Eric Duprey died after a police officer threw a picnic cooler at him, knocking him off his motorbike
The death of a new New York scooter rider who died during a “buy-and-bust” police operation in the Bronx has been upgraded to a homicide, the city medical examiner has said.
The examiner ruled Eric Duprey’s death a homicide, caused by blunt force trauma to his head.
Continue reading...Authorities had earlier claimed the 27-year-old had lunged at officers with a knife, but now say he never stepped out of his car
Philadelphia’s police commissioner said on Wednesday that a police officer who shot and killed a driver who was sitting in his car last week in north Philadelphia is being suspended and will be fired.
Danielle Outlaw said that officer Mark Dial will be suspended with intent to dismiss him in 30 days for refusing to cooperate in the investigation of the 14 August shooting death of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry.
Continue reading...A grand jury had indicted officers from Antioch and Pittsburg for a wide range of offenses, including criminal conspiracy
The FBI arrested nine current and former California police officers on Thursday as part of a major criminal investigation into racist text messages of dozens of law enforcement officials, prosecutors said.
Early-morning federal raids, first reported by the Bay Area News Group, rounded up officers from Antioch and Pittsburg, two cities east of San Francisco, after they were charged in four grand jury indictments.
Continue reading...Police raid on office of Marion County Record drew widespread condemnation by press freedom advocates
Authorities have announced the controversial search warrant of a local Kansas newspaper office has been withdrawn.
The Marion county attorney Joel Ensey announced that following a review of the search warrants made last Friday at multiple locations in Marion county, he has “come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized”.
Continue reading...Brandon Cole, 36, died after an officer fired at him twice after receiving a domestic violence complaint from a neighbor
A Denver police officer fatally shot a man who was holding a marker pen, which the officer mistakenly believed was a knife, officials said on Monday.
Newly released body-camera footage of the killing of Brandon Cole, 36, on 5 August shows an officer firing two shots at the man who was on the sidewalk. A young child and a woman were standing close behind the man as the officer fired at him and he fell to the ground.
Continue reading...When a pregnant Black woman was falsely arrested, she fought back. Here’s what happened next. Plus, the week in AI
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Porcha Woodruff was eight months pregnant when police in Detroit, Michigan came to arrest her on charges of carjacking and robbery. She was getting her two children ready for school when six police officers knocked on her door and presented her with an arrest warrant. She thought it was a prank.
“Are you kidding, carjacking? Do you see that I am eight months pregnant?” the lawsuit Woodruff filed against Detroit police reads. She sent her children upstairs to tell her fiance that “Mommy’s going to jail”.
Continue reading...Group of six white Mississippi police officers had tortured two Black men for an hour and a half during a house raid
In late January, a group of six white Mississippi police officers raided a house in Rankin county, a suburb outside of Jackson, and tortured two Black men for an hour and a half. The following month, the justice department opened a civil rights investigation into the Rankin county sheriff’s department, and since then, the officers have either resigned or been fired. Activists have also called for the resignation of Rankin county sheriff Bryan Bailey.
On Monday, the former officers pleaded guilty to state charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy from the assault of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. The former sheriff’s deputies Brett McAlpin, Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, along with Joshua Hartfield, a former police officer in nearby Richland, had already pleaded guilty to federal charges on 3 August.
Continue reading...City’s entire five-officer police force seize computers, cellphones and reporting materials from Marion County Record
Local police in Marion, Kansas, conducted a raid on the offices of a local newspaper on Friday as well as the homes of the publication’s publishers and reporters.
Eric Meyer, the owner and publisher of the Marion County Record, told the Kansas Reflector that the city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies conducted the raid, which included the seizure of computers, cellphones and reporting materials.
Continue reading...ACLU and NAACP among organizations condemning homeland security department over ‘domestic violent extremist’ label
Prominent civil rights and civil liberties organizations have called on the US homeland security department to investigate the agency’s intelligence-gathering on protesters against ‘Cop City’, the police and fire department training center planned for a forest south-east of Atlanta.
The organizations draw attention to the dozens of environmental protesters arrested and charged with domestic terrorism in a letter to the department director, Alejandro Mayorkas. The charges have caused outrage among many observers who accuse Georgia law enforcement of a heavy-handed crackdown on the protest movement.
Continue reading...Jordan Steinke convicted on misdemeanour charges but found not guilty of more serious charges over 2022 crash in Colorado
A Colorado police officer who put a handcuffed woman in a parked police vehicle that was hit by a freight train was found guilty of reckless endangerment and assault but was acquitted of a third charge of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter during a trial Friday.
Jordan Steinke was the first of two officers to go to trial over the 16 September 2022 crash that left Yareni Rios-Gonzalez seriously injured.
Continue reading...NYPD’s ex-commissioner Bernie Kerik gave about 600MB of pdfs to Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump for the Capitol attack
The former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik, a leading Trump ally who worked with Rudy Giuliani on attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has given the special counsel Jack Smith thousands of documents, Kerik’s lawyer said on Monday.
