Fairfax Cop Not Guilty of Manslaughter in Shooting Timothy Johnson. White Cop Claimed Black Man “WAS REACHING!” for a Non Existent Gun as He Fled from Upscale Mall in City Controlled by White Liberals

FAIRFAX VA IS NOT CONTROLLED BY ELITE, WHITE LIBERALS? Fairfax County was once considered a Republican bastion but Democrats now control of the Board of Supervisors and the School Board (officially nonpartisan) as well as the offices of sheriff and Commonwealth's Attorney. Democrats also hold all the Fairfax seats in the Virginia House of Delegates and every seat in the Senate.

Fairfax County encompasses parts of three congressional districts, the 8th District, the 10th District, and the 11th District. Democrats represent all three districts, with Jennifer Wexton representing the 10th, Don Beyer representing the 8th, and Gerry Connolly representing the 11th. [MORE]

From [HERE] A white Fairfax County jury found a former police sergeant not guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the killing of a black man suspected of shoplifting last year, but convicted him of a lesser gun charge, determining that he bore some criminal responsibility in the shooting.

The jury spent 11 hours deliberating in the case against Wesley Shifflett, who prosecutors argued had no justification for shooting Timothy McCree Johnson outside of the Tysons Corner Center mall after giving chase over allegations that Johnson had stolen sunglasses. It ultimately found him guilty him of recklessly handling a firearm, which carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

The decision punctuated a winding path to accountability for the office of Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, which twice brought the case to a grand jury — an unconventional move that yielded just the second indictment of a Fairfax County officer in an on-duty shooting in the department’s 84-year history.

Lawyers for Shifflett argued throughout the trial that he was simply doing his job when he fired two times at Timothy Johnson, 37, in a dark area after giving chase. Police officers, they said, with backing from law enforcement experts at trial, are trained to fire twice when they believe they are in danger, and Shifflett believed he saw Johnson reach for his waistband. Prosecutors painted Shifflett as a man who — in a moment of unreasonable panic — made a reckless decision with lethal consequences.

In body-camera footage played repeatedly for the jury, Johnson, who prosecutors said was not armed, could be heard asking for help as he lay dying: “I don’t have nothing. I’m shot, man, please. Hurry.”

Carl Crews, an attorney for the Johnson family, said after the family watched the video of the incident stated,

“The best way to describe the video is to say first what was not on it,” said Carl Crews, an attorney for the family, after viewing the footage Wednesday. “What it doesn’t show: danger. It doesn’t show the officers faced any danger — imminent or otherwise. “This was an execution by Fairfax County police officers,” Crews said.”

Unfortunately the video is dark and unclear - thereby enabling a jury of sheeple to indulge the cop-actor’s performance of theatricks about an imaginary gun in a scary Black man’s hand.

The trial, which began Sept. 17, neared mistrial three times before the case landed in jurors’ hands: once when the lead prosecutor experienced a medical emergency that delayed proceedings for a week, once when defense lawyers filed, then withdrew, a motion for mistrial after a witness testified without his lawyers present and once when prosecutors played an unadmitted portion of Shifflett’s body-camera footage during closing arguments.

Melissa Johnson paced the halls outside the courtroom for hours on Friday as she awaited the verdict, swinging a silver necklace that contained her son’s ashes. At a table nearby, a group of mothers whose sons had also been killed by the police sat and prayed.

At times, Johnson closed her eyes and sang.

“Jesus, Jesus,” she sang. “Precious Jesus, we have the victory.”

Prosecutors sought to show jurors that Johnson did not have to die, saying there were alternatives Shifflett did not take. Shifflett could have waited for backup, taken cover, used the flashlight on his gun, they told jurors.

They called Collins Kenlak, the assistant asset protection manager at the Nordstrom at the time, to testify that he was confused about why officers had chased Johnson at all.

Although prosecutors said Johnson ultimately was found to have stolen two pairs of sunglasses valued at about $850 from the store, store surveillance footage shows he had returned the glasses store workers first alerted police about. “As soon as those glasses were returned, I made it clear we don’t have any reason to approach him,” Kenlak said.

The threat Shifflett perceived never existed, prosecutors told jurors. Johnson was suspected of a nonviolent crime and did not have a gun, facts they argued rendered Shifflett’s fear unreasonable.

“Reason cannot be found in what ifs and maybes and the facts here are clear: Mr. Johnson was unarmed and fleeing,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Natheena Tyler said during her closing argument Wednesday. “Fear alone is not enough to justify the use of force.”

Weak Liberal Federal Prosecutors Fail to Convict Memphis Cops of Most Serious Charges in Tyre Nichols Death. Jury says Cops Didn’t Willfully Beat Black Man to Death, Deny Treatment or Conceal Evidence

GETTING AWAY WITH A MURDER RECORED BY SEVERAL CAMERAS? From [HERE] Three former Memphis police officers were found guilty on Thursday of federal witness tampering charges in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man. But all three defendants were acquitted of the more serious charge of violating his civil rights by causing his death.

One officer, Demetrius Haley, was convicted on a lesser charge of violating Mr. Nichols’s civil rights by causing bodily injury. That is, he was acquitted of causing the Black man’s death but found guilty of the lesser charge of only causing bodily injury.

The three defendants — Mr. Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith — and two other former officers who pleaded guilty to their role in the violence, still face additional state charges, including second-degree murder.

In September 2023, federal prosecutors charged the five officers involved with depriving Nichols of his civil rights (by both beating him and failing to administer first aid), obstructing the investigation and conspiracy to commit witness tampering.

The counts were as follows:

COUNT ONE (all not guilty)

(Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law: Excessive Force and Failure to Intervene)

On or about January 7, 2023, in the Western District of Tennessee, the defendants, EMMITT MARTIN III, TADARRIUS BEAN, DEMETRIUS HALEY, DESMOND MILLS JR., and JUSTIN SMITH, while acting under color of law as Detectives with the Memphis Police Department and while aiding and abetting one another, willfully deprived Tyre Nichols of the right, secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to be free from an unreasonable seizure, which includes the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer. Specifically, defendants MARTIN, BEAN, HALEY, MILLS, and SMITH unlawfully assaulted Nichols and willfully failed to intervene in the unlawful assault. This offense resulted in bodily injury to, and the death of, Tyre Nichols.

In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 242 and 2.

COUNT TWO (all not guilty)

(Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law: Deliberate Indifference)

On or about January 7, 2023, in the Western District of Tennessee, the defendants, EMMITT MARTIN III, TADARRIUS BEAN, DEMETRIUS HALEY, DESMOND MILLS JR., and JUSTIN SMITH, while acting under color of law as Detectives with the Memphis Police Department and while aiding and abetting one another, willfully deprived Tyre Nichols of the right, secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law, which includes the right of an arrestee to be free from a police officer's deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. Specifically, defendants MARTIN, BEAN, HALEY, MILLS, and SMITH knew that Nichols, an arrestee in police custody, had a serious medical need and the defendants willfully disregarded that medical need by failing to render medical aid and by failing to advise the MPD dispatcher and emergency medical personnel of the circumstances surrounding Nichols' serious medical need, including that Nichols had been struck repeatedly. This offense resulted in bodily injury to, and the death of, Tyre Nichols.

