Sunday, August 8, 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Closing arguments Thursday in Mehserle trial

Closing arguments Thursday in Mehserle trial: "Mehserle's black Sig Sauer P226 pistol weighed roughly 2 1/2 pounds, more than three times as much as his yellow Taser X26."

Monday, June 21, 2010

Traffic stop video on YouTube sparks debate on police use of Md. wiretap laws

Traffic stop video on YouTube sparks debate on police use of Md. wiretap laws: "Miller has documented eight arrests in the past few years, including one of an Oregon man who was arrested for using his cellphone camera to tape police he says were being rough with a friend and a Chicago artist who taped his arrest for selling $1 artwork. 'Most of the people getting arrested are not criminals,' Miller said. 'It is just really a power trip on the side of police.'"

Saturday, October 3, 2009

When Pigs murder people....

Florida cop attempts drive-by Tasering, runs over suspect | Raw Story

“The man on the bike was on the sidewalk, boogeying down, trying to get away,” [witness Jamison] Boler said. “The policeman fired a Taser out the window. The guy (on the bike) made a U-turn and ditched the bicycle and kind of did a somersault on the ground. Not two seconds later, the cop car just ran over him,” Boler said. “The cop ran up on the curb and hopped out of the car and said, ‘Where are you at?’ The guy was still underneath his car. You can still see his red shoe sticking out.”
Another witness, David Taylor, 25, said the male, who appeared to be a teenager, was dragged after being stuck beneath the police car. “The kid fell off the bike (after being shocked with a stun gun) and then was stumbling because of the momentum,” Taylor said. “It was probably about 10 to 15 feet that the man was drug.”
The police car came to a stop about 35 feet from the male’s bicycle. The man remained pinned beneath the car for more than three hours before the car was removed and his body was taken away

Monday, September 28, 2009

Pig Brutality

Joseph Rios: Ronnie Holloway Beating Cop Indicted

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/video.



The victim is schizophrenic. The pig told him to take off his sweatshirt.WTF?

Monday, August 17, 2009

Taser safety issues - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taser safety issues - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- Police Abuse: Texas police and DA accused of highway robberies!

- Police Abuse: Texas police and DA accused of highway robberies!

Police Brutality: 14 yr old girl Tasered in the Head NM

14 yr old girl Tasered in the Head NM

Taser sues Canadian government

Taser sues Canadian government

Taser International Inc. filed a lawsuit Friday in Canada blasting a government report that prompted severe limitations on how and when law-enforcement officers in British Columbia can use stun guns.

Officials with the Scottsdale-based manufacturer called the Braidwood Inquiry biased and asked the Supreme Court of British Columbia to quash all of its findings and declare those involved in compiling evidence derelict.

"We provided . . . more than 170 studies, periodicals (and) reports with respect to the safety of the device and use-of-force questions," David Neave, an attorney for Taser in Canada, said Friday. "All of that information clearly indicates that when the device is used properly there is not cardiac effect. For reasons unknown to us, that information did not wind its way into the report."


The 18-month-long Braidwood Inquiry, headed by retired Judge Thomas Braidwood, concluded in July that Tasers can cause death.

In his 556-page report, Braidwood criticized law enforcement for putting the stun gun on the street with little or no independent testing and recommended restricting use of Tasers. Within hours, the head of public safety in British Columbia adopted all 19 of Braidwood's recommendations, including a ban on Tasers in non-criminal situations or where there is not an imminent threat of bodily harm.

A spokesman for the Braidwood Inquiry.....

more....

How California’s prisons became make-work projects for jailers

How California’s prisons became make-work projects for jailers

snip

Sullivan singles out California's Three Strikes You're Out law, which imprisons anyone convicted of a third felony, even non-violent offenders, for life. And behind the effort to make that law happen was one influential union: The California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

NPR reports:

In three decades, it has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. It has contributed millions of dollars to support Three Strikes and other laws that lengthen sentences. It donated a million dollars alone to Governor [Pete] Wilson after he backed Three Strikes. And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped from 15,000 in 1980 to today, where one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.
The state's huge prison officers payroll is at least in part to blame for the fact that California now spends as much on imprisoning its criminals as it does on educating its children, Sullivan points out.

"The notion that we are some prison industrial complex, or that we're recruiting felons or trying to change laws, is a misnomer," a union spokesman told Sullivan.

