Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Deputy Caught on Camera Kicking Suspect’s Head During Arrest

http://fox40.com/2018/02/01/deputy-caught-on-camera-kicking-suspects-head-during-arrest/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_con tent=5a738f1304d3011002d0b5a1&utm_medium=trueAnthe m&utm_source=twitter

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - After reviewing video circulating on social media that shows a brutal arrest conducted by two sheriff's deputies in San Bernardino, officials have asked members of the public who witnessed the incident to come forward.

Authorities are concerned with the actions of one of the deputies in particular who is seen in the cellphone video repeatedly kicking the suspect in the head after the man was handcuffed and his body limp, according to KTLA.

The arrest occurred last Friday around 1 a.m., and investigators are hoping to interview motorists who were in the area at that time, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

The one-minute clip opens as one deputy has 21-year-old Gerardo Bernabe Vasquez pinned to the ground, with Vasquez's legs squirming.

Moments later, a second deputy arrives on the scene. As the second deputy begins to arrange Vasquez's hands to cuff them, the first deputy punches Vasquez twice in the head.

After Vasquez is handcuffed, the deputies each pick up one of his arms as they attempt to load him into a patrol vehicle. But Vasquez's body has gone limp, his torso and legs flopping toward the ground as his arms are raised behind his back.

The deputies drop him, and it is then that the first deputy begins to kick his face. It appears he strikes him three times, stepping on his head in the final blow.

Vasquez was eventually booked on suspicion of resisting or obstruction an officer, was cited and later released, the Sheriff's Department said. It was unclear why or how the two parties initiated contact.

The deputy seen striking Vasquez was placed on paid administrative leave, pending the results of the probe. Authorities said they would not identify the deputy while the investigation is ongoing.

Sheriff's officials said they were already investigating the incident when the video gained attention on social media, and Sheriff John McMahon said he found the "level of force" seen in the video concerning.

“I expect our employees always to remain professional when contacting the public, who we serve," McMahon said in a statement. "I can assure you that we take these matters very seriously and we will conduct a thorough and complete investigation.”

[Andrea]

Darby cops' arrest of 11-year-old girl was excessive

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/jenice_armstrong/darby-cops-arrest-of-11-year-old-girl-was-excessive-jenice-armstrong-20180215.html

After a call came in about a disturbance on a bus Tuesday afternoon, Darby Borough police went into action. An officer arrived on the scene in Delaware County, did some interviews, and determined that he had probable cause to make an arrest. So he handcuffed an 11-year-old girl.

Yes, you read that correctly.

A fifth grader at Chester Community Charter School, Zakiyah is small for her age. She stands about 4-feet-5 and weighs just 55 pounds. A cellphone video taken before she was taken into custody shows her sitting on a school bus. She appears calm. Still, she was cuffed with her little wrists behind her back and placed in the back of a police van.

Zakiyah (I’m not giving out her last name) was understandably terrified and told NBC10 that she thought she would never be able to see her family again.

Her mother told me Thursday she was still trying to wrap her head around the situation.

“I never thought that I had to give my 11-year-old ‘the police talk,’ ” said Jawania Browne, referring to warnings that African American parents have been giving their children for years about staying safe around police officers. “I was thinking more so my son, and he’s only 1. But as he grows up, I was thinking that I’ve got to really drill it into my son – but not my daughter. But I guess none of us are exempt.”

Authorities took Zakiyah to the Darby police station and placed her in a juvenile holding area. Zakiyah was presented with a non-traffic citation that alleges “defendant did, with the intent to cause public inconvenience or alarm, create a physically hazardous or offensive condition by actions which served no legitimate purpose to the actor.”

Mind you, this drama started because she and a schoolmate had gotten into a fight on a school bus. I don’t know what happened, and frankly I’m not all that interested. To me, what started the dispute doesn’t matter. Children fight. They’re kids.

I’m concerned about that little girl. She’s traumatized. Her attorney, Joe Montgomery, says it was “the worst day of her life.”

Zakiyah’s mother says that since being taken into custody, her daughter — who already had been in counseling for emotional issues — hasn’t been sleeping well and has had nightmares. This isn’t how elementary-age kids are supposed to be treated.