In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 242 and 2.

COUNT THREE (all not guilty)

(Conspiracy to Witness-Tamper)

On or about January 7, 2023, in the Western District of Tennessee, defendants EMMITT MARTIN III, TADARRIUS BEAN, DEMETRIUS HALEY, DESMOND MILLS JR., and JUSTIN SMITH willfully combined, conspired, and agreed to violate Title 18, United States Code, Section 1512(b)(3) by knowingly engaging in misleading conduct towards, corruptly persuading, and attempting to corruptly persuade, their supervisor (MPD Supervisor 1), the officer tasked with writing the Incident Report (MPD Detective 1), and other persons, with the intent to hinder, delay, and prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer and judge of the United States of truthful information relating to the commission and possible commission of a Federal offense. Specifically, in relation to statements the defendants made to MPD officers regarding the arrest of Tyre Nichols, the defendants conspired to intentionally withhold and omit material information and knowingly make false and misleading statements all to cover up the use of unreasonable force on Nichols.

COUNT FOUR

(Obstruction of Justice: Witness-Tampering)

On or about January 7, 2023, within the Western District of Tennessee, defendants EMMITT MARTIN III, TADARRIUS BEAN, DEMETRIUS HALEY, DESMOND MILLS JR., and JUSTIN SMITH, while aiding and abetting one another, knowingly engaged in misleading conduct towards, corruptly persuaded, and attempted to corruptly persuade, their supervisor (MPD Supervisor 1) and an MPD Detective (MPD Detective 1) with the intent to hinder, delay, and prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer and judge of the United States of truthful information relating to the commission and possible commission of a Federal offense. Specifically, defendants MARTIN, BEAN, HALEY, MILLS, and SMITH provided false and misleading information and withheld and intentionally omitted material information in their communications with MPD Supervisor 1 and MPD Detective 1, each of whom was tasked with writing MPD reports for the arrest of Tyre Nichols, including: defendants MARTIN, BEAN, HALEY, MILLS, and SMITH omitted that defendant MARTIN repeatedly punched Nichols; defendants MARTIN, BEAN, HALEY, MILLS, and SMITH omitted that defendants MARTIN and HALEY kicked Nichols; defendants MARTIN, BEAN, HALEY, MILLS, and SMITH omitted that Nichols had been struck in the head; defendants falsely stated to MPD Detective 1 that Nichols was actively resisting at the arrest scene; defendants falsely stated to MPD Detective 1 that Nichols grabbed defendant SMITH by his vest and pulled on officers' duty belts; and defendants MILLS and SMITH falsely stated to MPD Detective 1 that Nichols lifted both of them in the air.

In violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3).

The verdicts were as follows:

According to the complaint filed in the civil case (atty Ben Crump);

Nichols was two minutes away from his home when he was stopped by MPD at 8:24 p.m. on January 7, 2023. Officers Haley, Martin, and Preston Hemphill[32]conducted the initial stop of Nichols' at the intersection East Raines Road and Ross Road,[33] with police vehicles surrounding his car on three sides. The body-worn camera footage released by the City of Memphis on January 27, does not "show any activity earlier than an officer responding to a stop in progress ..."[34]

Haley and Martin were at the traffic stop when Hemphill arrived at 8:24 p.m.[35][15] By 8:25 p.m., Haley[36] pulled Nichols out of his car as Nichols said: "I didn't do anything."[35] An officer shouted: "Get on the fuckin' ground" and moments later an officer shouted "I'm gonna tase your ass."[37] Officers pushed Nichols to the ground. At about 8:25:45 p.m., Nichols was laying on his side in the road - an officer had Nichols' left hand, a second officer had Nichols' right hand, a third officer held a taser against Nichols' left leg while also using his right hand to hold Nichols to the ground.[35] From the moment that Nichols was pulled from the car, to being held on the ground, officers simultaneously yelled numerous commands, threats, expletives, and made "assaultive comments"[15] at him. While being held on the ground an officer continued to yell for Nichols to lay down. Nichols responded "I am on the ground". An officer yelled back "Lay on your stomach". Moments later, Haley, deployed pepper spray against Nichols[15], which hit several of the other officers.[37] Nichols broke free and began to run. Hemphill, against regulations,[38] deployed his taser at Nichols. At 8:26 p.m., Nichols began running south on Ross Road, as he was pursued by at least two officers. Two more police units arrived at the scene around 8:29 p.m.[39] Footage showed that one officer who remained at the area of the traffic stop said, "I hope they stomp his ass".[40]

At 8:33 p.m., Officers Bean, Mills, and Smith caught up to Nichols and had him on the ground at Castlegate Lane and Bear Creek which is approximately a half a mile (800 meters) away from the original traffic stop.[36] Footage from a pole-mounted CCTV camera showed an officer using his leg to push Nichols hard to the ground. Between 8:33 p.m. and 8:36 p.m. Nichols was punched, then pepper sprayed a second time, then kicked in the upper torso numerous times by a fourth officer, then an officer can be heard yelling "I'm going to baton the fuck out of you." before striking Nichols several times with a baton, then punched five times in the face by one officer.[41][42] The video footage showed officers had control of Nichols' arms when he was struck with the baton, kicked, and successively punched in the face 5 times.[43][44] A fifth officer arrived, as Nichols was on the ground and in the process of being handcuffed, and kicked him in the upper torso, which was followed by another kick to the upper torso by another officer. Fox News reported that in the videos, "Nichols can be heard calling out to his mother before police beat him into a daze".[34] Nichols' conduct has been initially described as non-resisting[45] and non-violent;[15] there is no indication that he struck back at the officers.[46]

By 8:37 p.m., Nichols was handcuffed and limp; officers propped him against the side of a police car.[47] After Nichols was on the ground, the involved officers convened and shared their stories about the arrest. In the body-worn camera footage, Michael Ruiz of Fox News reported, "officers can be heard discussing his alleged driving, 'swerving' and nearly hitting one of them".[48] One officer bragged: "I was hitting him with straight haymakers, dog", while another exclaimed: "I jumped in, started rocking him."[49]

Medics arrived around 8:41 p.m. but did not begin to assist Nichols until 16 minutes later. An ambulance arrived at 9:02 p.m. and took Nichols to St. Francis Hospital at 9:18 p.m. after he complained of shortness of breath.[39]

On scene, video footage showed officers issued at least 71 commands over 13 minutes; The New York Times described the orders as "often simultaneous and contradictory" and "sometimes even impossible to obey". The Times cited one such example of many, where an officer shouted "Give me your fucking hands!" while Nichols had one officer pinning his arms behind his back, a second officer holding his handcuffed wrist, and a third officer punching Nichols' face.[50][51][52][15] One former police officer described the officers' interaction with Nichols as having "started with poor communication" and going downhill from there.[51]

On January 8, the department stated that the traffic stop of Nichols was due to reckless driving.[53][54] On January 27, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn J. Davis stated that her department reviewed footage, including from body cameras regarding the traffic stop and the arrest, to "determine what that probable cause was and we have not been able to substantiate that – ... It doesn't mean that something didn't happen, but there's no proof."[53][54][55]

Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, emphasized in a statement that all five of the former officers had now been convicted of federal felonies.

