From time to time, Clovis makes an ass of himself when he ventures into American politics with his cartoons which usually fall short because Clovis lacks the historical and lived experiences of the American situation. Clovis is brilliant; however, his work critiquing the Jamaican experience hardly misses the mark; It exemplifies the adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’

Clovis’ work ref­er­enc­ing the Prime Minister’s announce­ment of more restric­tions to ordi­nary peo­ple due to new­ly approved states of emer­gen­cies in Parts of Kingston and Saint Andrew, Saint Catherine, Clarendon, St James, Hanover, and Westmoreland, is dead on correct.
Speaking as a for­mer Police Officer who was a part of that insan­i­ty for a decade before I real­ized that the way we were approach­ing crime was regres­sive, bone-head­ed, and some­what retard­ed, forc­ing me to even­tu­al­ly,‘tek weh mi self.’ my words will nev­er come close to Clovis’ easy depic­tion of reality.

Announce the State Of Emergency, or ZOSO, in spe­cif­ic loca­tions, crime pro­duc­ers pack up and move some­where else. Crime goes down in that area because the area is flood­ed with law enforce­ment and mil­i­tary bod­ies, and the Prime Minister and his team declare victory.
At the start of this cha­rade years ago, this writer argued it was a sleigh of hand that attempts to fool the gullible into believ­ing that this is a sus­tain­able strat­e­gy that would effec­tive­ly remove the scourge of vio­lent crimes from com­mu­ni­ties and, ulti­mate­ly, the entire Island.
Only that one has to look at the entire­ty of the data. It is crys­tal clear that though there may be a less­en­ing of crime in areas in which those spe­cial mea­sures are ini­ti­at­ed, crime sta­tis­tics remain high or grow high­er nation­al­ly. This means that the crim­i­nals move to oth­er areas and con­tin­ue their trade.
It is not a vic­to­ry; it is smoke and mir­rors because the men and women com­mit­ting vio­lent crimes in those areas will not stop; they sim­ply move their oper­a­tions elsewhere.
The net result is that when the data is ana­lyzed, there is no mean­ing­ful decrease in vio­lent crimes, just a redis­tri­b­u­tion of vio­lence by the admin­is­tra­tion’s policy.
It is bad law enforce­ment pol­i­cy, but it makes good polit­i­cal the­ater and even bet­ter-talk­ing points when the admin­is­tra­tion choos­es to deflect.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

A man with an AR-15 rifle was stopped by a secu­ri­ty guard after enter­ing a sub­stance abuse treat­ment clin­ic in Buffalo, New York, and the sit­u­a­tion was caught on video.

The sus­pect­ed gun­man, iden­ti­fied as Jeffery Griffin, 48, accord­ing to CBS affil­i­ate WIVB, entered the lob­by of Alba de Vida on Thursday and fired one shot into the wall before an unarmed secu­ri­ty guard tack­led and restrained him until offi­cers arrived. The inci­dent was record­ed by sur­veil­lance cam­eras, and footage has now been released by the Buffalo Police Department.

No one was injured, police said.

A video clip span­ning rough­ly 30 sec­onds shows the unarmed guard stand­ing in the vestibule of Alba de Vida, oppo­site a recep­tion desk and in front of a closed glass door that looks like it leads to a wait­ing area for patients. The gun­man approach­es the vestibule through the front entrance and fires one shot into the wall, before the secu­ri­ty guard hands some­thing off to an employ­ee behind the desk and pro­ceeds to forcibly restrain the gun­man while oth­er staff and patients dis­ap­pear from view.

The secu­ri­ty guard pins the gun­man to the ground as anoth­er guard arrives just before the sur­veil­lance footage cuts out. As the guards strug­gled to restrain to gun­man, his gun dis­charged two addi­tion­al times, accord­ing to the Buffalo Police Department, but no one was struck inside the clinic.

“This could’ve got­ten ugly real­ly quick,” said Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, WIVB report­ed. “Due to the quick action — quite frankly hero­ic in my opin­ion — by the two secu­ri­ty offi­cers, no one got hurt there.”

Police con­firmed that Griffin was tak­en into cus­tody in a state­ment last week. They sus­pect that he as also involved in anoth­er shoot­ing that occurred at the 100 block of Pennsylvania Street, less than two miles away from the clin­ic, just before the one at Alba de Vida. Detectives say a woman was shot in the leg while inside her res­i­dence and trans­port­ed to a near­by hos­pi­tal for injuries that were not con­sid­ered life-threatening.

