Blue Lives Matter Much Much More: Texas Authorities Murder Latino Man to Obtain Revenge/Justice for the Murder of a White Cop After Supreme Court Denies Appeal

From [HERE] The State of Texas Wednesday executed Wesley Ruiz after the US Supreme Court denied Ruiz’s petition to for a stay. Ruiz, convicted of fatally shooting a Texas police officer, filed an application with the court on Tuesday to stay his execution and consider his petition for a writ of certiorari. The court denied both the application for stay of execution and Ruiz’s petition for writ of certiorari. 

In his petition to the court, Ruiz alleged issues of racial bias amongst the jurors who sentenced him to death. Ruiz provided an affidavit from the jury foreman describing Ruiz as an “animal” and a “mad dog.” The foreman also stated that Hispanic individuals in the audience were “gang members” that scared the jury. According to Ruiz’s petition, the foreman managed to persuade an unsure juror into the death penalty by saying Ruiz could be dangerous. Another juror stated that racial integration had changed her neighborhood. The same juror’s sister had been victimized by a man the juror thought to be Hispanic and involved in the “smuggling” of undocumented people. 

Ruiz was executed utilizing lethal injection, a method which he had challenged in state court. Ruiz filed a lawsuit in December, claiming that the state was utilizing expired and unlawfully obtained pentobarbital in lethal injections. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice denied that the drugs were expired. The state’s Attorney General filed a writ of prohibition to prevent the case from being heard. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) granted the writ of prohibition in early January. 

Ruiz’s execution comes only days after another Texas death row prisoner, Terence Andrus, took his own life, after multiple appeals to the Supreme Court. In 2020, the court found in Andrus’s favor, remanding the case to the TCCA. However, the TCCA reaffirmed their earlier decision.

Liberal Black Rolebot Refuses to Hold Evidentiary Hearing Despite New Evidence Raising Doubt About Leonard Taylor’s Conviction. Missouri Authorities Plan to Murder Black Man Tomorrow

From [HERE] Leonard Taylor is a Missouri death-row prisoner who was convicted in 2008 of a quadruple murder that occurred in St. Louis in December 2004. His execution is scheduled for February 7, 2023. Taylor has consistently maintained his innocence. Although Taylor’s attorneys have discovered new evidence to substantiate his claim, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell announced that he would not ask a judge to hold an evidentiary hearing in the case.

Taylor claims that he was not in St. Louis at the time of the murder. In support of that claim, a forensic pathologist submitted a signed affidavit that cast doubt on the medical examiner’s determination of the time of death in the murders. According to the pathologist, Dr. Jane Turner, the evidence suggests the victims were killed after Taylor left St. Louis. When prosecutors learned of his “airtight alibi,” Taylor alleges they prodded witnesses to change their testimony about the timing of the homicides, putting him in town.

Taylor is currently in solitary confinement. In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Taylor said he has sought strength in his Islamic faith and is a “student of life.”

Blacks Not Wanted by Impostor Pale Hebrews [Israeliens]: Terrorcrat Netanyahu's Nazi Regime Offers African Migrants $3,500 to Leave "Enlightened" Israel

According to FUNKTIONARY:

Israeliens – impostor (pale interloper alien) Hebrews—Eastern European stock Caucasians who adopted the philosophy myths fables and traditions of the so-called “Jews” while living in Russia—masquerading as if they had any genetic or historical ancestry and cultural heritage to the Afrikan Hebrews the Afrim people who occupied Canaan (Palestine) from ancient times. 2) those who currently are occupying Palestine (the land of Canaan) colonizing and killing its rightful descendants historic owners and dwellers) and are undeniably alien (foreign—not aboriginal) to that land. 3) impostor Hebrews originating from the Pale of Settlement in Kazzarian Russia currently an occupying force (militarily holed-up and propped-up by US financial support and British skullduggery) in occupied Palestine. 4) alien Jews—Pinchbeck Hebrews. Israeliens are East Europeans with no genetic or actual historic ties whatsoever to the land now called Palestine. Israeliens have brainwashed (and fooled) themselves and many others into believing this historical lie and propaganda that they are the descendents of “Jews” (a misnomer for African Hebrews, itself a misnomer for the Afrim people). Anyone with a modicum of research skills knowledge of basic geography philology and an unbiased-by-religious-myth mind can easily confirm or validate this fact for his or herself. Both so-called Sephardim and Ashkenazim “Jews” are not historically tied to the Afrim. It’s not that Caucasians who have adopted the “Jewish” religion shouldn’t have a place to live—but how about suggesting relocating where they came from—the hills of Russia and not on another peoples’ land. You don’t invade (break into) someone’s house (property) and expect them to just go away and not fight to get it back (despite how much force, murdering, deception, and propaganda that is brought to bear to justify such wrongful invasion and genocide). Psychological repression is both invisible and reflexive. (See: Zionism, USS Liberty, Gulf of Tonkin, Genocide, Immigrant Human, Jew, Twelve Tribes of Israel, Evolution, Caucasian, Pilgarlick, El & Judaism)

From [HERE] Not even one month into his sixth term as Israel's Prime Minister, the chaos that marred Benjamin Netanyahu's last term in the office has already reared its ugly head. Although his term at the head of the 24th Knesset only just began on December 29th, the return of the familiar face at the helm of the State of Israel has not calmed the turbulent waters of a legislature that has seen its ruling governments falter time and time again since the ouster of Netanyahu in June of 2021.

From the onset, critics of Netanyahu's newest government have characterized his hardline ruling coalition as one of the most far-right in the world. Those tensions have led to policy making directed to implement expansive judicial reforms in order to solidify the reign of Netanyahu's latest administration. The totalitarian tenor that has enveloped the political discourse across Israel has led to the emergence of a constitutional crisis centering on proposed judicial reforms. That agenda has evoked a fervent outcry from opponents who fear that Israel has come under the rule of extremists. Netyanyahu's latest proposal will do little to qualm that criticism.

Following public remarks from Netanyahu in which he recounted his previous efforts in 2013 to rein in illegal immigrants entering the country from Israel's border with Egypt, the Prime Minister announced a plan to expel the remaining entirety of the 60,000 Africans who entered the country before it was able to erect a barrier to prevent them from doing so. Since then, Israel has already deported a third of that number - 20,000.  Despite that, Netanyahu has doubled down on his hardline immigration rhetoric by going as far to announce a policy which will offer African migrants a payment worth $3,500 and free air travel to return to the nations they emigrated from. “We have expelled about 20,000 and now the mission is to get the rest out,” Netanyahu said in remarks embodying how hardlined his ruling faction has become.

Further details on the policy elucidate how Israel will partner with alternative destinations to expel African migrants to. Migrant rights groups have surmised that Rwanda and Uganda have joined forces with Netanyahu's government to facilitate the mass deportation scheme. Israeli Immigration officials conveyed that there are presently 38,000 migrants freely living illegally in Israel along with 1,420 being held in detention centers. While the $3,500 incentive to leave Israel is on the table now, those officials have stated that that monetary award will shrink after March until it's eventually weened down to zero and any migrants found to be in the country afterward will face incarceration.

