Category Archives: US policing

Texas school police chief says he didn’t think he was in charge during shooting

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Pete Arredondo says he intentionally left behind radios before entering school, as two more funerals are held for victims of the attack

The Texas school police chief criticized for his actions during one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history said in his first extensive comments that he did not consider himself the person in charge as the massacre unfolded and assumed someone else was.

Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde school district, also told the Texas Tribune in an interview published on Thursday that he intentionally left behind both his police and campus radios before entering Robb elementary school.

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‘It was a war scene’: Caroline Edwards describes Capitol attack violence

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The Capitol police officer, who was injured in the insurrection, said she saw colleagues ‘bleeding, on the ground, throwing up’

Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who sustained a brain injury during the January 6 attack, gave a chilling recollection of the brutal violence of that day on Thursday, telling the committee investigating the attack it was a “war scene”.

Her testimony offered key evidence for underscoring the stakes of the congressional hearing. It showed viewers at home that the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC was not an accident, but rather an intentional effort to inflict violence.

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US justice department to investigate Louisiana State Police following 2019 death of Ronald Greene

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Justice department launches civil rights investigation following beatings including death of a Black man placed in a chokehold

The US Department of Justice has announced a federal civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police following a raft of brutality cases and the fatal beating of a Black motorist, Ronald Greene, in 2019.

Greene, an unarmed 49-year-old, was arrested by six white officers with body camera footage of the incident, obtained years later by the Associated Press, revealing he had been punched, tasered and placed in a chokehold and later dragged face down in handcuffs and left prone for over nine minutes.

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High-stakes California races will decide LA mayor and San Francisco recall

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Analysts watch to see if voters in America’s more liberal cities will address police reform, homelessness and mass incarceration

High-stakes primary races taking place on Tuesday in California are expected to have major consequences for police reform, incarceration and the state’s growing homelessness crisis.

The most closely watched race is the mayor’s contest in Los Angeles, where voters are deciding between a tough-on-crime real estate developer, Rick Caruso, who has already poured nearly $40m of his own fortune into his primary campaign, and the former community organizer and Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass.

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Arizona man drowns in lake as officers watch: ‘I’m not jumping in after you’

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Three Tempe police officers who stood by as Sean Bickings drowned placed on non-disciplinary administrative paid leave

An Arizona man drowned in a reservoir as three police officers watched, refusing to step in and save him.

The victim, identified as 34-year-old Sean Bickings, drowned in Tempe town lake while three unnamed Tempe police officers stood by and watched, one telling Bickings “I’m not jumping in after you,” Fox 10 Phoenix first reported.

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Texas police kill fugitive who shot dead four children and their grandfather

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Gonzalo Lopez, who had links to a Mexican drug cartel, had been on the run since escaping prison bus and stabbing driver

A convicted murderer with ties to a Mexican drug cartel killed four Houston-area children and their grandfather before police shot him dead on Thursday, more than three weeks after he escaped a prison bus in Texas and went on the run, authorities said.

Officers said Gonzalo Lopez, 46, who escaped from custody while serving two life sentences, killed the five family members – all strangers to him – and stole their truck while they were at their weekend cabin.

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‘More could have been done’: Texas police under scrutiny over response to school shooting

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Gunman remained barricaded inside a classroom for up to an hour before his rampage was brought to an end

Texas law enforcement agencies are facing escalating criticism over their response to the mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, after it emerged that the gunman remained locked inside a classroom for up to an hour while large numbers of police officers were amassed outside the room without taking any action.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Texas authorities confirmed that the shooter had been locked inside a classroom for an hour before he was confronted and killed. He committed all his 21 murders inside that room – including 19 children and two teachers.

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‘Jurisdictional maze’ hinders investigation of sexual violence against Native women, report says

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Amnesty International calls for restoring full tribal control over crimes on Native land to improve enforcement

Amnesty International has called on the US government to fully restore tribal jurisdiction over crimes on Native lands in the face of staggeringly high rates of sexual violence against Native women, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Nearly one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women have been raped – more than twice the average for white women and probably an undercount given gaps in data collection, according to the report.

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Laquan McDonald shooting: federal prosecutors will not charge officer

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Civil rights leaders had called for new charges after Jason Van Dyke, convicted of murder in state court, was released in February

Federal authorities on Monday said they would not criminally charge Jason Van Dyke, the former Chicago police officer convicted of murder in the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald.

The US attorney’s office in Chicago said in a news release that the decision had been made after consulting with the McDonald family and that the “family was in agreement not to pursue a second prosecution”.

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‘That was my beloved son’: family of Patrick Lyoya say police killed their son in an ‘execution’

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The family’s lawyer says Grand Rapid police officer broke protocol by using the Taser too close to Lyoya

The grief-stricken parents of the Black man shot in the back of the head by a white Michigan police officer have described their son’s death as an “execution”.

Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese refugee, was killed after a traffic stop in Grand Rapids on 4 April.

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Video shows police officer kneeling on Black man before fatally shooting him

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Patrick Lyoya, aged 26, was killed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during a struggle after a traffic stop

A Black man face-down on the ground was fatally shot in the back of the head by a Michigan police officer, the violent climax of a traffic stop, foot chase and fight over a stun gun, according to videos of the 4 April incident released by police on Wednesday.