“Tyre Nichols should be alive today,” she said.

Omaha Cops 1) Watch Slow-Mo Video then 2) Create Tale to Justify Murdering Steven Phipps: Claim Fleeing Black Man Aimed a Gun at Them as He Jumped Over a Fence, While He was in Mid-Air and Upside Down

From [HERE] and [HERE] Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer insisted his colleagues followed department policy when an officer shot Steven Phipps, a 22-year-old Black man, eight times during a traffic stop.

Phipps, who was in possession a legally owned a firearm, fled police after being pulled over for expired plates.

He had just finished work at the time and was driving a silver Chevrolet Monte Carlo inside near N 31st Avenue and Taylor Street, Omaha, with his younger brother in the passenger seat on September 28.

Officer Noah Zendejas only fired his weapon when Phipps' gun was pointed at him, according to Schmaderer. This was after a chase where Phipps ran and jumped a fence.

"We really don't know what Mr. Phipps' intent was," Schmaderer said, adding that the officer had the right to defend himself.

His aunt, Angela Phipps, said after seeing the police footage, she heard Phipps repeatedly say "don't shoot me" after he hit the ground while holding his hands and one leg up in a defensive position.

However, police maintain that most of the shots were fired while Phipps was in midair and that he did not drop his weapon until after he landed.

The video speaks for itself. Police claim that somehow while Phipps jumped head first over a high fence and was upside down, in mid air while falling to the ground, managed to point a gun at police. Said narrative appears to be contradicted by the video

Family of Steven Phipps Jr. — the man killed by Omaha Police during a foot pursuit over the weekend — have spoken out.

Two members of North Omaha’s church community sat watching Wednesday’s OPD news conference as it happened, paying close attention and taking notes. Their initial reaction best described as disappointed.

“Mayor Stothert saying that the citizens are safe, evidently African-American Black men are not safe in Omaha,” said Pastor Portia Cavitt, the President of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. “We know that people have a right to own guns. Why is it when a Black man has a gun that the officer fears for his life?”

“Why did they have to shoot him eight times?” Rev. Hemphill said. “I don’t understand that.”

Later, the two church leaders were joined by other members of the North Omaha community, including Phipps’ family.

“They know they harassed him and they know what they did,” said family member Jenesha Plunkett. “All we want is justice for him. Y’all can’t keep running around doing this to our young boys. Y’all have everybody sacred. It makes no sense in the world. He didn’t deserve it.”

Cavitt says they are hosting a town hall meeting at Clair Memorial United Methodist Church at 4 p.m. Sunday to allow the community to share their feeling and concerns about police shootings. [MORE]

Study Shows Police Stop Black People Based on How They Look, Not How They Drive

From [HERE] In 2018, police officers initiated contact with nearly 29 million U.S. residents aged 16 and older: traffic stops comprise over four-fifths of police-initiated contact.48 There are clear racial disparities in traffic law enforcement. For example, the Stanford Open Policing Project’s dataset of nearly 100 million stops collected from 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police departments reveals that these agencies were more likely to stop Black, but not Latinx, versus white drivers between 2011 and 2018.49  Echoing findings from other ‘veil of darkness’ analyses, this study also found that officers stopped Black drivers less often after sunset, when a driver’s racial identity is less visible.50 Studies of jurisdictions including Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and South Carolina have also found significant racial disparities in police stops.51 On the other hand, national surveys of drivers since 2002 have found racial disparities in traffic stops only in some years.52 But a closer look at the causes of traffic stops reveals that officers stop Black drivers for less serious reasons than white drivers.

Charles Epp of University of Kansas and his colleagues have shed light on investigatory traffic stops. These are distinct from traffic-safety stops, which are based on factors such as speeding at greater than seven miles per hour, suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, running a red light, or reckless driving. The pretext for investigatory stops, on the other hand, may be for such infractions as failure to signal a turn or lane change, having a malfunctioning light or expired license tag, driving too slowly, or stopping too long—or for the officer to check for a valid license or to conduct a warrant check. The objective of these stops is to investigate drivers deemed suspicious. This is a form of proactive policing that uses minor traffic violations as a pretext for a criminal investigation and helps raise municipal revenues through fines and fees.53 Traffic-safety stops, the researchers found, are based on “how people drive,” whereas investigatory stops are based on “how they look.”54

Epp and colleagues’ study of police stops between 2003 and 2004 in Kansas City found that investigatory stops differed significantly by race while rates of traffic-safety stops did not.55 These differences existed for all ages, however, they were sharpest among drivers under age 25: among these drivers, 28% of Black men had experienced an investigatory stop as had 17% of Black women, compared to 13% of white men and 7% of white women. Socioeconomic differences did not fully explain this racial disparity: Black drivers under age 40 were over twice as likely as their white counterparts to experience investigatory stops for both the highest- and lowest-valued cars. More recently, University of North Carolina professor Frank R. Baumgartner and colleagues analyzed over 20 million stops in North Carolina between 2002 and 2016 and found that the majority of stops that white drivers experienced (56%) were for traffic safety reasons, while the majority of stops that Black drivers experienced (52%) were for investigatory reasons.56 Directing officers to make investigatory stops, Epp and colleagues argue, opens the door to biased policing based on stereotypes of Black criminality.

Pedestrian Stops and Order-Maintenance Policing

Similar disparities arise in investigative pedestrian stops and with order-maintenance policing. In 2013, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin concluded, regarding New York City’s stop-and-frisk tactic, that the city’s “highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner.”57 The police policy broadly targets male residents of neighborhoods populated by low-income people of color to uncover drugs and weapons. Despite evidence finding the tactic to be ineffective, a conclusion that was reinforced when New York City continued its crime decline after scaling back stop and frisk, related forms of policing persist in many other cities.58 For example, a 2022 analysis of the Milwaukee Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices, conducted by the Crime and Justice Institute, found that Black residents were 4.5 times as likely to get pulled over, 10.1 times as likely to be subjected to a field interview, and 2.6 times as likely to be frisked as white residents.59

Further, in 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams re-embraced ‘broken windows’ policing, a policy seeking to promote public safety by clamping down on petty, ‘quality-of-life’ offenses and disorder through arrests.60 Order-maintenance policing persists despite the limited evidence to support its efficacy and great cause for concern about its negative impact, disproportionately on people of color.61