But Sullivan reported that "much of the funding to promote and push for the passage of the laws came from a political action committee the union created. It's run out of a group called Crime Victims United of California. Its director, Harriet Salarno, says they are independent from the union. But a review of the PAC's financial records show the PAC has not received a donation from another group besides the union since 2004."

Audio of NPR's report can be downloaded here (MP3).

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

more.....

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Police Chiefs In Sarah Jessica Parker Surrogate Case Arrested

Police Chiefs In Sarah Jessica Parker Surrogate Case Arrested

Disorderly Conduct: Conversation About Gates Arrest Precedes Arrest

Disorderly Conduct: Conversation About Gates Arrest Precedes Arrest:
A lawyer who moments earlier had been complaining to friends about police overreaction in the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., got a taste of the Gates treatment himself after loudly chanting "I hate the police" near a traffic stop in Northwest Washington, D.C

::snip::

Tuma filed a complaint with the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, alleging a lack of probable cause, a false arrest, and that the officer used harassing and demeaning language -- Tuma alleges the officer called him a "faggot." Tuma has retained a lawyer. He might sue if he's not satisfied after a meeting with the complaint office on Thursday.

"I have an actionable claim," he said.

The Huffington Post obtained a copy of the collateral/bond receipt that lists the charge, but the D.C. Police Department declined to comment and the arresting officer did not answer or return calls to the station.

While the Gates incident has largely been treated as a story about race, many have noted, from the Los Angeles Times to Christopher Hitchens to Maureen Dowd, that the incident said as much about police use of disorderly conduct laws. Tuma agrees.

"People talk about the Gates thing in terms of race, but it's an ongoing problem of police using disorderly conduct to shut people up," Tuma said.

Monday, July 27, 2009

911 Call, Police Audio In Gates Arrest Released By Police

911 Call, Police Audio In Gates Arrest Released By Police

My Comments:
"His problems started when his anger crossed the threshold. Even though he was still on his own property, it could be construed as Disturbing the Peace; "Disorderly Conduct" in this jurisdiction.

That he was ASKED to step outside by the porcine one with the INTENT of entrapment to facilitate an arrest... is potentially racist; but undeniably an abuse of power.

Thus the dropping of charges.
The cops wouldnt have dropped the charges if they were not wrong!"

permalink

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Police Brutality: Cops Punt Man In The Head, Then High-Five (VIDEO)

Police Brutality: Cops Punt Man In The Head, Then High-Five (VIDEO)

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video.



We have had a nazi epidemic.
That man had surrendered and they let the dog BITE HIM and then they act like punk gangbangers and BEAT on him after the first nazi kicked him in the head?

Somebody needs to treat THEM like that.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Video sharpens focus on raid | Philadelphia Daily News | 03/30/2009

