Civil Trial begins in the Deliberate Death of Homeless Black Man Beaten and Suffocated by 5 Denver Cops at Jail

White Supremacy is carried out by violence and/or deception. From [HERE] and [HERE] Five Denver sheriff's deputies followed the rules when they used a sleeper hold, nunchucks, handcuffs and a taser to restrain a small, homeless Black man who died in the downtown jail, a defense attorney said Monday.

The comments by Denver attorney Thomas Rice came during opening statements in a federal civil trial involving the deputies accused of using excessive force in connection with the death of Marvin Booker.

The 5-foot, 135-pound inmate died in July 2010 after deputies subdued him in the booking area of the jail.

The trial comes amid calls for a federal investigation of the department over other high-profile abuse cases. Sheriff Gary Wilson resigned in July as the city agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle another federal jail-abuse lawsuit by a former inmate over a jail beating.

Inmates told investigators the struggle began when Booker was ordered to sit down in the jail's booking area but instead moved to collect his shoes, which he had taken off for comfort.

Video shows Booker, who was barefoot, approaching Deputy Faun Gomez, who was seated at a desk. She gets up after a few moments and approaches him, and he slaps her hand away. The other deputies rush in and bring Booker down.

Gomez "escalated" the incident from a verbal exchange to force, Newman said, and then deputies became far more aggressive than necessary to subdue the 135-pound Booker.

"He was a frail, homeless man" who suffered from emphysema, an enlarged heart, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and mental problems, she said.

When they got him down, one lay on top of him, bringing his full weight onto Booker's back. Another used a carotid chokehold to subdue him, Rice said. Deputies cuffed him, and used a type of nunchuck to control one of his legs. Then they tased him.

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Black Judge says Criminal Cops Lacked "courage to do what was right": Six White L.A. Deputies Sentenced to Prison in Conspiracy to Stop Inmate Abuse Probe

From [HERE] and [HERE] A federal judge Tuesday gave six white Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies an earful in sentencing them to prison for obstructing a federal investigation into misconduct at the Men's Central Jail. All six were convicted of conspiracy and obstructing justice for conspiring to foil a federal probe into deputy violence against inmates in county jails.   

U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said the deputies lacked "courage to do what was right" and that none of them showed "even the slightest remorse."

A jury on July 1 found the defendants, including two lieutenants, attempted to influence witnesses, threatened an FBI agent with arrest and concealed an FBI informant who should have been turned over to federal authorities. The conspiracy began in 2011 when sheriff's officers learned that a Black inmate was an FBI informant and was cooperating in the federal investigation of corruption and civil rights violations at the jail.  

"Blind obedience to a corrupt culture has serious consequences," Judge Anderson told them as he sentenced them to terms of 21 to 41 months.  

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Federal appeals court: Stop using SWAT-style raids for Minor, Non Violent Offenses [barbershop raids]

From [HERE] On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit issued a ruling on the sort of issue you’d hope a federal appeals court would never need to rule on — whether the government should be allowed to use SWAT-style tactics to perform regulatory inspections.

At issue were a series of police raids on barbershops around the city of Orlando. The raids were basically fishing operations for drug crimes and to recruit confidential informants. All of the raided shops were black- or Hispanic-owned. The problem is that, because they were fishing expeditions, the police didn’t have enough evidence to obtain a warrant. Instead, the police asked an occupational license office to send along an inspector. Voila! These were no longer drug raids. For the purposes of the Fourth Amendment, they were now officially licensure inspections that just happened to include armored cops storming the businesses as if they were harboring an ISIS sleeper cell.

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Not a Rescue Mission. Federal lawsuit in 2008 excessive force case begins: Gang of Five White Birmingham Cops Beat & Stomp Black Man who was Already Lying Down Unconscious after Van Flipped Over Twice

From [HERE] and [MORE] 

[nothing is how it should be in this Racist System] White Arkansas Cop Orders Asian Man to get ID. Then Lights him Up with Taser for reaching for ID. Asian Man Arrested for APO

Video is [HERE] A routine traffic stop takes a dramatic turn when a white Arkansas County Deputy tases an Asian man through a car window.

