Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[tantalizingfemme]

"A Decade of Watching Black People Die"

Eric Garner had just broken up a fight, according to witness testimony.

Ezell Ford was walking in his neighborhood.

Michelle Cusseaux was changing the lock on her home's door when police arrived to take her to a mental health facility.

Tanisha Anderson was having a bad mental health episode, and her brother called 911.

Tamir Rice was playing in a park.

Natasha McKenna was having a schizophrenic episode when she was tazed in Fairfax, Va.

Walter Scott was going to an auto-parts store.

Bettie Jones answered the door to let Chicago police officers in to help her upstairs neighbor,who had called 911 in order to resolve a domestic dispute.

Philando Castile was driving home from dinner with his girlfriend.

Botham Jean was eating ice cream in his living room in Dallas, Tx.

Atatiana Jefferson was babysitting her nephew at home in Fort Worth, Tx.

Eric Reason was pulling into a parking spot at a local chicken and fish shop.

Dominique Clayton was sleeping in her bed.

Breona Taylor was also asleep in her bed.

And George Floyd was at the grocery store.

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/86526...ack-people-die

[Orema]

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The state of Minnesota filed a human rights complaint Tuesday against the Minneapolis Police Department in the death of George Floyd by an officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for minutes, even after he stopped moving.

Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights announced the filing at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Widely seen bystander video showing Floyd’s death has sparked sometimes violent protests around the world. The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been fired and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three other officers involved were fired but have not been charged.

“We know that deeply seated issues exist,” the governor said. “I know it because we saw the casual nature of the erasing of George Floyd’s life and humanity. We also saw the reaction of the community. They expected nothing to happen, because nothing happened so many times before.”

Walz said the investigation into the police department’s policies, procedures and practices over the past 10 years will determine if the force has engaged in systemic discrimination toward people of color, and work out how to stop it. State Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero will lead the investigation.

Lucero’s department will seek an agreement from Minneapolis city leaders and the police department to immediately implement interim measures, followed by long-term measures to address systemic discrimination.

The FBI is also investigating whether police willfully deprived Floyd of his civil rights.

Spokesmen for the police department and the mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The Minneapolis City Council planned to issue a statement on the investigation later Tuesday.

The department enforces the state’s human rights act, particularly as it applies to discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and public services. Mediation is one of its first-choice tools, but the cases it files can lead to fuller investigations and sometimes end up in litigation.

The Minneapolis Police Department has faced decades of allegations brutality and other discrimination against African Americans and other minorities, even within the department itself. Critics say its culture resists change, despite the elevation of Medaria Arradondo as its first black police chief in 2017.

Arradondo himself was among five black officers who sued the police department in 2007 over alleged discrimination in promotions, pay, and discipline. They said in their lawsuit that the department had a history of tolerating racism and discrimination. The city eventually settled the lawsuit for $740,000.

Earlier Tuesday, an attorney for Floyd’s family again decried the official autopsy that found his death was caused by cardiac arrest as police restrained him and compressed his neck. The medical examiner also listed fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use, but not as the cause of death.

A separate autopsy commissioned for Floyd’s family concluded that that he died of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression.

“The cause of death was that he was starving for air. It was lack of oxygen. And so everything else is a red herring to try to throw us off,” family attorney Ben Crump said Tuesday. He said the Hennepin County medical examiner went to great lengths to try to convince the public that what was shown on bystander video didn’t cause Floyd to die.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that prosecutors are working as fast as they can to determine whether more charges will be filed.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/...er-floyd-death

[Orema]

Vallejo police officer shoots, kills 22-year-old on his knees after mistaking hammer for gun, chief says

VALLEJO, Calif. (KGO) -- Vallejo Police shot and killed a 22-year-old following a night of looting early Tuesday morning. Today, Chief Shawny Williams said Sean Monterrosa was on his knees and an officer saw what appeared to be a gun in his sweatshirt. It turned out to be a hammer.


Sean Monterrosa, 22, was shot dead by police in Vallejo, California, early on Tuesday morning. The officer who shot him outside a Walgreens believed he was armed with a gun.

The fatal shooting came after a night of multiple calls for looting including to the Walgreens.

Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams said it appeared Monterrosa was going to get into a getaway vehicle before changing his mind.

"This individual appeared to be running toward the black sedan but suddenly stopped taking a kneeling position and placing his hands above his waist revealing what appeared to be the butt of handgun investigations later revealed that the weapon was a long 15-inch hammer tucked into the pocket of his sweatshirt," said Chief Williams.

Chief Williams says the officer who shot Monterrosa is an 18-year veteran. Chief Williams did not release his name.

Attorney John Burris is representing Monterrosa's family.

"He did not see Mr. Monterrosa put his hands on it in a threatening way. So the question here is what threat if any did he actually present," said Burris.

Of the two getaway vehicles filled with suspected looters that drove off, one rammed a responding police vehicle injuring an officer. Police caught the suspects from one vehicle in Contra Costa County. The suspects in the black sedan got away.

Chief Williams said the department has made many changes since he arrived including to its de-escalation policy.

"How was de-escalation used here," asked ABC7 News I-Team reporter Melanie Woodrow.