Max Tribble, a charter school spokesman, declined to release details of the incident, citing privacy concerns. He said the school, in Delaware County’s Chester Upland School District, hadn’t yet been contacted by Darby police.

I also reached out to Chief Robert Smythe at home, where he was recuperating from a bad case of the flu. He said the arresting officer had merely been following established protocol.

“I understand that it sounds harsh,” Smythe told me between coughs. “She was in custody for an assault of which we were processing her. There were wounds to the other child. I understand how it sounds, but that’s the policy.

“She was being processed because she committed an aggressive assault against another person,” Smythe continued. “We had her in custody for 57 minutes. It’s not like we put her in a cell and held her for hours. … There are police policies that we try to follow. If you are in custody, you are in handcuffs. That’s the policy.”

As for her being detained in a juvenile holding area, he said, “She just can’t walk the hallways.”

Well, what about her being put in the back of a police van?

“The officer that responded, that was his vehicle for the day,” Smythe said.

Yeah, tell that to her mom. Browne is understandably upset. She’s keeping Zakiyah home from school for now, taking her to counseling, and also considering private school options.

“I would never have thought that they would have locked up an 11-year-old child and treated her like that,” she said.

Nor would I.

[Andrea]

San Diego police points-for-arrests program under investigation

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-sdpd-program-20180316-story.html

San Diego police Chief David Nisleit has launched an internal investigation into a program intended to reward officers for drug-related arrests and citations in communities near the border with Mexico.

According to a memo sent to about 90 officers within the department’s Southern Division last week, patrol officers were to receive a half a point to 2 points for the arrests or citations, with the top point-earners given the opportunity to work in specialized units for up to a month.

On Friday, Nisleit denounced the concept of the program, which he said was not authorized by the department’s top brass. He said the program was shut down before it was implemented.

“Programs like this are not in line with the values of the San Diego Police Department and something that I would ever allow,” Nisleit said during a news conference called in response to outcry in the community.

The uproar marks Nisleit’s first encounter with a Police Department controversy since he became chief earlier this month.

During a separate news conference held outside the Police Department’s downtown headquarters, about a dozen community leaders said the matter represents an opportunity for the new chief to build a strong relationship with the community.

“This is really a test of Chief Nisleit's new administration," said Andrea Renee St. Julian, vice president of the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association. "He really needs to step up to the plate and he needs to show he is serious about attacking the attitudes that gave rise to this email, not just through words but through action."

St. Julian and other leaders demanded transparency from the Police Department and called for a separate, independent investigation into the program by the Attorney General’s Office.

They said even if the program wasn’t enacted, the idea behind it enforces the notion that there is a culture of racial bias within the department.

"We're calling on the chief to talk about how he is going to solve the problem where there is a culture in SDPD where someone felt comfortable enough to send an email to 90 officers about an unethical and unjust incentivized program … that would target people of color and minorities," said Genevieve Jones-Wright, a deputy public defender running for district attorney.

Darwin Fishman, a criminology professor at San Diego Mesa College, said the concept behind incentive programs opens the door for officers to make "unethical decisions" to meet a quota.

During his news conference, Nisleit said the idea of the program came from a “front-line supervisor with the intent of motivating our officers and focusing their efforts on drug enforcement within our community … in direct response to numerous community complaints regarding this drug activity. ”

He added: “The program was never intended to target anyone from a specific group, race or socioeconomic class.”

According to the memo sent to Southern Division officers — which was obtained by the Union-Tribune — patrol officers who received the most points for arrests or citations between March 1 and April 14 were to be given the opportunity to work in a specialized unit for two to four weeks, regardless of their tenure. The memo says the voluntary program was meant to motivate officers, increase proactive policing and help build knowledge and skills.

The memo was emailed by a sergeant to Southern Division officers — who patrol neighborhoods including San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Egger Highlands, Palm City and Nestor — on March 9.

Nisleit said his office was made aware of the program the following day and halted it. The chief said he reviewed arrest statistics and that there was not a spike in that time period.