A sec­ond sus­pect who police allege was also involved in the first shoot­ing has been arrest­ed. Police said they do not believe that either attack was planned, and both appeared to be attempt­ed rob­beries “tied to drug activity.”(From Yahoo news)

A for­mer col­league of mine, a staunch oppo­nent of the Andrew Holness admin­is­tra­tion, unloaded on Holness recent­ly on a social media thread.” I thought his tirade would have been more cred­i­ble if, as a for­mer police offi­cer and Jamaican, he was more bal­anced and objec­tive in his crit­i­cism of the Prime Minister and his admin­is­tra­tion on the issue of crime.
I am sure he will dis­agree with even this attempt to move him to the mid­dle of ratio­nal­i­ty because of his some­what jaun­diced attach­ment to the People’s National Party.
Shout out to my ‘friend’ up there clos­er to the north pole.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​p​n​p​-​u​p​s​t​a​r​t​-​s​e​n​a​t​o​r​-​w​a​n​t​s​-​t​o​-​a​d​d​-​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​c​o​a​r​s​e​n​e​s​s​-​i​n​-​o​u​r​-​c​u​l​t​u​re/

Despite my friend’s lack of objec­tiv­i­ty in acknowl­edg­ing that both polit­i­cal par­ties are respon­si­ble for crime and vio­lence, either by omis­sion or com­mis­sion, it does not mean he is wrong on the mer­its. His char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the Government’s response as cor­rupt and incom­pe­tent are spot on. His asser­tion that SOEs and ZOSOs are not cred­i­ble crime-fight­ing strate­gies is correct.
That has been this writer’s posi­tion from day one. Why? Because we know the streets and what it takes to fix the prob­lem. We also know that this is not a prob­lem that will be fixed by either a for­mer head of the JDF or some paper cops trained by the intel­lec­tu­al ghetto.
If only [my friend] would acknowl­edge that not only are the PNP more cor­rupt and incom­pe­tent, the par­ty is more aligned to the crim­i­nal gangs and there­fore inca­pable of help­ing to for­mu­late a crime reduc­tion pol­i­cy to erad­i­cate the vio­lence in our coun­try effectively.
The PNP has not only encour­aged crime and vio­lence in our coun­try, but as a par­ty, they have been active cheer­lead­ers for the law­less­ness with­in the dance­hall cul­ture and encour­aged peo­ple to stand up to police who attempt to turn off loud music that dis­turbs the peace in communities.
Consequently, the PNP is ill-equipped and should not be allowed near pow­er until the par­ty goes through a com­plete metamorphosis.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​3​4​8​825 – 2/?fbclid=IwAR3MWshkojVl-dCTzQMis_PsJ4Ftiv4bXHU5gVVWCJUtU5oTscW6GZ2nbEM

That aside, there is no excuse for the Andrew Holness admin­is­tra­tion’s incom­pre­hen­si­ble incom­pe­tence on crime. From the start of Holness’ tenure as Prime Minister, I sound­ed the alarm that, based on his utter­ances and under­stand­ing of what it takes to fix the crime prob­lem in Jamaica, he would be a dis­mal failure.
Andrew Holness’ fail­ure to seek coun­sel from peo­ple who know and his desire to accept the coun­sel of those who don’t have been sig­nif­i­cant dri­vers of crime.
For starters, how can the prime min­is­ter con­vince any­one that he is inter­est­ed in stem­ming the blood­let­ting when his admin­is­tra­tion, whose respon­si­bil­i­ty it is for the safe­ty of the peo­ple, has not passed the laws nec­es­sary to put crim­i­nals in jail and keep them there?
This ques­tion encap­su­lates the entire debate on crime and vio­lence in Jamaica!