Stop Outcomes: Searches, Arrests, and Police Violence

National surveys, as well as studies of specific jurisdictions, reveal disparities in the outcomes of police stops. After pulling a driver over for a traffic stop in 2018, officers nationwide searched Black and Latinx drivers 1.7 and 2.6 times as often as whites, respectively.62 This disparity holds even though police are less likely to find illegal drugs, weapons, or other forms of contraband such as stolen goods in the cars of Black and Latinx drivers than those of whites.63 These patterns of ‘contraband hit rates’ have been found in jurisdictions across the country, including Philadelphia, Missouri, and California.64 Because they are searched so much more frequently, Black and Latinx drivers are arrested more frequently than whites in police stops—a disparity that would be reduced if they were searched at the same rate as whites.65

Police violence also differs by race. In recent years, police officers have threatened or used non-fatal force in about 3% of encounters that they initiated or which resulted from a traffic accident.66 But they have been over 2.5 times as likely to use or threaten force against Black individuals as whites (5.5% versus 2.1% in 2020) and more likely to do so against Latinx individuals (3.4%) than whites as well.67 Researchers have also identified racial disparities in how respectfully police officers speak to stopped drivers, based on body-worn camera footage from Oakland, CA.68

Racial disparities are also stark in relation to who police officers kill. Black Americans were 2.5 times as likely to be shot and killed by police officers as whites, and Latinx people were 1.2 times as likely, between 2015 and 2021.69 At this rate, police will kill an estimated one in 1,000 Black men.70 Police officers’ greater inclination to stop and search people of color suggests that differences in people’s behavior alone are unlikely to account for disparities in lethal police violence. [MORE]
48.

Overall, 62 million U.S. residents had contact with the police in 2018, which includes 35 million interactions that people initiated and nine million interactions related to a traffic accident (all forms of police contact add up to more than the total since some individuals experienced multiple types of contact). Of the approximately 24 million traffic stop encounters in 2018, 18.7 million (77%) were experienced by drivers and 5.7 million (23%) were experienced by passengers. Tapp & Davis. (2022), see note 13.

49.

This study found the state-patrol stop rate to be 7% for whites, 10% for Blacks, 5% for Latinxs. The municipal-police stop rate was 14% for whites, 20% for Blacks, 9% for Latinxs. Pierson, E., Simoiu, C., Overgoor, J., Corbett-Davies, S., Jenson, D., Shoemaker, A., Ramachandran, V., Barghouty, P., Phillips, C., Shroff, R., & Goel, S. (2020). A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(7), 736–745. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0858-1

50.

See Grogger, J. & Ridgeway, G. (2006). Testing for racial profiling in traffic stops from behind a veil of darkness. Journal of the American Statistical Association. 101, 878–887. https://doi.org/10.1198/016214506000000168.

51.

Barone, K., Fazzalaro, J., Kalinowski, J., & Ross, M. B. (2022) Traffic stop data analysis and findings, 2020. Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, University of Connecticut; Flingai, S., Sahaf, M., Battle, N. & Castaneda, S. (2022). An analysis of racial disparities in police traffic stops in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, from 2010 to 2019. Vera Institute of Justice; Baumgartner, F., Epp, D., & Shoub, K. (2018). Suspect citizens: What 20 million traffic stops tell us about policing and race. Cambridge University Press; Horn, C. (2020, June 12.) Racial disparities revealed in massive traffic stop dataset. University of South Carolina.

52.

Bureau of Justice Statistics. Contacts between police and the public.

53.

McIntire, M., & Keller, M. H. (2021, November 3). The demand for money behind many police traffic stops. The New York Times.

54.

Epp, C. R., Maynard-Moody, S., & Haider-Markel, D. P. (2014). Pulled over: How police stops define race and citizenship. University of Chicago Press, p. 64, emphasis in original.

55.

This study is based on drivers’ reports of officers’ reasons for the stop. Epp, Maynard-Moody, & Haider-Markel (2014), see note 54; for a similar study of traffic stops for non-moving violations in California, see Muhammad et al. (2022), see note 10.

56.

Latinx drivers in North Carolina were also more likely to be stopped for investigatory rather than for traffic safety reasons. Baumgartner, Epp, & Shoub (2018), see note 51.

57.

Floyd v. City of N.Y., 959 F. Supp. 2d 540, 562 (S.D.N.Y. 2013).

58.

Rosenfeld, R. & Fornango, R. (2014). The impact of police stops on precinct robbery and burglary rates in New York City. Justice Quarterly, 31(1), 96-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2012.712152; Keating, D., & Stevens, H. (2020, February 27). Bloomberg said ‘stop and frisk’ decreased crime. Data suggests it wasn’t a major factor in cutting felonies.

59.

Crime and Justice Institute (2022). City of Milwaukee settlement agreement: Analysis of 2022 traffic stops, field interviews, no-action encounters, and frisks; ACLU-DC & ACLU Analytics. (2020). Racial disparities in stops by the DC Metropolitan Police Department: Review of five months of data; Wisconsin State Journal. (2022, May 12). ACLU, Milwaukee police stop-and-frisk resolution efforts continue; ACLU Illinois. (2023). Stop and frisk; Palmer, C., & Orso, A. (2023, March 17). Stop-and-frisk is getting renewed attention in Philly amid a mayor’s race focused on crime. The Philadelphia Inquirer.

60.

Goodman, J. D. (2017, October 20). Fewer criminal tickets for petty crimes, like public urination. The New York Times; Konig, J. (2022, March 23). NYPD launches “quality-of-life” initiative that critics call return to “broken windows” policing. Spectrum News NY1.

61.

Weisburd, D., & Majmundar, M. K. (Eds.) (2018). Proactive policing: Effects on crime and communities. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. https://doi.org/10.17226/24928

62.

Tapp & Davis. (2022), see note 13.

63.

Harris, D. (2012). Hearing on “Ending Racial Profiling in America,” Testimony of David A. Harris. United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights; Pierson et al. (2020), see note 49.

64.

Melamed (2019), see note 14; Missouri Attorney General. (2019). Vehicle stops executive summary; Muhammad et al. (2022), see note 10; Lofstrom et al. (2021), see note 14.

65.

Tapp & Davis (2022), see note 13; Muhammad et al. (2022), see note 10.

66.

This includes if the officer threatened force, handcuffed, pushed or grabbed, hit or kicked, used chemical or pepper spray, used an electroshock weapon, pointed or fired a gun, or used another type of physical force. Tapp & Davis (2022), see note 13.

67.

Tapp & Davis (2022), see note 13.

68.

Voigt, R., Camp, N.P., Prabhakaran, V., Hamilton, W.L., Hetey, R.C., Griffiths, C.M., Jurgens, D., Jurafsky, D., & Eberhardt, J.L. (2017). Language from police body camera footage. shows racial disparities in officer respect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(25), 6521–6526.

69.

These data exclude the minority of killings by police that do not involve a firearm. Muhammad et al. (2022), see note 10.

70.

Edwards F, Lee H, Esposito M. (2019). Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex. PNAS 116(34),16793–98.