Netanyahu's latest immigration crackdown isn't the first instance in which a Knesset under his rule has been maligned for policy making its critics have characterized as a xenophobic violation of human rights. in 2013, a report emerged that African migrants coming to Israel had been unknowingly subjected to mandatory contraceptive injections. Depo-Provera injections administered in three month periods drew comparisons to forced sterilization campaigns like those conducted during the Holocaust. That human rights abuse affected over 130,000 Ethiopian migrants who themselves were Jewish and had repatriated to Israel under the tenet of Aliyah, which Jews acknowledge as the birthright of their religions adherents to seek refuge in Israel.

To garner support for his current proposal to initiate a mass expulsion of African migrants, Netanyahu stoked fear in his citizens nationwide by characterizing the illegal immigrants as an existential threat to Israel, an oft-repeated line he has aimed at his opponents throughout his decades in Israeli politics. Netanyahu expounded on the premise that his impetus to deport migrants was rooted in populist support, painting a picture in which he illustrated how residents of Tel Aviv live in fear due to the presence of Africans who have come to settle there. “So today, we are keeping our promise to restore calm, a sense of personal security and law and order to the residents of south Tel Aviv and those in many other neighborhoods,” he said.

In classic Netanyahu fashion, the Prime Minister has deflected away from the controversies his government lies at the center of by courtesy of the coincidental timing of an attack against Jewish residents of Israel by Arab extremists. During the last days of his fifth term as Prime Minister, Netanyahu led a military campaign in Palestinian territories which he likely envisaged as the vehicle he needed to evoke the popular support to prevent the dissolve of Likud's ruling coalition at the time, albeit to no avail. Now, in the wake of a fatal synagogue shooting in which a 21-year old Palestinian gunman killed seven Jews, Netanyahu has turned to the familiar posture as the self-avowed sole savior capable of preserving Israel's right to exist. [MORE]]

Although Racism is an Integral Part of its Culture and the Public Devaluation of Arabs is Part of Everyday Life, "Democratic" Israel is Definitely Not an Apartheid State According to Racists at the EU

From [HERE] It is anti-Semitic to say Israel perpetrates the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, according to the European Union.

That would mean that major rights groups including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Israel’s B’Tselem – which is funded by the EU – are guilty of anti-Jewish bigotry, according to Brussels.

The EU’s extraordinary claim came in response to a question from several pro-Israel members of the European Parliament directed towards the EU’s executive body, the European Commission.

The lawmakers stated that Amnesty’s report last February “alleges that apartheid was inherent in the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and has been built on and maintained by successive Israeli governments.”

The lawmakers asked if EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also views Israel as an “apartheid state.”

They also wanted to know if Borrell considers Amnesty’s report to be “anti-Semitic” under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, “given that it claims that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor (i.e. an apartheid state).”

“Not appropriate”

The pro-Israel lawmakers should be fully satisfied with Borrell’s written response issued on 20 January.

“The Commission considers that it is not appropriate to use the term apartheid in connection with the State of Israel,” Borrell wrote.

Borrell affirmed the EU’s reliance on the so-called IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and emphasized: “Claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor is amongst the illustrative examples included under the IHRA definition.”

The highly politicized IHRA definition, heavily promoted by Israel and its lobby, has faced broad opposition due to concerns that it will be used in precisely the manner Borrell is now deploying it: to falsely label legitimate criticism of Israel and its crimes as anti-Jewish bigotry.

Borrell provided no factual basis for dismissing the meticulous research from multiple human rights groups showing how Israel perpetrates apartheid, a serious crime against humanity covered by the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court.

But he did go on to reassert the EU’s ritualistic and empty adherence to “a negotiated two-state solution.”

Crime against humanity

Under international law, the crime of apartheid is defined as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

B’Tselem – the EU-supported human rights group – stated in January 2021 that Israel operates “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” – all the area that encompasses Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“This is apartheid,” B’Tselem concluded.

Israel’s new government took office openly proclaiming its commitment to Jewish supremacy and therefore the apartheid policies necessary to maintain it.

“The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” the new coalition declared, promising to “promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.”

The Golan Heights are occupied Syrian territory, while “Judea and Samaria” is Zionist terminology for the occupied West Bank.

Following this declaration, Borrell told Israel’s new rulers that he was “Looking forward to working with you on further improving EU-Israel relations.”

In other words, the EU’s commitment to Israel’s apartheid regime and its opposition to Palestinian rights remains rock solid.

Quality of Black Citizenship Low: The IRS Disproportionately Audits Black Taxpayers as Much as 4.7 Times More Often than non-Black Taxpayers According to New Stanford Study

From [HERE] and [HERE] Researchers have long wondered if the IRS uses its audit powers equitably. And now we have learned that it does not.

Black taxpayers receive IRS audit notices at least 2.9 times (and perhaps as much as 4.7 times) more often than non-Black taxpayers, according to a new paper by Daniel E. Ho, the William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, faculty director of the Stanford RegLab, associate director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; Hadi Elzayn, researcher at the Stanford RegLab; Evelyn Smith, PhD candidate at the University of Michigan; Arun Ramesh, a pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago; Jacob Goldin, a professor of tax law at the University of Chicago; and economists in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis.

The disparity is unlikely to be intentional on the part of IRS staff, Ho says. Rather, as the team’s research demonstrated, the racial disparity in audit selection is driven by a set of internal IRS algorithms that Goldin likens to the recipe for Coca-Cola. That is: It’s completely secret.

To better understand this audit selection bias, the research team modeled the racial impact that various alternative audit selection policies might have. The result: a demonstration of how the IRS might be able to tweak its secret algorithm to reduce its racially disparate impact.

“The IRS should drill down to understand and modify its existing audit selection methods to mitigate the disparity we’ve documented,” Ho says. “And we’ve shown they can do that without necessarily sacrificing tax revenue.”

From a Suspected Disparity to a Proven One

Although there have been long-standing questions about whether the IRS uses its audit powers equitably, Ho says, the private nature of tax returns and the confidentiality of the IRS’s approach to audit decisions made it difficult to study. That changed when, on his first day in office, President Biden signed Racial Justice Executive Order 13985 requiring all federal agencies to assess how their programs impact racial and ethnic equity. To apply that order to the IRS tax return audit program, economists at the Treasury Department collaborated with the Stanford RegLab team, allowing them to analyze (on an anonymized basis) more than 148 million tax returns and approximately 780,000 audits for tax year 2014 (an overall audit rate of 0.54%).

Read the full paper, Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Tax Audits

Even with all that data in hand, the research team faced a major hurdle: Tax returns do not ask for the taxpayer’s racial or ethnic identity. So, the team adapted and improved on a state-of-the-art approach that uses first names, last names, and geography (U.S. Census block groups) to predict the probability that a person identifies as Black. And they validated their racial identification predictions using a sample of voter registration records from North Carolina – a state where, until recently, citizens were required to check a box for race and ethnicity when they registered to vote.

