Category Archives: US policing

Tyre Nichols: five Memphis ex-police officers charged with murder over motorist’s death

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Nichols, 29, died three days after a traffic stop turned into a fatal physical attack on 7 January

Five former Memphis police officers were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist in Memphis, Tennessee, who died three days after a 7 January traffic stop spiraled into a fatal physical attack, local jail records indicated.

Shelby county sheriff’s office online records showed that Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were in custody. All five were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

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Elijah McClain: officers to enter pleas to charges in death of Black man put in chokehold

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23-year-old died after Colorado police put him in a chokehold and injected him with a large dose of the powerful sedative ketamine

A group of police officers and paramedics are scheduled on Friday to enter pleas in Colorado court to charges in the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was put in a chokehold and injected with a powerful sedative two years ago in suburban Denver.

They were indicted by a state grand jury on manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and other charges in 2021.

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San Francisco man arrested after spraying homeless woman with hose

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Art gallery owner Collier Gwin, 71, faces potential jail term after video showed woman being hosed with water

A California man seen in a viral video spraying a homeless woman with a garden hose has been arrested on a charge of battery, authorities in San Francisco said.

Collier Gwin, 71, an art gallery owner, was captured in the video, taken on 9 January, leaning on a railing with his legs crossed as he directed a jet of water at the woman in an effort to get her to move on.

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Baltimore man tried four times for same killing sees all charges dropped

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Keith Davis, 31, shot by police, was repeatedly charged over shooting at Pimlico race track in June 2015

A Baltimore man who stood trial four times for the same killing had all charges against him dropped on Friday.

In a statement, the Baltimore state attorney, Ivan J Bates, said his office had dismissed all charges against Keith Davis, 31, who was accused of the 2015 killing of Kevin Jones, a security guard at Pimlico Race Course, after police alleged Davis’s gun matched casings found at the scene of the shooting.

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Former Louisiana police deputy given 100-year sentence for sex crimes

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Dennis Perkins, 47, to spend rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to a slew of crimes including child sexual abuse

A former Louisiana sheriff’s deputy has been given a 100-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a spree of sexual abuse crimes, including child abuse.

Dennis Perkins, 47, will spend the rest of his life in prison after he pleaded guilty to a slew of offenses ranging from rape, child abuse images and video voyeurism to contaminating food with a bodily substance, authorities said. He has no possibility of being released on parole after state prosecutors struck a deal with him to plead guilty to avoid a trial that would have required young victims to testify about traumas they had endured, Louisiana’s Advocate newspaper reported.

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‘It never stops’: killings by US police reach record high in 2022

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Law enforcement killed at least 1,176 people or about 100 people a month last year, making it the deadliest for police violence

US law enforcement killed at least 1,176 people in 2022, making it the deadliest year on record for police violence since experts first started tracking the killings, a new data analysis reveals.

Police across the country killed an average of more than three people a day, or nearly 100 people every month last year according to Mapping Police Violence. The non-profit research group maintains a database of reported deaths at the hands of law enforcement, including people fatally shot, beaten, restrained and Tasered.

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Machete-wielding man attacks New York City police at New Year’s Eve event

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Authorities are investigating whether the 19-year-old suspect was inspired by radical Islamist extremism, an official said

A man wielding a machete attacked three police officers at the New Year’s Eve celebration in New York City, authorities said, striking two of them in the head before an officer shot the man in the shoulder.

Authorities were investigating whether the man was inspired by radical Islamist extremism, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter.

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A dying cancer patient used cannabis to ease pain. His hospital called the police

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‘You’d think they would have shown compassion’: patient’s son decries Kansas police who issued citation as father suffered

Hospital staff in Kansas called the police on a man dying of cancer who was using cannabis products to cope with his symptoms, in an incident that has since sparked outrage and renewed calls to rethink the state’s strict cannabis laws.

The encounter took place in mid-December, when police in the city of Hays say two officers showed up at the cancer patient’s hospital room to issue him a citation for a drug violation. Police also took away a vaping device and cannabis product that hospital staff had already confiscated.

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Five Louisiana officers charged in death of Black motorist Ronald Greene

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Authorities initially blamed deadly 2019 on a car crash before body-camera video showed white officers beating Greene

Five Louisiana law enforcement officers have been charged with crimes ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long suppressed body-camera video showed white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black motorist as he wailed: “I’m scared!”

These were the first criminal charges of any kind to emerge from Greene’s bloody death on a roadside in rural north-east Louisiana, a case that got little attention until an Associated Press investigation exposed a cover-up and prompted scrutiny of top Louisiana state police figures, a sweeping US justice department review of the agency and a legislative inquiry looking at what Governor John Bel Edwards knew and when he knew it.

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Former police officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s back sentenced to prison

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J Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter and will serve a three and a half year term

The former Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s back while another officer kneeled on the Black man’s neck was sentenced Friday to three and a half years in prison.

J Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty in October to a state count of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange, a charge of aiding and abetting murder was dropped. Kueng is already serving a federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights, and the state and federal sentence will be served at the same time.

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Sexual assault scandal sparks calls for review of US police department

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Activists urge a federal investigation of the Kansas City police department after a detective allegedly preyed on Black women

It is a scandal that has shocked many beyond the borders of Kansas City, where a senior white policeman allegedly carried out a reign of terror in which he brutally abused and sexually assaulted vulnerable Black women.

