Question: When is shooting a 12-year-old child reasonable?

October 12, 2015

By Vincent Warren, Center for Constitutional Rights

Answer: When the child is Black and the shooter is a police officer.

Welcome to America, where #BlackLivesMatter is a trending hashtag, but police impunity is a lethal reality of Black life.

There’s an old saying that the definition of a consultant is “someone who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is.” That is true when it comes to police experts as well.  Cops and prosecutors come from the same culture. So it surprises no one that the experts hired by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty to investigate the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice are reading the time from the watch supplied by law enforcement and have come to the same conclusions as the county police and (let’s be honest) McGinty himself: that the shooting was “reasonable.”

Tamir Rice, 12-year old, killed by police November 23, 2014

Everything The Police Said About Walter Scott’s Death Before A Video Showed What Really Happened

[Walter Scott’s murder by South Carolina police was captured on video — not by a police video, but by an anonymous person.  The horror of this, another in an endless series of criminal acts by police, is revealed in the video which is shown, below.  And the criminality of the police is revealed in their fabricated justification, released by the police department, for the murder.  When the video came to light, the police lies were exposed, and the individual cop was charged with murder, to take the blame for a murder that the entire department was, hours before, justifying. — Frontlines ed.]

by Judd Legum  —  April 7, 2015

 

On Tuesday, South Carolina police officer Michael Thomas Slager was charged with first-degree murder for the shooting death of Walter Scott. Charges against South Carolina police officers for shooting someone are extremely rare. But what was particularly remarkable in this case was, for at least two days, Slager was apparently unaware that video of the entire incident existed.

This provides a unique opportunity to observe how one police officer sought to avoid accountability for his actions.

Between the time when he shot and killed Scott early Saturday morning and when charges were filed, Slager — using the both the police department and his attorney — was able to provide his “version” of the events. He appeared well on his way to avoiding charges and pinning the blame on Scott.

Police Make Sure He’s Dead (and Silent) Before His Family Sees Him

Shot three times by police, then isolated in hospital. Why was Kevin Davis’s family barred from seeing him?

Kevin Davis was cuffed to an Atlanta hospital bed for the last two days of his life, and his family say they were denied visits – and kept from the truth about what really happened

Kevin Davis died on 31 December but his case has only come to light after his family recruited attorneys. Photograph: Family picture

Jon Swaine, The Guardian, in Decatur, Georgia

Thursday 12 February 2015

Police in Georgia who cuffed a man to his hospital bed for two days after he was fatally shot by an officer have been accused by his family of barring them from visiting him to stop full details of the shooting from being disclosed.

The System Says: All 59 Police Bullets Were Justified, Every One

4 San Francisco cops cleared in Alex Nieto killing

By Henry K. Lee and Kale Williams, sfgate.com

Friday, February 13, 2015 

March 24, 2014. Nieto was fatally shot by San Francisco police officers Friday evening at Bernal Heights Park. San Francisco police released the names of four officers involved in the shooting on Friday, Jan. 2, 2015, following a court order.

Four San Francisco police officers will not face charges for shooting and killing Alejandro “Alex” Nieto last year in Bernal Heights Park, because Nieto pointed a Taser shock weapon that the officers reasonably mistook for a pistol, the district attorney’s office said Friday.

The officers fired a total of 59 shots, District Attorney George Gascón said in a letter to Police Chief Greg Suhr. Two later-arriving officers opened fire on Nieto after they heard the popping of their colleagues’ gun blasts and believed Nieto was firing back, the letter said.

But Gascón’s report said all four officers had “continued to believe their lives were in danger … until Mr. Nieto’s head and weapon went down.”

The four — Lt. Jason Sawyer and Officers Roger Morse, Richard Schiff and Nathan Chew — had responded to witness reports that Nieto, a 28-year-old Mission resident, had a gun and was acting erratically on March 21.

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The Broken System: No consequence, no confidence. A response to the non-indictment of Alex Nieto’s killers. 

justice4alexnieto.org, February 13, 2015

Washington State: Another Death by Police

Criticism increases in US city police shooting

Associated Press, February 13, 2015

.PASCO, Washington (AP) — The fourth fatal police shooting since last summer in this agricultural city of 68,000 in Washington state is drawing criticism and scrutiny from as far away as Mexico.

