Murderers With Badges, Licensed to Kill: Nation Reels from Alton Sterling's Death at Hands of Police

Democracy Now

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a second video has surfaced showing the fatal police shooting of father of five Alton Sterling, who was fatally shot by police early Tuesday morning. Sterling was a 37-year-old African-American. The two officers involved are both white. The video shows Sterling pinned to the ground by two white police officers. We speak to Arthur "Silky Slim" Reed, founder of Stop the Killing, a youth mentoring program based in Baton Rouge. His organization provided the first cell phone video of the police shooting of Alton Sterling.

In Alton Sterling’s Baton Rouge, “Blue Lives Matter”

The Intercept 

LOUISIANA GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS called for a federal civil rights investigation on Tuesday into what was at that point the latest fatal police shooting of a black man in the United States.

But in May, Edwards signed a bill into law that makes targeting a police officer a hate crime. Passage of such bills at the state level is a top priority for a national organization called Blue Lives Matter, which was formed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement .

Alton Sterling, 37, was shot in the chest at point-blank range by Baton Rouge police early Tuesday morning; witnesses captured the event on video. Philando Castile, 32, was shot after police stopped his car outside St. Paul, Minnesota; his girlfriend livestreamed his death on Facebook.

But it is the civil rights of police officers that Edwards was concerned about in May, as if theirs were being routinely violated.

“I’m not aware of any evidence that police officers have been victimized that would justify them giving special protection,” Marjorie R. Esman, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, told The Intercept.

Under the law, a defendant convicted  of a misdemeanor could face an extra six months in prison and a $500 fine. A defendant convicted of a felony could get an extra five years in prison with hard labor and a $5,000 fine.

The new law places police officers, firefighters, and EMTs under protection from hate crimes — an umbrella term that spans beyond direct assault. Aviva Shen writes at ThinkProgress:

Now that police are a protected class, this language [meant to enhance penalties for attacks against houses of worship] could be used to target any damage done to squad cars or protests on police property, like the sit-in at the Minneapolis Police Department over the death of Jamar Clark, or the Black Lives Matter blockade of the Oakland Police headquarters in California.

Lamar Advertising, based in Baton Rouge, donated more than 300 billboards that appeared across the country bearing the slogans #BlueLivesMatter and #thankublu.

“We wanted to recognize the local police departments and men and women that put their lives on the line every day,” Stephen Hebert of Lamar Advertising told WVIT-TV.

Laws similar to the one in Louisiana have been proposed in Kentucky, Tennessee and Chicago. Last year in Coon Rapids,Minnesota — just north of Minneapolis, where Castile was killed Wednesday — hundreds of supporters held a Police Lives Matter rally.

In Washington, lawmakers in the House and the Senate have both introduced a “Thin Blue Line Act,” which would strengthen penalties for attacks on law enforcement.

The ACLU’s Esman said police are not the group of people who need attention: “Right now, here in Louisiana, we are dealing with the fact that the police have killed a black man who was minding his own business.”

Young Black Man Gets New Trial Based on Violation of Sixth Amendment Right

Innocence Project 

In 2013, a young man named Justin Marshall was convicted of the 2009 killing of a 64-year-old landlord of an Iowa City apartment building; he was sentenced to life in prison. But last year, when an appeals court ruled that informant testimony used to seal Marshall’s conviction should not have been allowed at the trial, his conviction was overturned. And in a split 4-3 decision last Thursday, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision, entitling Marshall to a new trial.

Marshall was just 19 when he was arrested for the deadly shooting of John Versypt. According to the Associated Press, there was no physical evidence or eyewitnesses linking Marshall to the crime. The prosecution’s case rested on the testimony of three informants, one of them named Antonio Martin—a jailhouse informant who had previously worked with federal prosecutors on drug cases in exchange for a reduced sentence in his criminal case. Martin elicited a written confession from Marshall after the two men were placed in adjacent cells at the local county jail. In the written statement, Marshall said that he’d killed Versypt by accident and that he hoped that his admission would get him a lesser charge.