71.

Black Rolebot DA Brooke Jenkins Warns of Abstract Harms from MAGA While Ignoring Reality that SF Cops Routinely Stop and Niggerize Black People w/Impunity on Behalf of Her Elite, White Liberal Masters

'I’m Not Resisting,’ Just Walking Across the Street:' Instead of Fighting Crime, a White SF Cop Niggerized and Attacked a Black Woman Allegedly Jaywalking, Causing Concussion, Separated Shoulder

ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY: 

Niggerized – “unsafe, unprotected, subjected and subjugated to random violence, hated for who you are to the point you become so scared that you defer to the powers that be while willing to consent to your own domination.” ~Dr. Cornel West.

From [HERE] A Black woman said she was violently arrested by police officers after being wrongfully stopped for jaywalking.

"What did I do wrong? I'm just walking across the street," Christiana Porter, 34, told KTVU on Monday.

Porter was accused of jaywalking in front of a San Francisco police car at 2nd Avenue and Geary Boulevard in the city's Richmond District on July 29.

Video footage showed Porter, wearing headphones and apparently unaware that an officer was attempting to stop her, walking across the street.

The officer is seen driving on the wrong side of Geary before exiting his vehicle. Porter moves away from the officer, and he pushes her against a wall.

In cellphone video taken by a bystander, Porter is heard screaming, "I'm not resisting."

"Honestly, as a Black woman, just trying to stay alive. I thought about my five kids, trying to make it home to my kids," she said.

More police cars arrived on the scene with their sirens blaring. Additional officers ran over to help.

"I just don't trust them no more," Porter said. "I seriously don't trust them. I feel like they abuse and use their power and authority to brutalize and just torment and harass civilians."

Officer Josh McFall later told a witness that Porter refused to comply with his orders, including refusing to show identification or to keep her hands out of her pockets or purse, where there potentially could have been a weapon.

"I didn't want it to go this way, but when people put me in that position, I don't have a choice," McFall told the bystander.

Porter said she is a domestic violence survivor and that the police have also left her traumatized and injured with a concussion, a separated shoulder, and nerve damage.

"I'm not a threat, I'm just trying to get my life back," she said through tears. "When I told him I was a survivor, he was just, 'I don't care, this doesn't matter right now.'"

Her attorneys said police department regulations bar officers from ticketing people for jaywalking unless there's an immediate danger of a crash or safety issue.

"There are more serious crimes that should be addressed by the San Francisco Police Department, especially since they claim they're understaffed," said attorney Lateef Gray.

Another attorney Treva Stewart said, "Especially with regards to Officer McFall, it's a contempt of cop. He was angry about something."

Assemblymember Phil Ting wrote a law that decriminalizes jaywalking, with some exceptions.

"If there's something happening that puts the pedestrian or the driver at risk, that's when there should be a citation," Ting said, speaking generally.

Is “Stop Resisting” a Warning from a Public Servant or a Precursor to Death by a Public Master? Corpus Christi Cops Repeatedly Punch a Black Man in the Face b/c He Resisted Their “Compliance Strikes”

ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY:

Cop Mantra – “Stop resisting arrest, stop resisting arrest, stop resisting arrest.” A pretense and precursor to murder. Everything cops say or do (including life-ending, life-wrecking abuses and/or rage-inducing bullying they routinely inflict on innocent people with impunity) needs to be looked at with extreme suspicion. Cops (patrolling predators) not only need to wear body-cameras, but they also need to be under surveillance 24/7. “If one million cobras were set loose on our city streets, wouldn’t you think it proper to know where each one was and what it was doing all the time?” ~Fred Woodworth

From [HERE] Cell phone video of an arrest by Corpus Christi Police officers is raising questions about excessive force. The video starts in the middle of an arrest of a Black man near the Wells Fargo ATM at the intersection of Airline Road and SPID.

Officers can be seen yelling at the man to "stop resisting" as at least two of the officers repeatedly punched the man in the face and body. 3NEWS counted at least 17 punches in the 49-second video.

"Why is he punching him in the face?"

You can also hear the reaction from the couple taking the video. At first they disagreed over whether the man was resisting. The woman said, "You are resisting, you fool," but then a few seconds later, the man watching with her said, "he's not resisting," and they grew quiet.

The punches continued, and the woman said, "That's excessive," and "why is he punching him in the f****** face?" The video then ends.

3NEWS asked if the man was combative at any point and tried to hit the officers. Lt. Gonzalez said she had not seen any of the body cam or dash cam footage. 3NEWS submitted a public records request for those videos.

Lt. Gonzalez did watch the cell phone video and said officers are allowed to punch suspects.

"We would call that a compliance strike," Lt. Gonzalez said. "There are a variety of different what we call compliance techniques that officers are trained in."

The couple believes the officers might need more training.

"There was obviously other ways they could have handled the situation," they said. "He wasn't hurting anybody at the time."

"The Corpus Christi Police Department is looking at the video, making sure that everything that the officers did is within policy and within their training."

Study of 125 Countries Finds ‘No Apparent Benefit’ From COVID injections

From [HERE] A new study by a team of Canadian researchers into excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemicfound that patterns of excess death globally could not be explained by the virus, including long COVID.

The study, by researchers with Correlation Research in the Public Interest, examined excess mortality in 125 countries during the pandemic. It found that mortality patterns correlate closely with the imposition of restrictions such as lockdowns and with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

The investigation determined that pandemic-related restrictions resulted in 30 million deaths globally and that 17 million deaths can be attributed to the COVID-19 vaccines.

The researchers concluded that “nothing special would have occurred in terms of mortality had a pandemic not been declared and had the declaration not been acted upon.”

Joseph Hickey, Ph.D., one of the paper’s co-authors and president of Correlation, joined “The Defender In-Depth” this week to discuss the study’s findings and analyze the likely causes contributing to increases in excess deaths and overall mortality.

Excess death data ‘not compatible’ with ‘particularly virulent special pathogen’

Hickey explained that “all-cause mortality” refers to “the number of deaths without filtering by the cause of death” during a given period, while “excess deaths” refers to “how many deaths occurred that are above and beyond what would have been predicted” for a certain period.

Hickey and the study’s co-authors analyzed pre-pandemic raw data from 2015 to 2019, and data collected between 2020 and 2023. Hickey said the data, collected from 125 countries, found “a large amount of excess deaths.”

“We calculate that over the COVID period … about 0.39% of the global population died in excess. That compares to about 0.97%” during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.

Hickey said this was “the largest non-war mortality event in 100 years” globally.

The study also found patterns of excess mortality across the world were “very heterogeneous,” as they varied “significantly from country to country,” across regions within the same country and across age groups. Hickey said:

“There are some countries that immediately following the declaration of the pandemic in March of 2020 had an enormous spike in … excess mortality that is very sharp, very fast and very narrow. But that does not occur in all countries.

