Few things on earth have been demo­nized in quite the same way as the hum­ble mar­i­jua­na plant. Seen as a gate­way drug to hard­er sub­stances such as hero­in and cocaine, many believe cannabis to be a high­ly addic­tive, life-destroy­ing drug that leads to depres­sion, para­noia and psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­or­ders. However, pre­scrip­tion drugs are actu­al­ly far more addic­tive, and many con­tain tox­ic chem­i­cals that cause irre­versible dam­age to the human body. Cannabis is an ancient form of med­i­cine that grows freely in many parts of the world and has a wide range of poten­tial health benefits.

Cancer

Cannabis has been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to inhib­it the growth of can­cer cells and even shrink malig­nant tumors. A study per­formed at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco found that cannabid­i­ol, an active com­pound found in mar­i­jua­na, pre­vent­ed metas­ta­sis in cer­tain aggres­sive can­cers. Researchers at Harvard University found that cannabis was able reduce the rate of tumor growth by 50% in mice afflict­ed with lung cancer.

Alzheimer’s Disease

A 2006 study per­formed at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that the active ingre­di­ent in mar­i­jua­na known as delta-9-tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol, or THC, stops the for­ma­tion of Alzheimer plaques in the brain. THC pre­vents an enzyme called acetyl­cholinesterase which accel­er­ates this process.

HIV

A recent study con­duct­ed at the Louisiana State University found that cannabis pro­hibits the spread of HIV cells in mon­keys. It also pro­vides relief from the side effects of HIV drugs such as nau­sea, vom­it­ing, loss of appetite and diarrhea.

Pain Relief

Smoking cannabis can pro­vide pain relief from a wide range of dif­fer­ent con­di­tions such as arthri­tis, migraines and painful injuries. It is said to be hun­dreds of times more effec­tive than over-the-counter painkillers and is a pow­er­ful anti-inflammatory.

Epilepsy

A spe­cial strain of med­ical mar­i­jua­na has been devel­oped to com­bat a rare type of epilep­sy known as Dravet syn­drome which caus­es fre­quent, vio­lent seizures and is dif­fi­cult to con­trol with med­ica­tion. The strain is known as ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and earned its name from a young patient named Charlotte Figi who was brought back from the brink of death after treat­ment with cannabis oil.

Depression and Anxiety

Contrary to pop­u­lar belief, cannabis can actu­al­ly help with psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions such as depres­sion, anx­i­ety, ADHD and sui­ci­dal thoughts. Moderate use of medi­um strength cannabis can help to relax the mind and ele­vate the mood. However, heavy use of pow­er­ful strains of mar­i­jua­na such as skunk has been linked to psy­chot­ic episodes.

Hepatitis C

A study con­duct­ed at the University of California in San Francisco dis­cov­ered that cannabis not only relieved the side effects of Hepatitis C treat­ment, it actu­al­ly improved the effec­tive­ness of the med­ica­tion. Researchers found that cannabis helped them to achieve a “sus­tained viro­log­i­cal response” mean­ing that the virus was unde­tectable in the human body after treatment. 

As cannabis is a nat­ur­al, free resource that thrives in almost any envi­ron­ment, drug com­pa­nies are ter­ri­fied of the prospect of peo­ple being able to grow their own med­i­cine. This would result in the loss of bil­lions of dol­lars for the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try who are des­per­ate­ly lob­by­ing for it to remain ille­gal. Still, some busi­ness­es have start­ed to see the poten­tial of this plant and are not sell­ing dif­fer­ent CBD prod­ucts, includ­ing great cbd cream products. 

- See more at: http://​www​.gnd​.com/​t​h​e​-​h​i​d​d​e​n​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​b​e​n​e​f​i​t​s​-​o​f​-​m​a​r​i​j​u​a​n​a​-​y​o​u​-​w​o​n​-​t​-​b​e​l​i​e​v​e​.​p​h​p​#​s​t​h​a​s​h​.​R​6​n​Z​f​6​4​C​.​d​puf

Mayor de Blasio gave the cops who turned their backs on him a good smack Monday. Speaking for the first time about the pub­lic diss­ing he endured at the funer­alsof hero cops Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, de Blasio said “they were dis­re­spect­ful to the fam­i­lies involved.” “I can’t under­stand why any­one would do such a thing in the con­text like that,” an angry de Blasio said. “And I think it defies a lot of what we all feel is the right and decent thing to do.” “I also think they were dis­re­spect­ful to the peo­ple of this city, who in fact hon­or the work of the NYPD,” he added.
De Blasio declined to dwell on some of the sharpest barbs that have been hurled at him, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association boss Patrick Lynch. Lynch ear­li­er accused the may­or of hav­ing “blood on the hands” after Ramos and Liu were mur­dered. “My feel­ings don’t mat­ter here,” de Blasio said. “What mat­ters is the peo­ple of this city who I think expect more from all lead­ers than those kind of unfair and inac­cu­rate state­ments.” “Obviously it was a total­ly inap­pro­pri­ate state­ment, total­ly inac­cu­rate. It’s evi­dent. So I’ll leave it at that.” De Blasio was fol­lowed by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who brand­ed as “self­ish” the hun­dreds of offi­cers who turned their backs on de Blasio at the Liu funer­al on Sunday. “I share the may­or’s con­cern about the idea of what’s effec­tive­ly a labor action being tak­en in the mid­dle of a funer­al,” he said. “I think we need to focus much more on the vast major­i­ty who did what was expect­ed rather than the few who embar­rassed them­selves and effec­tive­ly took so much atten­tion, so much attention.”

Deeply upset, Bratton lament­ed that the front pages of The Daily News and oth­er news­pa­pers “focused on them, the self­ish­ness of that action, the self­ish­ness of it.” “The funer­al is no place for that,” he said. “Come demon­strate out­side City Hall. Come demon­strate out­side police head­quar­ters, but don’t put on your uni­form and go to a funer­al and engage in a polit­i­cal action.” Bratton had explic­it­ly asked offi­cers not to engage in a repeat of the back-turn­ing that hun­dreds of cops had done ear­li­er ear­li­er at the Ramos funer­al. But hun­dreds defied Bratton any­way. In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama has got Bratton’s back. “The part of Commissioner Bratton’s let­ter I think that res­onates most strong­ly here at the White House is that those who are attend­ing those funer­als are there to pay their respect for the ser­vice and sac­ri­fice of the two offi­cers who were being laid to rest,” Earnest said. “And cer­tain­ly the President believes that their ser­vice and their sac­ri­fice is wor­thy of cel­e­bra­tion and respect and should be afford­ed all the out­ward sym­bols of the hon­or that they’ve been given.”

The bit­ter words from de Blasio and Bratton came at a press con­fer­ence to tout a dra­mat­ic 4.6% drop in city­wide crime in 2014 — and amid reports that the rank-and-file have been engag­ing in a word slow­down to show their dis­plea­sure with the may­or. “Rather than get lost in the dai­ly back and forth by the loud­est and most dis­re­spect­ful voic­es, those that have been so loud in this debate in recent weeks, let’s talk about where we need to go as a city,” de Blasio said. “Let’s talk about a pos­i­tive vision, let’s talk about what the peo­ple of this city want us to do togeth­er.” There was no imme­di­ate response from Lynch, but Roy Richter, head of the Captains Endowment Association, defend­ed the offi­cers who turned their backs on de Blasio. “It is a pal­pa­ble anger amongst the mem­bers of the NYPD that led many to turn their back out­side the funer­al,” he said. Michael Palladino, who heads the Detectives’ Endowment Association, com­plained they were being held to a dif­fer­ent standard.