An appalling set of allegations against former Kansas City, Kansas police department detective Roger Golubski has lifted the lid on a scheme where he is alleged to have protected local drug dealers in the midwestern city, who then allowed him to rape women forced to work as prostitutes.

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San Francisco approves police proposal to use potentially deadly robots

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Decision comes after heated debate as police oversight groups warn over further militarization of law enforcement

Police in San Francisco will be allowed to deploy potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations. The controversial policy was approved after weeks of scrutiny and a heated debate among the city’s board of supervisors during their meeting on Tuesday.

Police oversight groups, the ACLU and San Francisco’s public defender had urged the 11-member body to reject the police’s use of equipment proposal. Opponents of the policy said it would lead to further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with underserved communities. They said the parameters under which use would be allowed were too vague. Supporters argued that having these robots as an option in dangerous situations was necessary given what they see as an ever-increasing risk of a high-profile shooting hitting the city.

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Two Colorado sheriff’s deputies indicted after roadside death of Christian Glass

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Law enforcement killed Glass, 22, after he called 911 amid what his mother called a mental health crisis

A grand jury has indicted two Colorado sheriff’s deputies in the death of a 22-year-old man who was shot after calling 911 for roadside assistance while experiencing what his mother described as a mental health crisis, according to online court records.

The indictments of the former Clear Creek county sheriff’s deputies Andrew Buen and Kyle Gould were returned on Wednesday, five months after law enforcement killed Christian Glass. The case has become a flashpoint amid a national outcry for police reforms focused on crisis intervention and de-escalation.

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San Francisco police propose using robots capable of ‘deadly force’

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City’s board of supervisors to consider proposal involving remote-controlled devices

The San Francisco police department has proposed that it be allowed to use robots with “deadly force” while responding to incidents, according to a policy draft.

The document outlines how the department proposes to use its collection of robots, which number 17 in total although 12 are not operational.

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Louisiana police release footage of officer fatally shooting Black motorist

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High-profile lawyer who represented family of George Floyd calls Derrick J Kittling’s death ‘unwarranted’ as he takes on case

Footage of a deadly traffic stop in central Louisiana between a Black motorist and white officer, which spiraled into a 30-second struggle on the ground before the officer fired his weapon, has been released by state police.

Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney representing the family of Derrick J Kittling – the 45-year-old motorist fatally shot in the head – called the death “unwarranted” and “completely preventable”. In addition, Crump demanded that the officer involved, Rapides parish sheriff’s office deputy, Rodney Anderson, be fired and accused him of profiling Kittling. The deputy has been placed on administrative leave while Louisiana state police investigate.

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New York City mayor’s longtime friend now holds high-paid NYPD job

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Lisa White, who earns $241,000 a year, is one of a number of Eric Adams’s friends, family and former colleagues hired to top roles

A career 911 dispatcher and longtime friend of New York City mayor Eric Adams who rented a room to Adams in her apartment in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights for four years now has one of the highest-paid jobs in city government, records show.

In May, the NYPD appointed Lisa White as its deputy commissioner for employee relations, at a salary of more than $241,000 a year – a nearly fivefold boost over her prior salary there and almost as much as the police commissioner makes.

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Florida police arrest legally blind man whose cane they mistook for a gun

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Two deputies face suspension without pay after stopping James Hodges, 61, in Lake City last month

Two Florida deputies faced suspension without pay after arresting a 61-year-old legally blind man who was carrying a cane they mistook for a gun.

Jayme Gohde and her supervisor, Randy Harrison, were also reprimanded. Harrison will be denied raises or promotions for two years and both will be required to take remedial training about civil rights.

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California sheriff’s office stops Black drivers five times more often than white people, data shows

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A new report says sheriffs’ patrols spend more time conducting racially biased stops than they do responding to calls for help

Black drivers in California’s capital are nearly five times more likely than white motorists to get pulled over by sheriffs for traffic violations, according to a new report on racial profiling across the state.

Records from the county sheriff’s departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside show that Black Californians were disproportionately stopped across those regions in 2019, especially for minor infractions.

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Criminal charges dropped against man left with paralysis in US police custody

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Randy Cox was arrested by Connecticut law enforcement and en route a detention center when he was knocked against a van wall

A man who was left partially paralyzed while in police custody has had all criminal charges against him dropped.

On 19 June, 36-year-old Randy Cox of New Haven, Connecticut, was arrested on charges of illegal handgun possession. Cox was put into a police transport van without any seatbelts and was en route to a detention center when the officer behind the wheel, Oscar Diaz, suddenly braked. Video footage released by Cox’s family and published by CNN shows a handcuffed Cox sliding across the bench and hitting the van’s wall with his head.

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Fired Texas police officer charged over shooting of teen in fast-food parking lot

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James Brennand, 25, charged with aggravated assault after shooting of Erik Cantu, 17, at McDonald’s in San Antonio

A now-former San Antonio police officer was charged on Tuesday with two counts of aggravated assault by a peace officer for shooting and gravely wounding a teen eating a hamburger in his car in a McDonald’s parking lot. The teen had begun driving away when the officer opened fire.

James Brennand, 25, was charged in the 2 October shooting of Erik Cantu, 17, according to a police statement. He turned himself in to police on Tuesday night and remained in custody, said the police chief, William McManus.

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