After finding that Black taxpayers were 2.9 to 4.7 times more likely to be audited than non-Black taxpayers, the team explored possible reasons for that disparity. They suspected that the problem lay with an IRS algorithm’s use of the Dependent Database, which flags a potential problem and generates an audit letter to the taxpayer. That instinct proved to be correct in that the bulk of the observed racial disparity involved so-called “correspondence” audits done by mail rather than more complex, in-person “field” audits.

The team also found that the IRS disproportionately audits people who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – a program that assists low- to moderate-income workers. But claiming the EITC only explains a small percentage of the observed racial disparity. The largest source of disparity occurs among EITC claimants. Indeed, Black taxpayers accounted for 21% of EITC claims, but were the focus of 43% of EITC audits.

The racial disparity in audit rates persists regardless of whether EITC claimants are male or female, married or unmarried, raising children or childless. But it is most extreme for single male taxpayers claiming dependents (7.73% for Black claimants; 3.46% for non-Black claimants) and for single male taxpayers who did not claim dependents (5.66% for Black; 2% for non-Black).

Perhaps the most striking statistic is this: A single Black man with dependents who claims the EITC is nearly 20 times as likely to be audited as a non-Black jointly filing (married) taxpayer claiming the EITC. [MORE]

[say less] “Tyre Nichols Had The Right to be Safe:” Step-and-Fetchit Coordinator Kamala Harris Makes Speech at Funeral, Performs Leadership - Doing Nothing Else for Black Voters

THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE from GOVERNMENT ABUSE? BRAZEN COPS SO FREQUENTLY ABUSE THEIR POWER THAT NO BLACK SHOPPER, PEDESTRIAN, MOTORIST, JUVENILE, ADULT OR BLACK PROFESSIONAL OF ANY KIND—COULD MAKE A COMPELLING ARGUMENT THAT SO-CALLED CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS PROVIDE BLACK PEOPLE ANY REAL PROTECTION FROM COPS OR THE GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL. [MORE]

THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE FROM CRIMINALS? POLICE DON’T EXIST TO PROTECT BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE -THEY EXIST TO CONTROL AND SURVEIL THEM. THE “SOCIAL CONTRACT” IS A FUCKING MYTH. it is an undisputed legal truth that police have no legal duty to protect any victim from violence from other private parties, unless the victim was in governmental custody. If there is no social contract then there is no rational basis for the belief in political authority, which is the basis for all government. Here, BW is not talking about the purpose of government or how government can be improved. Rather, “the problem OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY” is whether the government has a right to rule over people and whether people have an obligation to obey authority. What is the basis of the government’s implied right to rule over people in the first place? If there IS NO logical way to account fOR THE existence OF AUTHORITY THEN WE ARE CONFINED IN A FREE RANGE PRISON [MORE]

BLACK LEADERSHIP ONLY AS A PERFORMANCE. ONE GREAT SPEECH AFTER ANOTHER. From [HERE] Thousands of mourners on Wednesday attended the funeral of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died three days after Memphis police officers beat him following a traffic stop last month.

Nichols’ beating shocked many in the US after being captured on camera, and triggered yet another bout of soul-searching over racism and police brutality. The five officers involved have been charged with murder and other crimes.

The Rev Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy at Nichols’ service, shared his anger that at least five Black officers were involved in the brutal beating of Nichols - so close to the location of where Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.

“In the city that Dr King lost his life, not far away from that balcony, you beat a brother to death,” said Sharpton.

“All he wanted to do was get home,” said Sharpton of Nichols.

That was a heart-breaking theme echoed by Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, and other family members, whose moving tributes to their lost relative were also edged by passionate demands for action and the passage of a stalled federal law aimed at reforming the police.

“We need to take some action because there should be no other child that should suffer the way and all the other parents here that lost their children. We need to get that bill passed because if we don’t, the next child that dies, their blood is going to be on their hands,” Wells said.

His stepfather Rodney Wells similarly called for justice and action, saying: “What’s done in a dark will always come to the light, and the light of day is justice for Tyre, justice for all the families that have lost loved ones to brutality of police or anybody.”

Vice-President Kamala Harris gave brief remarks at the service, condemning those who argue that law enforcement acts to support public safety in light of police brutality incidents.

“This violent act was not in pursuit of public safety … Was Tyre Nichols not also entitled to the right to be safe?” said Harris.

“Tyre Nichols should’ve been safe.”[MORE]

Lying Isn’t the Exception for Cops, It’s the Rule. Police Report states ‘Tyre Nichols was Irate, Started to Fight, Grabbed Guns' and Lists Cop as a Victim. But Videos Show Black Man Never Struck Back

From [HERE] A police report written hours after officers beat Tyre Nichols was starkly at odds with what videos have since revealed, making no mention of the powerful kicks and punches unleashed on Mr. Nichols and instead claiming that he was violent.

The police report painted Mr. Nichols, 29, who died three days after the Jan. 7 beating, as an irate suspect who had “started to fight” with Memphis police officers, even reaching for one of their guns. The videos, which were released last week, showed nothing of the sort. 

Instead, they captured police officers yanking Mr. Nichols from a car, threatening to hurt him and then — after he ran away — catching up with him and inflicting the deadly beating. All the while, it appears from the videos, Mr. Nichols never struck back.

On Monday, the fallout from Mr. Nichols’s death continued. The Police Department announced that it had suspended two more officers, in addition to the five who have already been fired and charged with murder in the beating.

Meanwhile, the city’s fire chief, Gina Sweat, fired two emergency medical technicians and a lieutenant who had responded to the scene, saying that they all had violated a range of policies.

The fire chief said that the E.M.T.s had been responding to a report of a person who had been pepper sprayed and that they had relied on information given to them at the scene, presumably by some of the police officers who had just kicked, punched and used a baton to pummel Mr. Nichols, a FedEx worker and father who had pleaded with the officers to stop.

The official account written by a police officer early the next morning told a much different story in which Mr. Nichols was the assailant.

It was the latest instance nationwide in which video evidence — whether from body camera footage or a bystander’s cellphone — offered a starkly different account of police violence from what officers had reported themselves.

n Minneapolis, for example, the police said in May 2020 that George Floyd had died following a “medical incident,” a description that was soon challenged by a teenager’s cellphone video, leading to international protests and charges against four officers.

In Mr. Nichols’s arrest, the officer wrote that the police stopped Mr. Nichols’s car on Jan. 7 after seeing him drive quickly and into oncoming traffic, and that, once he was stopped, Mr. Nichols had been “refusing a lawful detention” and fought detectives on the scene.

Cerelyn Davis, the Memphis police chief, has said investigators have been unable to determine whether Mr. Nichols was driving recklessly. And the videos show that officers had approached his car with their guns drawn, while threatening and cursing at him, before pulling him out and pushing him to the ground.

Mr. Nichols, sounding distressed, says “You don’t do that, OK?” and then tries to follow officers’ contradictory and rapid fire commands, which included ordering him to get on the ground while he was already lying down. “All right, I’m on the ground,” he says, before responding to another demand: “Yes, sir.”

But the police continued to be aggressive, with one threatening to fire his Taser at Mr. Nichols and another threatening to “break” his hands. Mr. Nichols pleaded with them to stop, and said at one point, “You guys are really doing a lot right now.”