“When cops make arrests and give sum­mons­es they are accused of being robot­ic with no feel­ings,” he said. “When cops exer­cise dis­cre­tion and express feel­ings they’re accused of being polit­i­cal and dis­re­spect­ful. You can’t win.” Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins’ reac­tion revealed how deep the rift was between his mem­bers and the may­or. He said Bratton’s request that offi­cers refrain from demon­strat­ing at the funer­al read “as if he was doing the may­or’s bid­ding.” “They know, deep down inside there is a feel­ing this may­or does not sup­port police,” he said. “They know there was nev­er an attempt to dis­re­spect the fam­i­ly of Officer Liu. They are using a slain police offi­cer to deflect from the issues that were pre-exisit­ing, long before these offi­cers were killed.” Earlier, in a radio inter­view, Mullins said the cops were exer­cis­ing their right to free speech. “They did­n’t break a sin­gle law and they did­n’t utter a sin­gle word and yet their actions made a state­ment that was rec­og­nized nation­al­ly and has nev­er been done before that I’m aware of to any may­or in this nation,” Mullins said on Joe Piscopo’s radio show, AM 970 The Answer.

Mullins also accused de Blasio of cre­at­ing the cli­mate that prompt­ed dou­ble cop killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley to leave Baltimore and come to New York City to mur­der Ramos and Liu. “He could have killed police any­where along the line in those 3 ¹⁄₂ hours in any city in the coun­try, but he chose New York,” Mullins said. “Why? Because the atten­tion to the demon­stra­tions and the law­less­ness that was occur­ring enabled that type of an atmos­phere.” Brinsley killed the offi­cers as part of a twist­ed plan to avenge the choke­hold death of Eric Garner by an NYPD offi­cer and the killing of Michael Brown by a cop in Ferguson, Mo. De Blasio has tak­en heat from the NYPD for express­ing sym­pa­thy for pro­test­ers demon­strat­ing against a Staten Island grand jury’s deci­sion not to pros­e­cute the cop who killed Garner. He has also angered many offi­cers by embrac­ing the Rev. Al Sharpton, a police crit­ic, and reveal­ing that he told his son Dante, who is bira­cial, to be wary around cops. Last week, de Blasio held a sum­mit with Mullins, Lynch and the heads of the three oth­er police unions aimed at end­ing the cold war between the NYPD and City Hall. When it was over, both sides agreed to keep talk­ing, although Lynch said their first sit­down was most­ly a bust. http://​mmsc​.NYdailynews​.com

WASHINGTON — Rep. Michael Grimm plans to resign from Congress in the wake of his guilty plea on a felony tax eva­sion charge. Grimm (R‑S.I.) said after he entered his plea last week that he would con­tin­ue to serve in the House.

But he reversed course after speak­ing Monday to House Speaker John Boehner (R‑Ohio), who has tak­en a hard line on Republicans fac­ing ethics charges. “The events which led to this day did not break my spir­it, nor the will of the vot­ers,” Grimm said in a state­ment issued Monday night. “However, I do not believe that I can con­tin­ue to be 100% effec­tive in the next Congress, and there­fore, out of respect for the office and the peo­ple I so proud­ly rep­re­sent, it is time for me to start the next chap­ter of my life.” He said he reached his deci­sion “after much thought and prayer,” and that his res­ig­na­tion would be effec­tive on Jan. 5, the day before the new Congress is sworn in. Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to comment.

“We do not dis­cuss pri­vate con­ser­va­tions the speak­er has with mem­bers,” Steel said. Grimm issued his state­ment after the Daily News first report­ed that he had decid­ed to step down. Before his plea, Grimm had been sched­uled to go on tri­al Feb. 2 on charges of evad­ing tax­es by hid­ing more than $1 mil­lion in receipts and wages at Healthalicious, a Manhattan restau­rant he owned before he was elect­ed to Congress in 2010. Despite the charges, Grimm eas­i­ly won reelec­tion on Nov. 4, beat­ing Democrat Domenic Recchia 55% to 42%. Grimm said dur­ing that cam­paign that he would

resign his seat if a con­vic­tion left him “unable to serve.” After plead­ing guil­i­ty he said that he still could serve. But on Monday he con­clud­ed his posi­tion was unten­able, sources said.

Grimm’s res­ig­na­tion will mean Gov. Cuomo has to call a spe­cial elec­tion to fill the seat. GOP can­di­dates could include Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, who has faced scathing crit­i­cism over a grand jury’s fail­ure to hand down an indict­ment in the Eric Garner case, along with Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis and state Sen. Andrew Lanza. One GOP insid­er said Donovan was the ear­ly favorite. “He is lin­ing up the sup­port of the par­ty heads,” the insid­er said. “It seems pret­ty clear he may emerge as the nom­i­nee.” Malliotakis said in a state­ment Monday night that she is inter­est­ed in run­ning in the spe­cial elec­tion. Democratic con­tenders could include for­mer Rep. Michael McMahon and Assemblyman Michael Cusick.(NYdailynews.com.

Ohio shopper shoots teen dead outside mall for trying to steal newly bought Nike Air Jordans: cops. An Ohio shopper shot and killed a 16-year-old outside of a mall when the teen tried to steal his newly bought, limited-edition Nike Air Jordans. Jawaad Jabbar died Tuesday from a gunshot wound to his torso, police said.

An Ohio shop­per shot and killed a 16-year-old out­side of a mall when the teen tried to steal his new­ly bought, lim­it­ed-edi­tion Nike Air Jordans. Jawaad Jabbar died Tuesday from a gun­shot wound to his tor­so, police said. Miami Township police said two groups — three teens and two men — strug­gled on a side­walk out­side the Dayton Mall before the shoot­ing. All five peo­ple went to the mall on a mis­sion to buy the $200 Nikes, which quick­ly sold out.

The three teens left emp­ty-hand­ed, but at least one of the men got a pair. In front of the mall, the youths spot­ted the men with the shoes and con­front­ed them, police said. Jabbar pulled out a gun and demand­ed the men give them the sneak­ers. That’s when one of the men pulled out his own con­cealed weapon and shot the Middletown High School student.[NYdailynews.com]

Antonio Martin, 18, was shot and killed by a white police offi­cer two miles west of Ferguson Tuesday.

Martin, who lived in Berkeley, was with an uniden­ti­fied man in the park­ing lot of a Mobil gas sta­tion when the cop pulled in about 11:15 p.m. to inves­ti­gate a shoplift­ing report. The cop got out of the car and ques­tioned them. The offi­cer talked to the duo briefly. Then, accord­ing to at least three sur­veil­lance videos tak­en from dif­fer­ent angles and released by police, Martin moved clos­er to the cop and raised his arm in an appar­ent effort to aim his gun at the offi­cer. Martin, armed with a loaded 9‑mm hand­gun, did not fire, but the offi­cer, who has six years on the force, squeezed off three rounds while run­ning back­wards, said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar. Martin was hit once. He died at the scene.

A Christmas Eve shoot­ing left one per­son dead at the mall in sub­ur­ban New Orleans. Cops say it hap­pened about 4:21 p.m. Wednesday, less than two hours before the mall in Gretna was sched­uled to close for the holiday.