And so the Prime min­is­ter is back at it on Tuesday morn­ing, talk­ing about States of emer­gen­cies in Saint Catherine, Clarendon, parts of Kingston and Saint Andrew, as well as the parish­es of St James, Westmoreland, and Hanover… Essentially rear­rang­ing the deckchairs on the sink­ing Titanic. Mister Prime min­is­ter, sor­ry for the lan­guage, but the fuck­ing crim­i­nals are win­ning.
Whose idea was it that this guy was bright?
No rea­son­able per­son expect­ed that peo­ple would be able to sleep with their win­dows or doors open in Jamaica as Holness promised. Not with pover­ty, greed, envy, and bad mind ram­pant in our coun­try. But folks expect­ed that Holness, who brags about being from a dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tion, would be a lit­tle savvi­er.….… or should I say a lit­tle less dunce.
Look.….. I get it. The crim­i­nal cabal that is the PNP will not lift a fin­ger to join the Government in writ­ing and pass­ing leg­is­la­tion into laws that will pull Jamaican back from the brink. The PNP is inter­est­ed in burn­ing the place down and pre­sid­ing over the ash­es for their self­ish gains. We also know that a crime-rid­den Jamaica is the dream of the com­rades, their route back to power.
But where is the leg­is­la­tion from the Andrew Holness admin­is­tra­tion that would effec­tive­ly put the PNP on record oppos­ing crime-fight­ing measures?
Write the Laws and let them oppose them.
The JLP gov­ern­ment can­not con­tin­ue to do any­thing but resort to old failed mea­sures. If the gov­ern­ment can­not fix this, its most impor­tant oblig­a­tion, then it’s time that the peo­ple rea­son­ably look else­where for leadership.

In try­ing to jus­ti­fy his actions, Holness said, “The gov­ern­ment, after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion on the advice of the secu­ri­ty chiefs, have decid­ed to advise the Governor General that it was nec­es­sary and indeed appro­pri­ate to declare States of Public Emergency in these areas. We have seen an increase in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in these areas and, indeed, a threat to prop­er­ty and, in some instances, pub­lic dis­or­der.
There was nev­er any decrease in crime in any of these parish­es, mis­ter prime min­is­ter. As is the case in so many oth­er places, what has hap­pened are fluc­tu­a­tions in crime sta­tis­tics based on sev­er­al fac­tors, none of which may be attrib­uted to effec­tive polic­ing. Most laugh­able is the Prime Minister’s ref­er­ence to the [quote] ‘secu­ri­ty chiefs’; this is where I burst out laugh­ing. Who exact­ly are these guys and gals“?
As of November 13^th, a total of 1,360 Jamaicans were report­ed mur­dered, accord­ing to the police. A 6.8 per­cent increase over last year. Let us be clear-eyed about this fig­ure; it only rep­re­sents what the police know about, not the scores of peo­ple report­ed miss­ing who have not been heard from or found.
It does not rep­re­sent peo­ple shot, stabbed, chopped, and oth­er­wise injured who will die but haven’t yet passed due to those injuries.
Mister prime min­is­ter, the crim­i­nals, are fuck­ing winning!!!!

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Every per­son, man or woman who ever raised his or her right hand and swore an oath to defend the con­sti­tu­tion and the peo­ple they intend to serve under­stood going in that they may die in the line of duty.
I, too, took that oath to defend the Jamaican Constitution and pro­tect and serve my coun­try’s peo­ple. And I, too, have the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing been shot in the line of duty. It is not some­thing we crave going in, but it is some­thing every police offi­cer under­stands all too well.
Whatever the rea­son peo­ple embark on this endeav­or, be it eco­nom­ic, patri­ot­ic, or what­ev­er, I salute every well-inten­tioned per­son in Jamaica who steps for­ward to serve.
And to the ones who do so to sul­ly the agen­cy’s name, abuse the cit­i­zen­ry, and seek fame and for­tune, you will be found out soon­er or later.

Every police offi­cer who los­es their life car­ry­ing out their legit­i­mate duty or is killed because they are a police offi­cer is an attack on us all. As cit­i­zens, we must come to this under­stand­ing that police offi­cers who are act­ing in good faith to pro­tect and serve are there as a buffer between us and those who would mur­der and destroy. Consequently, we need a laser-like focus on the vital work good police offi­cers do on our behalf while we sleep in our warm beds or go about our dai­ly lives. When the bul­lets start fly­ing, and we run away, they run toward the sound of the explosions.
We as cit­i­zens have a duty and an oblig­a­tion to hon­or and respect that com­mit­ment and sacrifice.
I am not here ask­ing you to show feal­ty and blind def­er­ence to those who would dis­hon­or the badge they wear and the author­i­ty you bestowed on them. As a for­mer cop, I ask that you exer­cise the abil­i­ty to chew the meat and spit out the bones.
Are there way too many bad cops? You bet.
There are bad judges, doc­tors, nurs­es, fire­fight­ers, lawyers, phar­ma­cists, teach­ers, politi­cians, and bad actors in every oth­er dis­ci­pline. Some will read­i­ly start a fight, or worse if you dare crit­i­cize their polit­i­cal par­ty or favorite politi­cian. Yet we all know that Jamaica has some of the most cor­rupt, incom­pe­tent politi­cians liv­ing par­a­sit­i­cal­ly off the Jamaican people.