"Well I'll say this when they responded to the Walgreens the intent was to stop the looting and to arrest the perpetrators if necessary, the officers reacted to a perceived threat," said Chief Williams.

The department has 45 days to release body-worn camera video but Chief Williams says he plans to do so sooner.

"Based on your experience of 27 years was this excessive force," asked I-TEAM reporter Melanie Woodrow.

"Like I said the District Attorney is going to look at this and our internal affairs will look at it," said Chief Williams as people in the crowd began shouting at Williams who would not answer with his opinion.

The officer who fired the fatal shot has been placed on routine paid administrative leave as have the witness officers.

Source: https://abc7news.com/vallejo-officia...ting-/6229758/

[Cin]

In Pictures: The seven masks of Naomi Osaka

US Open champion wore masks with different names for each of her seven matches to honour Black victims of violence.


https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/in...064504142.html

[Orema]

'You are so missed': voicemails celebrate the birthdays of people of color murdered by law enforcement

An online audio project is collating messages to focus on the lives of those black and brown people killed by police.


Happy Birthday gives me another feeling of being happy and joyful that Oscar was a young man, that people cared about him,’ said the Reverend Wanda Johnson, whose son Oscar Grant III was murdered by transit police. Photograph: Even/Odd

On the surface, it seems almost quotidian. Voicemails of birthday wishes for someone celebrating their special day. “Happy birthday, Oscar! I promised your mom I would call and tell you Happy birthday!” starts one voicemail. Others begin with introductions of who is calling, then launch into birthday messages. Some are just “Happy birthday, Oscar!” It’s ordinary, pedestrian, until the audio of his mother, the Reverend Wanda Johnson, begins to play.

Oh, Oscar. You are so missed,” she begins, her voice laden with heartbreak. “My heart still aches for you. I think about you every single day. And not a day goes by without you being on my mind.” She laments: “Tomorrow, in five minutes, will be your 35th birthday and I miss you so, so very much. I still now have to get up and turn off my light because you’re not here to turn off my light for me any more. Your life was cut way too short. And I truly love, love, love, love and miss you. My baby boy. Until we meet again. Love you, Mom. Always.”

Her son, Oscar Grant III, was murdered on New Year’s Day 2009 by Bart transit police in Oakland, California, his death caught on camera by witnesses. He was only 22. But on 1800HappyBirthday.com, the people in his community celebrate a milestone, his 35th birthday.

1800 Happy Birthday is an art installation which focuses on celebrating the birthdays of black and brown men and women who have been murdered by law enforcement through birthday voicemails. Volunteer run and community supported, the project focuses on subverting the narrative of the fallen, focusing less on death and more on life.

Visitors of the site are confronted with a large list of names, some familiar, others not. The names are written in a gothic font, their sunrise and sunset dates set in a cursive script. For several names, a play button with celebratory voicemails awaits, filled with well wishes from people who called in via a hotline. Animated by community interaction and embraced by community remembrance, it’s reminiscent of a street memorial, like a mural or a bouquet of roses set on a concrete sidewalk among lit candles and stuffed animals.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGX_KQXJ...eo_watch_again

Film-maker and co-founder of production studios EVEN/ODD, Mohammad Gorjestani conceived the series as a way to explore the intimate pain of such a loss. It featured the loved ones and families of Philando Castile, Mario Woods and Oscar Grant III on the birthdays of the deceased. “What I kept getting frustrated by in the news and media was that they would always kind of focus on these tragedies in a way that really just focused on the immediate impact on the families, the grief, the anger,” he said. “And then they would move on to the next headline. I felt like that was dehumanizing because to think of people like Oscar Grant and George Floyd as martyrs for a movement, that is dehumanizing. I felt like making something that looked into the more quiet grief and the more humanistic side of people.”

With Covid-19 creating an obstruction for him as a film-maker, Gorjestani pondered ways to bring the series to life and came up with the idea of birthday voicemails. “Voicemails and birthdays are something that have a certain nostalgia to us. Everyone remembers getting a call for their birthdays in the voicemails. There’s something extremely human about that,” he said. After getting approval from the family of Mario Woods, the project launched on the day San Francisco designated as Mario Woods Day, on 22 July. He adds: “Everybody can relate to a birthday. Everybody can relate to people calling you on a birthday. It’s like food. It’s a universal language.”

The murder of black and brown people at the hands of law enforcement is a sensitive subject, often discussed insensitively. Because of this, 1800 Happy Birthday is intentionally more evocative than provocative. The project attempts to close the berth between the humanity and legacy of the fallen and the media coverage surrounding their death. “I don’t actually think about this project as grief as I think it is an evolution of grief, which is to celebrate, to remember, to basically hold people with honor. To remember them. When you listen to these voicemails, they’re very loving. They’re remembering someone for the human that they were, as opposed to the headline that they were. I think it’s important that we transcend simply looking at these tragedies as only failures of the criminal legal system,” said Gorjestani.

