Category Archives: US policing

Crackdowns intensify on pro-Palestine campus protests as hundreds arrested

Posted on by

Tensions continue after night of unrest at UCLA and Columbia, as New York mayor blames ‘outside agitators’ for escalation

Crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests at US colleges spread on Wednesday after protest hotspots intensified overnight, leading to some violence and hundreds more arrests amid widespread controversy over universities calling in police and claims about “outside agitators” driving escalation.

The number of arrests of student protesters had exceeded an estimated 1,300 by Wednesday afternoon since the start of the latest bout of protests two weeks ago, as more students were detained. This added to tallies by the Associated Press and Axios earlier on Wednesday, across more than 30 campuses, coast to coast and north to south.

Continue reading...

Officers killed in shootout identified as rifle found in suspect’s North Carolina home

Posted on by

Police say four officers who died serving warrant over firearms possession were ‘heroes’ as investigation into shooting continues

Eight law-enforcement officers were shot, four fatally, during a shootout on Monday outside a home in North Carolina while serving a warrant to someone wanted for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. It was the deadliest attack on US law enforcement since 2016.

Three of the four law-enforcement officers killed were working on a fugitive taskforce as agents with the US Marshals Service, and the fourth was a police officer who had recently been named officer of the month by his department.

Continue reading...

Four officers killed and four wounded in shooting at North Carolina home

Posted on by

Police say officers were in Charlotte serving warrant for suspect, who was also killed, wanted over firearms possession

Eight law-enforcement officers were shot, four fatally, during a shootout on Monday outside a home in North Carolina. The officers were serving a warrant to a person wanted for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon when the shooting began.

As marshals approached a home on the 5000 block of Galway Drive in Charlotte, the subject of the warrant began shooting at them in the front yard, police said. Officers shot back and killed the man.

Continue reading...

‘Like a war zone’: Emory University grapples with fallout from police response to protest

Posted on by

A peaceful action at the school near Atlanta, Georgia, was met with violent use of force and 28 arrests of students and faculty

Clifton Crais, a history professor, was walking to class at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, outside Atlanta, on Thursday shortly before 10am when several students rushed up to him.

“Please, please contact president Fenves,” they begged, referring to the university president, Gregory Fenves. “Ask him to not call the police.” Several dozen protesters seeking the university’s divestment from Israel and opposing a $109m police training center colloquially known as “Cop City” had set up tents on the school’s grassy quad – the size of a football field – several hours before.

Continue reading...

Paramedic convicted over Elijah McClain killing sentenced to probation

Posted on by

Jeremy Cooper injected McClain, 23, with ketamine after police forcibly restrained him as he walked home in Denver in 2019

A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with ketamine avoided prison and was sentenced to probation on Friday after his homicide conviction in the Black man’s death, which helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests.

Jeremy Cooper faced up to three years in prison. He administered a dose of the sedative to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after police stopped him as he was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019.

Continue reading...

Police allegedly use rubber bullets and teargas at university protest in Georgia

Posted on by

Multiple arrests at crackdown on Emory University campus encampment focused on Palestine and Cop City

Police have carried out multiple violent arrests at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, in what appears to be the first campus crackdown in recent days to involve rubber bullets and teargas after students set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestine and against Cop City.

On Thursday, Emory students set up multiple tents on the campus’s lawns in protest against the university’s ties to Israel, as well Atlanta’s Cop City, a police and fire department training center that is being constructed on a 171-acre plot in a forest south-east of Atlanta.

Continue reading...

Student Gaza protests: top Republicans call on Biden to send in federal officers

Posted on by

Letter from 25 senators including Mitch McConnell says president ‘must act immediately to restore order’ on university campuses

Senior Republican US senators on Tuesday waded into growing tensions at leading universities over the Israel-Gaza war, demanding the Biden administration send in federal law enforcement officers to curb pro-Palestinian protests that have led to hundreds of arrests.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and John Thune, his deputy, wrote to Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, and Miguel Cardona, the education secretary, calling demonstrators “antisemitic, pro-terrorist mobs”.