You do not dis­par­age all judges, and God knows some hor­ri­ble ones should be kicked out of the pro­fes­sion. Corrupt judges con­tin­ue to return mur­der­ers to the streets under the pre­text of lim­i­ta­tions in the bail act, even when the killers com­mit numer­ous homicides.
The sys­tem allows judges to return vio­lent mur­der­ers to the streets to kill inno­cent Jamaicans even though the bail act clear­ly states that a judge may deny bail if the accused is a flight risk, may re-offend, or may tam­per with witnesses.
Jamaican judges can be count­ed on to return vio­lent killers to the streets after the police arrest them for com­mit­ting vio­lent crimes. Nobody wants to ask, much less answer, how much mon­ey is chang­ing hands between killers, their lawyers, and the cor­rupt judges? I am ask­ing that ques­tion now, and I dare any­one to chal­lenge me on the legit­i­ma­cy of that assertion.
Take, for exam­ple, the case of Tuwaine Morrison, who was arrest­ed on mul­ti­ple charges of armed rob­bery. This mis­cre­ant was a known mur­der­er, yet a moron act­ing as a real judge released him on bail, where­after he mur­dered some­one, threat­ened oth­ers, and attempt­ed to grab an offi­cer’s gun to kill the arrest­ing officers.
This blight on soci­ety, giv­en a chance, would have exter­mi­nat­ed the offi­cers who arrived to arrest him. Thankfully, the offi­cers weren’t hav­ing any of it, and the coun­try will nev­er have to wor­ry about him any­more. But he is just one, and a dozen more are born to take his place as soon as one is exterminated.
There is absolute­ly no rea­son that the leg­is­la­ture would not take the seri­ous step to end the car­nage in our coun­try by estab­lish­ing clear laws that the coun­try will no longer stand for the may­hem and lawlessness.

Why is there no law that makes the unlaw­ful killing of anoth­er per­son pun­ish­able with a manda­to­ry thir­ty-year or life with­out parole sentence?
I’ll tell you why. Both polit­i­cal par­ties are filled with crim­i­nal­ly mind­ed individuals.
Every per­son with an ille­gal gun intends to use it to com­mit ille­gal acts, includ­ing the unlaw­ful tak­ing of life. Therefore the penal­ty for hav­ing an unreg­is­tered gun should be a manda­to­ry twen­ty years in prison.
The back­ward and regres­sive mind­set in draft­ing leg­is­la­tion that con­sid­ers the rights of crim­i­nal offend­ers is an insult to crime vic­tims. Committing a vio­lent crime is a choice; no def­er­ence should be giv­en to those who make that choice.
Let me be clear; there are cir­cum­stances under which some­one com­mits a crime unin­ten­tion­al­ly, and as such, there should be carve-outs in the law that makes room for those instances with mit­i­gat­ed sentences.
For exam­ple, two men engaged in a fist fight one punch­es the oth­er, who falls, hits his head, and dies. There was no inten­tion to com­mit mur­der, but they were still engaged in ille­gal activ­i­ty, so he must pay the price, not for mur­der but for a less­er offense.…say manslaughter.
That is a sit­u­a­tion in which a judge should have the abil­i­ty to mit­i­gate the sen­tence based on the cir­cum­stances of the case and that there was no dead­ly weapon involved.