“There are neighboring countries that don’t have that at all. There are countries that do not have any excess mortality throughout all of 2020, and it’s only in 2021 when the vaccines are rolled out, that they suddenly have excess. And that excess can be a sharp spike, or it can be a raised and sustained plateau.”

Noting that none of the countries had any excess deaths before the declaration of the pandemic, Hickey said this finding does not match the spread of a deadly virus.

“If you take the model of a new very deadly pathogen that is spreading around the world, you should not see this very high degree of heterogeneity … it’s simply not compatible with the hypothesis of a particularly virulent special pathogen,” he said.

“If there was a specifically virulent and dangerous pathogen that was spreading around the world, it would not wait for a political declaration of a pandemic to start causing excess mortality,” Hickey added.

Instead, “a much simpler, much more elegant explanation is that it’s differences in national policies, national measures of one kind or another that are responsible for these very different outcomes in excess mortality,” Hickey said. [MORE]

American Dental Association Pledges to Push Fluoridated Water Despite Court Finding that ‘Fluoride Causes Cognitive Damage to Children’

From [HERE] A landmark federal court ruling recently determined that fluoride levels in U.S. drinking water pose unnecessary risks to children’s IQ and cognitive development, validating what conspiracy theorists have warned about for decades.

Generations of people have been poisoned through the water supply without their consent. This toxic byproduct – hexafluorosilicic acid – has been dripped into most municipal water supplies for decades. The institutions that thought they knew what was best for everyone’s dental health have instead dumbed down entire generations of people, harming their IQ and cognitive development. This widespread dumbing down of human populations helps explain the lack of critical thinking skills in the 21st century.

None of these serious matters of public health seem important to institutions like the American Dental Association, however. In fact, the ADA immediately issued a statement, doubling down and defending water fluoridation.

Biased and stubborn American Dental Association defends fluoridated water

Some institutions, like the American Dental Association, are pushing back against the science and dismissing this federal court ruling, demanding that fluoride be considered safe for everyone, against all available evidence.

The ADA, representing some 159,000 dentists across the country, posits itself as “the premier source of oral health information.” The ADA claims that they have “promoted the art and science of dentistry since 1859” while advocating for the public’s health. But the ADA aren’t thinking about the big picture with fluoride and how it is destroying the cognitive abilities of those exposed on a daily basis.

Immediately after the court’s ruling, the ADA hastily wrote:

The American Dental Association (ADA) remains staunchly in support of community water fluoridation at optimal levels to help prevent tooth decay. The district court ruling against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides no scientific basis for the ADA to change its endorsement of community water fluoridation as safe and beneficial to oral health.

The ADA called the ruling and the barrage of social media posts that followed “pseudo-scientific information.” The ADA claims that social media users are spreading information that “is not always based on research conducted according to impartial and evidence based scientific methodology.” The ADA contends that “conclusions drawn from research are not always scientifically justifiable or without bias.” One might point out that the ADA is drawing their own biased conclusions from research that was validated in court. By ignoring the latest evidence on fluoride’s damage to children’s brains, the ADA might be guilty of spreading “pseudo-scientific information.” [MORE]

Federal Court Rules Fluoride in Water Poses an ‘Unreasonable Risk’ to Children, Reduces Their IQ

From [HERE] Several U.S. cities, towns and counties announced they will stop fluoridating their water in the aftermath of a landmark federal court ruling that found water fluoridation at current levels poses an “unreasonable risk” of reduced IQ in children.

Abilene, Texas; Yorktown and Somers, New York; and the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District in Utah are among those cities and districts that responded quickly to the Sept. 24 ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen.

Chen ruled the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can no longer ignore the risk fluoridation poses to human — especially children’s — health and that the agency must take regulatory action.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2017 by Fluoride Action Network, Moms Against Fluoridation, Food & Water Watch and individual parents and children. It followed the publication of a key report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program.

Rick North, board member of the Fluoride Action Network, told The Defender he expects more cities and towns to announce they will end the practice of fluoridation.

“Fluoridation is a house of cards and it’s going to fall,” North said. “It’s only a matter of when. Our job is to make the wind blow.” [MORE]

30 Lawmakers Sponsor Bill to End Liability Protection for Vaccine Makers

From [HERE] A bill introduced late last week in the U.S. House of Representatives would end the liability protections Congress gave vaccine makers under the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

Thirty Republican lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors to House Bill 9828, End the Vaccine Carveout Act. The proposed legislation would end the broad protection from liability for injuries resulting from vaccines listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Childhood Immunization Schedule.

“The … vaccine makers are criminal enterprises that have paid tens of billions in criminal penalties over the past decade,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) founder and chairman on leave Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement on the bill.

Kennedy, who has long advocated for eliminating liability protection for vaccine manufacturers, added, “By freeing them from liability for negligence, the 1986 statute removed any incentive for these companies to make safe products. If we want safe and effective vaccines we need to end the liability shield.”

CHD, React19 and The American Family Project also supported the development of the bill, the press release said.

REACT19 founder Brianne Dressen, who experienced a debilitating COVID-19 vaccine injury as a volunteer in AstraZeneca’s clinical trial, announced the bill and its co-sponsors in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“People harmed are long overdue for a compensation process that actually works, and it’s time for the drug companies to pick up the tab,” she said.

‘Complex sham compensation program’ in place since 1986 act

Congress passed the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to address the risks of vaccines — which Congress and vaccine makers acknowledged had “unavoidable” side effects.

The act set up a “no-fault” system whereby instead of suing the manufacturers, people injured by vaccines can file a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which adjudicates the claims.

The VICP was meant to insulate vaccine makers from lawsuits that could bankrupt them while ensuring that injury victims had a straightforward, non-adversarial and fair path to compensation.

The program is funded by a 75-cent-per-dose tax, paid by vaccine makers, for every vaccine included in the program.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administers the VICP, also known as the “vaccine court.” Court-appointed “special masters” — typically lawyers who previously represented the U.S. government — manage and decide the individual claims.

The proceedings are more informal than a typical courtroom. There is no judge or jury, and the rules of evidence, civil procedure and discovery do not apply.

In practice, getting compensation through the VICP has been notoriously difficult. Critics say the program has devolved to protect government agencies and corporations rather than the health of vaccinated children.

CHD CEO Mary Holland said the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act effectively left parents and children injured by vaccines with no substantive way to get any compensation while giving vaccine makers a free pass.

“For over 35 years, parents of children injured and killed by government-recommended vaccines have been left with no meaningful redress — only a complex, sham compensation program that pits grieving families against the government, while Big Pharma enjoys no liability,” she said.

“During that same time, chronic health conditions in children — autism, ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], severe allergies, asthma — have skyrocketed,” Holland said.