The police report said that, sometime around this period, Mr. Nichols had grabbed for a detective’s gun, something not shown in any of the videos. The officers then deployed pepper spray into Mr. Nichols’s face, after which he ran away, toward his mother’s house.

Despite the fact that Mr. Nichols does not appear to strike back, the report lists Mr. Nichols as the suspect in an aggravated assault and said he had grabbed officers’ belts and one officer’s vest. A Memphis police officer is listed on the report as a victim. That police officer is one of five who have since been charged with second-degree murder in Mr. Nichols’s death.

Only one of the two police officers whose suspensions were announced on Monday has been identified. That officer, Preston Hemphill, had fired his Taser at Mr. Nichols as he ran away, and who also later said, while his body camera was rolling, “I hope they stomp his ass.” He was not seen on video from the second location, where the police carried out the assault on Mr. Nichols.

All five of the charged officers are Black, as was Mr. Nichols. Officer Hemphill is white.

The district attorney’s office said in a statement on Monday that prosecutors were still examining whether to bring more charges, including against Officer Hemphill, the Fire Department employees and officials who wrote reports on the episode.

Chief Sweat said on Monday that the two E.M.T.s whom she fired had “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment” on Mr. Nichols after arriving at the scene. The lieutenant who was fired never got out of the fire engine, the chief said.

A day earlier, The Times had reported that the E.M.T.s had largely looked on as Mr. Nichols writhed in pain and, at one point, had not touched him or provided any care for nearly seven minutes.

Videos from the scene showed that as the medics were arriving, the police officers who had battered Mr. Nichols were laughing about the episode and describing it in detail, with one saying he had hit Mr. Nichols with “haymakers.” It is unclear whether the medics overheard this or how much the officers told them about the injuries they had inflicted. 

They were also insisting that Mr. Nichols must be on drugs, something for which no evidence has emerged. And when another officer arrived at the scene, they described events that, if they happened, were not shown on the footage, claiming that Mr. Nichols “swung” at one officer and “literally had his hand” on that officer’s gun.

The police report is not the only official narrative of the beating that has been challenged by the videos.

The Police Department’s first public statement, issued hours after the arrest, described each of the two encounters only as “confrontations” and omitted details of the beating. “Afterward, the suspect complained of having a shortness of breath,” it said, noting that state investigators had been called in.

The messaging changed after Mr. Nichols died, residents protested and his family pressed the authorities for answers. Chief Davis has since condemned the actions of the indicted officers as “a failing of basic humanity.”

Those officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — have each been charged with the same seven felonies, which, in addition to the second-degree murder charge, include kidnapping, official misconduct and aggravated assault.

Videos Show Memphis EMT’s Doing Nothing as Tyre Nichols Writhed in Pain and at one point, hadn’t Touched Him or Provided Any Care for Nearly 7 Minutes. Cops Seen Laughing as They Described the Murder

From [HERE] Tyre Nichols writhed in pain on the pavement after being beaten by Memphis police officers. His back was against a police car, his hands were cuffed and his face was bloody. He was groaning, and he kept falling over.

A few feet away, two emergency medical workers looked on. They helped Mr. Nichols sit up a few times after he had slumped to his side, but then, for nearly seven minutes, they did not touch him. At one point, they walked away.

Mr. Nichols, a father and FedEx worker who liked photography and skateboarding, died in a hospital three days later. Five officers were fired and have been charged with second-degree murder in his death.

Videos of the Jan. 7 beating released on Friday have led people to scrutinize those officers’ actions frame by frame. But the footage has also turned the public’s attention to the emergency medical workers who first arrived on the scene after the beating, raising the question of whether they should or could have done more to help Mr. Nichols.

“It seems like they did not have the decent humanity to render aid to a man who was, at first, calling for his mother, but then laying against the car,” said JB Smiley Jr., the vice chairman of the Memphis City Council.

Both of the medical workers who arrived first to tend to Mr. Nichols appeared to be emergency medical technicians with the Memphis Fire Department. Fire E.M.T.s often respond more quickly than ambulance crews to emergency calls, but their job is largely to carry out fundamental first aid: conducting a basic neurological assessment, making sure patients can breathe, checking their vital signs and stemming any major bleeding.

Qwanesha Ward, a spokeswoman for the Fire Department, said on Friday that the department had suspended two of its E.M.T.s who had treated Mr. Nichols and that an investigation was expected to wrap up early this week. She declined to identify the medics.

To many in Memphis, the videos were troubling, appearing to show the medical workers responding without urgency to Mr. Nichols’s suffering.

Experts in emergency medicine noted that the first medics on a scene were often the least trained and frequently relied in part on the police — who, in this case, said Mr. Nichols was on drugs — to understand a patient’s condition.

Dr. Sean Montgomery, a trauma expert at Duke University’s medical school, said that it was difficult to evaluate the medical response, given the low quality of the nearby surveillance camera, but that the responding medical personnel did not seem to have followed standard protocol, which calls for stopping any major bleeding and then assessing a patient’s airway and breathing.

He said it was not clear that anyone had begun to fully assess Mr. Nichols, in line with those standards, until about 15 minutes after the medics had arrived. That is when medics can be seen going into their bag of tools and treatments. At that point, it had been 21 minutes since an officer last kicked Mr. Nichols.

“The patient clearly seems to be in shock and have trouble breathing, even with the poor camera view,” Dr. Montgomery wrote in an email, adding that emergency response crews are often undertrained and underfunded.

Dr. Alan Tyroch, the chief of surgery and trauma at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, said he had watched a video of the response several times but had found the quality so poor that it was nearly impossible to evaluate what medical care was being provided, or by whom.

“Nobody really knows except the people who were there,” he said.

An ambulance pulled up to the scene more than 25 minutes after the police officers had stopped beating Mr. Nichols. Medical response times have been a problem in many cities, including Memphis, where officials have said they are experiencing a rise in 911 calls, straining the system.

In recent years, the Memphis firefighters’ union has tried to calm fears about slow response times by noting that Fire Department E.M.T.s often show up before more skilled paramedics and ambulance units do. Union officials did not respond to inquiries, and the Fire Department did not respond to questions about the specifics of its response.

Mr. Nichols suffered his fatal injuries after police officers kicked, punched and used a baton to beat him. They said later that they had pulled him over because he was driving recklessly. The police had pulled him out of his car and ordered him onto the ground, continuing to yell at him and threaten him even as he lay on his side, pleading with them to stop. When one officer pepper-sprayed him, he got up and ran in the direction of his mother’s house, but officers caught him about 200 feet from her home and began to pummel him.

Afterward, some officers dragged a handcuffed Mr. Nichols to a police car and propped him up against it. In the first five minutes that the medics were on the scene, Mr. Nichols fell to his side six times. The medics helped him up several times and at one point asked a police officer to shine a light on him.

At that point, several Memphis officers can be heard insisting that Mr. Nichols, 29, must be high, and they sound surprised to have learned that nothing was found in his pockets or in the car.

Some laughed as they recalled their assault in detail. “Man, I was hitting him with straight haymakers, dog,” one said. It is not clear from the body camera videos whether the medics heard those conversations.