GRETNA, La. — A man who was shop­ping at a sub­ur­ban New Orleans mall on Christmas Eve was shot to death at close range and a sus­pect was in cus­tody, police said. The inci­dent hap­pened around 4:20 p.m. Wednesday, less than two hours before the Oakwood Center mall in Gretna was sched­uled to close for the hol­i­day, said Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand. The vic­tim had just pur­chased some­thing from Foot Locker and had turned from the cash reg­is­ter when a man walked with­in 3 or 4 feet of him and began shoot­ing, Normand said. No one else was injured.

Two NYPD cops ambushed and mur­dered in brazen cow­ard­ly attack as they sat in their patrol car.

Two NYPD police offi­cers were bru­tal­ly mur­dered in Brooklyn as they sat in their patrol car .
More details to come.
Our hearts and prayers to the fam­i­lies of both officers.

Michelle Brimhall believes that 17-year-old Lennon Lacy ‘was murdered’ and claims that they had been the targets to racial slurs in Bladenboro, a rural town with a predominantly white population.

The mysterious hanging of a black North Carolina teen took new twist Thursday when a 32-year-old white woman he was dating said she fears he was murdered over their interracial romance.Michelle Brimhall broke her silence in the death of 17-year-old Lennon Lacy, revealing they had been hassled by white neighbors upset over their relationship. “I believe Lennon was murdered,” Brimhall told DailyMail​.com. “The police ruled his death a suicide but Lennon would never harm himself. He’s got too much love for life.” The FBI launched an investigation earlier this month into the high school football player’s Aug. 29 death after his parents and the North Carolina branch of the NAACP rejected a medical examiner’s findings that he killed himself. Findings by an independent pathologist hired by the local NAACP contradicted the medical examiner’s ruling and added fuel to suspicions that Lacy was the victim of a lynching. Brimhall said she had been alarmed by racist slurs she received over her relationship with Lennon from neighbors in

Bladenboro — a small rural town whose population is 80% white and 18% black. “Neighbors had told me they were against interracial relationships and it was ‘not right’ me being with a black guy,” said Brimhall, who went into hiding following Lennon’s death. She added that the Ku Klux Klan has held marches in Bladenboro and even has a meeting house in the community some minorities have dubbed “Crackertown.”

“We tried to keep it (our rela­tion­ship) a secret,” Brimhall told DailyMail​.com. “We would walk to the store togeth­er but we nev­er held hands or kissed or any of that stuff out in pub­lic.” Lennon’s moth­er, Claudia Lacy, told the Daily News on Sunday that she and Lennon’s father were against the May-December affair and even tried to get Brimhall to

break it off. A close friend of Lennon also said Brimhall was a crack-addict­ed pros­ti­tute. Brimhall’s father con­firmed in an inter­view with The News that she has a drug prob­lem. “We told his mom and dad that we had stopped see­ing each oth­er because they were get­ting on him because of the age dif­fer­ence,” said Brimhall, who denied she is a drug addict. “Miss Claudia didn’t want to see her son hurt,” Brimhall said. “But I always tried to help him and push him for­ward.” While Lennon’s par­ents sus­pect she knows more about their son’s death than she is let­ting on, but Brimhall said she has noth­ing to hide. She denied her estranged hus­band, who lives in Illinois, was involved in Lennon’s death. “I don’t know what hap­pened but I know my ex-hus­band would not get the bus down from Illinois to kill my boyfriend,” Brimhall said.

Use of Tasers by the NYPD has gen­er­al­ly been lim­it­ed to sergeants and mem­bers of the élite Emergency Service Unit, but less expe­ri­enced offi­cers could soon be using them, police sources say. The department’s planned pur­chase of 450 new Tasers, announced by Commissioner Bill Bratton last week, will bring the NYPD’s sup­ply to at least 1,121. In 2006, the NYPD’s Taser arse­nal stood at 160. Police sources said that more offi­cers are being trained to use Tasers as a non­lethal alter­na­tive to gun­fire, and that a recent pat­tern of increased Taser use by NYPD cops will like­ly con­tin­ue. This year, there have been slight­ly more than 300 inci­dents of cops using Tasers. In 2013 and 2012, there were about 200 inci­dents per year, accord­ing to the department.

“Tasers are used as part of our force con­tin­uüm,” said Deputy Chief Kim Royster, an NYPD spokes­woman. Complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board regard­ing Taser use and alle­ga­tions of exces­sive force increased in 2014 com­pared to the year before, a pat­tern that also held for

the 2013 total com­pared to that of 2012, accord­ing to the agency. But only 2 of 75 such inves­ti­ga­tions com­plet­ed since 2009 have been sub­stan­ti­at­ed by the CCRB. This year, there have been slight­ly more than 300 inci­dents of cops using Tasers. In 2013 and 2012, there were about 200 inci­dents per year, accord­ing to the depart­ment. In the first one, a Bronx man bust­ed on a parole war­rant said he was jolt­ed by a Taser while hand­cuffed, then fell to the ground and broke bones in his face. The accused sergeant plead­ed guilty to admin­is­tra­tive charges and lost five vaca­tion days. In the sec­ond case, sub­stan­ti­at­ed this year, a woman said a cop used a Taser on her inside a Brooklyn precinct sta­tion­house in 2013. Disciplinary action is pend­ing against the accused cop. In 52 oth­er com­plet­ed inves­ti­ga­tions, the accused offi­cer was exon­er­at­ed, the CCRB said. Another 16 alle­ga­tions were deemed unfounded.

Eugene O’Donnell, a John Jay College pro­fes­sor who served on the mayor’s pub­lic safe­ty tran­si­tion com­mit­tee, said the NYPD has to guard against police rely­ing too much on the Taser. “If you hand a tool to some­body I think human nature and some research shows you may rely on that more than using a non-vio­lent approach,” he said. rparascandola@​nydailynews.​com

Internal Affairs is inves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances of an arrest, cap­tured on video, that shows a plain­clothes cop repeat­ed­ly punch­ing a teen sus­pect in the body as three uni­formed cops were try­ing to sub­due and hand­cuff him, police said.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” one woman is heard yelling. “Stop it! Get off of him!”

Another woman can be heard iden­ti­fy­ing her­self as a lawyer and say­ing the sus­pect is only 12 years old.

“I can’t believe he just did that after every­thing that’s hap­pened,” she said, an appar­ent ref­er­ence to the Eric Garner case and oth­er inci­dents cap­tured on video.

The NYPD said Internal Affairs is inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent. Police also said two sus­pects, includ­ing the one struck, were arrest­ed for assault­ing anoth­er per­son with a cane.

The exact date and time of the inci­dent was not clear.http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-plainclothes-officer-hits-youth-cuffed-article‑1.2050762

President Obama revealed how he was mis­tak­en for a valet and a wait­er before he became President in a deeply per­son­al inter­view on race rela­tions in the U.S. “There’s no black male my age, who’s a pro­fes­sion­al, who has­n’t come out of a restau­rant and is wait­ing for their car and some­body did­n’t hand them their car keys,” the President told People mag­a­zine, con­firm­ing that he had expe­ri­enced being tak­en for a valet. The President was joined by the First Lady for the mag­a­zine inter­view, “How We Deal with Our Own Racist Experiences.”