Tuesday’s death of orchard worker Antonio Zambrano-Montes sparked protests after witnesses said he was running away when he was shot.

1999: On the Killing of Amadou Diallo by New York Police

see the YouTube video at http://youtu.be/nghqjBwZTiE

American Skin 41 Shots — live in Tampa, FL 3/23/12

“American Skin (41 Shots)” is a song written by Bruce Springsteen, inspired by the police shooting death of Amadou Diallo. It was written and premiered during the band’s 1999–2000 reunion tour. Springsteen first performed it in concert in Atlanta on June 4, 2000, the final concert before the tour’s final ten-show run at New York City‘s Madison Square Garden, where it was also featured. The performance led to some controversy in New York City, where the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association called for a boycott of Springsteen’s shows.It was played at several concerts in April 2012 on the Wrecking Ball Tour in response to the shooting of Trayvon Martin.. Springsteen performed the song on July 16, 2013, a few days following George Zimmerman‘s controversial not guilty verdict. It was again dedicated to Martin at the Limerick, Ireland, concert with Springsteen saying before the song “I want to send this one out as a letter back home. For justice for Trayvon Martin”.

Shooting of Amadou Diallo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Shooting of Amadou Diallo occurred on February 4, 1999, when Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss, who fired a combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo, outside his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of The Bronx. The four were part of the now-defunct Street Crimes Unit. All four officers were charged with second-degree murder and acquitted at trial in Albany, New York.

Ferguson is Familiar to Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australia knows the cynicism exposed by Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson
Larissa Behrendt, The Guardian , Tuesday 25 November 2014

Watching the events in Ferguson, Indigenous Australians will immediately draw a parallel with Australia’s response to black deaths in custody‘Watching the events in Ferguson unfold raises similar questions about Australia’s own legal system.’ Riots in Redfern, 2004. Photograph: AAP

After a Missouri grand jury declined to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, prosecuting attorney Bob McCulloch said that the decision was based upon physical and scientific evidence, not “public outcry or political expediency”.

This call for objectivity does little in a situation where autopsies show Wilson had shot Brown at least six times, twice in the head. McCulloch seemed to compromise his own objectivity by blaming social and news media for beating up a story, rather than acknowledging that when a young person is shot by law enforcement, people expect a level of accountability.

 

Watching the events in Ferguson unfold raises similar questions about Australia’s own legal system. The parallel is immediately drawn with the failure to secure a conviction in the case of 36-year-old Cameron Mulrunji Doomadgee, who died in a Palm Island lockup over 10 years ago.

Black Is Back Coalition: Preparing The Day After the Ferguson Grand Jury Decision

Lawrence Hamm, Chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress,

speaks to the need to prepare, nationwide, for a powerful people’s

response to the Ferguson Grand Jury announcing their pending “decision”

on the police killing of Michael Brown

New York: Rally in Support of People in Ferguson

Community activists Montague Simmons and Tory Russell listen as rapper Tef Poe speaks during a rally in Ferguson. Photograph: Whitney Curts/Reuters

 Ferguson Protest Leaders:  ‘We’ll take our anger out on people who failed us’

Organisers tell New York rally not to expect a ‘casual revolution’ and vow greater demonstrations over police shooting of teen

• Jon Swaine, The Guardian, in New York

• theguardian.com,Wednesday 8 October 2014

• Organisers of demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, promised to intensify their protests over the killing of Michael Brown if the officer who shot him does not face criminal charges, warning police that they are prepared to die on the streets for their cause.

• Three prominent members of theprotest movement that sprung up  after the deadly police shooting of Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old,  told a rally in New York on Tuesday night that there would be a fierce backlash if a grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson.

So-called “police reviews” encourage police killings of innocents, order return of killer cops’ gun

Amadou Diallo’s Mother Angered That Officer Who Shot Son Gets To Carry Gun Again

by D.L. Chandler, hiphopwired.com,  October 3, 2012

Kadiatou Diallo, mother of Amadou Diallo who was killed in a volley of 42 shots from NYPD guns 13 years ago

The February 1999 shooting death of unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo at the hands of New York police still resonates deep in the minds of residents and opponents of police brutality to this day. 13 years later, the mother of Diallo grieves for her son and now has to relive the horror of his death once more.

