorney said they don't show anything. [more ]

A slain teen's family questions the police account of the incident.

Video caught fatal pursuit
Pennsylvania State Police said Wednesday that a video camera captured the entire police pursuit that resulted in the death of a 17-year-old William Penn Senior High School student last Friday. They also said the teen, Rashaad Randle of York, was originally being pursued for speeding. The local and national branches of the NAACP  have called a meeting for next week and plan to investigate Randle's death to find out what happened, and to see if he was targeted for a traffic stop because he was black. A man who lives near where Randle died and who said he saw what happened told Randle's family on Sunday a different story of how he died. The story, which has circulated among family, friends and a growing number of other York residents, alleges that the trooper intentionally ran the teen over several times. However, Turner-Childs said all state police vehicles are equipped with video cameras and both the pursuit and Randle's death were videotaped. The tape has been reviewed and the story circulating is inaccurate, she said. The tape, she said, is considered evidence and will not be released to the public. [more ]

Protestors Decry Police Beating of Black Teen Don Pennington

Chanting and singing, some 100 outraged family and friends of Don Pennington Jr. squeezed into the Calumet City police station Wednesday evening to file a complaint against officers the teen said beat him up after taking him into custody for jaywalking near his school. Vicki and Don Pennington Sr., the parents of the 15-year-old Calumet City boy, stoically stood by him outside the station as their former pastor read the complaint aloud and named the officer Don said hit him for no reason. "(The officer) struck a young boy in the face like he was a man, and when he struck him in the face, he hit this whole community," said Lance Davis, who now ministers at New Zion Christian Fellowship in Dolton. Davis said the black community is tired of its children being pulled over for jaywalking and treated roughly by police, adding, "If they touch another child, there will be civil unrest." [more ]

• Images: Calumet City Teen Alleges Police Brutality [more ]
• Teen says he was beaten by police [more ]