Jonathan Nguyen and his friends were pulled over for running a stop sign on September 15th. Nguyen claims he was simply following the officers instructions by getting his ID out of his wallet. Sheriff Bill Mills says his deputy felt threatened when Nguyen reached in his pocket. Nguyen, who did nothing to the oficer now is charged with APO, assaulting a police offcer. 

Black Man Shot Multiple Times in the Back while Laying on the Ground: Ezell Ford’s Family Files $75 Million Lawsuit Against LAPD for 'Sadistic and Malicious Execution'

From [HERE] More than a month after Ezell Ford was fatally shot by officers, his family announced Wednesday that they have filed a $75 million wrongful death lawsuit [PDF] against the Los Angeles Police Department.

Ford, described in the lawsuit as being “mentally challenged,” was shot to death in South L.A. near 65th Street and Broadway on the evening of Aug. 11.

The unarmed man was walking in the area when he was approached by two police officers who asked him to “lie on the ground,” according to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court.

“Within moments, defendant Officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas intentionally and/or negligently fatally shot unarmed decedent Ezell Ford, multiple times, with their firearms,” the lawsuit stated.

The “use of excessive force” against Ford was “sadistic and malicious and did not further any legitimate legal purpose,” the complaint said, describing the shooting as “despicable conduct.”

Ford’s family members said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit Wednesday that the the mentally disabled young man may not have understood police orders during the fatal incident. They previously stated he was complying with officers and was lying on the ground when he was shot in the back.

Additionally, they contend that the defendants knew that Ford was mentally challenged.

“Ford … was unarmed, posed no threat to anyone, including defendants, was cooperative with the officers, and had committed no crime,” the complaint stated.

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Gang of White NYPD Cops Intimidate and Attack Unarmed Latinos at Sunset Park Street Fair

From [HERE] A New York City police officer has been suspended after a video surfaced of a street fair altercation in Sunset Park, according to an Associated Press report.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said that the officer in question has been stripped of his gun and badge pending an investigation in a case of alleged excessive police force in Sunset Park on Sunday,  according to The AP.

"Bratton said the fair was supposed to end at 6 p.m. but it was still going a half hour later," The AP reported. "Officers tried to clear the street for traffic." When the vendors resisted leaving right away, the police began assalting, pushing and gang tackling and kicking unarmed Latino residents. [MORE] See for yourself. White supremacy is carried out through violence and/or deception. 

Another Mostly White Jury Assembled for re-trial of Detroit 'Race Soldier Cop' who Killed 7 Year old Black Girl with Submachine gun: 9 of 14 jurors are White [Detroit is 90% non-white]

From [HERE] and [HERE] Another mostly white jury was seated this afternoon in the trial of a white Detroit police officer, Joseph Weekley, charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Black 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was shot during police raid more than four years ago. Weekley is a member of an elite Detroit police unit or "Special Response Team." 

The panel — made up of 10 women and 4 men, five of whom are African American — will hear opening statements in Joseph Weekley's retrial Thursday morning in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. Two of the jurors eventually will serve as alternates. This trial begins 15 months after Weekley’s first trial ended with the mostly white jury [11 white] unable to agree on a verdict. [MORE]

Lawyers for both sides and Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway agreed on the jury after the dismissal of 68 potential jurors over three days of jury selection, including 25 dismissed today.

Weekley, 38, faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, a felony and careless discharge of a submachine gun causing death, a misdemeanor, in the fatal shooting of Aiyana. [MORE]

The night Aiyana Jones was killed, Detroit police's Special Response Team were searching for murder suspect, Chauncey Owens, who was engaged to Aiyana's aunt, in connection with the May 14, 2010, murder of 18-year-old Jerean Blake. Weekley was a member of this SWAT unit. After obtaining a search warrant, police kicked in the front door of the home on Lillibridge, where Owens was thought to be hiding. 

They threw a flashbang grenade into the downstairs flat of a multi-family home about 12:40 a.m. and Weekley was accused of firing the bullet that struck and killed the girl, who was sleeping on the couch in the front room of the home. The "flash-bang" light-emitting grenade was meant to distract suspects. 

Weekley was first through the door, with a shield in one hand and a gun in the other. He claims he accidentally pulled the trigger when Aiyana’s grandmother, Mertilla Jones, grabbed his submachine gun. She denies that she interfered in any way.