A report from the New York Post finds Kadiatou Diallo, of the Republic of Guinea, angered by news that one of the officers involved in the shooting barrage will get his service weapon back – with the Diallo family saying that the cop will shoot and kill again. 

Officer Kenneth Boss was one of four officers who fired 41 shots at Diallo, with 19 of which found their target. Boss fired five rounds from his service weapon, but was cleared of wrongdoing in a department trial along with Officer Michael Carey. After Commissioner Ray Kelly reinstated both Carey’s and Boss’ gun privileges, Diallo’s mother accused him of lying.

“I’m shocked to learn this because Commissioner Kelly indicated that that would not happen,” Diallo said. “Kelly did not keep his word,” she added and said that the ruling was “the second shooting of my son.”

Diallo will call on activist Rev. Al Sharpton and former New York mayor David Dinkins and has a tentatively scheduled rally this coming Sunday (October 8^th) to protest the decision to give Officer Boss his guns. Diallo’s stepfather offered a grim warning in the wake of the news.

“He is going to shoot again. The same thing he did to Amadou he is going to do it to someone else,” said Sankarela Diallo.

Oakland, California: Protest of Police Killing is locked out of City Hall

Protestors yell at the police blocking the entrance the city council meeting in Oakland, Calif., Tuesday, October 2, 2012. The family of Alan Blueford, who was killed in May by a police officer, marched to the meeting to demand the police finish their investigation of their son’s shooting. Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle / SF

New rules limit crowd at Oakland meeting

Matthai Kuruvila, San Francisco Chronicle

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Hundreds of protesters angry over a fatal shooting by an Oakland police officer in May arrived at the City Council meeting Tuesday night to find nearly half the public seating off-limits and other measures in place to limit the number of people who could fit into the chambers.

The reduced seating resulted in the council chamber doors being closed at 5:23 p.m., seven minutes before the meeting began. More than 100 people were locked out. Police officers barred the doors as protesters inside and outside the meeting room erupted.

“Let them in,” protesters shouted, at times drowning out the meeting.

City Administrator Deanna Santana ordered the changes after a Sept. 18 meeting was disrupted by the family and supporters of Alan Blueford, an 18-year-old high school senior shot to death May 6 after he allegedly pulled a gun while being chased by a police officer. Council members adjourned early that night after protesters shouted down their attempts to move through the agenda.

Gallery seating gone

Santana held meetings with council President Larry Reid, police officials and city staffers over two weeks to come up with the new rules. The changes include eliminating seating in the chambers’ upstairs galleries and banning standing inside or just outside the City Hall meeting room. “No standing” signs, printed on paper, were posted on the chamber walls before Tuesday’s meeting.

Oakland’s Government Can’t Defeat the Struggle for Justice against Police killings

Unresolved OPD Shooting of Black Teenager Alan Blueford Illustrates Oakland’s Continuing Crisis of Governance

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

By Scott Johnson, TruthOut

Every member of the large and close knit family of Alan Dwayne Blueford who could spoke truth to power at the Oakland City Council meeting on May 15 in support of justice for their slain loved one, who was gunned down on May 6 by one of the OPD’s paid killers behind the badge, Miguel Masso. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

After seeking justice from the City of Oakland for months, the family of Alan Blueford finally caught the attention of city leaders on September 18 when their protest brought the City Council to a halt.

Alan, an African-American high school student, was murdered on May 6 by Officer Miguel Masso, who drove up on the young man who had committed no crime, chased him for five blocks and shot him dead outside a Cinco de Mayo party. Masso initially claimed that Alan shot him, a story spread by the local media, although when it was revealed that Masso actually shot himself this lie turned into the claim that Alan pointed a gun at the officer. The Bluefords refute even this claim, considering Masso’s earlier lie.

Since May, the Bluefords have demanded that Masso be fired and prosecuted and that stop-and-frisk and racial profiling practices be ended among Oakland police. The elected leadership of Oakland have largely ignored these requests outside of a handful of closed door meetings where the Bluefords were promised a timely investigation and no slandering of Alan in the press. Neither promise was kept.