The coun­try can­not afford to con­tin­ue along the path of appeas­ing for­eign-fund­ed, for­eign-based crim­i­nal rights lobby.
Amnesty International, Jamaicans for Justice, and the oth­er vul­tures who con­tin­ue to exist on the car­cass­es of dead Jamaicans.
No one elect­ed those for­eign-fund­ed vul­tures to lead Jamaica. The peo­ple elect­ed Andrew Holness and the Jamaica Labor Party major­i­ty to do the hard work of restor­ing the coun­try to a nation of laws. Mister Holness can­not con­tin­ue to com­plain about the PNP.
The People’s National Party is an incon­se­quen­tial crim­i­nal sup­port­ing move­ment; as such, Holness must lead with the large man­date the peo­ple gave him to effec­tu­ate change or step aside.
Where is the change?
No ratio­nal per­son expect­ed that peo­ple would be able to sleep with their win­dows or doors open. Certainly not with the bla­tant indis­ci­pline and law­less­ness that Jamaicans have been allowed to get away with, cou­pled with the pover­ty and want.
Nevertheless, the Prime min­is­ter and his par­ty can­not make the case that the crime num­bers are trend­ing in the right direc­tion under the lead­er­ship of Horace Chang and Antony Anderson.
Horace Chang is use­less, but I believe that the Police Commissioner would like to see the changes I con­tin­ue to demand. Still, the admin­is­tra­tion has been gross­ly incom­pe­tent, almost to the point of crim­i­nal com­plic­i­ty with the criminals.
How else could one char­ac­ter­ize what’s hap­pen­ing when a scofflaw dri­ver is allowed to dri­ve while ignor­ing 120 traf­fic tick­ets? Commissioner Anderson has also seen the light of the judges’ com­plic­i­ty with the vio­lent mur­der­ers, he can­not speak out, but I can.
All this is for the Andrew Holness gov­ern­ment to address, yet noth­ing is com­ing out of Gordon House to address Jamaica’s slide into the abyss of failed state­hood. We are all well aware that the Opposition PNP can­not be count­ed on to lead on crime; this is a polit­i­cal par­ty with peo­ple in it who are moti­vat­ed sole­ly by the desire to hold pow­er, noth­ing else.
These peo­ple would like to see the coun­try burned to the ground so they may rule over the ashes.
Despite this, the gov­ern­ing Labor par­ty is [not] giv­ing the peo­ple any rea­son [not] to turn to the failed, out-of-ideas People’s National Party and return them to power.

The streets are awash in guns that take the lives of Jamaicans of all walks and stripes dai­ly. I under­stand the sil­ly adage that peo­ple are get­ting killed every day. The idea that we are help­less vic­tims-to-be, unable to act as we await our turn in this dan­ger­ous game of Russian roulette, is the men­tal­i­ty of indo­lent, intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­lenged midgets. That mind­set should be dis­card­ed as swift­ly as it comes to mind; we are not help­less vic­tims; it is up to us to deter­mine the life we want to lead and the envi­ron­ment in which we lead it.
Those guns killed Police cor­po­ral Oliver Mullings Jr last Thursday in Trench Town, a per­pet­u­al cesspool that breeds the type of killers who kill for the sake of killing. The type of killer who opened fire at a police par­ty, killing cor­po­ral Mullings in a law­less com­mu­ni­ty that has been allowed to remain so for decades. The type of killers that the judges let loose to kill again. The type of killers that the human rights lob­by sup­port. The type of killers the human rights lob­by have noth­ing to say about when they mur­der the inno­cent but a lot to say when the police send them home.
The killers who live among the peo­ple who know them, shield them and ben­e­fit from the blood mon­ey they bring into their community.
Somewhere in that com­mu­ni­ty or some oth­er cesspool, the killers of this offi­cer are laugh­ing and drink­ing because there is no ret­ri­bu­tion, and there is no heavy ham­mer of jus­tice that comes down hard on them that they have no idea what hit them.
In anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty, the killers of 22-year-old Constable Brian Martin are enjoy­ing the same reprieve because the Government and its cronies in the crim­i­nal rights fra­ter­ni­ty have defanged the police.
How can we have a coun­try where cop-killers live to drink and laugh?
Now it’s not just the inno­cent cit­i­zens who are get­ting mur­dered mer­ci­less­ly; their pro­tec­tors are too shit scared to act.
Thanks to Bruce Golding, Portia Simpson Miller, and Andrew Holness.……
A day of reck­on­ing is com­ing when there will be no safe place for any politi­cian, dirty judge, or any oth­er who enhances and facil­i­tate the law­less­ness hap­pen­ing in our coun­try; that day is clos­er than you think.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

In anoth­er shock­ing and out­ra­geous inci­dent that high­lights the law­less­ness in Jamaica, a minibus dri­ver whom the police report­ed had 120 out­stand­ing traf­fic tick­ets crashed into the back of vehi­cles on Constant Spring Road in St. Andred on Tuesday morn­ing, snarling traf­fic for hours.

The com­mis­sion­er of police, Anthony Anderson, is incensed, but he should not both­er send­ing up his blood pres­sure. Jamaica is sat­is­fied with being the mur­der cap­i­tal of the world and the law­less­ness cap­i­tal of the world, so he should not be dis­mayed that the laws are so weak and feck­less that a man with 120 unpaid traf­fic tick­ets was dri­ving pas­sen­gers and not in jail.
Between the crim­i­nal-lov­ing excus­es for what pass­es for judges and the weak laws, it is a per­fect brew that makes Jamaica the wild west of the world where any­thing goes.