In some cases, people who are dissatisfied with the outcome of their case in the VICP, or who don’t get a timely decision, can sue the manufacturer for limited causes of action, such as fraud — as is the case in many of the over 200 gardasil injury lawsuits currently being argued against Merck in federal court. [MORE]

How Many Black Children Did Pfizer Kill with Its Drug "Oxbryta?" After Targeting Blacks, Pfizer Pulls Blood Cell Therapy Off Market Due to Deaths: Black Children Were at Greatest Risk

From [KARENKINGSTON] Pfizer targeted parents of African American children who had sickle cell disease with their OXBRYTA marketing. Yesterday, Pfizer announced OXBRYTA is being withdrawn from 35 countries due to deaths.

Immediately after the stock market closed on September 25, 2024, Pfizer announced that “it’s voluntarily withdrawing all lots of OXBRYTA for the treatment of sickle cell disease at this time, in all markets where it is approved. Pfizer is also discontinuing all active clinical trials for the drug and expanded access programs worldwide.” Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that affects hemoglobin and the ability for red blood cells to carry oxygen causing red blood cells to ‘sickle’ or become deformed.

Per the website, OXBRYTA supports hemoglobin in order to prevent the breakdown of red blood cells.

Pfizer’s OXBRYTA marketing targeted African American parents whose children were diagnosed with sickle cell disease. [MORE]

Karen Kingston says Trump Outmaneuvered Big Pharma after being Mandated to Deliver COVID Shots. Is that Why Elites are Using Their Authorities and Media to Try to Silence and Kill Him?

From [KAREN KINGSTON] I’ve frequently been criticized for not condemning Trump for allowing the COVID-19 mRNA injections to come to market. As a former corporate executive who has written, reviewed, and negotiated well over a hundred contracts with large biopharma companies, I always asserted that President Trump had an extremely clean paper trail in regard to the Pfizer contract. 

Pfizer agreed to work independent of the US government and military in order to deliver safe and effective vaccines thereby forfeiting their derivative immunity in exchange for first-to-market and intellectual property rights in a growing multi-trillion-dollar industry.

When it came to negotiating the Pfizer contract, it appears that President Trump was not only exceptionally well-versed in the laws regulating emergency use authorized (EUA) products and U.S. laws regulating military contracts, but that he also leveraged his expertise in outsmarting and outmaneuvering unethical businessmen (aka con artists).  [MORE]

Assassin of Haitian President Linked to US Intel. Did US Authorities Murder Moïse b/c He Rejected MRNA COVID Shots? Poor Nation that Didnt Vax, Social Distance or Shut Down was Unaffected by Plandemic

HOW DID HAITI DEFEAT COVID W/ONLY 3% “VACCINATED” AND NO LOCKDOWNS, MASKS, SOCIAL DISTANCING OR FULL HOSPITALS?” LESS THAN 1000 DEAD FROM COVID IN POOR COUNTRY W/11 MILLION PEOPLE WHO DISBELIEVED HOAX

HAITI DIDN'T PARTICIPATE IN THE PLANDEMIC AND REMAINS UNAFFECTED; POOR COUNTRY W/11M PEOPLE DIDN'T SOCIALLY DISTANCE, WEAR MASKS AND 1% INJECTED. HOSPITALS AREN'T FULL OF COVID PATIENTS, ONLY 837 DEAD

SIMILAR TO HAITI AND SOME AFRICAN COUNTRIES THE OUTCOME IN THE AMISH COMMUNITY PROVES THAT NOT SHUTTING DOWN, MASKING OR TAKING THE "VACCINE" DIDN'T RESULT IN MORE COVID DEATHS

• Suspected “Well Financed" Assassins of Haitian President Moïse Trained by US, Linked to Pro-Coup Oligarchy

• Fed Court Sentences “Well Financed" Assassin who Murdered Haitian President Jovenel Moïse - Killed Shortly After He Rejected COVID Shots and Sought Real Vaccines [Haiti was Never Impacted by COVID]

From [FTP] South Florida businessman accused of funding the plot to assassinate former Haitian President Jovenel Moise received legal advice endorsing a mission to capture the head of state from a confidential informant of a US intelligence agency, court documents unveiled in July 2024 allege. According to the accused’s legal team, “the discovery received from The Government redacts the U.S. intelligence agency with which [the informant] is affiliated,” but “it is clear that he is a [confidential informant] for a U.S. Intelligence Agency.”

The businessman, Walter Veintemilla, and his company, Worldwide Capital Lending Group, stand accused of providing a $175,000 line of credit to Florida defense contractor CTU Security LLC, which reportedly carried out the assassination. 

On July 1, Veintemilla’s attorneys filed a pretrial motion to depose the alleged intelligence informant, “J.C.,” who is described as an Ecuadorian lawyer living in Bolivia. Veintemilla’s defense argues that testimony from “J.C.” would support their contention “that several investigative and administrative agencies of the United States Government were aware of the actions and intentions of his alleged co-conspirators in Haiti and supported those actions.”

Veintemilla’s co-defendants also joined in that motion to depose J.C. in Bolivia. Several of them, including Arcangel Pretel Ortiz and Antonio Intriago, were accused by the Bolivian government of plotting an aborted coup attempt in October 2020 against President Luis Arce. German Alejandro Rivera Garcia, a retired Colombian Army officer who helped lead the kill team in Haiti, was also present in Bolivia with this group. He was extradited to the US, pled guilty, and received a life sentence in late 2023. [MORE]

One week after Haiti's president was assassinated, the country's first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines finally arrived.

President Jovenel Moïse was allegedly shot a dozen times in his private residence on July 7. Prior to his murder Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, was the only nation that hadn’t vaccinated a single resident against Covid-19.

Haiti was among the 92 poor and middle-income countries offered doses under the Covax Facility. But the government initially declined AstraZeneca PLC shots, citing side effects and widespread fears in the population.

“Haiti did not reject the offer of vaccines from Covax,” Haiti Ministry of Health General Director Laure Adrien said in a telephone interview. “All we asked was that they change the vaccine they were providing us.” [MORE]

Lots of Problems in Haiti but COVID Isn’t 1 of Them: Doctor says Hospitals are Not Overrun w/COVID Patients in Crowded, Poor, Unvaccinated Country Not Practicing Social Distancing or Wearing Masks

Boris Johnson says COVID Lockdowns were “Medieval.” Is that One of the Reasons Elites Removed Him from Service?

From [HERE] Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he doubts lockdowns played a significant role in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic to an end.

In extracts released from his new memoir Unleashed, he describes the lockdowns as “literally medieval in their savagery and consequences,” and likened himself to King Canute attempting to “repel the waves of a highly contagious disease.”

He also says he believes the COVID-19 virus did originate in a laboratory in Wuhan, rather than a wet market.

At the British government’s COVID inquiry last December, Johnson said there were “appalling harms on either side of the decision” to lock down the country, and he apologised for any mistakes he and his government made.

Initially, according to the extracts, Johnson said he believe the lockdowns were reducing the spread of the virus.

“It was only later that I started to look at the curves of the pandemic around the world—the double hump that seemed to rise and fall irrespective of the approaches taken by governments,” he writes.

“There were always two waves, whether you were in China, where lockdowns were ruthlessly enforced, or in Sweden, where they took a more voluntary approach.”