New Report says UK entry into Iraq War not justified

[JURIST]

The findings of the seven-year inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot [official profile], into Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq [JURIST backgrounder] were delivered [statement] on Wednesday in the form of a scathing verdict against former prime minister Tony Blair [Britannica profile] and his administration, which stated that the war was based on "flawed intelligence and assessments" and had been launched before "peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted." More specifically, the Chilcot Inquiry [report materials] concluded that the "judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction—WMD—were presented with a certainty that was not justified," "There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein," and "[t]he planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein [Britannica profile] were wholly inadequate." While stating that determination of whether the military action was legal is the prerogative of an international court, the inquiry concluded that "the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory." Chilcot's statement reminded that a UN Security Council majority was lacking at the time of the invasion, and further concluded "that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Council's authority" by proceeding with military action. As for the post conflict period, Chilcot's statement concluded that, "[t]he Government's preparations failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilising, administering and reconstructing Iraq, and of the responsibilities which were likely to fall to the UK." Stating that a vital purpose of the inquiry is to identify the lessons that can be learned from the Iraq experience including "management of relations with allies," Chilcot remarked that, "[t]he UK's relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgements differ."

CNN's Don Lemon Highlights The Media's Bias When Reporting On Black Victims And Criminal Records

MediaMatters

CHARLES COLEMAN JR.: I think it's important to remember because oftentimes what we have happen is we have human beings that are turned into hashtags overnight, and this really brought it home, as you said because what so many people don't realize is that these are fathers, these are brothers, these are sons. Alton Sterling was the father of five people. There was a baby in the car in Minnesota. Eric Garner was a father. We oftentimes don't realize the extent of broken lives that are affected by violence against innocent citizens because --I want to be clear about something -- people may say, well, there was weed in the car or Alton Sterling was on probation, and he shouldn't have had a gun. But at the time that these encounters happened with law enforcement, these are innocent people. 

DON LEMON (HOST): There are no perfect victims. I'm not perfect, you're not perfect. No one in this room is perfect. Everyone has indiscretions, transgressions. Everyone has things that they maybe are not so proud of. Most people have gotten into a car, maybe had a little bit too much to drink. And weed, come on, what is weed now? And then you end up talking about the victim's record, which is what I brought up last night in Baton Rouge, and I brought it up for a reason, because no one is perfect. Everyone has an issue. And all we have to look to is in New York City, recently -- I don't know if you saw this -- all of the kids who were arrested for the cocaine bust at the Duane Reade, all of them very wealthy white kids, or whatever, but they don't pull out their criminal records or talk about their histories. But we do in these cases. These are human beings.

Puerto Rico Control Board: A Dangerous Increase of Colonialism - Island of Non-Whites to be Run by Elite Right Wing White Folks

Democracy Now

Black Indian - In This Thing ["vote for your mind and elect yourself"]

"Blue Lives Matter" Has No Place in Hate Crime Laws

Jurist

Last month, Louisiana passed a "Blue Lives Matter" amendment to its hate crime statute. Under the newly-amended law, it is now a hate crime in Louisiana to target someone's "person or property" for a crime "because of actual or perceived employment as a law enforcement officer or firefighter." The definition of "law enforcement officer" under the amended law is expansive and includes active or retired law enforcement officers, peace officers, wildlife enforcement agents, correctional officers and parole and probation officers.

According to state Republican Senator Lance Harris, who sponsored the bill, additional measures were needed to protect state officers in Louisiana. Citing police shootings in New York and Texas, the Louisiana senator explained: "if you're going to have an extensive hate crime statute then we need to protect those that are out there protecting us on a daily basis."

In signing the bill, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards echoed these sentiments: "The men and women who put their lives on the line every day, often under very dangerous circumstances are true heroes and they deserve every protection that we can give them. They serve and protect our communities and our families. The overarching message is that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Louisiana."

First, Louisiana—and another 36 states—already have laws that increase penalties for police assaults. In Louisiana, for instance, battery involving an officer has greater penalties than a typical battery. In states that retain the death penalty, killing a police officer can be an aggravating factor that elevates the crime to a capital case. As these laws demonstrate, attacks against officers are in many instances already punished more severely than other kinds of crimes.

Second, attacks against police officers, particularly lethal ones, against police officers are at their lowest rates in decades. Nationally, fatal shootings of officers have decreased from an average of 127 in the 1970s to around 57 per year between 2000 and 2009. In 2015, 42 officers were fatally shot compared with 49 in 2014. In Louisiana, in 2015, there were nine officer fatalities and no officer fatalities so far this year. While even one officer shot and killed in the line of duty is tragic, there is no empirical evidence that lethal attacks, specifically targeting law enforcement officers, are on the rise.