Michelle Obama also remem­bered that when he was a guest at a black-tie din­ner, “some­body asked him to get cof­fee.” Before the fam­i­ly moved into the White House in 2009 and Obama became com­man­der-in-chief, “Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of trou­bles catch­ing cabs,” the First Lady added. Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Rosman had pre­vi­ous­ly shared how she wit­nessed Obama on the receiv­ing end of dis­crim­i­na­tion at a New York City book par­ty host­ed by Tina Brown in 2003. Rosman had been chat­ting with Obama at the soirée and when they fin­ished their con­ver­sa­tion, a fel­low guest inquired after the man’s iden­ti­ty, admit­ting that he had mis­tak­en him for the wait staff. “I was approached by anoth­er guest, an estab­lished author. He asked about the man I had been talk­ing to. Sheepishly he told me he didn’t know that Obama was a guest at the par­ty, and had asked him to fetch him a drink. In less than six years, Obama has gone from being mis­tak­en for a wait­er among the New York media élite, to the pres­i­dent-elect,” Rosman wrote. Despite the inci­dents in his past, the President told People that racial rela­tions have got­ten bet­ter, but more progress is need­ed. He says the small indig­ni­ties they have expe­ri­enced pale in com­par­i­son to young men who have been mis­tak­en for crim­i­nals just for being “dressed the way teenagers dress.” llarson@​nydailynews.​com

The key witness, who described Michael Brown charging ‘like a football player’ at Officer Darren Wilson in the moments before the fatal Aug. 9 shooting, has been named as Sandra McElroy, a 45-year-old St. Louis woman and Wilson supporter who likely was not even in Ferguson the day of the shooting. The Smoking Gun report found McElroy, who once lied to police in another high-profile St. Louis case, has a history of racist rants online and was convicted of felony check fraud.

A men­tal­ly ill woman who used the N‑word to describe blacks and pre­vi­ous­ly lied to police about wit­ness­ing a high-pro­file crime was allowed to act as “Witness 40” for the Ferguson grand jury, even though she like­ly was not there and was a known, out­spo­ken backer of Officer Darren Wilson, accord­ing to reports. Convicted felon Sandra McElroy, 45, didn’t give police a wit­ness state­ment about the Aug. 9 killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown until Sept. 11, well after sev­er­al descrip­tions of the shoot­ing had been detailed in the press, an inves­ti­ga­tion by The Smoking Gun found. And her now oft-cit­ed account, that Brown charged at a defense­less Wilson “like a foot­ball play­er,” fol­lows much of what Wilson told inves­ti­ga­tors about that day. But her sto­ries, giv­en to local and fed­er­al author­i­ties and presented

over two dif­fer­ent days to the 12-per­son grand jury, are con­flict­ing and filled with bizarre twists and details that make it like­ly she didn’t even wit­ness the shoot­ing. Instead, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun, she like­ly sought to cast her­self as a key play­er in the con­tentious sto­ry that end­ed with riots in Ferguson and protests around the world after the grand jury failed to indict Wilson in the killing. “I know what I seen,” she told fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors at one point. “I know you don’t believe me.” The report has giv­en new hope to the team rep­re­sent­ing Brown’s fam­i­ly, the Rev. Al Sharpton told the Daily News on Tuesday, because it “shows (the grand jury) was not a fair process. There was ques­tion­able testimony.”

Lawyers for the Brown fam­i­ly are review­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny and new details, Sharpton said, and will for­ward any find­ings to the fed­er­al jus­tice depart­ment, which is review­ing the case for pos­si­ble civ­il rights violations. 

Sharpton said the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the “Witness 40” fias­co lies in the hands of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. “Whether she was allowed to tes­ti­fy out of neg­li­gence or whether (her his­to­ry) was known, either way it is grounds for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct,” Sharpton said. “There seem to be grounds to ques­tion the puri­ty of the grand jury process and the pros­e­cu­tor who han­dled it.” “Witness 40” gave very lit­tle rea­son for any­one to believe her. She told inves­ti­ga­tors in October that she was in Ferguson — some 30 miles from her home — the day of the shoot­ing because she want­ed to “pop in” on a friend she hadn’t seen in 26 years and had got­ten lost, an account giv­en to the grand jury on Oct. 23, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun.

She was ask­ing for direc­tions from a man on the street when an unarmed Brown attacked and charged the offi­cer, she said, forc­ing Wilson to open fire. McElroy, once the pan­el broke for the day, told pros­e­cu­tors that she had writ­ten down her account, and offered to bring in her “jour­nal” so she could “make sure I don’t get things con­fused because then it will be word for word,” the web­site report­ed. McElroy fre­quent­ly post­ed neg­a­tive com­ments about Michael Brown, 18, in the days, weeks and months after he was killed. When she returned 11 days lat­er with the writ­ten account, the sto­ry had com­plete­ly changed.

“Well Im gonna take my ran­dom dri­ve to Florisant,” the first jour­nal entry read. “Need to under­stand the Black race bet­ter so I stop call­ing Blacks N — –s and Start call­ing them People.” She told the grand jury she fre­quent­ly likes to “go into all the African-American neigh­bor­hoods” where she is known to go “in and have cof­fee and I will strike up a con­ver­sa­tion with an African-American and I will try to talk to them because I’m try­ing to under­stand more.” All of her state­ments were made under oath — and appear not to be the first time she’s lied to police. In 2007, McElroy told KMOV-TV that she’d long known high-pro­file kid­nap­ping sus­pect Michael Devlin, who’d recent­ly been arrest­ed for keep­ing St. Louis boy Shawn Hornbeck cap­tive for four years. Police in the St. Louis sub­urb of Kirkwood lat­er shot back at McElroy’s claims that she had tipped off police to evi­dence in the case long before Hornbeck was rescued.

“The Kirkwood Police Department has inves­ti­gat­ed her alle­ga­tion and we have no record of any con­tact with Mrs. McElroy in regards to Shawn Hornbeck,”police wrote at the time. “We have found this sto­ry is a com­plete fab­ri­ca­tion.” That same year, McElroy was con­vict­ed of felony check fraud charges and giv­en three years pro­ba­tion, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun. She also told the grand jury she’d been diag­nosed as bipo­lar but hadn’t tak­en her med­ica­tion in 25 years and that she’d been severe­ly injured in a 2001 car crash that left her with mem­o­ry loss. And in 2005, while she and her then-hus­band were in the midst of a bank­rupt­cy fil­ing, the couple’s attor­ney with­drew from the case because Sandra McElroy fre­quent­ly called the offi­cer and “repeat­ed­ly used pro­fan­i­ty when speak­ing with Counsel’s sec­re­tary,” scream­ing match­es that “esca­lat­ed to the use of racial slurs,” doc­u­ments obtained by The Smoking Gun reveal. Her racism and dis­re­gard for black peo­ple is well-doc­u­ment­ed by McElroy’s social media foot­print, which includes some dis­turb­ing com­ments. She used her YouTube account to write “put them mon­keys in a cage,” on a clip about two black women being sen­tenced for mur­der, The Smoking Gun report­ed. And a sec­ond clip, about a white woman who went miss­ing while in an inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ship, McElroy wrote, “she what hap­pens when you bed down with a mon­key have ape babies and par­ty with them.” She also used Facebook to chime in on the Ferguson shoot­ing, post­ing opin­ion­at­ed, race-dri­ven com­ments before, dur­ing and after she gave wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny to the grand jury.