Among the seven felony charges filed against each of the officers is an accusation that they refrained from performing a duty that was either imposed by law or was inherent as part of their jobs. This could cover a range of behavior, but the Shelby County district attorney, Steven J. Mulroy, suggested at a news conference last week that the charge had to do in part with their communications with medical officials.

On-duty police officers, Mr. Mulroy said, have a duty “to prevent official misconduct and to accurately report information to medical personnel who show up.”

The officers have not entered a plea. Lawyers for the officers have cautioned people to wait for more details before judging them. Blake Ballin, who represents Desmond Mills Jr., one of the five officers, said in a statement that the videos have “produced as many questions as they have answers.”

At the scene, the medics at times appeared to defer to the police, standing back at one point as a police officer asked Mr. Nichols what drugs he had taken. Mr. Nichols largely groaned in response, though twice he appears to answer “alcohol.”

For about the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds, no one touches Mr. Nichols as he rolls back and forth on the pavement.

The official cause of Mr. Nichols’s death has not been released by the Shelby County medical examiner’s office. The family said it had commissioned a separate, private autopsy that determined he had suffered from extensive bleeding.

When a young person like Mr. Nichols dies three days after a beating involving blows to the head, Dr. Montgomery said, brain injuries are the most likely cause. He said that, based on video of the beating, Mr. Nichols had likely been at risk for severe traumatic brain injury, rib fractures, collapsed lungs and internal bleeding.

Dr. Montgomery said it was not easy to say whether getting Mr. Nichols into an ambulance or to the hospital more quickly would have made a difference, though some cases, such as a brain injury, would have been helped by early surgery.

“Some brain injuries are too severe for medical care to improve them,” he added. “However, if you manage the other injuries well, the brain will do better. For example, if the patient is not breathing well, the brain will have a much worse outcome.”

The police in Memphis have said that Mr. Nichols was taken to the hospital after complaining about shortness of breath.

At a march on Saturday in response to the police killing, some Memphis residents said they were nearly as disturbed by the medical response as they were by the officers’ actions. Towanna Murphy, who operates a radio station in Memphis, said the medics needed to be held accountable.

“When you see somebody laying there,” Ms. Murphy said, “you’re supposed to give medical treatment right away.”

Video Shows Black Man w/Both Legs Amputated Hobbling Away from Huntington Cops when They Fatally Shoot Him 8X. Cops Confiscate Surveillance Video, Keep it Secret. What Will the White Liberal DA Do?

From [HERE] Family members of a double-amputee shot and killed by Huntington Park police officers last week after he threatened them with a knife are calling the shooting murder.

The Huntington Police Department said Anthony Lowe was shot and killed by officers on Thursday, Jan. 26, after he stabbed a man then threatened responding officers with a 12-inch butcher knife.

Lowe's family and members of the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police held a news conference in front of the Huntington Park Police Department Monday, condemning the shooting as another example of police brutality.

"He's out of his wheelchair, he's amputated in both legs at the knee, and he's moving away from the officers," said Cliff Smith, a member of the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is now heading up the investigation into the officer-involved shooting. The police officers who fired are now on paid, administrative leave, which is standard operating protocol.

Eyewitness News reached out to the Huntington Park Police Department, but department officials declined to be interviewed, instead releasing a written statement.

According to the statement, officers Tased Lowe twice and when he tried throwing the knife at the officers, they opened fire.

Lowe was pronounced dead at the scene.

"If you guys are here to protect and to serve, protect us. Serve us. Don't kill us!" said Jonathan Longmire, Anthony's cousin.

Carl Dorsey’s Family Wants Federal Probe After White Liberal AG Failed to Charge White Newark Cop who Murdered Him: Video Shows a Plainclothes Cop Jump Out an Unmarked Van and Shoot Black Man to Death

From [HERE] Days after a grand jury declined to indict a Newark cop in the fatal shooting of an unarmed South Orange man in January 2021, the man’s family members said they are still reeling from the “excruciating pain” of his loss.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Madinah Person said when she heard the news that Newark Police Detective Rod Simpkins would face no charges over the killing of her brother Carl Dorsey, it felt like Dorsey dying all over again.

“It’s almost like my brother’s life didn’t matter to anyone else but our family, and it was another slap in the face to just go from not knowing anything for two years to finding out that the officer who killed him was not charged at all,” she said.

The family said they want U.S. District Attorney Peter Sellinger to investigate Dorsey’s death.

Person was speaking to the press outside of the federal courthouse on Broad Street in Newark along with other family members and civil rights activists to demand justice for Dorsey.

Dorsey was shot minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, 2021. Authorities said police were responding to reports of gunshots near South 11th Street and Woodland Avenue in Newark. Surveillance video capturing the killing shows a group of 12 plainclothes officers pull up in unmarked cars to South 11th Street and Dorsey crossing the street toward them.

Simpkins and Dorsey collide, and then Simpkins shoots him. Dorsey, a 39-year-old father of three, died an hour later after being transported to University Hospital in Newark.

Robert Tarver, attorney for the family, noted the video shows Simpkins turning his body and firing toward Dorsey after they collide. The Attorney General’s Office describes the shooting like this: “As Det. Simpkins was falling to the ground, his service weapon discharged once, striking Mr. Dorsey.” 

“As if it had done that by itself,” Tarver said.

On Monday, Tarver showed frame-by-frame photos of the video, taken from across the street. Tarver noted the officer’s stance while Dorsey was attempting to move away from the officers and that Simpkins was the one who ran into Dorsey. He also stressed that Dorsey, who was Black, posed no threat because he was unarmed. 

“Here we are, at this time and this place where we have been far too many times, the same scenario over and over. But we are here because this is not going to be the end of our journey to get Carl Dorsey justice,” he said. “We’re here because this is the beginning of a new day.” 

Attorney General Matt Platkin — whose office must investigate all police-involved fatalities — said in a statement Thursday that his probe included interviews with witnesses and reviews of video, forensic evidence, and autopsy results from the medical examiner. None of the officers wore body cameras.

The grand jury concluded deliberations on Jan. 24 and voted “no bill,” which means no criminal charges should be filed.

The Dorsey family received no updates from Platkin’s office until the decision not to indict, family members and Tarver said

Justice means not only holding police officers accountable for their actions, but also transparency with victims’ families, Tarver said. 

“It’s important to understand that his family has been affected, his family has been hurt by this, and this family has been injured,” Tarver said. “They’ve lost their loved one forever.”

Tarver said he wants to hold Sellinger to his promise of upholding civil rights. In March 2022, Sellinger launched a division within his office to enforce civil rights laws in New Jersey, saying at the time that “hate crimes and unlawful bias incidents are antithetical to the core principles underlying our democracy.”

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said the city will begin its own independent investigation of the killing.

The family also filed a civil rights lawsuit against several Newark police officers, the police department, and the city in state Superior Court in August. The suit accuses the city of failing to properly train officers and alleges the police committed excessive force during the incident. 

The news Simpkins would not face charges came one day before the release of videos showing Memphis police officers beating Tyre Nichols, who died three days after the beating. Nichols was also unarmed.