Third, Louisiana's hate crime law already contained language that seemingly applied to crimes against police officers because of their occupation. Prior to the amendment, Louisiana law already provided enhanced punishments to people who "select the victim...because of actual or perceived membership or service in, or employment with, an organization." In other words, Louisiana's hate crime law included crimes committed because of actual or perceived employment with an organization, which would likely cover crimes targeted against law enforcement.

So why the hate crime amendment?

The first hate crime laws were enacted in the mid-1980s. Now nearly every state and the federal government has some form of hate crime law. These laws, in varying degrees, distinguish "ordinary" crime from those crimes motivated by specifically designated prejudices. Hate crime laws typically provide enhanced penalties for crimes motivated, in whole or in part, by bias or prejudice based on a victim's actual or perceived group affiliation. Some jurisdictions—including the federal government—have designated a hate crime as a separate substantive offense. Most hate crime statutes protect against groups that have historically been targets of bigotry; hate crime statutes across all states most commonly prohibit crimes based on race, religion and ethnicity.

Hate crime laws are popular because they send a largely symbolic governmental message that crimes motivated by certain types of bigotry will not be tolerated. As one scholar explained, hate crime laws are largely perceived as expressing:

Strong social condemnation of bias crimes...[C]ondemnation of hate crimes implies a general affirmation of the societal value of the groups targeted by hate crimes and a recognition of their rightful place in society. Hate crimes legislation is seen as reinforcing the community's commitment to equality among all citizens.

And therein lies the rub. If hate crime laws send a message of equality and inclusion, then hate crime laws also can send messages of intolerance and exclusion.

Take, for instance, the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 (HCSA), which requires law enforcement agencies to collect hate crimes data and report their finding to the FBI. The HCSA mandated the collection of data about hate crimes motivated by bias based on sexual orientation. But conservative senators balked at the inclusion of sexual orientation. And the only way that the HCSA was passed was with the inclusion of compromise language, insisted upon by conservative senators, including Senator Jesse Helms, which stated that "nothing in this Act shall be construed . . . to promote or encourage homosexuality." In other words, the HSCA, designed to capture the scope of hate crime in the United States, was accompanied by a governmental message of bigotry toward members of the LGBT community.

This message of inclusion and exclusion continues today. Some states passed hate crime laws that include race, ethnicity and religion, but explicitly do not include sexual orientation or gender identity. And let's be clear, members of the LGBTQ community are targets of hate crimes. If the recent Orlando massacre at a gay club did not already prove that terrible truism, then just take a look at the FBI hate crime data, which shows that LGBT people are twice as likely to be targeted as African-Americans, and are targeted more frequently than Jews. When a state passes a hate crime law but omits sexual orientation and gender identity from its hate crime protections, a governmental message is arguably being communicated and it is not one of equality and tolerance for all. [MORE]

Judge: 14K Cases Possibly Affected by Tainted Lab Work

ABC News

Nearly 15,000 drug cases might have been undermined as a result of allegedly shoddy work by a forensic lab technician, according to a New Jersey judge.

Superior Court Judge Edward Jerejian held a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Bergen County to outline the process for vetting conviction challenges. Jerejian said the courts are expecting hundreds, if not thousands, of cases.

Jerejian's order stipulates that cases involving suspended lab technician Kamal Shah will continue to be heard in their original counties. Cases where the defendant has already been convicted will be forwarded to Jerejian for review.

Shah, who worked at a state police crime lab in Little Falls, is accused of not properly conducting laboratory analyses, peer reviews or administrative reviews of drug evidence. He was suspended by the lab in January after colleagues allegedly witnessed him "dry-labbing" a drug sample, or writing a lab test without conducting an analysis.

Following Shah's suspension, the state attorney general's office informed county officials of his removal and recommended that they contact defense attorneys involved in cases in which Shah either conducted the drug tests himself or signed off on them as a peer-review analyst.

County prosecutors have been identifying the cases involving Shah to resubmit drug samples for re-testing. Assistant Attorney General Michael Williams said his office has re-tested 160 priority drug cases so far. None were deemed faulty.

Many defense attorneys have already filed motions to have their clients' convictions thrown out and guilty pleas withdrawn.