“All of the arrests were based on probable cause,” he added.

News of the program came to light after a police officer came forward with details in an interview with 10 News — a move community leaders said shows there is not an open-door policy within the Police Department.

Nisleit disagreed, urging officers who feel their concerns are being ignored by supervisors to reach out to him and his assistant chiefs.

“I want to hear about it,” he said.

Nisleit said his department’s internal investigation would get to the bottom of how the details of the program were shared with officers without approval. The chief said any “appropriate corrective measures” would be taken based on the results of the investigation.

[Andrea]

Week of Hell: Dozens of African Detainees Allege Serial Abuse and Hate Crimes at Notorious Private Immigration Jail

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/24/week-of-hell-dozens-of-african-detainees-allege-serial-abuse-and-hate-crimes-at-notorious-private-immigration-jail/

Late last month, roughly 80 immigrant men from Somalia, Kenya, and Sudan arrived at a remote, for-profit detention center in West Texas to await deportation. In the week that followed, the men were pepper-sprayed, beaten, threatened, taunted with racial slurs, and subjected to sexual abuse. The treatment they endured amounted to multiple violations of federal law and grave human rights abuses — and it all happened over the course of a single week. These are the findings of chilling new report by a collection of Texas-based legal advocacy groups.

The alleged abuse was so grave that advocates for the men have now filed a series of complaints with the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and local authorities calling for investigations into what happened behind the locked doors of the detention facility. According to the advocates, the U.S. attorney’s office has forwarded those complaints, which included alleged hate crimes perpetrated by detention center guards, to the FBI.

The alleged abuse was so grave that advocates for the men have now filed a series of complaints with the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and local authorities.

The detention center in question, known as the West Texas Detention Facility, is operated by LaSalle Corrections, a for-profit outfit that, according to its website, “manages 18 facilities with a total inmate capacity of over 13,000 and leases one facility to a law enforcement agency.” The report, published Thursday, provides a jarring glimpse inside the world of privatized immigrant detention, which the Trump administration is seeking to expand. The allegations bear disturbing similarities to other abuse claims made by detainees of African descent in recent weeks.

Compiled by the Texas A&M University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, the University of Texas School of Law Immigration Clinic, and RAICES, a Texas-based legal organization, the report is based on interviews with 30 Somali men who described their experiences at the West Texas Detention Facility from February 23 to March 2 of this year. The report points to consistent accounts of detention center personnel, including the warden of the facility, all of whom are contractors under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, engaging in deeply abusive practices.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) takes very seriously any allegations of misconduct or unsafe conditions,” ICE spokesperson Leticia Zamarippa said in a statement to The Intercept. “ICE maintains a strict zero tolerance policy for any kind of abusive behavior and requires all staff working with the agency to adhere to this policy. All allegations are independently reviewed by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility. ICE has not been made aware of any allegations prior to this initial reporting from RAICES.”

The backgrounds of the men, who ranged in age from their 20s to their 50s, varied. “Some came to the U.S. as refugees when they were children. Others entered recently with visas or without status,” the report says. Some of the detainees are married to U.S. citizens and have U.S. citizen children. One of the interviewees in the report who fits that description, a man whose name was given only as Taifa, came to the U.S. at age 12. He was convicted of marijuana possession in 2002. Twelve years later, ICE came to his home and arrested him. He has been moving through immigration court and the detention system ever since.

What all of the men have in common, the report notes, is that they “were in ICE custody for the sole purpose of effectuating deportation after receiving final orders of removal.” All of the men interviewed reported having been pepper-sprayed at least once during their week in detention, while 14 others — nearly half of the interviewees — reported other types of physical abuse.

All of the men interviewed reported having been pepper-sprayed at least once during their week in detention.

Diana Tafur, a supervising attorney with RAICES who took part in the investigation, told The Intercept that for reasons of confidentiality, the full complaints detailing what the men experienced have not been made public. Tafur said the network of groups that investigated the alleged abuse were initially tipped off by family members and attorneys for the men locked inside the West Texas facility. The interviews, which were conducted last week, culminated in complaints filed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and its inspector general’s office, as well as local authorities.