Video sharpens focus on raid Philadelphia Daily News 03/30/2009

Video sharpens focus on raid
Store owner's hidden back-up shows cops snipping security-camera wires
By WENDY RUDERMAN & BARBARA LAKERPhiladelphia Daily News
rudermw@phillynews.com 215-854-2860
THE NARCOTICS officers knew they were being watched on video surveillance moments after they entered the bodega.
Officer Jeffrey Cujdik told store owner Jose Duran that police were in search of tiny ziplock bags often used to package drugs. But, during the September 2007 raid, Cujdik and fellow squad members seemed much more interested in finding every video camera in the West Oak Lane store.
"I got like seven or eight eyes," shouted Officer Thomas Tolstoy, referring to the cameras, as the officers glanced up. "There's one outside. There is one, two, three, four in the aisles, and there's one right here somewhere."
For the next several minutes, Tolstoy and other Narcotics Field Unit officers systematically cut wires to cameras until those "eyes" could no longer see.
Then, after the officers arrested Duran and took him to jail, nearly $10,000 in cash and cartons of Marlboros and Newports were missing from the locked, unattended store, Duran alleges. The officers guzzled sodas and scarfed down fresh turkey hoagies, Little Debbie fudge brownies and Cheez-Its, he said.
What the officers didn't count on was that Duran's high-tech video system had a hidden backup hard-drive. The backup downloaded the footage to his private Web site before the wires were cut.
Although Duran has no video of the alleged looting, he has a 10-minute video that shows the officers using a bread knife, pliers, milk crates and their hands to disable the surveillance system.
The officers didn't "touch the money with the system looking," said Duran, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic 15 years ago and has no prior criminal record in Philadelphia.
They touched "the money after they destroy all the system," he said.
Duran, 28, of South Jersey, a technology buff, said that he was upset that the officers had wrecked his $15,000 surveillance system.
"That was his main complaint - that they destroyed his surveillance system," Duran's attorney, Sonte Anthony Reavis, said last week. "I believed him."
Duran's video bolsters allegations by eight other Philadelphia store owners who said that Cujdik and other officers destroyed or cut wires to surveillance cameras. Those store owners also said that after the wires were cut, cigarettes, batteries, cell phones, food and drinks were taken. The Daily News reported the allegations March 20.
The officers also confiscated cash from the stores - a routine practice in drug raids - but didn't record the full amount on police property receipts, the shop owners allege.
Six more store owners or workers, including Duran, contacted the Daily News after the March 20 article. All six described similar ordeals involving destroyed cameras and missing money and merchandise.
The officers arrested the stores' owners for selling tiny bags, which police consider drug paraphernalia. Under state law, it's illegal to sell containers if the store owner "knows or should reasonably know" that the buyer intends to use them to package drugs.
Duran alleged that the officers seized nearly $10,000 in the raid on his store, on 20th Street near 73rd Avenue. He said that the money included a week's worth of profits and cash to pay his three employees.
The property receipt filed by the officers said that they had confiscated only $785.
Told of the new allegations, George Bochetto, an attorney representing Cujdik, said that he stood by his earlier response:
"Now that the Daily News has created a mass hysteria concerning the Philadelphia Narcotics Unit, it comes as no surprise that every defendant ever arrested will now proclaim their innocence and bark about being mistreated.
"Suffice it to say, there is a not a scintilla of truth to such convenient protestations."
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BLOGNOTE:
As the police force is increasingly militarized bad cops become bolder and bolder.
Where do they get the nerve? What do they know? We are only seeing the ones who get caught. They are like cockroaches.... if you see one, there are a thousand hiding in the walls. And they are allowed to breed!!!

Update:
EDIT:
Did I say "cops"? Because that gives them too much credit.
These are roving bands of militarized, over-reaching, militarized PIGS!!!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Lorain fires officer for stun-gun use

Lorain, (Ohio) fires officer for stun-gun use
This happened in 2006, but I like to post GOOD NEWS once in a while.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana

Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana
Orleans Parish (New Orleans) is EXCLUDED from the declaration. This is ethnic cleansing.

I had to use the Wayback Machine to find this page; since it was scrubbed by the new administration from the WH website.

I got a screenshot (3 clicks to full size. Allow pop-ups)

DEA Raids Cannabis Clinic in San Francisco

DEA Raids Cannabis Clinic in San Francisco

"Just last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said federal agents would not go after marijuana distributors unless they violated both federal and state laws

In a statement, DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams said that based on an ongoing investigation they believe the clinic violated federal and state law."



This is developing. I will remove this item if they have a good reason for the raid.

Why havent they said what law was broken? The DEA needs to be pressed for an answer!

Friday, March 20, 2009

WTO Protesters treated worse than Nazis treated protesters


WTO
In February 1943, the Gestapo arrested almost two thousand Jewish men in Berlin who had German gentile wives. Knowing the men would be taken to camps if they weren't promptly released, their wives congregated on Rosenstrasse, a street in front of the Gestapo-guarded building where the men were held. The women then did a remarkable thing. They began protesting the arrest and imprisonment of their husbands. They sang, held hands, and they chanted slogans such as, "Give us back our husbands." The Gestapo and Berlin police menaced the women, threatening to arrest them, but they refused to get off the street or stop demonstrating until the men were released. After a week of protests, the Gestapo finally relented and released the men, many of whom survived the war. Although the Rosenstrasse protest took place in the capital of Nazi Germany during wartime, not a single protester was harmed in any way or arrested by the Gestapo or the police. [1]

The significance of the Gestapo's hands-off treatment of German women protesting their Jewish husbands' imprisonment is in its sharp contrast with the behavior of police during the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Seattle, Washington that began on November 30, 1999. [2] Martial law was declared over a 50 square-block area of downtown Seattle on the conference's first day after a small number of people broke a few windows, burglarized a couple of stores and overturned some newspaper boxes. No one knows who started the vandalism, but people around the world saw how police used it to justify creating confrontations, to promote mayhem and violate international human rights standards. The police did this by attacking thousands of unarmed and peaceful demonstrators and bystanders with chemical agents, jack boots, truncheons, "flash-bang" grenades, wooden pellets and hard plastic bullets. [3]
CBS cameraman put in choke hold while handcuffed by nazi pig.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Professor: Detainees' accounts confirm White House authorized torture

Professor: Detainees accounts confirm White House authorized torture

:: "What do we know about the level of coordination between officials at these black sites and officials in Washington?" she asked.