Kevin Walker, a spokesman for the state's Office of the Public Defender, said that his office has consulted with national crime lab experts and officials are considering filing a motion to challenge drug-testing protocol at the state's police labs.

Shah's attorney declined to comment. Shah has yet to be criminally charged.

Professor Griff speaks on the Jesse Williams Speech at the BET Awards

EPA Claims Filtered Flint Water Is Safe To Drink

NewsOne

Federal authorities involved in the investigation into the Flint water crisis claim filtered water in the city is now safe to drink.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and the local and state agencies, released a statement:

“The use of NSF verified filters makes water safe from lead for all populations. Pregnant and nursing women and children no longer need to drink bottled water to avoid lead exposure as long as they drink water that has passed through a filter rated to remove lead from drinking water.”

Despite authorities’ claims that filtered water is safe for human consumption, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver says that some homes’ faucets do not fit the filters, and therefore bottled water is still needed for many.

During Monday’s edition of NewsOne Now, guest host Avis Jones-DeWeever and her panel of guests discussed the latest development in the ongoing Flint crisis that continues to baffle the nation.

Gianno Caldwell, a contributor to TheHill.com, said bottled water in Flint “was going for about ten bucks for one bottle of water…people are suffering here.”

The NewsOne Now panelist did not feel as if the water filters Flint residents are being given are sufficient. He told Jones-DeWeever, “I think they really need to do something to reimburse these folks who have spent countless dollars – these folks that have been harmed by this poisonous water. They need to make sure that there’s some way that these people are being compensated, because there was obviously negligence by the state and local officials, including the federal government.”

Former White House official Will Jawando said Gov. Rick Snyder “still needs to resign” and added, “If anyone else would have done this in any other state, they would have had his head on a platter.”

Jawando also stated the water crisis was a result of failures of government on “all levels.”

Lauren Victoria Burke, contributing writer for NBC News, was critical of President Barack Obama not using his pulpit a lot earlier to raise awareness for the manmade disaster.

This is a group of Americans in an American city having a problem they shouldn’t be having with a basic need,” she said.

Burke took her criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis a step further by highlighting their willingness to allocate funds for other crises in other nations and “every other person someplace else being a priority except the people here.”

The outspoken panelist believes these policy practices by the current administration could play right into the hands of the GOP’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump, who continues to push the message of “taking care of Americans first.”

As Adults Legally Smoke Pot In Colorado, More Non-White Kids Arrested For It

NPR

Marijuana is legal in Colorado — as long as you're 21 or older. It's still illegal for kids to possess, so juveniles are coming to dominate the marijuana arrests in Colorado. But another startling trend also has developed: Arrest rates have risen dramatically for young blacks and Latinos.

Ricky Montoya isn't surprised that's happening. He's standing outside Courtroom 4F in Denver's City and County Building, where he was just ordered to pay a $1,000 fine for his third marijuana possession offense.

"They probably look at us more different," he says of police. "I don't think they think that white people would smoke as much as we do."

A Colorado Health Department survey found there wasn't a huge racial difference in who smokes pot. But the marijuana arrest rate for white 10- to 17-year-olds fell by nearly 10 percent from 2012 to 2014, while arrest rates for Latino and black youths respectively rose more than 20 percent and more than 50 percent.

That was evident that morning at the courthouse, where about a dozen cases were heard before noon. Only one involved a white kid.

Brian Vicente, who led the marijuana legalization movement in Colorado, says that discrepancy needs to stop.

"That is, I think, a large part of the reason Colorado voters passed legalization," Vicente says. "They're tired of the sort of racist legacy of the drug war."

Vicente says it's shameful that local police have shifted their attention to minority kids. But Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson says it's not a matter of what police want to focus on, but what people are reporting to authorities.

"Most of these cases are complaint-driven," Jackson says. "We get a complaint from someone, we're not sure where it's going to take us, but we have to act on it. And we're not sure, if I get a call to a residence or to a location, who I'm going to encounter until I get there." [MORE]

Obama is Not a Secret Muslim or Even Pro-Muslim

Civil Rights Icon Walter Fauntroy Arrested

NewsOne 

On Tuesday, former congressman and civil rights legend Walter Fauntroy was expected to go before a judge.

Officers arrested Fauntroy on Monday at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia as he was returning to the United States after living in the Persian Gulf for approximately four years. 