“The assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Texas responded right away and they did say that they had forwarded the information to the El Paso division of the FBI,” Tafur said, adding that the “horrific abuse rose to violate various federal crimes, as well as civil violations.”

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

One detainee, a man called Dalmar, told the legal advocates that the warden of the West Texas Detention Facility hit him in the face four times while he was in the nurse’s office. “Are you going to let this happen?” Dalmar recalled telling the medical staff, to which a staff member allegedly responded, “We didn’t see anything.” Dalmar claims he was then “placed in solitary confinement, where I was forced to lie face down on the floor with my hands handcuffed behind my back while I was kicked repeatedly in the ribs by the warden.”

“When I told him, ‘I‘ll get a lawyer to sue you,’ the warden responded, ‘We’ve got enough money,’” Dalmar claimed.

According to the LaSalle Corrections website, Mike Sheppard, a veteran corrections officer, has overseen the West Texas Detention Facility as warden since 2015.

The Intercept reached out to the West Texas Detention Facility looking to speak to an official who could comment on the report. A receptionist at the facility said, “Technically we’re not supposed to give out that information or we can’t give out that information.” When asked what specific categories of information the facility couldn’t give out, the receptionist replied, “Any information.” The receptionist then provided a number for LaSalle’s corporate office. The number connected to a voicemail box that had not been set up. The Intercept also called LaSalle’s Austin office. A receptionist there said an official with the company would or would not respond with comment later in the day. The company ultimately did not respond.

Under ICE’s 2000 National Detention Standards, as Thursday’s report notes, contractors working with the immigration enforcement agency are permitted to use force “only after all reasonable efforts to resolve a situation have failed. Staff must attempt to gain a detainee’s willing cooperation before using force, and under no circumstances should force be used to punish a detainee. Yet numerous detainees reported excessive use of force as punishment, without cause, and as the initial action taken in a situation.”

The complaints in the report shed light on the lack of enforcement options available under the standards and ICE’s unwillingness to ask private contractors “for strict adherence” to them, said Elissa Steglich, a professor at the University of Texas Law School’s immigration clinic. “These are contractual arrangements with private corporations, and we’ve seen ICE defer to their private interests,” she said.

The men interviewed for the report independently describe witnessing or being subjected to physical force that included multiple accounts of officers throwing detainees to the floor and, in one case, slamming a man’s head against the concrete “even though he did not resist.” The report adds: “One of the detainees, Sharmaarke, alleged that LaSalle corrections officers sexually assaulted him by fondling his penis and groin area over his clothes while he was pushed against the wall.”

“This happened to him multiple times,” the report claims.

In addition to the physical abuse, the detainees who had been through the West Texas facility described use of solitary confinement — what the government euphemistically refers to as “administrative segregation” — that appears inconsistent with the guidelines ICE contractors are required to abide by.

Under those rules, a committee at the facility is required to hold a hearing and issue a formal order before a detainee is removed from the general population. “None of the detainees we talked to who were placed in solitary confinement were provided copies of their segregation orders, found guilty of committing a prohibited act at a hearing, or posed a threat,” the report notes.

Instead, the report suggests a pattern of detainees being thrown into solitary for arbitrary or vindictive reasons, including asking for socks and underwear, talking too loudly to the warden, and asking to be sent back to Somalia.
MESA, AZ - OCTOBER 15: An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), charter jet is pushed back for departure on October 15, 2015 in Mesa, Ariz. The plane, carrying undocumented immigrants, flew to other states for follow-on ICE deportation flights to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. ICE builds deportation cases against thousands of undocumented immigrants. The number of ICE detentions and deportations has dropped in the last two years since some states adopted laws limiting how state law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Thursday’s report comes just weeks after an Intercept story on strikingly similar complaints made by a group of Somali detainees at an immigration detention center 1,800 miles away from western Texas — the Glades County Detention Center in Florida. Since December, dozens of Somalis who were on a botched deportation flight that was returned to Miami have been in detention, several of them accusing guards at the detention facility of violent assaults and racism. (ICE has denied the allegations.)

