Category Archives: US policing

Mississippi police shoot Black teenager in the head outside store

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Jaheim McMillan, 15, was taken off life support after Gulfport police shot him in the head on Thursday at the Family Dollar shop

A Black teenager in Mississippi was taken off life support days after Gulfport police shot him in the head outside a discount store, and his relatives are questioning officers’ actions.

Jaheim McMillan, 15, was shot on Thursday. The Harrison county coroner, Brian Switzer, confirmed to the Sun Herald that the Gulfport High School freshman died on Saturday after he was taken off life support at USA University Hospital in Mobile, Alabama. An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday, Switzer said.

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Texas police fires officer who shot a teen sitting in his car in a fast food parking lot

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James Brennand confronted the 17 year old who was in a car that had evaded him a day earlier and began shooting when the car drove off

A Texas police force has fired an officer who shot and wounded a teenager sitting in his car eating a hamburger.

The San Antonio police department fired James Brennand after he shot Erik Cantu, 17, on 2 October in a fast-food restaurant parking lot, the agency’s training commander, Alyssa Campos, said in a video statement released Wednesday.

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Family of Black man who died after police held him down wins $12m payout

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Daniel Prude died from ‘complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint’ in Rochester, New York, in March 2020

City officials agreed to pay $12m to the children of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died when police who encountered him running naked through the snowy streets of Rochester, New York, put him in a hood and held him down until he stopped breathing.

A federal judge approved the settlement in a court document filed on Thursday. The Rochester mayor, Malik D Evans, said in a statement the agreement was “the best decision” for the city.

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Capitol attack officer Fanone hits out at ‘weasel’ McCarthy in startling interview

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Michael Fanone makes candid and profane remarks about Republicans in Rolling Stone interview as he promotes memoir

In an extraordinarily candid and profane interview with Rolling Stone, Michael Fanone – the former Washington police officer who was seriously hurt at the US Capitol during the January 6 attack – called the Republican House leader, potentially the next speaker, a “fucking weasel bitch”.

Fanone said past Republican giants would be unimpressed with Kevin McCarthy.

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California investigates teen’s death in shootout between police and her father

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Savannah Graziano’s death reviewed under measure requiring investigations of police shootings of unarmed people

The California department of justice is reviewing the death of a southern California teenager in a shootout with law enforcement this week under a state law requiring the agency to investigate police shootings involving the death of unarmed civilians.

Savannah Graziano, 15, was killed on Tuesday amid a lengthy shootout between police and her father on a stretch of southern California highway.

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California sheriff’s department deems 47 deputies ‘not suited’ for duty

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Roughly 10% of the force had their guns and arrest powers stripped after an internal audit of psychological exams

A northern California sheriff’s department stripped 47 deputies – 10% of the force – of their guns and arrest powers because they failed psychological exams, it was reported Monday.

It was “horrible″ to have to relieve the deputies of their duties, said Lt Ray Kelly, spokesperson for the Alameda county sheriff’s office, to KTVU-TV.

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Former Minneapolis officer sentenced to three years in George Floyd’s murder

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Thomas Lane is already serving a two-and-a-half-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights

A former Minneapolis police officer who pleaded guilty to a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd was sentenced on Wednesday to three years.

Thomas Lane is already serving a two-and-a-half-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights. In the state case, prosecutors and Lane’s attorneys agreed to a recommended sentence of three years, to be served at the same time, in a federal prison.

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US civil rights groups file complaint against ‘death by incarceration’ to UN

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The filing urges UN special rapporteurs to declare life sentences, including without parole, a violation of incarcerated people’s rights

The moment Terrell Carter learned the death sentence he received decades ago would end, he was filled with extreme happiness and intense sorrow.

Carter had spent 30 years of his life in prison without parole for second-degree murder he committed in Pennsylvania, one of six states in the US where there is no possibility of parole when sentenced to life. In July, after Governor Tom Wolf commuted his sentence, Carter, now 53, regained his freedom after a nearly three-year process petitioning with the state board of pardons. Still, he said he felt “survivor’s guilt”.

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A girl wanted to keep the goat she raised for a county fair. They chose to kill it

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A California lawsuit brought by the girl’s parents accuses law enforcement of traveling hundreds of miles to confiscate a beloved pet

When a young California girl purchased a baby goat last spring, the intention was to eventually sell it at a county fair livestock auction. But after feeding and caring for the animal for months, she bonded with the goat, named Cedar, and wanted to keep it.

Instead, law enforcement officers allegedly travelled hundreds of miles to confiscate the pet, who was eventually slaughtered.

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Uvalde police chief fired for fumbled response to worst school shooting in US history

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Pete Arredondo defended the police response to the massacre in a 17-page letter that also lashed out at state officials

The Uvalde school district fired police chief Pete Arrendondo on Wednesday, making him the first officer to lose his job over the hesitant and fumbled response by law enforcement at a Texas elementary school as a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in a fourth-grade classroom.

In a unanimous vote held after months of angry calls for his ouster, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees fired Arredondo in an auditorium of parents and survivors of the 24 May massacre. His firing came three months to the day after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history.

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Black man left paralyzed after Texas police allegedly slam him on to concrete

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Civil rights activists and Christopher Shaw’s lawyers are demanding justice after he was severely injured while in police custody in 2021

Lawyers of a Black Texas man and civil rights activists are calling for justice after he was allegedly grabbed and slammed on to concrete ground by police officers at a jail in Beaumont, Texas, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

On Wednesday, lawyers of 41-year-old Christopher Shaw hosted a press conference that called for justice for Shaw, who was severely injured while in custody in June 2021.

