Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Cin]

Cop harasses two women for holding hands and acting affectionate in a grocery store while on vacation in Hawaii. He bumps and pushes one while she tries to call 911 and punches the other in the face when she tries to step between him and her girlfriend. She was denied medical treatment at the scene and after she was arrested. Pictures of her injuries weren't taken until two days after the assault.

The Hawaii News Now article says they don't know if the cop is still on duty, but the Chicago Tribune reports that he remains on full active duty. The women have a lawsuit pending.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/3...ssing-in-store

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...028-story.html

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

Cop harasses two women for holding hands and acting affectionate in a grocery store while on vacation in Hawaii. He bumps and pushes one while she tries to call 911 and punches the other in the face when she tries to step between him and her girlfriend. She was denied medical treatment at the scene and after she was arrested. Pictures of her injuries weren't taken until two days after the assault.

The Hawaii News Now article says they don't know if the cop is still on duty, but the Chicago Tribune reports that he remains on full active duty. The women have a lawsuit pending.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/3...ssing-in-store

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...028-story.html

All of this is horrifying but this is just the final horror:

"As a condition of their release, they couldn't leave Oahu and wound up sleeping in a park.

After five months, prosecutors threw out the case, said their attorney, Eric Seitz."

I hope that they win tons of money and that cop is fired. It is unbelievable that he is still on full duty!

We now have a totally militarized police force in the USA.

To what end?


"Not Just Ferguson: 11 Eye-Opening Facts About America’s Militarized Police Forces
by Alex Kane


The “war on terror” has come home — and it’s wreaking havoc on innocent American lives. The culprit is the militarization of the police.

The weapons that destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq have made their way to local law enforcement. While police forces across the country began a process of militarization — complete with SWAT teams and flash-bang grenades — when President Reagan intensified the “war on drugs,” the post-9/11 “war on terror” has added fuel to the fire.

Through laws and regulations like a provision in defense budgets that authorizes the Pentagon to transfer surplus military gear to police forces, local law enforcement agencies are using weapons found on the battlefields of South Asia and the Middle East.

A recent New York Times article by Matt Apuzzo reported that in the Obama era, “police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.” The result is that police agencies around the nation possess military-grade equipment, turning officers who are supposed to fight crime and protect communities into what looks like an invading army. And military-style police raids have increased in recent years, with one count putting the number at 80,000 such raids last year.

In June, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought more attention to police militarization when it issued a comprehensive, nearly 100-page report titled, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing. Based on public records requests to more than 260 law enforcement agencies in 26 states, the ACLU concluded that this police militarization “unfairly impacts people of color and undermines individual liberties, and it has been allowed to happen in the absence of any meaningful public discussion.”

The information contained in the ACLU report — and in other investigations into the phenomenon — is sobering. From the killing of innocent people to the almost complete lack of debate on these policies, police militarization has turned into a key issue for Americans. It is harming civil liberties, ramping up the “war on drugs,” impacting the most marginalized members of society and transforming neighborhoods into war zones."


NOTE: the article is long so I am not including them but it is very worth reading

Also NOTE: this article was written in 2014 but I do not see much has changed, if anything, since that time. VICE also did an episode on the militarization of the police which aired on HBO previously.

"...11 important — and horrifying — things you should know about"


http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/13/not...police-forces/

[Cin]

Thank you for that article Anya!

It is interesting to note that it has never been safer to be a cop. This article is from mid September, but it has noted that so far 2015 is one of the safest years for American policing in history, both in absolute terms and adjusted for population. The most dangerous time to be a police officer was during Prohibition, since then it's only gotten safer. As a matter of fact it is more dangerous to be a fisher, logger, pilot, roofer, miner, trucker or taxi driver. It’s actually safer to be a cop than it is to simply live in many U.S. cities.

http://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never...-be-cop-372025
Excerpt:
"There are real liabilities to inflating the threats to police. If you tell cops over and over that they’re in a war, they’re under siege, they’re under attack, and that citizens are the enemy—instead of the people they’re supposed to protect—you’re going to create an atmosphere of fear, tension, and hostility that can only end badly, as it has for so many people.

There is no war on cops. Not now, not last year, not any of the times that ideologues and media hacks have tried to invent one.

Cops need to know this. And so do we.

As I wrote in the Freeman last year, “Disproportionate fears about officer safety are leading inexorably to the disproportionate use of force”—as well as leading many people (especially those who have never witnessed police misconduct) to excuse obvious brutality in the name of officer safety."