During Weekley’s first trial, a fellow officer, Shawn Stallard, testified that he did not see anyone struggle with Weekley. He said Detroit police are trained to push away anyone who tries to grab an officer’s gun or to move the weapon in a “J’’ shape to keep control of it.

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White Judge Gives White Prosecutor 60 Day Extension for Mostly White Grand Jury to Decide Whether there is Probable Cause to Charge White Cop with Murder of Unarmed Black Teen [Michael Brown]

What is White Collective Power? White supremacy is racism. It is the only functioning form of racism there is- as there is no place in the world where non-whites dominate whites or are operationally superior to white people. Understand that racism is not primarily about individual bigotry, minor inconveniences, mean words and disrespect. Rather it is about the superior, dominate position of whites and the institutions that maintain vast unequal power and resources in order to keep Blacks subordinate. [MORE] and [MORE]

From [HERE] A judge has given an extension of 60 days to the grand jury considering whether to indict Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson, Mo., police officer who killed Michael Brown, 18. The jury must decide by Jan. 7 whether Officer Wilson, who is white, will be criminally charged in the death of Mr. Brown, who was black and unarmed.

Edward Magee, a spokesman for the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, said Tuesday that the grand jury was still hearing evidence, but “we don’t believe it’s going to take” until January for the jury to decide.

The grand jury’s regular term expired last Wednesday, leaving it with only Mr. Wilson’s case to consider. The jury is hearing evidence in that case “when all 12 of them can get together,” Mr. Magee said.

Robert P. McCulloch, the prosecuting attorney, who has been the county's elected prosecutor for more than two decades, could have filed charges himself but chose to take the case to a grand jury. He also put together the grand jury whcih is mostly white with 9 white people and 3 Blacks. [MORE]

McCulloch's father was a police officer killed in a shootout with a black suspect, and several of his family members are, or were, police officers. His 23-year record on the job reveals scant interest in prosecuting such cases. During his tenure, there have been at least a dozen fatal shootings by police in his jurisdiction (the roughly 90 municipalities in the county other than St. Louis itself), and probably many more than that, but McCulloch’s office has not prosecuted a single police shooting in all those years. At least four times he presented evidence to a grand jury but — wouldn’t you know it? — didn’t get an indictment.

One of the four: A 2000 case in which a grand jury declined to indict two police officers who had shot two unarmed black men 21 times while they sat in their car behind a Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant. It was a botched drug arrest, and one of the two men killed hadn’t even been a suspect. McCulloch at the time said he agreed with the grand jury’s decision, dismissing complaints of the handling of the case by saying the dead men “were bums.” He refused to release surveillance tapes of the shooting. When those tapes were later released as part of a federal probe, it was discovered that, contrary to what police alleged, the car had not moved before the police began shooting. [MORE]

Mentally ill Black Veteran's Death in Overheated Rikers Cell is Ruled Accidental [was charged with trespassing]

From [HERE] The death of a mentally ill Black veteran in an overheated cell at Rikers Island this year was accidental, the New York City medical examiner’s office ruled on Friday in a case that drew scrutiny to abusive conditions at the jail complex.

The inmate, Jerome Murdough, died on Feb. 15, when temperatures in his cell in a mental health unit at Rikers climbed to over 100 degrees.

Mr. Murdough, 57, died of hyperthermia caused by exposure to the heat, said Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. The heat’s interaction with an antipsychotic medication he was taking for a schizoaffective disorder contributed to his death, she said.

Ms. Bolcer said she could not comment on whether the ruling had any legal consequences, adding that only medical considerations were taken into account.

Even so, the ruling that the death was accidental raised questions about culpability.

Mr. Murdough’s death provoked outrage among the city’s elected officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, and focused media attention on the conditions at Rikers Island, where inmates frequently endure severe abuse and neglect. Last week, the family of another inmate who died at the jail, Bradley Ballard, sued the city, claiming that he had been locked in a cell for seven days last year and denied food, water and medication he needed to control his schizophrenia and diabetes.

On Monday, the city announced that it had hired a management consulting firm [more white people], McKinsey & Co., to recommend changes to improve Rikers.

Mr. Murdough was arrested a week before he died and charged with trespassing after a police officer found him in the stairwell of a public housing building in Harlem. He told the officer that he had sought shelter there from the cold. [MORE]