Continue reading...

California officers charged in killing of man held face-down for five minutes

Posted on by

Three police officers charged with involuntary manslaughter in death of Mario Gonzalez, whom they held down on the ground

Three California police officers have been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 killing of a man they restrained in a prone position for five minutes until he lost consciousness.

Pamela Price, Alameda county district attorney, announced the charges on Thursday, three years after the asphyxia death of Mario Gonzalez, 26. The officers, Eric McKinley, James Fisher and Cameron Leahy, face up to four years in prison.

Continue reading...

Police arrest Columbia University students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza

Posted on by

Students set up encampments to demand Columbia divest from Israel while those at USC gathered in support of Asna Tabassum

Tensions on Columbia University’s campus continued to rise on Thursday as the New York police department began breaking up student protests over Israel’s war on Gaza, at the direction of the school’s president, and arrests were made.

Hundreds of students pitched tents and began camping out in the center of the famous central campus from early morning on Wednesday in protest, demanding a ceasefire and for the university to financially divest from Israel, prompting Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, to issue a stark warning.

Continue reading...

Los Angeles police officer who killed girl, 14, in department store will not face charges

Posted on by

Officer shot and killed both a man who was attacking customers and Valentina Orellana-Peralta, who was hiding in a dressing room

A Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a 14-year-old girl inside a clothing store in 2021 will not face charges, the California attorney general announced on Wednesday.

Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping with her mother at a north Hollywood Burlington Coat Factory on 23 December 2021 when the LAPD entered to apprehend a man suspected of attacking customers in the store. When officer William Dorsey Jones Jr fired three rounds at the man, Valentina was in a nearby dressing room with her mother praying and was killed by Jones’s gunfire.

Continue reading...

Stockton to pay $6m to settle lawsuit over man who died during arrest

Posted on by

Shayne Sutherland, 29, died in California after being held face down, a year before a law banned maneuvers that lead to asphyxia

The city of Stockton, California, has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Shayne Sutherland, a 29-year-old who died after being held face down by police officers in 2020, for $6m, the family’s attorneys announced Thursday.

Sutherland’s mother, Karen Sutherland, said that nothing can replace her son, but that the settlement feels like an acknowledgement of responsibility from Stockton police, which she had been hoping for.

Continue reading...

Six ex-Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’ officers get 15 to 45 years for torture of Black men

Posted on by

The men pleaded guilty to state charges in brutal racist attack of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023

Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers – prosecutors said the group called themselves the “Goon Squad” – who tortured and abused two Black men in a racist attack were sentenced to between 15 and 45 years in prison on Wednesday.

Brett Morris McAlpin, formerly the fourth highest ranking deputy in the Rankin county sheriff’s department, was sentenced to 20 years. Christian Dedmon was sentenced to 25 years. Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke were both sentenced to 20 years, while Hunter Elward was sentenced to 45 years and Joshua Hartfield was sentenced to 15 years.

Continue reading...

California sheriff’s deputies kill 17-year-old boy with mental health issues

Posted on by

Boy, as yet unidentified, is third child killed by San Bernardino law enforcement in less than two years and second in under a month

Southern California sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 17-year-old boy with mental health issues after he armed himself with a knife and locked himself inside a bathroom at a home, authorities said Wednesday.

The teen was being transferred from a hospital, where he had been treated after cutting himself, to a mental health facility when he escaped on Tuesday, the San Bernardino county sheriff Shannon Dicus said.

Continue reading...

Video shows California police fatally shooting teenager who was reported kidnapped

Posted on by

Revealed: Savannah Graziano, 15, shot by sheriff’s deputies in 2022 while unarmed and following instructions to move toward them

Newly released law enforcement footage captures the moment California police fatally shot an unarmed 15-year-old girl who was a reported kidnapping victim.

On 27 September 2022, San Bernardino county sheriff’s deputies were searching for Savannah Graziano, who was feared abducted by her father Anthony Graziano after he had fatally shot her mother the day before.