Patrick Lyoya, 26, a Congolese refugee, was killed outside a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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DoorDash driver’s video shows officer firing stun gun in Tennessee traffic stop

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Local district attorney’s office calls for investigation following incident involving police officer Evan Driskill and Delane Gordon


A Tennessee police officer who used his stun gun on a DoorDash driver wrote an arrest report saying the man had become argumentative while denying he was speeding, refused to hand over identifying information, demanded to see a supervisor and stayed in his car when ordered to get out.

The driver – who faces charges of speeding, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct based on the officer’s sworn affidavit – pressed record on his phone after he was pulled over. That recording, made public by the driver’s attorney, tells a different story.

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Kenosha off-duty police officer shown putting knee on 12-year-old girl’s neck

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Officer resigns from school security guard job after officials release footage of fight and girl’s father calls for criminal charges

School officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin released surveillance footage that showed an off-duty police officer putting his knee on a 12-year-old girl’s neck to restrain her amid a lunchtime fight.

The Kenosha Unified School District released redacted footage of the 4 March fight on Friday.

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California: kidnapper sentenced in case police first said was ‘Gone Girl’ hoax

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Matthew Muller guilty of rape and false imprisonment in intricate attack which authorities first dismissed – to their cost – as staged

A man who sexually assaulted a northern California woman who was kidnapped from her home in what police initially thought was a hoax was sentenced on Friday to 31 years in state prison.

Matthew Muller, already serving a 40-year sentence for federal crimes, was sentenced in Solano county superior court after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape of Denise Huskins, who was dragged from her Vallejo home in 2015, the county district attorney’s office said.

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California man died screaming ‘I can’t breathe’ as police restrained him, video shows

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Newly released clip from two years ago shows Edward Bronstein being forced to a mat with at least five officers holding him down

A southern California man died nearly two years ago as he screamed “I can’t breathe” while multiple officers restrained him as they tried to take a blood sample, according to records and a video.

Edward Bronstein, 38, was taken into custody by California highway patrol (CHP) officers on 31 March 2020 following a traffic stop. Bronstein died less than two months before George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis as he, too, repeatedly told officers “I can’t breathe.”

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ADL leaders debated ending police delegations to Israel, memo reveals

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Two executives questioned whether trips to Israel could make US officers ‘more likely to use force’

Senior leaders of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the US-based non-profit organization known for combatting antisemitism and tracking extremism, debated whether to end a controversial program that connects American law enforcement officers with police leaders and members of the military in Israel, a 2020 internal document reveals.

The ADL, which works closely with US police on trainings related to bias and hate crimes, has for years run a program that sends delegations from US law enforcement departments to Israel to “study first-hand Israel’s tactics and strategies to combat terrorism”. The trips have long faced criticism from US civil rights groups, who argue that the trainings could encourage US police to further militarize their forces and exacerbate police violence.

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Chicago police officers won’t be charged in shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo

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State’s attorney says there’s insufficient evidence to charge officers in the deaths of Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez

No charges will be filed against the Chicago police officers who chased and fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez within days of each other last year, prompting sharp criticism of how the department handles foot pursuits, a prosecutor announced on Tuesday.

The Cook county state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, said there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers in the deaths, which were captured on video that showed both suspects appeared to have handguns before the shootings.

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Kabul to California: how the ‘hip-hop family’ mobilised for young Afghans

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With breakdancers, artists and parkourists facing a bleak future under the Taliban, a global network stepped in to help, drawing on the activist spirit of rap culture

A veteran of the hip-hop scene and internationally celebrated breakdancer, Nancy Yu – AKA Asia One – has her fair share of people contacting her looking for advice. But the message she received in 2019 from a young Afghan was a little different.

Frustrated by his breakdancing crew’s inability to get visas to perform internationally, Moshtagh* was wondering if Asia could help. “He felt they were really good, but they felt, like, invisible to the world,” she says. “I liked him. He wasn’t trying to bug me or say ‘we need this right now’ … He seemed rather humble and honest.”

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Austin: 19 officers charged with aggravated assault over 2020 protests

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Police tactics used against protesters following murder of George Floyd widely condemned

A Texas grand jury has indicted 19 Austin police officers on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, for actions during 2020 protests over racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd.

The president of the Austin Police Association, Ken Casaday, confirmed 19 officers faced charges.

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Police reportedly link woman to crime using DNA taken from her rape kit

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San Francisco district attorney says it was possibly a rights violation and could deter sexual assault victims from speaking out

San Francisco police used DNA collected as part of a rape exam to link a woman to a crime, possibly violating her constitutional rights, the city’s district attorney alleged on Monday.

The department’s crime lab entered the DNA profiles of potentially thousands of sexual assault victims over “many years” to a database that is used to identify suspects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. District attorney Chesa Boudin, who said his office first learned of the practice last week, told the newspaper such use of victims’ DNA could violate the California’s Victims’ Bill of Rights as well as constitutional laws related to unreasonable searches and seizures.

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