Nothing in the law gives the police the pow­er to arrest offend­ers like these and place them in jail. Nothing makes it manda­to­ry that they go to prison due to being scofflaws or pre­vent­ing them from acquir­ing and hold­ing a dri­ver’s license.
The rea­son for this is that the lazy, good-for-noth­ing punks, 63 in the low­er house and the appointees in the upper cham­ber, are the same bunch of ass­wipes that allow this débâ­cle to persist.
Accidents do hap­pen; there is, how­ev­er, a marked dif­fer­ence between an acci­dent and a crash. A traf­fic acci­dent is an event that occurs when the dri­ver does not con­tribute to the vent, like a slip­per road result­ing in a spin­out, and the dri­ver was not speed­ing, dri­ving under the influ­ence, on his phone, or doing any­thing that is in con­tra­ven­tion of the Road Traffic laws.
On the oth­er hand, a crash occurs when dri­vers engage in any or all of the afore­men­tioned activ­i­ties in con­tra­ven­tion of Road Traffic laws and ends up cre­at­ing an out­come like the one above.
This is what law­less­ness looks like.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Sgt Walaston White, sta­tioned at the Police armory was shot in the chest, the offi­cer was rushed to the hos­pi­tal in seri­ous con­di­tion. The inci­dent occurred at about 4:45 am on Tuesday, November 1^st, 2022 at his res­i­dence at 11 Mayberry Avenue, Colbeck Hts, Old Harbour, St Catherine. 
It is not clear how the inci­dent unfold­ed at this time. Further infor­ma­tion will be forth­com­ing as soon as they become available.

Alberto Junior Taylor, a police con­sta­ble, was arrest­ed and charged with the offense of ille­gal­ly pos­sess­ing a firearm and ammu­ni­tion by the police. The Constable attached to the Constabulary area 5 divi­sion is still in custody.
On Friday, October 28, 2022, at about 1: 30pm, the police received infor­ma­tion that a group of men was seen at the Examination depot in Swallow Field with a firearm act­ing suspiciously.
Officers from the Specialized Operations divi­sion respond­ed to the call; on arrival, the police saw four(4) men act­ing suspiciously. 
They were accost­ed, and a search of their per­sons was con­duct­ed. One gold and black Austria Glock 9mm pis­tol, ser­i­al num­ber smeared, was tak­en from the waist­band of Taylor, along with one mag­a­zine con­tain­ing fif­teen rounds of 9mm ammunition. 
Taylor iden­ti­fied him­self as a police offi­cer sta­tioned at area 5 headquarters.
He was tak­en to Specialized Operations, where the firearm was exam­ined and found to con­tain one (1) mag­a­zine with fif­teen 9mm rounds and one in the chamber. 

According to the police, the weapon’s ser­i­al num­ber was cov­ered with what appeared to be pur­ple ink. The ink was removed; how­ev­er, there was no iden­ti­fy­ing ser­i­al num­ber on the weapon.
Constable Taylor also report­ed­ly had on his per­son one (1) 9mm round in his right front jeans pants pock­et, as also one black firearm hol­ster in the front of the waist of his pants… 
As a result of the find­ing, a war­rant was pre­pared. Taylor was escort­ed to his home, where he hand­ed over to the police a pair of brown Clark shoe which was under­neath his bed, with the right foot of shoes con­tain­ing one M16 mag­a­zine with thir­ty rounds and the left foot of shoe con­tain­ing one brown paper bag with four­teen live and three blanks 5.56 car­tridges, one popeyes paper bag with fif­teen 9mm car­tridges and a clear plas­tic bag with two twelve gauge car­tridges, one M16 blank and one 22 cartridges.
A num­ber of accou­ter­ments, includ­ing a firearm hol­ster, baton, and car­ry-on, were tak­en for safe­keep­ing pend­ing the out­come of the investigation.