The officers who beat Nichols were charged with second-degree murder. Medinah Person, Dorsey’s sister, said she couldn’t bring herself to watch that video because it reminds her of what her brother went through at the hands of police.

“There is a long straight line between this incident and the incident in Memphis and the other ones like it. It’s an unbreakable bond because they all have something in common, and that is the devaluation of Black life in America,” Tarver said.

Lawrence Hamm, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress, called on the state Legislature to pass a bill, A1515, that would allow municipalities to create civilian police review boards with subpoena power. The bill hasn’t received a hearing in the Legislature more than a year after it was introduced.

“The police have to understand there are consequences for what they do. That’s why they keep doing it — because there’s not been any consequences,” Hamm said. “They have to know that if they commit an unjust murder, they have to pay the same price that a citizen would have to pay.”

After a LA Cop Overheard Brandon Kennedy Talking about BLM in Store He Followed Him Outside and w/o Warning Grabbed his Neck, Slammed him Down and Put His Knee Into Black Man's Back. ACLU Settles Case

From [HERE] The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana today announced a settlement on behalf of Mr. Brandon Kennedy, who was wrongfully attacked, arrested, and searched by Shreveport police after one of the officers overheard Mr. Kennedy speaking to another person about the Black Lives Matter movement and his own negative experiences with the Shreveport Police Department.

As alleged in his complaint, without warning or provocation, Kennedy, who had been shopping at a convenience store, was brutalized and detained against his will by Shreveport police in retaliation for his constitutionally protected speech. An officer grabbed him by the neck, slammed him to the ground, and then placed his knee on Mr. Kennedy’s back, mere months after George Floyd was murdered in the same fashion. Although he was compliant, the officer then grabbed Mr. Kennedy’s face with both hands and smashed it into the concrete pavement. Knowing they had no legal reason to arrest him, the officers brought Mr. Kennedy to a mental health unit where he was held against his will overnight.

“Our client Brandon Kennedy endured a terrifying and dehumanizing ordeal, and we’re glad he’s receiving monetary compensation,” said Nora Ahmed, ACLU of Louisiana legal director. “Nonetheless, this is unfortunately the kind of racial profiling Black and Brown people continue to face each and every day, as they are targeted and jailed for merely existing in public spaces. And Mr. Kennedy’s case is particularly appalling because he was assaulted for speaking out against these very injustices. We hope this settlement sends a message that when local law enforcement agencies violate the rights of the people they’re sworn to serve — we will hold them accountable.”

In 2022, police officers across the United States killed at least 1,176 people — the highest on record. But these alarming statistics don’t include cases like Mr. Kennedy’s, where victims survive police violence, become traumatized, and are tortured by the event for the rest of their lives. 

As we approach the tenth anniversary of the Black Lives Matter movement and the third anniversary of the uprising following the murder of George Floyd, there is still a long way to go in the march toward justice for all. Congress must act and pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and address the legal fiction of qualified immunity. 

Kennedy v. Jackson et al. was the 29th lawsuit filed as part of the ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab campaign. The initiative has filed nearly 50 lawsuits against Louisiana law enforcement since launching in 2020. For more information, visit aclujusticelab.org.

Columbus Settles Case: White Cops Verbally Abused, Punched, Kicked, Tased, Pulled Black Man’s Hair Out and Stripped Him Naked from Waist Down. Police said 'The Force Continuum Allowed Them to Do so'

From [HERE] White Officials in Columbus have reached a $225,000 settlement with a Black man who said white police officers used improper force during a 2017 arrest.

The Columbus City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve the deal with Timothy Davis. As part of the settlement, neither the city nor the officers admitted to any wrongdoing.

Davis had sued the city in federal court, alleging civil rights violations, but a jury rejected his claims in December 2021. A federal judge granted a partial new trial in September, saying a complete jury verdict in favor of the officers was "against the clear weight of the evidence.” The settlement reached in December and approved Monday resolves that matter.

Davis' lawyers had said during the trial that Columbus officers verbally abused, punched, kicked and used a stun gun on him; pulled out his hair; and stripped him nearly naked from the waist down during the September 2017 arrest.

A lawsuit also accused officers of trying to block bystanders from filming the arrest. [MORE]

After the incident Police Spokesman Sgt. Dean Worthington told the NBC, “We are allowed to punch and we are allowed to kick.” “That’s part of our use of force continuum and it all depends on what the behavior of the suspect is at the time.” Also,  a white Columbus police officer was "relieved from duty" after he allegedly made comments threatening to choke a suspect. [MORE]

Charges Dropped Against Black Veteran Brutalized by White Cops: Atty says Colorado Springs Cops Unlawfully Stopped Dalvin Gadson, Beat him Mercilessly and then Smiled as he Laid in the Street Bleeding

From [HERE] Tuesday, the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office dropped charges against a Black veteran who was hospitalized after an arrest by the Colorado Springs Police Department.

According to the attorneys of 29-year-old Dalvin Gadson, he was pulled over by officers during a traffic stop on Oct. 9, 2022. Gadson was reportedly pulled over for not having license plates on the back of his sedan.

After about 30 seconds of speaking to Gadson, body-worn camera footage showed officers trying to remove him from his car with force.

In the video obtained by 13 Investigates, officers are seen punching and kicking Gadson while he was refusing the exit the car. According to arresting documents, an officer claimed Gadson "kicked Officer Hummel in the chest area several times, while becoming more aggressive."

Gadson was arrested and charged with two counts of Second Degree Assault on a Police Officer, Resisting Arrest, Obstructing a Peace Officer, Driving Under the Influence, and Driving Without License Plates.

Those charges, however, have since been dropped by the DA after Gadson paid a $15 fine for improperly displaying the license plates on his car.

His attorney's provided KRDO with the following statement regarding the dropped charges:

“By dropping the charges, the District Attorney has made it clear that these officers had no reason to detain Mr. Gadson for a DUI investigation much less beat him mercilessly and then smile for the cameras as he lay on the ground bleeding. In other words, this decision means that their actions weren’t just excessive. They were unlawful. 

“Chief Adrian Vasquez said that Officers Colby J. Hickman, Matthew Anderson and Christopher K. Hummel did nothing wrong. But the reality is that they brutally beat Dalvin Gadson for a $15 fine and they should be investigated, arrested and prosecuted. Failing to do so puts lives at risk. Just ask Tyre Nichols’ family.”

Harry M. Daniels LCC

A federal lawsuit has since been filed against the three Colorado Springs police officers.

Lawsuit Claims Baltimore Cops Violently Attacked a Black Family After Claiming to Smell Marijuana from a Parked Car with Its Windows Up

From [HERE] A new federal civil rights lawsuit claims that Baltimore County police officers violently beat five members of the same family after claiming to smell an odor of marijuana coming from a parked vehicle with its windows up.

The family went out to dinner on Jan. 25, 2020, to celebrate their daughter’s upcoming 18th birthday when they were stopped by the officers, according to the complaint.

What followed was a “gross display of excessive force,” said Hannah Ernstberger, the lawyer representing the family. The complaint alleges that the Westminster family’s two parents, their daughter and adult son, and a cousin were all assaulted by the officers and suffered injuries.