The Bluefords arrived at the September 18 City Council meeting with over 100 supporters to speak during open comments, recounting not only their heartbreak but also the endless unkept promises from the city and OPD. “I just want to know what happened to my son,” Adam Blueford, Alan’s father, both begged and demanded of the Council.

The Councilmembers, typically masters of evasion who are usually absorbed in their cell phones and magazines during public comments, suddenly all sat upright at full attention. Once it was clear the Bluefords were not going to walk away quietly without answers, City Administrator Deanna Santana went scurrying to find something to offer the Bluefords. Finally, it was announced that OPD Chief Howard Jordan was on his way to City Hall with the police report in hand – after refusing to release it for months.

This promise also evaporated within the hour after the Bluefords refused yet another closed-door meeting with Jordan, insisting he address the public in order to be held accountable. With no sign of either Jordan or the report, the Council attempted to resume with its first order of business – passing a resolution declaring Oakland an International City of Peace. This absurd resolution, from a city internationally known for the murder of Oscar Grant and the repression of Occupy Oakland, led to chants of “No Justice No Peace” and “Howard is a coward!” from both the Bluefords and the audience, many of whom were beaten and tear-gassed during those two movements.

Oakland police chief confronted and shut down at “Justice 4 Alan Blueford” townhall

Published on May 24, 2012 by mrdaveyd

After murdering high school senior Alan Blueford, Oakland police have been trying to do damage control. Initially they claimed Blueford was involved in a shoot out and shot the officer.. We now know the officer shot himself after killing Blueford.. The officer’s name was not released to the public due to California law. The police held a townhall meeting at Acts Full Gospel church to try and calm down angry residents. As Chief Howard Jordan rattled of lie after lie, folks turned their back to him..They were not feeling what amounted to a dog and pony show.. OPD cut the townhall short as folks surrounded the police and demanded justice for Alan Blueford.. We caught up with Oscar Grant’s uncle Cephus Johnson aka Uncle Bobby to get his assessment of what took place.

May 24, 2012
http://sfbayview.com/2012/oakland-police-chief-confronted-and-shut-down-at-justice-4-alan-blueford-townhall/

Chris Moreland, who cried “Justice!” at the Oakland townhall, is now in jail on $100,000 bail for battery of an officer, clearly a trumped up charge; arraignment Friday, 2 p.m., Wiley Manual Courthouse; support march 7 p.m., 19th and Telegraph

by Davey D

Alan Blueford, 18, was preparing to graduate from high school when he was murdered by police for running from them on May 6 in East Oakland.

Since the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, close to 30 Black or Brown people have been shot and killed by law enforcement – or, in the case of Trayvon, wannabe law enforcement. Many of these shootings have been highly questionable, meaning the person killed was unarmed or there are strong conflicting statements from either the police or witnesses.

Here in Oakland, California, the shooting death of Alan Dwayne Blueford is one such killing. Oakland police have been very shady with the stories they put forth to the public. It seems like a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters, cast seeds of doubt and cover up their own mistakes.

Initially police said they were in a shoot-out and Blueford shot the officer in the stomach. Later the police said Blueford shot the officer in the leg. Next the police said that it was possible the officer was shot in the leg by another officer in a case of friendly fire. Finally it came out that the officer shot himself. He shot himself in the foot.

Many believe the officer shot himself after he killed Blueford and saw the young man was unarmed. The police then doubled back and said a gun was recovered; the community has yet to see any evidence of fingerprints, gun residue etc. Many have concluded it was the officer planting a gun near the scene.

This would not be unusual in a city that in the past 10 years has had to shell out over $58 million for wrongful death shootings and police brutality incidents. This would not be far-fetched in a city that was home to a rogue group of cops known as the Oakland Riders, who were found to routinely plant drugs and guns on suspects. One of the Riders is a still a fugitive at large.