In January of 2012, a warrant was issued for Fauntroy after he was charged for allegedly writing a bad check for $55,000. The check was supposed to help pay for President Barack Obama‘s first inauguration ball in 2009. Fauntroy, now 83, claims the bad check issue had been previously resolved. 

According to The Washington Post, Fauntroy returned to the United States “because he missed his family and he had finally obtained financing for his ­green-energy humanitarian projects around the world.”

During Tuesday’s edition of NewsOne Now, Roland Martin and his panel of guests discussed the fall from grace experienced by Fauntroy, who was once a congressional delegate.

Martin called Fauntroy’s downfall “sad.” The host of NewsOne Now said he spoke to individuals who said the person Fauntroy is now isn’t the person they used to know.

Citing outlandish claims Fauntroy previously made about the media in the United States, Martin made mention of multiple instances where staffers at NewsOne Now invited him to appear on the show. He added it was as if the former congressman “had completely dropped off of the grid.” [MORE]

Coalition Demands Moratorium On Metal Detectors In L.A. Schools

NewsOne

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board received an earful from dozens of parents, educators, and activists at a recent meeting. They’re demanding a moratorium on daily random weapon searches in middle and high schools, the Washington Post reports.

“On a daily basis we will be planting seeds that say you are dangerous, you are a potential threat to others and you cannot be trusted,” parent Keisha Mitchell told the board, according to the Post.

Furthermore, the searches are tantamount to racial profiling, others protested to the school board members. The Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is leading a petition drive against the policy. It has received nearly 600 signatures so far.

Immigration Officials [white folks] Making Secret Deals With Private Prisons [white folks] to Lock Up More [non-white] Mothers & Children in detention centers [internment camps]

From [HERE] Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is striking deals with private prison companies to lock up a “guaranteed minimum” of mothers with their children in euphemistically-termed family detention centers.

The 2009 congressional mandate for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep a minimum of 34,000 people minimum locked up at any given time is already well-established. But a new report by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Detention Watch Network reveals that this federal quota rests, in part, on aggressive deals with companies in the business of locking up families.

“Guaranteed minimums, which appear mostly in ICE contracts with private contractors (though some exist with local governments), guarantee that ICE will pay for a minimum number of people to be detained at any given time,” states the report, whose lead authors are Dawy Rkasnuam and Conchita Garcia of Detention Watch Network. “Because the government seeks to avoid paying for detention space that isn’t being used, guaranteed minimums are essentially local ‘lockup’ quotas that influence ICE’s decision-making about immigration enforcement, whether or not people will be released, where people will be detained, and ultimately, who will profit or benefit from their detention.”

According to the investigation, which based its findings on documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, such local quotas are “even more widespread than previously reported, covering at least 24 detention facility contracts,” accounting for at least 12,821 of the 34,000 beds established by the national quota. Ninety-three percent of those beds are in privately-run detention facilities.

Critically, such arrangements are confirmed in two of the three remaining “family detention center” contracts in the United States: the Karnes County Residential Center in Texas and the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania.

Since 2014, the mass detention of families in these prison-like facilities has been a foundation of the Obama administration’s immigration policies toward refugees from Central America, many of whom are fleeing violence and poverty worsened by U.S. policies. The human rights violations at these camps have been condemned by human rights organizations and the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and some have compared them to Japanese internment camps.

Karnes, in particular, has been the site of repeated hunger strikes over inhumane conditions, including nearly free labor, lack of legal representation and contaminated drinking water. In 2014, some women detained at the prison alleged that guards sexually assaulted them.

“Almost all guaranteed minimums are found in facilities that contract with private prison companies, and ICE actively collaborates with these companies to keep details of their contracts secret,” said Ghita Schwarz, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a press statement about the new findings. “The public should have a full understanding of how ICE rewards and incentivizes profiteering off the detention of immigrants.”

According to the report’s authors, numerous questions remain. “Due to ICE’s lack of transparency and the resulting unavailability of data, it is currently unclear what percentage of detention facilities are subject to guaranteed minimums, what the costs of guaranteed minimums are, and the degree to which they influence ICE’s practices in controlling the pipeline into and out of detention,” they write.

Yet, one thing is clear: profits are soaring for GEO Group and CCA, the two largest private prison companies in the United States. Both boasted to their shareholders recently that revenues are spiking, thanks in part to the windfall from locking up families.