All five were also arrested and charged with crimes, but the charges against each were later dropped or placed on the stet docket.

The complaint names nine Baltimore County police officers and refers to extensive body camera footage of the incident.

According to the lawsuit, Shaneris Nalls, now 20, and three female friends were sitting in a parked vehicle at about 7:30 p.m. after having dinner at to celebrate her birthday at City View Bar & Grill on Security Boulevard.

Two police officers drove by and approached the vehicle. One of the officers, Evan Vicarini, claimed that he could smell marijuana coming from the vehicle, though its windows were rolled up and other cars were nearby.

Vicarini would later tell another officer, “‘We drove by and they gave us the (expletive) crim look,’ seemingly admitting that the officers stopped the vehicle and the occupants based on appearance alone,” Ernstberger wrote in the complaint.

Vicarini told Nalls that if she handed over marijuana she would be free to leave without a citation, the complaint claims. Nalls handed over a joint, but Vicarini believed there was more inside the vehicle and ordered the passengers out.

Nalls’s mother, Dayaneris Dmeza, approached to speak with Vicarini. When Dmeza’s husband, Shamdu V. Nalls, and son, Shamdu C. Nalls, also arrived, Vicarini told the other police officers who had responded to “hook ’em” if “they start to get out of hand,” according to the complaint.

Shaneris Nalls and her mother approached their vehicle to warm up. Vicarini told Dmeza to back up, grabbed her hoodie and slammed her into the side of the vehicle, the complaint claims.

Shaneris Nalls tried to step in, but Vicarini threw her to the ground and kneeled on top of her before handcuffing and arresting her.

Another officer, Anthony Vitacco, then slammed Dmeza into a metal fence near the vehicle. Dmeza’s husband, Shamdu V. Nalls, tried to intervene nonviolently, according to the complaint, and was punched multiple times by Vicarini.

Other officers then slammed him to the ground, where he was beaten, kicked and Tased by four officers while his hands were behind his back. One officer kicked him in the face and he lost consciousness before being dragged into a nearby police vehicle and Tased again, the complaint claims.

A cousin, Nehemiah Lembert, tried to check on Dmeza when four officers violently forced him into the metal fence and onto the ground. Multiple officers placed their hands around Lembert’s neck or used their arms in an effort to choke him while his hands were behind his back, according to the complaint.

Finally, the couple’s son, Shamdu C. Nalls, rushed past the officers with his hands raised to check on his mother. As officers grabbed him, he lost his balance and fell into one of the officers. Another Tased Nalls  and continued Tasing him after he had fallen to the ground, the complaint alleges.

The complaint also claims that on multiple occasions, the responding officers put their body weight on top of the members of the family they were arresting, causing difficulty breathing.

All five of the family members were taken to the police precinct and charged with crimes. According to the complaint, Shaneris Nalls was charged with possession of marijuana and her brother and cousin were charged with assault on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest. The charges were ultimately dismissed, Ernstberger wrote.

Dmeza was charged with failure to obey a lawful order and disorderly conduct and her husband, Shamdu V. Nalls, was charged with assault on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest. Their charges were placed on the stet docket, court records show.

The complaint claims that body-worn camera footage also captured officers Vitacco and Vicarini conspiring to create a “fabricated story” about the arrests in their statement of probable cause. One officer covered Vitacco’s body camera in an effort to muffle their conversation, the complaint alleges.

All of the family members were injured during the arrests. Shamdu C. Nalls and Dmeza suffered concussions, according to the complaint, and Shamdu V. Nalls suffered a broken bone near his eye.

Ernstberger said the family believes the incident was at least partially motivated by race. Shamdu V. Nalls is African American and Dmeza is Hispanic.

The family continues to struggle with issues related to post-traumatic stress disorder, Ernstberger said.

The family filed complaints with the Baltimore County Police Department a few days after the incident. In December 2021, they received a letter that said “the officer was in violation of departmental rules and regulations” and that “corrective administrative action will be initiated,” but provided no other information. A copy of the letter is included with their lawsuit.

The suit brings claims of excessive force, false arrest and malicious prosecution. It also raises a Monell claim against Baltimore County for failing to train and supervise the officers.

Lawmakers this year are considering legislation that would prohibit police officers from citing the odor of marijuana as the sole basis for reasonable suspicion or probable cause, with the exception of investigations for impaired driving. Marijuana will become legal in Maryland on July 1.

Plea Deal Offered to Black Maryland Cop who Murdered Willam Green. Fatally Shot Handcuffed Black Man 6 Times

From [HERE] Prosecutors have offered a plea deal to a Maryland police officer who fatally shot a handcuffed man six times, an arrangement that could reduce the officer’s charges from second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter and dramatically cut back a potential punishment, according to the victim’s family.

The proposal to Prince George’s County Cpl. Michael A. Owen Jr. — who had been the subject of multiple use-of-force investigations prior to the killing — was made days before he was set to go to trial in the 2020 killing of William Green. The potential plea agreement, which county prosecutors would not comment on and is not official unless accepted by a judge, has angered Green’s family and comes as the nation is roiling from the police killing of a Black man in Memphis.

Green’s family, who met with prosecutors on the anniversary of the date Owen was first charged to discuss the plea offer, said they are concerned that the lesser charge could make the police officer eligible for parole within a few years.

“We wanted to go to court, and we still want to go to court,” said Brenda Green, William Green’s mother. “How could they do that when he actually killed my son? How could they do that?”

“I want the people in Memphis to know that just because they are arrested, that doesn’t mean they will pay for their crime,” Owens said.

On Jan. 27, 2020, police received a 911 call about a man driving a Buick that had struck several vehicles. Authorities eventually found the car in Temple Hills. Green was asleep inside.

Owen removed Green from the car, cuffed his hands behind his back and placed him in the front seat of a Prince George’s police cruiser to wait for a drug recognition expert, according to police records and interviews. A few minutes later, authorities said, Owen shot at Green seven times, with six shots hitting the man. The wounds, Green’s family said, were on both sides of his torso.

The day after the shooting, Owen was charged in Green’s death — the first county officer charged with murder in connection with actions taken while on duty, officials said at the time. Nine months later, County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) would join Green’s family and their civil attorneys, Billy Murphy and Malcolm Ruff, for a news conference to announce a $20 million settlement in their case against the county — at the time one of the largest police misconduct payouts in the nation.

“Police are given by this community an awesome and tremendously difficult responsibility of protecting life,” Alsobrooks said at the September 2020 news conference. “They are also likewise given an authority that is not shared by anyone else in this community, and that is the authority to take life. . . . When that trust is abused, it is necessary to take swift and decisive action.”

Owen was not wearing a police-issued body camera at the time of the shooting, authorities said. Afterward, Owen said that Green had reached for the officer’s firearm and that he feared for his life. Prosecutors said then that there was no evidence Green had posed a serious threat.

But during their meeting with the state’s attorney’s office Saturday — in which top prosecutor Aisha Braveboy was not present — Green’s family said, they were told that the decision to reduce the charges had come after the discovery of new evidence, including Owen’s testimony.