Danner replied that "the interrogators were in constant touch with their superiors at CIA headquarters" and were getting authorization for every interrogation technique. "The chain of decision-making ... is very well-established," he emphasized. "These weren't rogue officers."

"The director of Central Intelligence at the time [in 2002] ... was George Tenet, who was traveling across the river every day to principals' meetings at the White House," Danner continued.

"The principals' committee includes the National Security Adviser, then Condoleezza Rice; the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Colin Powell; the then-Attorney General, John Ashcroft," Danner noted, "all of whom were briefed on this day by day -- not least because George Tenet apparently was worried that he would get stuck with this and he wanted to be sure that he had explicit confirmation that these procedures could go forward." ::

Monday, March 16, 2009

Sparks fly after court Taser demo for children - Las Vegas Sun

Sparks fly after court Taser demo for children - Las Vegas Sun: "When Tasers go wrong, they go terribly wrong. This is made clear in the release form Taser International makes volunteers sign before getting zapped at company-sanctioned events: two pages of liability legalese that outline a vast potential for pain. You might take a Taser prong to the eye, the release warns. Be ready for the possibility of passing out, hitting your head, having a seizure or a heart attack, or suffering a “strain injury” — a hernia, a rupture of some variety, a bone fracture, a cracked vertebra."

Bill would restrict police use of Tasers - Las Vegas Sun

Bill would restrict police use of Tasers - Las Vegas Sun
But wait, there’s more about the bill that Metro doesn’t like — AB273 would limit the circumstances in which police can use Tasers. Metro officers are currently allowed to use the electronic control devices during “custodial or arrest situations.” In other words, when officers are attempting to arrest someone who’s not cooperating, when they are trying to catch someone to arrest him, or in any self-defense situation. The phrase “compliance tool” tends to rub cops the wrong way, but that’s how Tasers are routinely used. The bill aims to put an end to that.

The legislation would allow police to use Tasers only on a person who committed a felony that involved the infliction or threat of bodily harm, or on someone who the officer believes poses a threat of bodily harm to himself or another person. The bill would make Tasers acceptable “only as an alternative to deadly force.”

Police officers are not crazy about any of this: the videos or the attempt to constrain their Taser use.

more....

Friday, March 13, 2009

Texas town's police seize valuables from black motorists | Top Stories | Star-Telegram.com

Texas town's police seize valuables from black motorists

TENAHA — You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana border if you’re African-American, but you might not be able to drive out of it — at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables.

That’s because the police here have allegedly found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead, they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: voluntarily sign over your belongings to the town or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

More than 140 people reluctantly accepted that deal from June 2006 to June 2008, according to court records. Among them were a black grandmother from Akron, Ohio, who surrendered $4,000 in cash after Tenaha police pulled her over, and an interracial couple from Houston, who gave up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them into foster care, the court documents show. Neither the grandmother nor the couple were charged with or convicted of any crime.

Officials in Tenaha, situated along a heavily traveled state highway connecting Houston with several popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking, and they call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state’s asset-forfeiture law.

That law permits local police agencies to keep drug money and other property used in the commission of a crime and add the proceeds to their budgets.

"We try to enforce the law here," said George Bowers, mayor of the town of 1,046, where boarded-up businesses outnumber open ones and City Hall sports a broken window. "We’re not doing this to raise money. That’s all I’m going to say at this point."

But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha’s practice something else: highway robbery. The lawyers have ....

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Iowa Guard ends urban war exercise amid outcry | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

Iowa Guard ends urban war exercise amid outcry | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

The Iowa Army National Guard has dropped plans for urban warfare training in the western Iowa town of Arcadia after being deluged by nearly 100 e-mails and phone calls from gun-rights advocates nationwide.