On Aug. 17, she wrote, “Prayers, sup­port God Bless Officer Wilson,” while less than a month lat­er, she post­ed a graph­ic of a dead Michael Brown lying in the street, over­layed with a pho­to of a smirk­ing Wilson and text that read, “Michael Brown already received jus­tice. So please, stop ask­ing for it.” She also spear­head­ed an online fundrais­er to raise mon­ey for law enforce­ment offi­cers in the St. Louis area who had “been deal­ing with all the long hours” polic­ing the Ferguson unrest, accord­ing to The Smoking Gun. A call to a spokesman for McCulloch was not imme­di­ate­ly returned. Attempts by the Daily News to con­tact McElroy were unsuc­cess­ful. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/witness-40-ferguson-grand-jury-racist-liar-report-article‑1.2047404

Police are expect­ed to talk about putting togeth­er a reward in the search for six peo­ple who alleged­ly assault­ed two NYPD lieu­tenants dur­ing a protest over the week­end. There was a thank you Monday night from Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to who­ev­er post­ed this video on YouTube.

“I want to thank them with pro­vid­ing us with the evi­dence will use to arrest and suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute them,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said. The video of the assaults has been enhanced to help find the suspects.
Investigators say the video shows lieu­tenants Patrick Sullivan and Phillip Chan being assault­ed Saturday night by a small group of peo­ple dur­ing a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge. They were try­ing to arrest Eric Linkser, who they say resist­ed arrested.
The 29-year-old alleged­ly tried to toss a 50-pound garbage can from the ele­vat­ed walk­way at offi­cers on the road­way below.
He man­aged to get away but the Baruch College pro­fes­sor was arrest­ed hours later.

Police are now look­ing for six more peo­ple, three men and three women, who tried to stop the arrest.
“It’s a two-minute peri­od that goes by where there are indi­vid­u­als who are punch­ing and kick­ing our two lieu­tenants. Linkser is clear­ly resist­ing and there is video evi­dence that he throws a punch,” said Chief of Detectives William Aubry, NYPD.
Both offi­cers suf­fered bumps and bruis­es; one end­ed up with a bro­ken nose.
Detectives say the man in the dark cap kicked Sullivan while he was on the ground. Another woman in a mul­ti­col­ored skirt yanked Sullivan back­wards. A man in a hood­ed sweat­shirt punched Chan in the face. A woman in a red scarf took a swing at the offi­cers. Both offi­cers were wear­ing NYPD jack­ets with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and were work­ing with the Legal Affairs Bureau to ensure pro­test­ers rights were pro­tect­ed. “Our goal is that the peace­ful pro­test­ers get the right to protest. And inci­dents like what occurred on Saturday night small group try­ing to pre­vent what was oth­er­wise a rather … peace­ful day. Many fam­i­lies who want­ed to express to her out­rage,” said Deputy Commissioner Larry Burn, NYPD Legal Affairs.

“We do not take attacks on our police offi­cers light­ly, we nev­er have and nev­er will,” Bratton said.

The judge set a court date for Linkser in March, and told him that felony charges are pend­ing for then, when he sees what kind of evi­dence police will have at that time, par­tic­u­lar­ly for kick­ing an offi­cer in the face. Police insist there is video evi­dence of Linkser resist­ing arrest and punch­ing the offi­cer. Linkser, who teach­es com­po­si­tion at Baruch, is not afraid to share his anti-police views. He has gone on record with anti-police state­ments, and dur­ing the protests, Linkser’s Twitter page was laden with pic­tures of police car van­dal­ism and com­ments with the hash­tag “turn up the anger.” Meanwhile, it was de Blasio’s com­ments regard­ing the assault that angered the Sergeants Benevolent Association union. He denounced the attack, which he called an “alleged assault.” The use of the word “alleged” upset the sergeants union so much that it prompt­ed the pres­i­dent to call de Blasio a “nin­com­poop.”
“And I feel that we have an inde­ci­sive may­or,” union pres­i­dent Ed Mullins said. “And if we look at the his­to­ry of what he’s been doing, this has been an admin­is­tra­tion that has been filled with tur­moil and a lot of indecisiveness.”

It came just one day after union offi­cials offered a peti­tion to its mem­bers that, if signed, would ask the may­or and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to stay away from their funer­als should they be killed in the line of duty. De Blasio called the peti­tion unac­cept­able and divi­sive. PBA pres­i­dent Patrick J. Lynch respond­ed to the com­ments, say­ing, “It is very clear to me that the may­or has no idea of just how angry New York City police offi­cers are at him for his lack of sup­port and for lay­ing decades of soci­ety’s prob­lems unde­served­ly at their feet.” On Monday, the may­or was more force­ful in his denounc­ing of the assault, and also called on peace­ful pro­test­ers to step up. “We had a very small num­ber of peo­ple who did the wrong thing, and it will not be tol­er­at­ed,” de Blasio said. “But I’m ask­ing those who are work­ing for change to step up and speak out and make clear that any attack on the police will not be tol­er­at­ed, and to work with the police to find any­one and every­one involved.”
De Blasio also was the focus of a group of demon­stra­tors on Monday night. About 50 pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side Gracie Mansion, the may­oral res­i­dence, call­ing on him to take steps includ­ing end­ing the pol­i­cy of “bro­ken win­dows” polic­ing, which means going after low-lev­el crimes as a means of deter­rence, to keep peo­ple from com­mit­ting more seri­ous offens­es. Other demands includ­ed pas­sage of the “Right to Know” act, which would require offi­cers to tell peo­ple they’ve stopped that they have the right not to con­sent to a vol­un­tary search. De Blasio was host­ing an event at the res­i­dence. Many of those attend­ing kept away from the pro­test­ers, with a few stop­ping to get fliers. On Monday, Timothy Cardinal Dolan got involved. He wrote in the Daily News that it is wrong to demo­nize the may­or and also wrong to be dis­re­spect­ful toward police.
On Saturday, as many as 30,000 peo­ple flood­ed the streets of New York City, even shut­ting down the Brooklyn Bridge call­ing for change to the jus­tice sys­tem. It was a heavy day of demon­stra­tions begin­ning in Washington Square Park in the morn­ing, as thou­sands set off from Lower Manhattan to Midtown dur­ing the heart of hol­i­day shop­ping, where traf­fic screeched to a near stand­still. The marchers then head­ed down to One Police Plaza. Five police offi­cers have been injured in scuf­fles with protesters.
The Associated Press con­tributed to this report.
(cbsnews​.com

New York City’s police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, is urg­ing its mem­bers to ban Mayor Bill de Blasio from their funer­als, the lat­est episode in the ongo­ing clash between the may­or and the city’s law-enforce­ment pow­er structure.Officers are encour­aged to fill out a form on the union’s web­site titled “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” to request that nei­ther de Blasio nor Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito attend their funer­al, should they be killed in the line of duty.

The form reads:

I, _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, as a New York City police offi­cer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attend­ing my funer­al ser­vices in the event that I am killed in the line of duty. Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s con­sis­tent refusal to show police offi­cers the sup­port and respect they deserve, I believe that their atten­dance at the funer­al of a fall­en New York City police offi­cer is an insult to that offi­cer’s mem­o­ry and sacrifice.

For months, PBA pres­i­dent Patrick Lynch has com­plained about what he views as insuf­fi­cient sup­port from the may­or, par­tic­u­lar­ly after the July 17 death of Eric Garner, who died after NYPD offi­cers put him in a choke­hold. In the wake of the inci­dent, de Blasio recount­ed telling his 17-year-old bira­cial son, Dante, about the need to be care­ful around police offi­cers. Lynch accused de Blasio of “stir­ring the emo­tions of the street” and throw­ing offi­cers “under the bus.”

De Blasio and Mark-Viverito issued a joint state­ment call­ing the new PBA form “deeply disappointing.”