Mooney, Owen’s attorney, has said in the past that authorities pressed the second-degree murder charge after a “rushed” investigation.

Green’s family said they felt hurt and frustrated that the decision was made without their consultation, and baffled that Braveboy — who campaigned on police accountability and whose office has tried nearly a dozen police misconduct cases during her tenure — would forgo a trial in one of the most high-profile police shooting cases in the county’s history.

“We expected him to come up with a defense,” said Owens, Green’s cousin. “We didn’t expect them to believe his defense so much that they are going to lower the charges.”

In a 2020 investigation into Owen’s history with the department, where he had been an officer for 10 years, The Washington Post found that the department had missed opportunities to steer a struggling and errant officer back on course long before Green’s killing.

Owen had triggered the agency’s early-warning system by using force twice in quick succession the previous summer. It took months for the system, which relied on information being compiled by hand and entered into a database, to create the flag, police officials said. Owen’s supervisors weren’t formally notified until the month he killed Green, and they had not taken action.

In two other 2019 incidents, videos showed Owen with his hands on the necks of people he arrested. One of those incidents came less than a month before Green’s death.

Other Prince George’s residents who encountered Owen over the years also had accused him of brutality and a lack of professionalism. Several who were arrested by Owen, and who were accused of aggressive behavior toward him, had charges dropped because the officer did not show up for court proceedings — another sign of trouble.

Experts who spoke to The Post said the sluggish pace of the early-warning system jeopardized officers as well as civilians like Green. Former Prince George’s County police chief Hank Stawinski — who ordered Owen arrested after the shooting — told The Post that he understood that the system was too slow and had been working to upgrade it.

White Judge Sentences White Louisville Cop to Only 2 Years of Probation, $5,000 Fine and No Jail Time For Her Murder of David McAtee

From [HERE] and [HERE] In what he called an “incredibly difficult case,” U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Beaton sentenced former Louisville Metro Police Department officer Katie Crews to two years of probation in lieu of prison time Monday for Crews’s firing of pepper balls in the moments leading up to the killing of West End barbecue chef David McAtee in June 2020. David McAtee was a Black man.

In addition to probation, Crews will have to complete 200 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine. Breaton and Crews are both white.

On June 1, 2020, Crews — who was employed with the Louisville Metro Police Department at the time — responded to the area of YaYa’s BBQ at 26th and Broadway along with other officers and the National Guard to break up a gathering that was violating a city-mandated curfew in wake of Breonna Taylor protests.

Court documents said she used a pepper ball gun, striking Machelle McAtee, David McAtee‘s niece. David McAtee owned the restaurant and died from a single gunshot to the chest. A ballistics report found the bullet fragments had green paint, showing the bullet came from a National Guard member.

Crews admitted to her actions during a plea hearing in Oct. 2022 and pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count for using unreasonable force.

She’s been sentenced to two years of probation, 200 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine.

She is no longer part of the Louisville Metro Police Department as part of her plea deal, and she has also forfeited her Kentucky law enforcement certification.

“This former Louisville police officer abused her authority as a law enforcement officer and violated the victim’s civil rights,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement. “This sentence makes clear that law enforcement officials are not above the law. The Justice Department will continue to prosecute law enforcement officials who violate our federal civil rights laws and defy the public trust by using excessive force.”

Crews was originally charged with a felony and faced as many as 10 years in prison. 

The FBI and the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Public Integrity Unit investigated the case through the Louisville Public Corruption Civil Rights Task Force.

White TX Authorities All Set to Murder Latino Man Convicted for Murder of White Cop. White Judge Denied Request to Delay Execution Despite Claims of False Expert Testimony and a Racist Juror

From [HERE] A Latino man convicted of fatally shooting a Dallas police officer in 2007 is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday in Huntsville.

Wesley Lynn Ruiz, 43, was sentenced to death in July 2008 for the slaying of Mark Nix after a high-speed chase through West Dallas. Nix leapt out of his squad car, ran to the car where Ruiz hid and swung his baton repeatedly at the front passenger window to break it. The officer had just managed a small hole in the window when Ruiz fired one gunshot from inside the vehicle, killing Nix.

Ruiz filed a motion last week to halt the execution, saying prosecutors violated his constitutional rights when they allowed an expert to give false testimony. He also argued some jurors harbored racial bias against him, according to court records. Ruiz is Hispanic. The motion was denied Friday by Judge David C. Godbey in the U.S. Northern District of Texas.

Ruiz recently filed a lawsuit with two other death row inmates that alleged Texas plans to use expired, unsafe drugs for executions in violation of state law. A University of South Carolina pharmacology professor who reviewed state records said some pentobarbital vials were more than 630 days old and others were more than 1,300 days old. Their beyond use date limit is 24 hours when stored at room temperature, and 45 days if such compounded drugs are frozen.

Prison officials denied the allegations and said the state’s pentobarbital supply is safe. A civil court sided with the inmates, but Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, saying the case should be decided by a criminal court, not a civil one. The state’s high court agreed.

One of the three inmates, Robert Fratta, was put to death last month. Ruiz’s attorney, Shawn Nolan, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ruiz hasn’t denied that he fired the shot that killed Nix, a 33-year-old senior corporal. But he argued during his capital murder trial he acted in self-defense and he feared for his life because he thought police shot at the car where he hid.

Jurors deliberated about three hours before they rejected Ruiz’s argument. The same jury then sentenced him to die. [MORE]

Racist Suspect Attorney General Attempts to Block Alabama Prison Inmates Set to be Released

From [HERE] On Tuesday, January 31, 412 inmates are expected to be released from correctional facilities across the state, according to court documents obtained by News 19.

On Monday, January 30, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a lawsuit in order to prevent the early release. The suit states the delay of the early release would only be temporary until ADOC Commissioner John Hamm could give notice to the inmates’ victims.

“Every violent crime leaves behind a victim or a victim’s family,” read the complaint. “That is why state and federal laws have long recognized the rights of crime victims or their families to be notified by the relevant government agency when their offender is up for parole or is soon to be released from prison.”

Read the complaint in full:

The release of 2.07% of the inmate population comes from a bill passed by the state legislature in 2021, confronting the issue of prisons being overcrowded and understaffed.

Inmates would be released under “mandatory supervision,” meaning each will be fitted with an electronic ankle monitor at the time of their release.

While sex offenders whose victims were children weren’t eligible for release, the “supervised” period for inmates who will be released is as follows:

• 3-5 months for sentences of five years or less

• 6-9 months for sentences of five to 10 years

• 10-12 months for sentences of more than 10 years

A notice from ADOC and the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles (ABPP) was recently distributed to law enforcement agencies across the state to make them aware of the release, which comes as the Alabama prison system is being sued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) over its prison conditions.

In that lawsuit, which stemmed from a 2016 investigation, the DOJ claimed ADOC failed to protect its prisoners from sexual abuse and constant violence, along with excessive force by staff and failure to provide safe conditions of confinement.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was an avid opponent of the bill passed in 2021, saying, “This bill mandates the early release of dangerous individuals with only the possibility of electronic monitoring and without the assurance of other resources necessary to safely supervise those initially released.”