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Arizona police Taser two parents as they try to enter locked-down school

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Incident followed reports of armed man being seen and comes in wake of criticism of handling of Uvalde shooting

Police fired a stun gun at two Arizona parents as they tried to force their way into a school that police had locked down after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus.

The parents were arrested, along with one other, as they tried to get to their children to protect them, authorities said. Officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser stun gun to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody.

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Alabama city disbands police force after racist text messages revealed

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City council in small community of Vincent votes to terminate police chief, assistant and then whole department

The small city of Vincent in Alabama has voted to disband its police force after the revelation of racist text messages exchanged between two of its officers.

In the exchange, which recently surfaced on social media, one user named “752” asked: “What do y’all call a pregnant slave?” To this, one person who is not identifiable through the text, responded with question marks.

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Uvalde school district officials cut off paid leave for embattled police chief

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A meeting to decide the fate of Pete Arredondo has been delayed and his leave is now unpaid, suggesting a dismissal is imminent

School district officials in Uvalde, Texas, have cut off payments to their police force’s embattled chief, who had been on administrative leave from his job but is still being compensated.

The decision on Friday comes amid scrutiny and criticism of how police handled the deadly attack at Robb elementary, where a gunman killed 21 people nearly two months ago.

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Ex-Minneapolis officer given two and a half years over George Floyd killing

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Thomas Lane convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights as Derek Chauvin, convicted of murder, pinned Floyd’s neck with his knee

A federal judge has sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane to two and a half years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights, calling Lane’s role in the restraint that killed Floyd “a very serious offense in which a life was lost” but handing down a sentence well below what prosecutors and Floyd’s family sought.

Judge Paul Magnuson’s sentence was just slightly more than the 27 months that Lane’s attorney had requested, while prosecutors had asked for more than five years in prison – the low end of federal guidelines for the charge Lane was convicted on earlier this year. He said Lane, who faces sentencing in September on state charges in Floyd’s killing, will remain free on bond until he must turn himself in on October 4.

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California police fatally shot 23-year-old Black man as he ran away, video shows

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Footage shows victim fleeing after police arrived in unmarked car and drew their guns

Police in San Bernardino, California, fatally shot a 23-year-old man on Saturday as he was fleeing, according to surveillance footage that shows an officer firing just seconds after arriving in an unmarked vehicle.

Security camera footage from a parking lot in San Bernardino, a city an hour east of Los Angeles, shows two officers driving up in an unmarked car about 8pm as Robert Adams stood in the lot. As soon as two officers exited the car, Adams turned away from them and ran. It appeared that roughly five seconds after they had stepped out of the car, one of the officers fired at Adams from a distance, seeming to hit him and causing him to collapse to the ground.

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Jayland Walker funeral: hundreds gather to mourn victim of police shooting

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Wednesday declared day of mourning in Akron, Ohio, two weeks after Black man, 25, was killed by officers after chase

Hundreds of people filled a theater and passersby sounded horns in sympathy as family and friends shared their memories of Jayland Walker, the 25-year-old Black man killed in a hail of police gunfire in Akron, at his funeral on Wednesday.

Mourners passed his open casket during the viewing at the Akron Civic Theatre, some wearing T-shirts that said “Black Lives Matter” or “Zero Threat, Zero Violence, Justice for Jayland”.

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Uvalde surveillance video shows police lingering in school hallway

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Footage captures gunman entering building amid condemnation of slow law enforcement response

Surveillance footage captured the gunman in the Uvalde school shooting entering the building with a AR-15-style rifle and later shows officers in body armor milling in the hallway outside the fourth-grade classrooms where 19 children and two teachers were killed.

The video published on Tuesday by the Austin American-Statesman shows parts of the nearly 80 minutes that passed between the gunman walking into Robb elementary school through an unlocked door and the time when his death put a stop to the US’s deadliest school shooting in nearly two decades.

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Arizona to ban people from filming police within 8ft

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Violators of the new law, which includes exceptions for traffic stops, will face a misdemeanor charge and up to 30 days in jail

A new law in Arizona bans people from taking close-range recordings of police, ostensibly to prevent them getting dangerously close to potentially violent encounters, though some critics have described it as a threat to the first amendment.

The new law prohibits anyone within 8ft of law enforcement officers from recording police activity. Violators will face a misdemeanor charge and up to 30 days in jail, though only after ignoring a verbal warning.

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Uvalde police missed several chances to stop school gunman, report reveals

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One officer asked his supervisor if he could shoot the attacker but got no answer, despite penal code not requiring permission

A newly released report found Uvalde police missed multiple opportunities to take down the gunman that killed 21 people at Robb elementary in May.

The report, released by Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center, said a Uvalde police officer asked his supervisor if he could shoot the gunman that killed students and teachers at Robb Elementary, but got no answer.

The report also found the police officer, who was armed and outside, requested to shoot the gunman before he entered the building. “Prior to the suspect’s entry into the building at 11:33:00, according to statements, a Uvalde police officer on scene at the crash site observed the suspect carrying a rifle outside the west hall entry. The officer, armed with a rifle, asked his supervisor for permission to shoot the suspect. However, the supervisor either did not hear or responded too late.”

But according to the Texas penal code, the officer did not need to seek permission because the use of deadly force is justified “to prevent the commission of murder”.

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