“Incendiary rhetoric like this serves only to divide the city, and New Yorkers reject these tac­tics,” said the state­ment. “The may­or and the Speaker both know bet­ter than to think this inap­pro­pri­ate stunt rep­re­sents the views of the major­i­ty of police offi­cers and their families.”

Police Commissioner William Bratton has­n’t com­ment­ed on the controversy. 

Since tak­ing office, de Blasio has strug­gled to bal­ance sup­port­ing the NYPD with acknowl­edg­ing the dis­trust many

have when it comes to racial pro­fil­ing, exem­pli­fied by the con­tro­ver­sial “Stop and Frisk” policy.

“There’s a dif­fer­ence between say­ing we should respect our offi­cers, which of course we should,” de Blasio said in response to crit­i­cism from Lynch this month, “ver­sus the real­i­ty that so many par­ents have felt that unfor­tu­nate­ly their child might con­front unfair treatment.”

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at http://​www​.the​at​lantic​.com/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​/​2​0​1​4​/​1​2​/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​t​o​-​d​e​-​b​l​a​s​i​o​-​d​o​n​t​-​a​t​t​e​n​d​-​m​y​-​f​u​n​e​r​a​l​/​3​8​3​7​34/

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn has blast­ed lawyers with seats in Parliament, who she says are stand­ing in the

way of leg­isla­tive changes urgent­ly need­ed to pros­e­cute cyber-crimes.

Llewellyn says the present arrange­ments for tack­ling crime per­pet­u­at­ed online through com­put­ers are out of date and not in keep­ing with tech­no­log­i­cal advances, giv­en the dif­fi­cul­ty in secur­ing con­vic­tions. “In order to prove a case, the pros­e­cu­tor has to prove the case beyond rea­son­able doubt … and we can only prove the case if we present evi­dence that is avail­able, cogent, reli­able and admis­si­ble,” the DPP said as she addressed the third annu­al Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Conference, which wrapped up in Kingston on Wednesday.

Llewellyn said new leg­is­la­tion need­ed to fight crim­i­nal activ­i­ty through com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed evi­dence is being pilot­ed through Parliament by Justice Minister Mark Golding, but is meet­ing with stiff resis­tance from those who may have a vest­ed inter­est. “It is not hav­ing an easy pas­sage in Parliament because, clear­ly, on both sides of the House — Upper and Lower House — you have my wor­thy mem­bers of the defence bar who unfor­tu­nate­ly, I believe, may or may not be under­go­ing, not an attack of chik‑V but some­thing almost as dan­ger­ous — it’s called myopia,” the DPP said on the final day of the three-day confab.

She out­lined the dif­fi­cul­ty in using com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed evi­dence, say­ing pros­e­cu­tors are required to prove that the com­put­er from which the evi­dence was col­lect­ed was work­ing at the time the crime was com­mit­ted. She called for a change in the law that would make it eas­i­er to secure con­vic­tions, not­ing that oth­er coun­tries have moved far ahead of Jamaica. “In most oth­er coun­tries and also in the Caribbean, amend­ments have been done years ago, where it is a pre­sump­tion that the com­put­er is in good work­ing order … and if the defence is say­ing oth­er­wise, then the evi­den­tial bur­den shifts to them to prove that the com­put­er was not,” Llewellyn said. She called on audi­tors and com­pli­ance offi­cers in finan­cial insti­tu­tions to be advo­cates in the cause to get leg­is­la­tors on board to pass laws that will help in the fight against mon­ey laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ism financing.

She was not defin­i­tive in the over­all effect of the out­dat­ed laws but insist­ed that anec­do­tal evi­dence indi­cates that it is prov­ing to be a major bur­den on finan­cial inves­ti­ga­tions and an imped­i­ment to secur­ing con­vic­tions. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​4​1​2​1​2​/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​5​.​h​tml
PUBLISHERS NOTE:

At this con­fer­ence we heard from two high­ly placed Government Officials on some issues which are pre­vent­ing and per­vert­ing the course of Justice in the Island Nation. In a pre­vi­ous Article Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds berat­ed lawyers for stand­ing in the way of leg­is­la­tion which would make going after crim­i­nals easier. 
We also heard from Paula Lewellyn the Nation’s chief prosecutor(DPP.
We should bear in mind that Ms. Llewellyn is a Lawyer, as such it is fair to con­clude she has no ani­mus toward the legal profession.

The truth of the mat­ter is that the issue of Law Enforcement/​or more appro­pri­ate­ly the lack there­of , is, and has always been ham­pered by myr­i­ad issues,not the least of which is the issue of con­flicts of interest.
For years after leav­ing Law-Enforcement I have spo­ken out and writ­ten about how this absolute­ly cor­rodes the process of the rule of law and ade­quate dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice.
We begin by com­ing to an under­stand­ing, as artic­u­lat­ed by these two pub­lic offi­cials, that some leg­is­la­tors are oth­er­wise vest­ed in active legal prac­tices to which they have fidu­cia­ry interests.
Legislators dou­ble as defense coun­sel and legislators.
Some of them are engaged in crim­i­nal conduct.
Every year numer­ous amounts of com­plaints are lodged to the Jamaican Bar Asscociation about unscrupu­lous actions on the part of some of its mem­bers. Some of the com­plaints include, but are not con­fined to lawyers using devi­ous means to fleece clients of their hard earned mon­ey. Many crit­ics believe lawyers are involved in far more seri­ous crimes. 
Some of these very lawyers are parliamentarians . 
This is the bot­tle-neck which cre­ates the prob­lem these two offi­cials are com­plain­ing about.
Unscrupulous pros­ti­tutes of the law, who use what is a hon­or­able call­ing to enrich them­selves, destroy­ing the sys­tem in the process.
I am unsure how the coun­try will get reform when the peo­ple who are sup­posed to write reform lan­guage for new leg­is­la­tion are opposed to change.
What I do know is that change must occur.….

Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of crime, Glenmore Hinds, is decry­ing efforts to block more effec­tive mon­ey laundering

legislation.He is charg­ing that the legal fra­ter­ni­ty and oth­ers with a vest­ed inter­est are frus­trat­ing police efforts at going after illic­it mon­ey. The charge was in ref­er­ence to the recent amend­ments to the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), which have met with stiff resis­tance from mem­bers of the legal fraternity.