Detainees in Texas reported being pepper-sprayed on multiple occasions, leading, in some cases, to difficulty breathing and coughing up blood; being placed in solitary confinement as a form of punishment, including after being pepper-sprayed; and being the subject of racial epithets from guards at the detention facility. Similarly, some detainees at Glades reported that guards used pepper spray against them as a form of punishment, including by spraying into a crowded cell, making it difficult to breathe. The Glades detainees also said that they were sent to segregation units after making complaints and that they had experienced racism at the jail. “They called them ‘niggers.’ They called them ‘boy.’ They’ve said things like, ‘We’re sending you boys back to the jungle,’” Lisa Lehner, one of the attorneys representing the Glades detainees, told The Intercept last month.

At the West Texas facility, detainees similarly reported guards using racist language when addressing them. “Shut your black ass up. You don’t deserve nothing. You belong at the back of that cage,” one detainee recalled an officer saying. “Boy, I’m going to show you. You’re my bitch,” recalled another. “You are a terrorist,” said a third.

“The pattern and practice of abuses LaSalle corrections officers engaged against the group of African detainees over the course of a week amounts to hate crimes, conspiracy against rights, and a deprivation of rights under color of law,” says the report. “The officers used epithets (‘terrorist’ and ‘boy’ and ‘n*’) in combination with beatings, broad and indiscriminate use of pepper spray, and routine and arbitrary use of segregation and other violations to demean and injure the men.”

By congressional mandate, ICE is required to meet a quota of 34,000 beds filled each day. The Trump administration has sought to increase that number to 51,000. Housing that many people requires significant resources devoted to medical care. In that area, too, the West Texas Detention Facility appears to have fallen woefully short.

In 2015, Taifa, the man who came to the U.S. at age 12 and now has a U.S. citizen family, was involved in a car accident where he shattered his pelvis and suffered brain trauma. According to the report, his injuries require multiple medications and psychiatric care. However, since he was detained, Taifa said he had not received medications or had access to a psychiatrist. A detainee named Mohamed, who claims to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the torture and murder of family members in his home country, added that he was denied medication to treat his PTSD at the facility. He also claimed that he had not received any medical care in response to him coughing up blood after being pepper-sprayed several times.

Many of the men interviewed for the report have spent months or years in detention after receiving a final order of deportation because ICE was not able to deport them to Somalia. Steglich, the University of Texas Law School professor, said two deportation flights were canceled in the last month, without explanation from ICE. Many of the men did not have travel documents and could not reach their embassy, which might have been a reason for the delay, she noted.

“Overall, this raises a real question of the credibility of ICE engaging in pre-detention of folks who have been ordered deported without any assurance that flights can actually happen,” Steglich said. “I think it’s significant that we saw weeks, if not months, of detention that we know of, and two flights not going forward. And that begs the question of the necessity of [ICE] detaining folks when they did and keeping folks detained.”

The West Texas Detention Facility has a history of scrutiny for its conditions. In 2016, the ICE Office of Detention Oversight reported the detention facility had multiple deficiencies with discipline and health services. “A review of facility training records showed facility staff did not consistently receive required training on the use of non-lethal equipment, e.g. oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray,” ICE investigators found, using the name for the active ingredient in pepper spray.

A 2016 article from Fronteras Desk, a collaboration of public radio stations across the southwestern U.S., mentions detainees complaining of inhumane treatment at the facility, including some who said they were forced to use plastic bags as toilets. In May 2017, Mexican journalist Martín Méndez Pineda, who was seeking asylum in the U.S., wrote a Washington Post column on his experiences at the West Texas Detention Facility, where he was held. It was there, he said, that he “experienced the worst days of my life.”

“I’ve had family members tell me their loved one will not tell them about what’s going on because they’re too afraid to do so.”

Alan Dicker from the Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee, a collective that works with detained migrants, said the report’s findings were not surprising. But many detainees will not speak out about conditions inside the facility, he added, out of fear of retaliation.

“They’re terrified,” Dicker told The Intercept. “I’ve had family members tell me their loved one will not tell them about what’s going on because they’re too afraid to do so.”