The four-day event in April would have involved between 90 and 100 combat troops arriving in the Carroll County community in a convoy with a Blackhawk military helicopter flying overhead.


Troops would have gone door to door, asking the town's 443 residents about a suspected arms dealer and conducting searches of homes if property owners volunteered in advance to cooperate.

There was no opposition to the Guard's plans from city leaders. But gun-rights advocates were outraged, and news about the exercise became a hot topic nationally on radio talk shows and the Internet.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

State trooper sues Taser over broken leg - BostonHerald.com

State trooper sues Taser over broken leg - BostonHerald.com: "Trooper James J. Foley, 38, says he disclosed to a Taser representative that he had a metal rod in his left leg before he and other law enforcement officers tested the company’s X26 “electronic control device,” according to a federal lawsuit filed yesterday.
After the February 2006 seminar, his leg throbbing with pain, Foley went to the hospital - where an X-ray showed a new fracture and a surgical screw “bent at almost 90 degrees,” said Thomas Healy, Foley’s attorney. The lawsuit filed by Foley and his wife seeks unspecified damages."

karma?

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Hit & Run > Gotcha! - Reason Magazine

CopBusters! Gotcha! - Reason Magazine

"To clarify just a bit, according to Cooper, there was nothing illegal going on the bait house, just two evergreen trees and some grow lamps. There was no probable cause. So a couple of questions come up. First, how did the cops get turned on to the house in the first place? Cooper suspects they were using thermal imaging equipment to detect the grow lamps, a practice the Supreme Court has said is illegal. The second question is, what probable cause did the police put on the affidavit to get a judge to sign off on a search warrant? If there was nothing illegal going on in the house, it's difficult to conceive of a scenario where either the police or one of their informants didn't lie to get a warrant.

Cooper chose the Odessa police department for baiting because he believes police there instructed an informant to plant marijuana on a woman named Yolanda Madden. She's currently serving an eight-year sentence for possession with intent to distribute. According to Cooper, the informant actually admitted in federal court that he planted the marijuana. Madden was convicted anyway."

Friday, October 24, 2008

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Bad Cops, No donuts

Cops having sex in the police station
They should be tasered butt-naked in the middle of the main intersection of town... at lunch time.... and broadcast on the TV

Saturday, September 13, 2008

RCMP didn't study Taser use enough: Report

RCMP didn't study Taser use enough: Report

They just took the word of the Taser manufacturer.
I mean, why would THEY lie about the hundreds of deaths caused by their product (when used as intended)

Freakin NAZIS.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Taser ends emu scamper on Pennsylvania Turnpike - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Taser ends emu scamper on Pennsylvania Turnpike - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "After two hours of chasing it on the road, trying to corner it in the woods and even attempting a cowboy-style lassoing, troopers finally decided to stun the 4-foot-tall bird with a Taser to stop it rather than shoot it.
DeLuca said it was the only choice left.
'We tried everything to save the bird,' he said.
The bird fell to the ground after the shock. Troopers moved the emu -- which was still alive -- to the side of the road. That's where it took its last breath."

Tasers are DEADLY FORCE, gawddammit

Thursday, August 14, 2008

WWL - AM870 | FM105.3 | News • Talk • Sports | OnDemand@1350 - AP - content

Former La. police officer indicted in Taser death
Aug 13, 10:21 PM EDT


Former La. police officer indicted in Taser death

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press Writer



NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A former police officer accused of repeatedly jolting a handcuffed man with a Taser before he died was indicted on a manslaughter charge Wednesday by a grand jury in central Louisiana.

The Winn Parish grand jury also indicted former Winnfield police officer Scott Nugent on a charge of malfeasance in office stemming from the Jan. 17 death of Baron Pikes, 21.

Pikes was shocked nine times with a 50,000-volt Taser as he was arrested on a drug possession warrant in January, authorities said. Winn Parish District Attorney Chris Nevils said Nugent broke the law when he "unnecessarily" used the Taser on Pikes multiple times and failed to get him medical attention "when it was apparent he needed it."

"In a civilized society, abuse by those who are given great authority cannot be tolerated," Nevils said in a statement.

Nugent, who is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 21, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the manslaughter charge. The malfeasance charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Nugent was fired but is appealing his dismissal. Phillip Terrell, Nugent's lawyer, has said his client followed department protocols and didn't use excessive force.