Speaking as some­one who made an inor­di­nate amount of arrests in my time, I ful­ly under­stand the dif­fi­cul­ties inher­ent in try­ing to secure a bel­liger­ent sus­pect who refus­es to sub­mit to being arrested.
Effecting the arrest of a bel­liger­ent sub­ject, regard­less of gen­der, can be extreme­ly chal­leng­ing for police offi­cers, which is why it is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant that police offi­cers be giv­en all the tools they require to do the job they are asked to do.
It is also cru­cial that an ade­quate num­ber of offi­cers are on hand to deal with issues at all times.
In Jamaica, where I served for a decade, the Jamaica Constabulary faces a deficit of equip­ment, trust, respect, and man­pow­er, among oth­er things.
Despite those deficits, Jamaican police offi­cers face some of the world’s most ruth­less and bar­bar­ic killers. They are held to some of the most exact­ing and demand­ing polic­ing stan­dards any­where in the world.
Truth be told, I can­not fore­see any log­i­cal rea­son that any­one would will­ing­ly do the job but for eco­nom­ic circumstances.
It is a high­ly vio­lent coun­try in which to oper­ate with a pop­u­la­tion that gives more respect to crim­i­nals and crim­i­nal­i­ty than to the rule of law or law-enforce­ment officers.
The lack of crit­i­cal non-lethal resources places the lives of both police offi­cers and the pub­lic at sig­nif­i­cant risk, and for no good rea­son. No one expects a doc­tor to per­form surgery with­out the req­ui­site tools. Yet, Jamaican cops are giv­en a frac­tion of the resources and tools they need to do their jobs and are held to the high­est stan­dard of oper­a­tions in both the courts of law and pop­u­lar opinion.
Consequently, police offi­cers are left to make life-and-death deci­sions that, under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, would not have risen to that lev­el of lethality.
There is absolute­ly no rea­son that the Jamaican Government should send offi­cers into the vio­lent streets of Jamaica with­out tasers, body-worn cam­eras, and oth­er accou­ter­ments of the trade in this day and age.
This writer, a for­mer police offi­cer who left the force because it was led by idiots and fools and polit­i­cal lead­ers who are crim­i­nals, will under no cir­cum­stances lis­ten to the non­sense that there is no money.
The gov­ern­ment finds mon­ey to do the things it deems impor­tant to the fidu­cia­ry inter­est of the rul­ing class.
The shoot­ing death yes­ter­day of a want­ed sub­ject by the police could have been avoid­ed if the offi­cers had enough man­pow­er, had tasers, and, more impor­tant­ly, had the arrestee sub­mit­ted to being arrested.
Since alleged mur­der­ers can be count­ed on not to sub­mit to being arrest­ed, the Government must bear respon­si­bil­i­ty for not pro­vid­ing the most basic non-lethal tools to the offi­cers to car­ry out their duties effectively.

The police do their best to arrest these young killers, and as soon as they are arrest­ed, the punk-ass judges return them to the streets. Here we see Twaine Morrison parad­ing in the streets with a gun in hand as if it is the most nat­ur­al thing to do.
This can­not con­tin­ue; we need leg­is­la­tion that keeps vio­lent arrestees locked up until they receive a speedy trial.
Worse yet, we need stiffer penal­ties for vio­lent crime, and most impor­tant­ly, we need manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences for vio­lent offenders.
We need to remove from the remit of the Island’s crim­i­nal lov­ing judges the abil­i­ty to return these dan­ger­ous killers to the streets.

CASE IN POINT

SEE THE ACTUAL VIDEO OF THE EVENT; WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGERY.
Do not open and then com­plain about the graph­ic nature of the video. (Adapted)

Jamaica, like so many oth­er nations, is a coun­try oper­at­ing like a ship with­out a rud­der floun­der­ing in the open ocean. It is lit­er­al­ly look­ing for the next ice­berg on which to crash.
Even as we speak, the two polit­i­cal par­ties are locked in a death strug­gle for pow­er in a race to the bot­tom. What pass­es for lead­er­ship are a bunch of mis­fits who spit on the fin­ger and hold it up to the wind to see what deci­sions to make.
If lead­ers were intend­ed to oper­ate that way, the peo­ple would not elect lead­ers to.……lead.
Real lead­ers lead from in front, unbe­hold­en to spe­cial inter­est or wor­ry about polit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions. Tough deci­sions that will result in real and mean­ing­ful change are not always palat­able at the start, but results are what matter.
Expecting that the required deci­sions will come from the present bunch of cow­ards and thieves that pass for lead­ers in Jamaica is a wast­ed expectation.

Our coun­try is doomed to become anoth­er Haiti. We are well on the way.
One of the most impor­tant take­aways from this inci­dent which most observers and com­men­ta­tors miss is the lit­tle issue of bail.
According to the Police report­ing, this young mis­cre­ant should be locked away in jail, await­ing tri­al for the three rob­beries he was charged with. It goes with­out say­ing that if he were charged with three armed rob­beries, he would have com­mit­ted many more. Nevertheless, a judge saw fit to return him to the streets, where he lat­er killed some­one and threat­ened others.
This was what brought the police to the dis­trict to seek him out.
Judges act as social work­ers exact­ing their world­view on soci­ety rather than doing their jobs.