According to the LaSalle website, the detention center was owned by Emerald Corrections until April 2017, when LaSalle acquired it. Sheppard, the current warden of the facility, was previously working for the facility under Emerald, according to LaSalle’s website.

Though complaints of abuse have dogged the West Texas Detention Facility for years, Steglich said the guards are no doubt emboldened by the anti-immigrant rhetoric emanating from the highest levels of government. In January, for example, President Donald Trump reportedly used the word “shithole” to describe African countries.

Andrea: Clink link for rest of article

[Andrea]

SAPD officer pulled out woman's tampon, did vaginal search on side of road, lawsuit claims

https://www.ksat.com/news/sapd-officer-pulled-out-womans-tampon-did-vaginal-search-on-side-of-road-lawsuit-claims

A lawsuit filed in federal court Friday claims a San Antonio Police officer pulled a woman's tampon out and searched her vaginal cavity along the shoulder of a public street in 2016.

Natalie D. Simms' attorney filed the lawsuit against the City of San Antonio and a female officer, identified as Mara Wilson, stating that the search violated Simms' constitutional rights.

According to the filing, Simms was approached by officers while sitting on a curb, talking on the phone and waiting for her boyfriend. The lawsuit claims Simms consented to a search of her car, which was parked across the street from where she was sitting, and that authorities found no illegal items.

Then, the lawsuit alleges, authorities called a female officer, Wilson, to the scene to search Simms.

The lawsuit details parts of the conversations between Simms and Wilson, recorded from Wilson's body camera. According to the court documents, Simms and Wilson went back and forth about the kind of clothes she was wearing before Wilson began searching her vaginal cavity.
The following is a quotation of a conversation between Simms and Wilson, included in the lawsuit, leading up to the search:

Wilson: Stand up straight. Kind of lean back a little bit. (Inaudible) This
is -- these are shorts? Oh, it's a skirt-short?
Simms: Yes.
Wilson: Oh, hell. Okay. Look straight ahead, okay. Spread your legs. I'm
gonna ask you, do you have anything down here before I reach down here?
Simms: No. I don't have nothing in my --.
Wilson: Okay.

The lawsuit alleges Wilson assured she would not "reach," rather "just look," but that Simms kept flinching.
The following is a quotation of a conversation between Simms and Wilson, included in the lawsuit, during the search:

Wilson: Uh-huh. Are you wearing a tampon, too?
Simms: Yes.
Wilson: Okay. I just want to make sure that's what it is. Is that a tampon?
Simms: Come on. Yes.
Wilson: Huh? Is that a tampon?
Simms: It's full of blood, right? Why would you do that?

The lawsuit alleges Simms asked why she had to be searched on the side of a road and not at "the station," to which Wilson said "Which (police station)? We got a whole bunch of them."

Court documents report that Wilson told a detective she was "searching everything," and had removed Simms' tampon because she "just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything in there."

The document states Simms never consented to the vaginal cavity search and that authorities never found anything illegal during their search. She was allowed to leave.

An internal investigation, the lawsuit states, revealed the officer that called Wilson to the scene "never indicated to do a cavity search." Court documents state Wilson retired on May 1.

Simms' attorney is asking for a jury trial.

The city's attorney said his office is still reviewing the lawsuit and had no comment Sunday.

[Andrea]

Stephon Clark protester hit by Sacramento County sheriff's vehicle during march

http://www.sacbee.com/news/article207598209.html

A protester at a vigil Saturday night for Stephon Clark was hit by a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department vehicle on Florin Road, the latest tense moment between law enforcement and activists following the March 18 police shooting death of the unarmed black man.

Witnesses and the struck protester said the sheriff's vehicle left the scene.

The collision, captured on video by Guy Danilowitz of the National Lawyers Guild, occurred as protesters marched down Florin Road in south Sacramento.

The activist struck was Wanda Cleveland, a regular at Sacramento City Council meetings. She lay immobile on her side in the street until a fire department crew arrived to pick her up.

Cleveland was released from Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center after midnight, with bruises on her arm and the back of her head.