“At first the Obama administration said they were locking up families to deter people from crossing,” Cristina Parker, organizer with the advocacy group Grassroots Leadership, told AlterNet. “Then when a judge said that was unconstitutional they changed their rationale and said it’s for national security, which is a thin argument. Seeing on paper that they have a quota that directly benefits private prisons underlines that family detention is really driving revenue and profits.”

Obama admin says up to 116 civilians 'accidentally' killed in US drone strikes

RT

The US drone strikes have accidentally killed up to 116 civilians in countries that the US is not at war with, the White House said. The number is lower than the figures cited by various human rights organizations.

No information was released on the number of unintended civilian deaths in countries the US is at war with, however.

The long-awaited announcement came on Friday afternoon acknowledges that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed by US drone operations in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and other African countries, compared to 2,500 members of terrorist groups.

Deaths resulting from strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were not counted in the report.

The government said that the number of civilian deaths from drone strikes isn’t always clear, meaning that the numbers it released may be revised. The total is far lower than estimates made by non-governmental organization.

“As the statement today from the DNI notes, in releasing these figures, the U.S. Government also acknowledges that there are differences between U.S. Government assessments and reporting from non-governmental organizations on non-combatant deaths resulting from U.S. operations,” the White House said. “Although the U.S. Government has access to a wide range of information, the figures we are releasing today should be considered in light of the inherent limitations on the ability to determine the precise number of combatant and non-combatant deaths outside areas of active hostilities, including the non-permissive environments in which these strikes often occur. “

Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer from the human rights organization Reprieve, estimates that more than 4,000 people have been killed by drones including hundreds of children, and said the Obama administration’s estimation of casualties “is unlikely to be worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Drone strikes in countries that are not technically US battlefields are the purview of the CIA and the US military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command. Critics point out that the White House wouldn’t even mention the word “drone” for years, and that no entity outside of the administration reviews strikes.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that official warzones are being excluded from the count because drone assassinations in those areas are done by the Pentagon, which has its own process of disclosing civilian deaths.

CIA Director John Brennan and Dianne Feinstein, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has previously put the estimates for civilian at single digits per year.

Public Enemy - Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos

What's in the NYPD's 1960s/70s Political Surveillance Files?

Memory Hole 2

In the 1960s and the 1970s, the New York Police Department's Intelligence Division spied on - and infiltrated and disrupted - politically radical individuals and organizations, including the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords (Puerto Rican activists), gay-rights advocates, Lyndon LaRouche's groups, various Cubans, and the antiwar movement. It was the NYPD's version of the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO surveillance/harassment of political activists, which was happening at the same time.

While researching a book on the Young Lords, Baruch history professor Johanna Fernández was stonewalled in her quest for documents and was eventually told that all records of NYPD surveillance during that era had been lost. After the media reported this in June 2016, the city coincidentally "found" 500 boxes of records - an estimated 1.1 million pages of documents - during a routine inventory of a warehouse in Queens. This incredible archive will supposedly become available to the public, but the city refuses to say how or when.

It turns out that in 1989, those records - or at least a huge portion of them - were inventoried as part of a lawsuit (the Handschu case) against the NYPD for its surveillance activities. The Village Voice posted an inventory in its article about the so-called rediscovery of the archive, writing: [MORE]

Does New York City’s ‘broken windows’ policing work? New report says no.

WashPost

For more than 30 years, activists, experts and police chiefs have been divided over the New York City Police Department’s “broken windows” method of policing. The idea — championed by Bill Bratton during his first and current tenures as New York’s police commissioner — is that cracking down on petty crimes like vandalism and public urination generates an atmosphere of lawfulness that then prevents more serious crime.

Now that debate is playing out within Bratton’s own NYPD with warring reports. The latest, released Wednesday by NYPD’s watchdog inspector general, finds no evidence that huge crack-downs on low-level “quality-of-life” incidents decrease felony crimes.

That study directly contradicts a report by Bratton’s NYPD last year that claims the exact opposite — that quality-of-life policing was responsible for fewer felony crimes in New York.

Wednesday’s report — by DOI Commissioner Mark Peters and NYPD Inspector General Philip Eure — takes direct aim at the “broken windows” policy that Bratton famously began pushing in the 1990s. Their report notes the cost of that policy “in police time, in an increase of the number of people brought into the criminal justice system and, at times, in a fraying of the relationship between the police and the communities they serve.” [MORE]