Through the site, the victims are preserved in public memory, in the seizing voicemails created by their family, friends and community. “What I think is powerful about audio only, there’s a certain command that I’ve noticed that people [engage with] ... You can’t help but listen,” Gorjestani said. “It’s also first person audio. It’s not speaking about somebody in the third person. It’s speaking directly to someone. As a listener, you’re remembering that these individuals were somebody’s son, were somebody’s brother, were somebody’s sister, were somebody’s close somebody, as opposed to a name in the public realm.”


Oscar Grant III artwork by Leah Chappell Photograph: Leah Chappell

Indeed, there is so much more to one’s life than their death. There was so much more to Oscar Grant III. When asked about her son, Rev Johnson doesn’t begin with Oscar’s murder, rather his love for athletics, his intelligence, his excitement for life, his wit, and his leadership skills. “Oscar was a young man who loved to play sports,” she said. “He played baseball, basketball, football. He loved to be a leader in his very own right. I remember, one year, he was on a baseball team. We had signed him up late so they ended up putting him on the team with some younger kids. Every time he would get up, he would hit a home run. Those kids looked up to him during that season of baseball.”

She went on to recount his interests and aspirations, fondly sharing anecdotes about her son. “As a young man, he loved to do prayer at church, in front of the whole entire congregation,” she said. “He would love to sing at church in the choir and you could hear him being the loudest singer there. I would be like ‘Boy! Shush, not so loud!’ and he’d be louder! He was just that kind of young man who always shined out in front of a crowd.” She added: “Oscar was a father. He was a son. He was a brother. He was an uncle. He was a nephew and great nephew. He aspired to become a barber.”

Grant’s short life presents the question of a life unlived, due to violent means, of dreams, aspirations unfulfilled. Rev Johnson now runs a foundation which bears Grant’s name, where they organize athletic programs and help the community as she believes he would have done – had he had the chance to live out his life. Even prior to the series, she would host community events on his birthday as a way to heal and help heal. Through 1800 Happy Birthday, she is able to hold space for her son even without the community celebration.

“This project sheds a different light,” she said. “It humanizes Oscar. It gives you the opportunity to really get to know who Oscar is and it also gives you the opportunity to share what you thought about Oscar. It has definitely brought joy to my eyes all week. People calling in, wishing him a happy birthday, singing to him … It just lets me know that no matter how long it’s been, Oscar will always be a part of me and he will always be with me. He may not be here physically but he’s still in my heart and he’s in other hearts where they’re able to share that very thing.”

Gorjestani hopes to breathe more life into 1800 Happy Birthday in a similar fashion, as Johnson did with the Oscar Grant Foundation. At the moment, plans to expand the project into a book or physical traveling art installation are notional, dependent on funds and, of course, Covid-19. Even so, Rev Johnson says the project’s existence and community participation is encouraging to her.

“Oscar was a people’s person,” she said. “We had celebrated my birthday the last day together that we had as a celebration. He loved birthday celebrations. It’s this love of birthdays which makes this particular celebration of life so relevant to his legacy. “Oscar always loved to celebrate,” she said, “He loved birthdays. He loved gifts. He was just that kind of young man … Happy Birthday gives me another feeling of being happy and joyful that Oscar was a young man, that people cared about him. He was a young man that had aspirations and goals. He was a young man who was going to be successful in this society had he been given that opportunity.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artandde...aw-enforcement

[GeorgiaMa'am]

This may not be exactly the right thread for this kind of post, but I couldn't find a better one. I apologize if it's not in the right place.

I was listening to a news story about jury selection for Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd. They played a clip of one of the potential jurors who had been asked what he thought about the police in general (or something similar, I'm paraphrasing). The potential juror's answer included a description of police driving through the neighborhood where George Floyd's death occurred, immediately following the incident, and blaring "Another One Bites the Dust" from their loudspeakers.

How in the world are cops allowed to behave this way? I know the police unions back them up all the time, to the extent that they are allowed to get away with murder, but to be so openly provocative and hateful is just beyond the pale. I don't know why I'm so surprised that there are such hateful people in the world, I guess I shouldn't be. I think what I'm really surprised at is that there is a culture which exists in the world that allows this kind of hate and callous glee at someone's murder to be so openly demonstrated. I'm just sick of it all, it makes me ill.

[firegal]

[QUOTE=GeorgiaMa'am;1282155]This may not be exactly the right thread for this kind of post, but I couldn't find a better one. I apologize if it's not in the right place.

I was listening to a news story about jury selection for Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd. They played a clip of one of the potential jurors who had been asked what he thought about the police in general (or something similar, I'm paraphrasing). The potential juror's answer included a description of police driving through the neighborhood where George Floyd's death occurred, immediately following the incident, and blaring "Another One Bites the Dust" from their loudspeakers.



As a firefighter for 36 years and on the union exec board for MANY years. The missnomer is the unions dont defend the actions but have to by law to represent the member in the process of fair representation.To make sure right or wrong they are treated fair and consistant. They could sue the union or go to AFL-CIO and have a sanction/lawsuit against the union if they didnt. Unions are not part of the appeals/investigation they just represent the member to ensure consistancy in the policys/process.Also to ensure the penalty.s are consistant and make sense for the infraction.Trust me there are many times the offense is not even defensable and we have to just help with the penalty for our member