Witnesses Fear Police Retribution in Oakland

Written by Jennifer Inez Ward

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Alan Blueford, killed by Oakland, California police It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Skyline High School senior Alan Blueford was just weeks away from graduating Skyline High School. Instead, his family is preparing for a funeral and searching for answers. Blueford died after being shot by an Oakland police officer on May 5. According to police, Blueford pointed a gun at officers after he ran when they ordered him to stop. His family disputes OPD’s explanation of why the teen was killed and yesterday in City Council chambers, they pleaded through tears for answers in how the teenager ended up dead in the streets of East Oakland. For a half hour, they held up pictures and spoke about their treatment by Oakland police. Blueford’s mother, father, a sister and others gathered at the speaker’s podium and told Councilmembers about the painful night they learned of Blueford’s death. The family said that Oakland police never reached out to tell them about the death of Blueford. Instead, they were told by the young man’s friends who were at the scene and briefly detained by OPD, that he had been shot by police.

Mexico: Police Kill Two Guerrero Students at Protest

Two Mexican students were killed by police gunfire around noon on Dec. 12 as police agents and soldiers attempted to disperse protesters blocking the Mexico City-Acapulco highway near Chilpancingo, the capital of the southwestern state of Guerrero. The victims, Jorge Alexis Herrera Pino and Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús, were students at the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College in the nearby village of Ayotzinapa, and they had joined about 500 other students and their indigenous supporters to demonstrate for improvements at the school.

Some 300 security agents were sent to remove the protesters, who were blocking a well-traveled highway on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a popular holiday for Mexican Catholics. The agents—including state troopers, members of the state Attorney General’s Office, federal police and some soldiers from the Mexican army—used tear gas on the protesters, who responded by throwing rocks and some molotov cocktails. The shooting began after one of the firebombs landed at a filling station near the protest and set a gas pump on fire. In addition to the two students killed, one other protester was hospitalized with serious injuries, and more than 20 were arrested. The buses that the students came in were hit in the shooting, along with a truck.

Gen. Ramón Arreola Ibarría, who headed the contingent of state troopers at the scene, denied that any agents were armed, and Guerrero attorney general Alberto López Rosas immediately charged that the students were responsible for the shooting. One student, Gerardo Torres Pérez, was arrested for allegedly firing an AK-47 automatic rifle.

By the end of the day more than 200 Mexican human rights organizations and other nonprofit groups had placed the blame on the security forces, which have a long record of abuses in Guerrero. The federal government’s Public Security Secretariat (SSP) announced on Dec. 13 that according to its analysts at least some of the gunfire came from a state Attorney General’s Office agent dressed as a civilian. Most of the detainees were released on Dec. 13. Gerardo Torres was freed in the evening; he said that after he had been arrested, federal agents and agents from the state Attorney General’s Office beat him and took him to a vacant lot, where they forced him to fire an AK-47 five times.

Guerrero officials announced on Dec. 13 that Gov. Ángel Aguirre Rivero had removed Attorney General López, Public Security Secretary Ramón Almonte Borja and Gen. Arreola from office. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/13/11, ___, 12/14/11; AFP 12/13/11 via Univision)

The students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college had been demanding a meeting with Gov. Aguirre, who they said had failed to keep four appointments. They were seeking resumption of classes, which had been suspended since Nov. 2 because of a dispute, and an increase in the student body from 140 to 170 for the 2011-2012 school year. Mexico’s 16 rural teachers’ colleges, which were mostly established by the center-left government of President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940), have suffered from neglect and budget cuts. The problems at Ayotzinapa have been ongoing for decades, according to alumni who joined current students and other activists at a protest march in Chilpancingo on Dec. 16. The marchers insisted that they weren’t satisfied with the dismissal of the attorney general and the public security secretary. “There’s no one more guilty than Gov. Aguirre, who gave the order for the removal of the protesters,” said Daniel Gómez Ruiz, a student leader at Ayotzinapa. (LJ 12/13/11, 12/17/11)

Aguirre was elected governor last January as the candidate of a coalition that included the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the small leftist Workers Party (PT) and the social democratic Convergence party. Previously he had been a leader in the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which dominated Guerrero politics for decades, often through violent repression. Aguirre was interim governor from 1996 to 1999 as the handpicked successor of the PRI’s Rubén Figueroa Alcocer, who was forced to leave office in the aftermath of a June 1995 massacre by state police of 17 unarmed members of the leftist South Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS) at Aguas Blancas near Acapulco [see Updates #320, 381].

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http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2011/12/wnu-1109-two-mexican-students-killed-at.html