"He never even stopped. It was a hit and run. If I did that I’d be charged," Cleveland said at the hospital. "It's disregard for human life."

In a press release early Sunday morning, sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Shaun Hampton confirmed the accident had occurred. The release said two sheriff's department vehicles were surrounded at about 8:40 p.m. by protesters who were yelling and kicking the vehicles.

"Vandals in the crowd" caused "scratches, dents, and a shattered rear window" to a sheriff's vehicle, the release said. The release did not address why the vehicle that struck Cleveland did not stop, and Hampton did not immediately respond to a request for further details.

Dominique Poydras, who was attending the vigil, said a group of protesters had surrounded a Sheriff's Department vehicle and a few were throwing eggs at it.

Based on footage captured by Channel 10, a sheriff's vehicle pulled up, lights flashing, as protesters marched in the street. About three dozen people then surrounded the vehicle and kept chanting.

The sheriff's deputy four times sounded his siren and said, "Back away from my vehicle." He slowly pulled forward and left the scene. A second sheriff's vehicle followed and struck Cleveland, sending her to the curb, the Channel 10 video shows.

Cleveland said that when the first vehicle said to clear out, she started to walk toward the curb because her arthritis was making her knees weak. The second vehicle driver made no request, she said, and abruptly accelerated and hit her in the knee, sending her into the air.

"I heard wheels spin. And then I saw her body flung to the curb," Tifanei Ressl-Moyer, another legal observer who witnessed the incident, said. "The vehicle sped off and some protesters went after them."

The sheriff's department release said the patrol vehicle was traveling at "slow speeds" when the collision occurred.

[Andrea]

Video shows police repeatedly punching man pinned to street as he cries, 'Why?'

http://www.kcra.com/article/video-shows-police-repeatedly-punching-man-pinned-to-street-as-he-cries-why/19667978

Police in Texas are investigating a weekend arrest in which an officer was caught on video kneeling on a black man’s back and punching him while another officer kneed him.

In the 50-second video of Saturday’s arrest posted on Facebook by the Next Generation Action Network, which organizes demonstrations against police abuse, two Fort Worth police officers can be seen restraining Forrest Curry, 35, as he lies face-down in the street. A white officer kneels on Curry’s back and repeatedly punches him as he cries, “Why the f--- are you punching me? Why?” A black officer next to Curry knees him repeatedly in his side.

Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said in a statement Sunday that the officers were responding to a call for backup from fire department personnel, who told the officers that Curry “appeared to be intoxicated and had attempted to assault them.”

It took three officers and one supervisor about five minutes to subdue Curry, Fitzgerald said.

Curry, 35, was booked into Tarrant County Corrections Center on charges of resisting officers and evading arrest. He was released on bond Monday afternoon.

One of his attorneys, L. Chris Stewart of Atlanta, said Curry has a history of seizures and had one Saturday while walking that caused him to collapse in the street.

When Fort Worth emergency medical staff arrived in response to a call for help, Curry came to and, disoriented, took off running.

“It’s just sad that in a medical emergency, (police) couldn’t have been more patient or understanding,” Stewart said.

It is the latest in a string of confrontations that have raised questions about the Fort Worth Police Department’s use of force policies.

Two lawsuits related to the use of force by city police officers were filed in December.

In one of them, Jeremi Rainwater, who is white, contends that an officer shot him in the back without cause and several other officers colluded to cover up the flawed police response.

A grand jury that reviewed the officers’ behavior in the 2015 shooting did not file any charges against them.

In the other, Jacqueline Craig, who is black, is suing over a December 2016 arrest in which a Fort Worth officer wrestled her and her teenage daughter to the ground. Those arrests were captured on cellphone video.

Charges against Craig and her daughter were dropped, and the officer served a 10-day suspension for violating departmental policies.

In addition, last December, a Fort Worth police sergeant was fired for ordering a rookie officer to use a stun gun on a woman who had called for help during a domestic dispute. Fitzgerald released a 12-minute video from the body camera of the rookie officer that he said showed the sergeant’s behavior was “absolutely unacceptable.”