The amend­ments to POCA adds pro­fes­sion­als and busi­ness­es to the list of enti­ties to be sub­ject­ed to the anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing scruti­ny, where­as the law pre­vi­ous­ly addressed banks and oth­er finan­cial institutions.The law also placed a cap of $1 mil­lion on cash trans­ac­tions with finan­cial insti­tu­tions. “They are resist­ing being brought in and it is to my cer­tain knowl­edge that a sig­nif­i­cant sum of mon­ey that is laun­dered annu­al­ly goes through the legal books … they are resist­ing and they cite lawyer/​client priv­i­lege as the rea­son,” Hinds said as he addressed the third annu­al Anti-Money Laundering & Counter Financing of Terrorism Conference in Kingston on Tuesday. Hinds said there is a choice to be made between indi­vid­ual rights and the sur­vival of a coun­try. “It must be viewed in the wider con­text of try­ing to save a coun­try and a coun­try’s rep­u­ta­tion … you can have all your rights, but if you don’t have a coun­try those rights can’t be secured,” he told the con­fer­ence. He added that those who are against the leg­is­la­tion are more con­cerned about pros­e­cu­tion and reduced prof­its and this can be to the detri­ment of the country

“They rec­og­nize that they stand to be pros­e­cut­ed … or it might very well mean that it may be a reduced income for them,” he said as he implored that Jamaica would be a bet­ter place if the legal pro­fes­sion is brought into the fold. The annu­al AML/​CFT con­fer­ence was staged for the fifth year by the Jamaica Bankers Association, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Jamaica Institute of Financial Services, from December 8 – 10. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​4​1​2​1​2​/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​4​.​h​tml

PUBLISHERS NOTE:

Well what do you know, some­one in Authority in Jamaica actu­al­ly say­ing a large amount of Jamaica’s Lawyers are com­mon criminals?
Well who woul­da thunk it?
A coun­try which has at it’s head peo­ple whose char­ac­ters are dirty, whose con­duct are more than enough to place them in prison for life. What did you expect?
For decades our Country’s Lawyers have large­ly been tac­it sup­port­ers of crime in some cas­es and in oth­ers, active par­tic­i­pants. That is not to say some Lawyers are not good upstand­ing offi­cers of the Courts, some are. However like Politicians , Police, and oth­er pub­lic ser­vants the legal fra­ter­ni­ty has been for a long time .….….
Well less than legal.

A new bill passed last week in Illinois would make it a felony to secret­ly tape any “pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions,” with steep­er pun­ish­ments for those sur­rep­ti­tious­ly record­ing the police. Critics of the pro­posed law claim it would scare cit­i­zens from record­ing inter­ac­tions with law enforce­ment, fol­low­ing a num­ber of high-pro­file police killings caught on camera.

The bill was passed by both the State House and Senate, and sent to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on Dec. 4. It would crim­i­nal­ize secret­ly record­ing “pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions” between two or more peo­ple, where at least one had a “rea­son­able expec­ta­tion” of pri­va­cy. However, the pro­posed law would like­ly not make it ille­gal to record police inter­ac­tions in pub­lic. Recordings like those depict­ing the death of Eric Garner would there­fore not be affect­ed. The new bill attempts to pro­tect peo­ple from sur­rep­ti­tious and improp­er record­ing of their con­ver­sa­tions with­out infring­ing on free-speech rights, its spon­sors claim.

“The most impor­tant thing the bill does is to restore Illinois to a stan­dard that requires every­one in a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion to con­sent to a record­ing,” said Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz, one of the bill’s spon­sors, accord­ing to an AP report. “We sat­is­fy the Supreme Court require­ment by lim­it­ing that to con­ver­sa­tions where there is a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of privacy.”

The bill is writ­ten around a U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing in March that struck down an eaves­drop­ping law that would made it a felony to record audio of police offi­cers work­ing in pub­lic. The court had ruled that the state could not make it ille­gal to record con­ver­sa­tions where there was no “rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of pri­va­cy,” and said it would “crim­i­nal­ize a wide range of inno­cent con­duct” and vio­late free-speech rights.

However, the new law does not make a clear dis­tinc­tion between what sit­u­a­tions qual­i­fy as a pri­vate encounter, the Illinois Policy Institute says. The pri­vate think tank says that it is “aimed at pro­mot­ing per­son­al free­dom and pros­per­i­ty,” and that the unclear nature of the bil­l’s word­ing make it open to wide interpretation.

“The Illinois Supreme Court said that police don’t have an expec­ta­tion of pri­va­cy in ‘pub­lic’ encoun­ters with cit­i­zens, but it did not explain what counts as a ‘pub­lic’ encounter,” the insti­tute said in a blog post.

The bill is designed to scare cit­i­zens from record­ing police inter­ac­tions, the insti­tute claims, thanks to steep­er pun­ish­ments for record­ing the pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions of on-duty police and court offi­cers than pri­vate citizens.

It makes “unlaw­ful­ly record­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with police – or an attor­ney gen­er­al, assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al, state’s attor­ney, assis­tant state’s attor­ney or judge – a class 3 felony, car­ry­ing a sen­tence of two to four years in prison.” Meanwhile, the pro­posed law would make record­ing pri­vate cit­i­zens a class 4 felony, “which car­ries a low­er sen­tenc­ing range of one to three years in prison.”

The bill must be signed by the gov­er­nor before it becomes law. The insti­tute claims that the pro­posed law could also be used as an argu­ment against police body cam­eras, since it could be argued that record­ings out­side of “pub­lic” places would be ille­gal, since peo­ple in pri­vate homes and oth­er areas have not con­sent­ed to the recording.

Concerns over police record­ing are large­ly mis­placed, accord­ing to Ed Yohnka, direc­tor of com­munca­tions and pub­lic pol­i­cy for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois. While in-home record­ing may be argued as “pri­vate,” it is extreme­ly unlike­ly that any per­son would ever be pros­e­cut­ed for record­ing police action in their own home, he said.

Instead, the group has tak­en issue with the bill over the rights it extends to police offi­cers’ abil­i­ty to eaves­drop on sus­pects of crimes like mur­der, kid­nap­ping and some sex­u­al assaults. The ACLU of Illinois tes­ti­fied against the bill over a pro­vi­sion allow­ing police to secret­ly record con­ver­sa­tions for 24 hours with­out any judi­cial over­sight, as long as they had per­mis­sion from the state’s attor­ney. Yohnka claims the state’s attor­ney is much more like­ly to give cops pref­er­en­tial treat­ment than a judge, but said over­all that the new bill is much more respec­tive of an indi­vid­u­al’s right to film police action.

“In a broad way, what this law rec­og­nizes is a notion that when a pub­lic offi­cial is doing their pub­lic job in a pub­lic place, they don’t have an expec­ta­tion of pri­va­cy,” Yohnka said. Compared to the over­turned eaves­drop­ping law, the new one is a “bet­ter reflec­tion of what the world looks like today when every­body is lit­er­al­ly a cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist and has the abil­i­ty to record infor­ma­tion and cap­ture video and images in public.”

One exam­ple of when police might have a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of pri­va­cy might be an offi­cer meet­ing with a con­fi­den­tial infor­mant, he said. If the two left a bar and went into an alley to avoid being over­heard dur­ing a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion, they would have a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of privacy.

“If some­one secret­ly snuck their hand around the cor­ner to record their con­ver­sa­tion, that would clear­ly be a vio­la­tion of this bill,” Yohnka said. http://​www​.ibtimes​.com/​i​l​l​i​n​o​i​s​-​p​a​s​s​e​s​-​b​i​l​l​-​m​a​k​e​s​-​i​t​-​i​l​l​e​g​a​l​-​r​e​c​o​r​d​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​1​7​4​4​7​2​4​#​.​V​I​c​S​O​E​9​_​V​0​U​.​f​a​c​e​b​ook

PUBLISHERS NOTE

This is creep­ing-peg assault on your lib­er­ties and rights to record wrong­do­ing by Agents of the State. States real­ly want to exert tighter con­trol of their cit­i­zens not less. As such it is impor­tant to note that this is one more attempt to fright­en, intim­i­date , and oth­er­wise dis­cour­age you from stand­ing on your Constitutionally guar­antied right to record what state agents do in your name.

