Frightened by Blackness. From [HERE] and [HERE] A white Las Vegas police officer has been charged in the death of a Black man whom he chased down last month from a hotel, shocked with a stun gun seven times and who along with three other white cops, held for more than a minute in an unauthorized chokehold, the authorities said on Monday. The other white cops were not charged. 

The officer, Kenneth Lopera, faces felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and oppression under the color of office in the death of Tashi Farmer aka Tashi Brown, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at a news conference. The felony charges each carry a minimum of one year in state prison and a maximum of four years.

The charges were brought against Officer Lopera, 31, after the Clark County Coroner’s Office determined that Mr. Farmer’s death was a homicide caused by asphyxiation from the chokehold. 

Officer Lopera, who is white, encountered Mr. Farmer, who was black, in the Venetian hotel on the Las Vegas Strip shortly before 1 a.m. on May 14. Mr. Farmer appeared panicked, was sweating heavily and told Officer Lopera and his partner that people were chasing him, according to an account of the episode that the Police Department provided last month. But Mr. Farmer ran off before the officers could talk to him, according to the account.

Inexplicably, the white cop begins to fervently chase [hunt] after Farmer as if he had committed a crime- ordering him to stop. [Under arrest or seized for what at this point? In order for the police to stop you the Supreme Court has ruled that police must have reasonable articulable suspicion that there is criminal activity afoot and the person detained is involved in the activity. Police may not act on on the basis of an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or a hunch - there must be some specific articulable facts along with reasonable inferences from those facts to justify the intrusion. Clearly, these rules are only intended for white people.] 

During the chase Officer Lopera, who caught up to Mr. Farmer behind the hotel, said he believed Farmer was trying to carjack a pickup truck. As he ran behind him, the he cop claims he saw Farmer try to open the tailgate and then driver’s side door of a truck parked near the rear of the property. However, the driver of the truck told detectives he did not feel like he was being carjacked and apparently did not see him try to get into his car. [MORE] and [MORE]. The video also does not appear to show Farmer touching the car. He appears to run past the vehicle. He is about 10 feet from the vehicle when the cop orders him to stop and when the first stun gunshot comes. 

Lopera was trying to prevent Farmer from carrying out what he believed was a carjacking, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) statement. The video shows that this statement is inaccurate. 

Farmer is then seen lying on the ground as the policeman is heard yelling “Don't move! Get on your stomach!” While the man cried out “I will,” still lying on the ground and attempting to pull the Taser probe out of his back, he was struck several more times.

During the tussle on the ground Lopera, assisted by up to three other white officers, also punched Farmer in the face and head. As the victim continued to struggle, the policeman applied a “rear naked choke,” a martial arts tactic which is not approved by police authorities, the LVMPD statement says.

The neck hold is not seen on the body camera footage, but it was better captured by the outside camera. Three people are seen assisting the officer during the attack on Farmer, who are subsequently replaced by three arriving police officers. 

Mr. Farmer, who also went by Tashi Brown, was pronounced dead at 1:39 a.m. at a trauma center, the authorities said.

None of the cops claimed 'they thought they saw a weapon.' He was unarmed and had committed no crime. Investigators concluded that no charges would have been filed against Brown had he survived the encounter, Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said in a news conference last month. [MORE]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada has called on the police department to stop using chokehold techniques. The case against Lopera marks the first time in 27 years a Las Vegas police officer has been charged in a fatal shooting or an in-custody death.

Officer Lopera, who had been on paid administrative leave from the Police Department, was placed on unpaid leave on Monday. The Police Department is also conducting an internal investigation.

Shortly after the sheriff’s news briefing, during which Lombardo did not take any questions, Lopera was arrested and booked into the Clark County Detention Center. The department sent out a copy of his mug shot at 4:29 p.m.

Right after he was booked, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association quickly bailed out Lopera after paying $6,000, according to the police union’s president, Steve Grammas.

Grammas said Monday that Lopera did not act with ill intent the night Brown was killed.

“We will be representing the officer to the fullest extent that we can,” he said. “We will stand by him through this process.” [so will the white media & white jurors. What is collective white power?]