After the panel's decision, Terrell said the grand jury has only heard prosecutors' side of the story. "It now comes time for us to be able to present our side of the story," he said.

Since the grand jury's decision Wednesday, Terrell said Nugent had surrendered to sheriff's deputies and was booked on the two charges. He was released from jail after posting $45,000 bond, Terrell said.

The parish's coroner, Dr. Randolph Williams, ruled in June that Pikes' death was a homicide. Williams said he consulted with two other coroners, and both agreed that Pikes died of cardiac arrest caused by the Taser shocks.

Terrell disagreed with the coroner's conclusion but said he hasn't pinpointed the cause of death. "We haven't been allowed to see the autopsies yet," he said.

Carol Powell Lexing, a lawyer for Pikes' family, called the indictments "just one step toward justice."

Anger over Pikes' death has threatened to inflame racial tensions in Winnfield, where the population of roughly 5,800 is evenly divided between black and white residents. Pikes was black; Nugent is white.

more.....

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Police State

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/11/2008 | Cop cameras don't just catch speeders, they raise cash: "Easy-to-miss automated speed cameras on its half-mile main drag, where the speed limit is 30 mph, caught 3,500 speeders on their first day of operation last fall. Before that, the norm was six tickets a day."

Man accused of resisting arrest claims police beat him : Local News : The Rocky Mountain News

Man accused of resisting arrest claims police beat him : Local News : The Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The Raw Story | Witnesses allege police brutality in death of tasered man

Witnesses allege police brutality in death of tasered man

A Pennsylvania man has died after being tasered by local police, and the Civil Rights section of the FBI's Pittsburgh office has now opened a preliminary investigation. Although the cause of death has not yet been determined, witnesses insist the man was kicked and beaten by police officers after he was forced to the ground and handcuffed.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Think Progress » Blackwater received millions in small business contracts — but it’s not a small business.

Blackwater received millions in small business contracts — but it’s not a small business.
Blackwater received millions in small business contracts — but it’s not a small business.»
An audit by the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration found that private security firm Blackwater “obtained dozens of small business contracts worth more than $110 million even though” the company “may have exceeded size limits for a small business”:

The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration said Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., obtained 39 contracts set aside for small businesses from 2005 through 2007. Of these, 32 contracts worth $2.1 million were set aside for companies with annual revenues of $6.5 million or less.

Blackwater’s revenues have exceeded $200 million each of those years, according to federal contracting data.

The report said that Blackwater “may have improperly classified Blackwater guards in Iraq and Afghanistan as independent contractors rather than employees.” It’s a tactic other private contractors have used to avoid paying taxes.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Durango Herald Online

Mich. police taser Durango newlyweds during wedding reception


Durango Herald Online

Homeland Security Meets The Sopranos - International Analyst Network

Homeland Security Meets The Sopranos - International Analyst Network“My question is why would Drew Griffin’s name come on the watch list, post-his investigation of TSA?” Jackson Lee said.

“What is the basis of this sudden recognition that Drew Griffin is a terrorist? Are we targeting people because of their critique or criticism?”

Chertoff hedged, saying it was not his “understanding the reporter was put on [the list]” but that Griffin may share a name with someone put on the list.

Which is almost impossible to believe. Unless you are willing to accept that someone else coincidentally named Drew Griffin was discovered to be a terrorist almost seven years after 9/11 but within a week or two of CNN’s March 2008 air date.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Taser Suffers a Rare Loss in Court - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

Taser Suffers a Rare Loss in Court - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog: "From The Herald of Monterey County, Calif., the local paper on the case: A federal jury has held Taser International responsible for the death of a Salinas man in U.S. District Court in San Jose on Friday, and awarded his family more than $6 million in punitive and compensatory damages.An attorney for the family called the verdict a “landmark decision,” and indicated that it was the first time Taser International had been held responsible for a death or injury linked to its product."

Edit to add:
One of the comments to this article included this;
25.June 10th,
2008
1:59 pm Would the police have used firearms in any of these cases?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WdPgF6trtjA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NH_qVJfaYZA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KWaCD6jIH5Q
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uIY3TemTpaM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8RGe8fJ597w
http://youtube.com/watch?v=e6vBVUusmP0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FZ3GXLpClD4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdCUdR8qNF4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE
http://dailybruin.com/news/2006/nov/16/community-respon ds-to-taser-us/

— Posted by fn