We have con­sis­tent­ly told you, states do not want to cur­tail police abuse, they want to keep you under con­trol. Whatever means police uses to do so is quite accept­able to the states. We are going to bet that the Governor will sign this piece of leg­is­la­tion into law. 
It is leg­is­la­tion dis­guised as some­thing good for pri­va­cy, when it is fact a thin­ly veiled attempt to give police more pow­er to kill and make it much more dif­fi­cult for cit­i­zens to protest. 
All per­sons are Constitutionally guar­an­teed equal pro­tec­tion, if this is true how come the rules gov­ern­ing police action are dif­fer­ent even by this bil­l’s own language .

Illinois just quietly passed a law that makes it more illegal for you to record the cops than for them to record you.

In most states it is com­plete­ly legal to record police when they are on duty. It’s a basic right that keeps the gov­ern­ment account­able. But Illinois just passed vague law that dis­cour­ages peo­ple from record­ing inter­ac­tions with police by mak­ing it a felony in cer­tain sit­u­a­tons, adding jail time if a per­son “eaves­drops” on a police offi­cer. This could be a dan­ger­ous trend unless we stop it now.

In most states it is com­plete­ly legal to record police when they are on duty. It’s a basic right that keeps the gov­ern­ment account­able. But Illinois just passed vague law that dis­cour­ages peo­ple from record­ing inter­ac­tions with police by mak­ing it a felony in cer­tain sit­u­a­tons, adding jail time if a per­son “eaves­drops” on a police offi­cer. This could be a dan­ger­ous trend unless we stop it now.

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) — A Florida sher­iff called for calm after a 28-year-old unarmed black man in a stolen car was shot and crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed ear­ly on Monday by a white offi­cer, after wit­ness reports that the man had his hands up and amid racial­ly charged protests nation­wide about police violence.

“I ask every­one to not rush to judg­ment and allow the inves­ti­ga­tion to be com­plet­ed,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said at a news con­fer­ence in Orlando.

Demings, who him­self is African American and was sur­round­ed by six reli­gious lead­ers from the black com­mu­ni­ty, said inves­ti­ga­tors have found some eye­wit­ness accounts that con­flict with that of the offi­cer involved.

Witnesses at the apart­ment com­plex said that the men had their hands up when the deputy opened fire, accord­ing to local media reports.

Cities across the United States have seen major protests in recent days after grand juries declined to indict any­one in the deaths of two unarmed black men at the hands of white police offi­cers in New York and Ferguson, Missouri.

After locat­ing a stolen car at an apart­ment com­plex just after mid­night on Monday, Sergeant Robert McCarthy fired three shots, one of which hit Cedric Bartee.

Demings said Bartee failed to com­ply with McCarthy’s com­mands and “made exten­sive furtive move­ments,” mak­ing the deputy fear for his safety.

Bartee under­went surgery and was in sta­ble but crit­i­cal con­di­tion late in the after­noon, the sher­iff said. A sec­ond man in the car was arrest­ed unhurt.

The shoot­ing also comes only a few days after a 32-year-old Latino man was shot and killed in a car by an Orlando detective

inves­ti­gat­ing a bur­glary. Police said the detec­tive opened fire after he saw Alejandro Noël Cordero had a gun.

On Monday Demings said he was try­ing to be trans­par­ent in hold­ing the press con­fer­ence “because of the back­drop of every­thing hap­pen­ing in the coun­try at this time.”

He added: “It’s con­cern­ing to me” how the pub­lic might react.

Bartee had a his­to­ry of arrests on at least 45 charges since 1999, accord­ing to a list pro­vid­ed by the sher­iff, but the deputy was not aware of his back­ground at the time of the shoot­ing, Demings said.

McCarthy has been reas­signed to admin­is­tra­tive duties for at least a week, and the shoot­ing is being inves­ti­gat­ed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as part of a stan­dard pro­ce­dure. The FDLE is also inves­ti­gat­ing Cordero’s shooting.
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BERKELEY, Calif./NEW YORK (Reuters) — More than 150 pro­test­ers were arrest­ed in California overnight after shut­ting down a major free­way in anoth­er out­break of nation­wide demon­stra­tions against police use of dead­ly force on minorities.

Across the oth­er side of the coun­try late on Monday, bas­ket­ball stars in New York includ­ing Cleveland Cavaliers for­ward LeBron James joined the protests by wear­ing shirts embla­zoned with “I can’t breathe” — the last words of Eric Garner, a black man who died after a police chokehold.

Large crowds have demon­strat­ed dai­ly in sev­er­al U.S. cities since a grand jury decid­ed last week not to bring crim­i­nal charges against a white police offi­cer over the death of Garner, an unarmed father of six, in July.

The death of Garner and the police shoot­ing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri in August, have high­light­ed strained rela­tions between police and black Americans and rekin­dled a nation­al debate over race relations.

Several hun­dred peo­ple stormed onto Interstate 80 in the col­lege town of Berkeley near San Francisco on Monday night snarling traf­fic in both directions.

Protesters threw rocks and oth­er objects at offi­cers, California Highway Patrol spokesman Daniel Hill said. More than 150 peo­ple were arrest­ed, most­ly for resist­ing or obstruct­ing an offi­cer, he added.

Earlier, dozens of pro­test­ers stopped an Amtrak train in the town by lying on the tracks or sit­ting on a sofa placed across the line.

Outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a group of about 300 pro­test­ers blocked streets and chant­ed, “I can’t breathe,” in mem­o­ry of Garner, and “Hands up, don’t shoot,” a ref­er­ence to Brown’s death.

In down­town Phoenix, about 200 pro­test­ers marched to police head­quar­ters over the killing of anoth­er unarmed black man by a white offi­cer in what author­i­ties described as a strug­gle last week. Protesters demand­ed that police release the name of the offi­cer involved in the fatal shoot­ing of 34-year-old Rumain Brisbon, a man police sus­pect­ed of sell­ing drugs.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Monday said he was seek­ing the pow­er to inves­ti­gate all police killings of

unarmed civil­ians in the state.

It remained unclear whether New York Governor Andrew Cuomo would grant Schneiderman such pow­ers. Like the Democratic may­or of New York, Cuomo has tried to walk a fine line — express­ing con­cern about the grand jury’s deci­sion not to charge an offi­cer in Garner’s death while not alien­at­ing the police.

On Monday U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose office is inves­ti­gat­ing the Garner case, announced changes to fed­er­al law enforce­ment guide­lines intend­ed to set an exam­ple for local police, accord­ing to a Justice Department official.

In Cleveland, Samaria Rice, the moth­er of a 12-year-old African-American boy shot dead by police in November, told reporters she was seek­ing a conviction.

Her son, Tamir Rice, was shot near a recre­ation cen­ter while car­ry­ing a pel­let gun that was a repli­ca of a real gun. The boy’s fam­i­ly has filed a fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit against the city and the two offi­cers involved, one who shot Rice on Nov. 22 and one who was dri­ving the police car.

“Tamir was a bright child, he had a promis­ing future and he was very tal­ent­ed in all sports: soc­cer, bas­ket­ball, foot­ball,” Rice said. “He was my baby.”

(Additional report­ing by Kim Palmer in Cleveland, Sebastien Malo in Brooklyn, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Curtis Skinner in Oakland, and David Schwartz in Phoenix; Writing by Sharon Bernstein and Curtis Skinner; Editing by Gareth Jones and Andrew Heavens) http://​news​.yahoo​.com/​n​b​a​-​p​l​a​y​e​r​s​-​y​o​r​k​-​a​d​d​-​v​o​i​c​e​s​-​p​r​o​t​e​s​t​s​-​o​v​e​r​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​0​2​5​9​0​8​5​3​6​.​h​tml