“I have shared all of these documents, approximately 600MB, mostly pdfs, with the special counsel and look forward to sitting down with them in about two weeks to discuss,” Timothy Parlatore told CNN.
Continue reading...Officer is seen hitting woman twice in face as she holds her baby in video released by LA county sheriff Robert Luna
For the second time in a week, the Los Angeles sheriff’s department is facing scrutiny over a brutal force incident, this time after a deputy was caught on camera punching a mother twice in the face as she held her newborn baby.
The LA county sheriff, Robert Luna, on Wednesday released footage of the July 2022 incident in Palmdale, north-east of the city of Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Merrick Garland announces findings of Department of Justice investigation into department after Floyd’s killing by officers
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Friday announced that the 2020 murder of George Floyd was part of a “pattern or practice” of excessive force used by the department and years of unlawful discrimination against Black Americans.
Garland held a press conference to reveal the findings of the two-year investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ) into the conduct and training of the Minneapolis police department (MPD) both before and after George Floyd’s death at the hands of officers in the city in 2020.
Continue reading...Mathew Bianchi claims superiors retaliated against him for writing tickets for people holding ‘corrupt’ courtesy cards
Mathew Bianchi became a Staten Island traffic cop in 2017, two years after joining the New York police department, assigned to enforcing traffic violations and issuing tickets. In the first two years on that beat, he received stellar performance evaluations.
But in November 2018 – a year into his career in the traffic unit – Bianchi issued a ticket to a civilian who held a New York City police department laminated courtesy card, an unofficial credential issued to NYPD officers based on their union affiliation that can then be distributed to family members and friends to carry with them.
Continue reading...Death of Keenan Darnell Anderson prompted outcry in January over use of force by Los Angeles police
A teacher who was repeatedly shocked with a Taser by Los Angeles police died from an enlarged heart and cocaine use, according to an autopsy report released on Friday.
The 3 January death of Keenan Darnell Anderson, 31, prompted an outcry over use of force by Los Angeles police. It was one of three fatal LAPD confrontations, including two shootings, that took place days into the new year.
Continue reading...Killing of Christian Glass, 22, in Colorado last year prompted calls to reform how authorities respond to people in crisis
The parents of a 22-year-old Colorado man in a mental health crisis killed by police are to receive $19m from government state and local agencies while prompting changes to how officers are trained under a settlement announced on Tuesday.
The shooting of Christian Glass by the Clear Creek county sheriff’s office after Glass’s SUV became stuck in the mountain town of Silver Plume last year drew national attention and prompted calls to reform how authorities respond to people with mental health problems.
Continue reading...Governor’s incentive scheme recruits officers with history of excessive violence or who have been arrested since signing up
Numerous police officers lured to new jobs in Florida with cash from Governor Ron DeSantis’s flagship law enforcement relocation program have histories of excessive violence or have been arrested for crimes including kidnapping and murder since signing up, a study of state documents has found.
DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this week, has spent more than $13.5m to date on the recruitment bonus program, which he touted in 2021 as an incentive to officers in other states frustrated by Covid-19 vaccination mandates.
Continue reading...Chiasher Vue’s kids wanted to calm their mentally ill father, but police detained them in vehicle and killed him as he pointed a gun
The city of Minneapolis has agreed to a $700,000 settlement with family members who were locked inside two squad cars when police killed their father after officers refused their offers to try and help calm him down.
A federal judge ruled that officers were justified in shooting 52-year-old Chiasher Vue after he pointed a rifle at them on 15 December 2019. The settlement will resolve a lawsuit his family filed arguing that police had illegally and unconstitutionally detained them that night.
Continue reading...Historic two-week tour of US ends with call for nationwide commitment to address racial discrimination in dealings with law
The US must move beyond piecemeal reform and slogan-making and tackle the ongoing scourge of police brutality and law enforcement’s discrimination against Black people, a United Nations mission has concluded at the end of a historic two-week tour of the country.
UN experts completed their first official visit to the US as part of a system of global inquiries set up by the human rights council after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. As they ended their tour on Friday in Washington DC, the experts called for a nationwide commitment to address discrimination suffered by Black Americans in their daily dealings with the law.
A call for an end to racial profiling in policing.
A dramatic reduction in the use of solitary confinement in US jails and prisons, and the total abolition of isolated incarceration for children under 18.
Passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which tackles racial bias and excessive use of force but which has stalled in Congress.
An end to stereotyping of Black women and girls as angry and “aged up”.
Rooting out of white supremacist law enforcement officers to ensure that they no longer wear the badge.
Continue reading...No gunpowder residue found on Manuel Paez Terán, who was alleged to have fired first in fatal confrontation with Georgia police
Official autopsy results for Manuel Paez Terán, an environmental activist police shot and killed three months ago during a raid in a Georgia public park near the planned site of a police and fire department training center, do little to advance the state’s version of events, including the notion that the activist shot first, wounding an officer.
Paez Terán, or “Tortuguita”, was one of the “forest defenders” camped throughout the public park less than a mile away from the planned center, known as “Cop City”, when dozens of officers entered the South River Forest south-east of Atlanta, Georgia, on 18 January.
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