Continue reading...

‘A talented, goofy kid’: family of Ryan Gainer, autistic teen killed by police, speak out

Posted on by

Shooting of 15-year-old ‘beautiful soul’ in California revives scrutiny on law enforcement abuse of youth with disabilities

When Ryan Gainer was diagnosed with autism as a toddler, he was nonverbal, and his family all learned sign language to communicate with him. But after the southern California boy learned how to speak at around age four, he was a “ball of energy” who never stopped talking, his older sister Rachel said.

He loved saying “hi” to neighbors and strangers alike, and as a young teen was known as the student who greeted everyone with a “good morning” and a smile.

Continue reading...

California sheriff releases bodycam video of killing of boy, 15, holding gardening tool

Posted on by

Outrage over killing of Ryan Gainer, shot three times on Saturday, as sheriff denounced for defending deputies’ use of lethal force

The San Bernardino, California sheriff released new body-camera footage of the fatal police shooting of 15-year-old Ryan Gainer, who was holding a gardening tool.

The Saturday killing of Gainer, who was autistic and having a mental health crisis, sparked national outrage and escalating criticisms, prompting the head of the department, sheriff Shannon Dicus, to show reporters additional footage during a Wednesday press conference. The sheriff also revealed that it appeared two deputies on the scene had fired three rounds at Gainer.

Continue reading...

California officer shoots and kills boy, 15, holding gardening tool

Posted on by

Civil rights advocates call for release of police bodycam video after Ryan Gainer killed on Saturday by deputy responding to 911 call

A sheriff’s deputy in southern California shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who was holding a gardening tool, officials said.

The San Bernardino county sheriff’s department was responding to a 911 call on Saturday from a family reporting that a boy, identified as Ryan Gainer, was attacking his family at their home in Apple Valley, east of Los Angeles. The department said he was holding a 5ft gardening tool and approaching the first deputy who arrived at the scene when the deputy shot him. Gainer was later taken to a hospital where he died.

Continue reading...

Atlanta Police Foundation ignored records requests about role in Cop City, lawsuit claims

Posted on by

University of Georgia filed complaint on behalf of news outlet and transparency research organization, saying queries unanswered

A law clinic at the University of Georgia has sued the Atlanta Police Foundation, after the non-profit organization repeatedly ignored records requests from journalists and researchers about its role in backing the controversial police-training center opponents have dubbed Cop City.

The complaint, filed on behalf of the digital news outlet Atlanta Community Press Collective and the Chicago-based digital transparency research organization Lucy Parsons Labs, details how numerous queries to the foundation under Georgia’s Open Records Act have not been answered.

Continue reading...

‘They felt no need to stop the brutality’: Colorado paramedic gets five-year prison term for killing Elijah McClain

Posted on by

Peter Cichuniec one of two paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide for role in 23-year-old’s death after police stop

A former Colorado paramedic has been sentenced to five years in prison in the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain after he was stopped by Aurora police.

Peter Cichuniec was one of two paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide for their roles in the 23-year-old’s death, which sparked years of protests and changes in the law. A jury also found Cichuniec guilty of second-degree assault. The outcome marks an extremely rare instance of a paramedic being found criminally liable and facing a prison sentence for a death in police custody.

Continue reading...

Ferguson, Missouri, to pay out $4.5m to settle debtors’ jail lawsuit

Posted on by

City where police killed Mike Brown in 2015 was defendant in class-action suit by plaintiffs detained over inability to pay city fines

The city of Ferguson, Missouri, will pay out $4.5m to thousands of plaintiffs who allege that the city jailed them because of their inability to pay fines, fees and other municipal costs.

The multimillion-dollar settlement is in response to a class-action lawsuit filed against Ferguson in 2015, the legal advocacy non-profit ArchCity Defenders announced on Tuesday. Ferguson officials were accused of “jailing [plaintiffs] in deplorable conditions for an inability to pay and without the necessary legal process”, read the press release.

Continue reading...