He continues: “I am not saying that lockdowns achieved nothing; I am sure they had some effect. But were they decisive in beating back the ­disease, turning that wave down? All I can say is that I am no longer sure.”

Johnson goes on to say that the lockdowns showed Britain had “barely progressed” from the Elizabethan era, four hundred years ago, when theatres were closed and the number of mourners at funerals were limited to stop the spread of pestilence.

Three national lockdowns took place in Britain, from March 2020 to June 2020, from November 2020 to December 2020 and from January 2021 to May 2021.

Boris Johnson was forced to resign in 2022, after a series of scandals including so-called “Partygate,” when it was revealed the members of the government did not abide by the social-distancing restrictions imposed on the country.

Allies of Mr Johnson, such as Michael Gove, have suggested the lockdowns went totally against the former prime ministers “worldview.”

After Using Unscientific Nonsense to Destroy Jobs and Businesses w/COVID Lockdowns, Elite White Liberals in DC to Allow Evictions of Mostly Black People to Resume w/Rollback of City Tenant Protections

From [HERE] During the pandemic, emergency legislation made it easier for people falling on hard times to obtain rental assistance and stay in their homes or apartments.

Now, D.C. leaders say some are using the changes to delay their eviction, and those delays are impacting landlords that provide affordable housing in the city.

“The long-term continuation of these emergency policies, some of them becoming permanent policies, have put the affordable housing that we have invested so heavily in at risk, ” said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at a press conference on Monday.

Bowser joined D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson to announce emergency legislation that both said would roll back the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP, to where it was before the pandemic.

The D.C. Council will take up the emergency legislation Tuesday, and Mendelson believes there is enough support among council members for the measure to pass.

MO Executes Marcellus Williams Despite Prosecutor Opposition. DA Said No Evidence Connected Black Man to Murder of White Woman. White Jury Conviction Supported by a Discredited Snitch who Got Reward $

From [HERE] Despite St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell’s opposition, Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, 55, Tuesday for a 1998 killing that he consistently maintained he did not commit.

“Marcellus Williams should be alive today,” Mr. Bell said in a statement shortly after the execution. “If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option. This outcome did not serve the interests of justice.”

Prosecutor Works to Correct “Manifest Injustice”

In January, the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office filed a 63-page motion to vacate Mr. Williams’s 2001 conviction in the killing of a journalist in her home in the St. Louis suburbs.

The prosecuting attorney wrote that new DNA evidence, increasing doubts about the credibility of the State’s key witnesses, and constitutional defects including ineffective counsel and racially discriminatory jury selection at trial compelled him to ask the circuit court “to correct this manifest injustice.” 

A lot of physical evidence was collected at the crime scene—including the murder weapon (a kitchen knife), bloody shoeprints and fingerprints, and hairs on the victim’s t-shirt, her hands, and the floor that did not match her or her husband—and none of it can be tied to Mr. Williams, the prosecutor wrote. 

Mr. Williams was excluded as the source of the footprints and hairs, the fingerprints, and male DNA that was recently recovered from the knife handle.

With no direct evidence linking Mr. Williams to the crime, the State’s case depended on two unreliable witnesses—a jailhouse informant who claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him, and Mr. Williams’s girlfriend, who claimed she saw Mr. Williams with the victim’s laptop. Both implicated Mr. Williams because they wanted reward money and shorter sentences in their own cases, Mr. Williams’s counsel told The Washington Post. 

New evidence further undermined the witnesses’ credibility, prosecutors wrote. Sworn statements from his own family state the jailhouse informant made up the story about Mr. Williams to get the reward money, and evidence emerged that Mr. Williams had gotten the laptop from his girlfriend, who had her own financial and personal motives to implicate him.

“This never-before-considered evidence, when paired with the relative paucity of other, credible evidence supporting guilt, as well as additional considerations of ineffective assistance of counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection,” the prosecuting attorney’s office wrote, “casts inexorable doubt on Mr. Williams’s conviction and sentence.”

Despite Widespread Opposition, Execution Proceeds

In June, while the motion to vacate was pending, the Missouri Supreme Court set September 24 as Mr. Williams’s third execution date. 

In 2015 and 2017, the state supreme court and then-Gov. Eric Greitens, respectively, issued last-minute reprieves. The governor appointed a board of inquiry to investigate innocence claims based on DNA testing of the weapon, but before it submitted findings, it was disbanded by current Gov. Mike Parson.

Just before a hearing on the prosecutor’s motion, DNA test results revealed that the DNA on the knife that excluded Mr. Williams matched the trial prosecutor and his investigator, who had repeatedly handled the weapon without gloves.

The contamination undermined Mr. Williams’s ability to prove an actual innocence claim based on new evidence, so he entered an agreement with the prosecutor to enter a “no contest” plea in exchange for a life-without-parole sentence. The circuit judge and the victim’s family approved it, but the Missouri Supreme Court intervened and overturned the agreement.

In August, the circuit court held an evidentiary hearing where the trial prosecutor admitted he repeatedly handled the murder weapon without gloves and, according to Mr. William’s court filings, admitted that “part of the reason” he struck a potential juror was because he was Black. 

Mr. Bell conceded constitutional error in the mishandling of evidence, but the state courts nonetheless deniedthe prosecutor’s motion and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay without explanation. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson noted they would have granted a stay.

Despite statewide protests, Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency and, reportedly for the first time, Missouri carried out an execution over opposition from both the prosecutor’s office and the victim’s family.

Mr. Williams was the 100th person executed in Missouri since 1989, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

US Reaches 1600 Executions, Demonstrating Disconnect between Elected Officials and Declining Public Support

From [HERE] The United States has reached a milestone in the administration of capital punishment this week. All four scheduled executions in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Alabama took place, marking the 1600th execution in the modern era of the death penalty in the U.S., despite public opinion polls showing growing concerns about the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty and declining support for its use.

The majority of U.S. states have either abandoned use of the death penalty entirely or paused executions (29 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government). A Gallup poll recently found that the percentage of Americans who believe the death penalty is used unfairly increased to 50%, while overall support for the death penalty has been steadily decreasing since 1994, now at a slim majority of 53%. Unlike past years, the death penalty isn’t among top voter priorities during this election year, and neither national political party even mentions use of the death penalty in their platforms.

While all the data continue to show a decline in use and support, a handful of state elected officials have recently expanded use of the death penalty. Utah, South Carolina, Idaho, and Indiana scheduled executions in 2024 after at least a decade-long pause. Several state legislatures have also authorized new methods of execution, and two states (Florida and Tennessee) have added new death-eligible crimes. DPI research suggests that these officials are largely out of step with increasing public concern about the fairness and accuracy of capital punishment—and that zealous approaches to using the death penalty that were once popular are no longer winning the same levels of voter support.

DPI’s data show that even at the peak of use and public support, the death penalty has never been a majority state practice. Since 2012, the number of states conducting executions has remained below 20% in any given year. [MORE]