This sto­ry con­tin­ues to be updat­ed from its orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion as more mate­r­i­al of evi­den­tiary val­ue becomes avail­able.….
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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Three men impris­oned since the 1990s for a fatal New Orleans dri­ve-by shoot­ing were ordered freed on Wednesday.

The shoot­ing death of 22-year-old Constable Brian Martin on Ricketts Avenue in the Maxfield Park com­mu­ni­ty of St Andrew though regret­table, should not be shock­ing to anyone.
According to news reports, the young police­man who was sta­tioned at the Half Way Tree Police Station was stand­ing at a Wake with a group of oth­er men in the area known as Frog city when they were attacked by gun­men who opened fire, hit­ting the offi­cer and four oth­ers. The offi­cer died of his wounds at the hospital.
Before I am attacked for blam­ing the offi­cer for his own demise, I should make clear I am doing no such thing.
As a young con­sta­ble dur­ing the 80s, those were areas I would vis­it day and night as the most beau­ti­ful girls lived in the ghet­tos. One par­tic­u­lar girl I was dat­ing was always pet­ri­fied that harm would come to me when­ev­er I vis­it­ed her.
Back then, there were M16s and oth­er weapons in the hands of crim­i­nals, just not to the extent that they are now. Even though crime was at lev­els we were uncom­fort­able with; it was a far cry from what they are today.

Sometimes my line of defense was a .38 revolver; at oth­er times, it was brava­do and an irra­tional sense of indestructibility.
Later on, I grad­u­at­ed to a 9mm semi-auto­mat­ic with extend­ed clips.
The improved weapon­ry did not exact­ly increase my mis­guid­ed sense of inde­struc­tibil­i­ty; it was improved knowl­edge of the job, improved local knowl­edge, and, to some extent, the aura and mys­tique we built around our­selves as front-line cops.
It is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to explain to some­one who has nev­er been a police offi­cer in Jamaica what exact­ly that aura and mys­tique entails, suf­fic­ing to say that it worked the exact oppo­site of Moths and bright lights.
Those days are long gone; dur­ing the 80s, Jamaica’s mur­der rate fluc­tu­at­ed between 500 & 600 homi­cides annu­al­ly. Back then, we were tear­ing our hair out at those num­bers. Today the coun­try is awash in guns and an end­less sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion, so there is that. The nation’s lead­ers have tak­en no steps to pass the required laws to put crim­i­nals where they belong. Contrarily, they have gone out of their way to ham­string the abil­i­ty of the police to do their jobs effectively.
I would not be so pre­sump­tu­ous as to tell any­one where they should and should­n’t go. And yes, .….….I am quite aware that there is crime every­where. I am also mind­ful that he could have been killed uptown.
It is report­ed that the young offi­cer is from the area and may have felt safe. Unfortunately, it is sit­u­a­tions like these which breeds a false sense of security.

I have heard all of the excus­es before, and at this point, I am way past offer­ing safe­ty tips to Jamaicans, who always seem to have the answers for every­thing, even when they do not have a clue what they are talk­ing about.
Speaking to police offi­cers, I ven­ture this mod­icum of advice. You must under­stand your sur­round­ings. You must play the odds.
Officers, if there is a like­li­hood that you may be ambushed in a cer­tain com­mu­ni­ty, reduce those odds by not going to those areas.
Worse yet, police offi­cers are eas­i­ly rec­og­nized. Being sta­tioned at Half Way Tree so close to that volatile com­mu­ni­ty means the offi­cer may have been rec­og­nized by some­one he may not have known but who knew him.
At some point, police offi­cers must act in accor­dance with the train­ing they receive and make bet­ter deci­sions as to where they hang out, even when they are from cer­tain areas. They are still trained in local knowl­edge, right?
I am well aware that we live in a cocoon of make-believe. I have been told more times than I care to men­tion the only peo­ple who are get­ting gunned down are peo­ple who inna sit­ting wid ada peo­ple.
I had no idea that the lives of Jamaicans [regard­less of who they are], were disposable.
It is so sad to me when trained police offi­cers become vic­tims of this sys­tem of make-believe; offi­cers ought to know better.
We have lost far too many offi­cers, young and old, who clear­ly for­got that, despite the hype and lies, far too many Jamaican com­mu­ni­ties are extreme­ly dan­ger­ous to every­one and worse for officers.
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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

A Brewster New York police offi­cer caught on video angri­ly grab­bing a man who want­ed to file a com­plaint against him has been indict­ed on felony charges that he fal­si­fied claims to jus­ti­fy arrest­ing the man.
Officer Fernando Quinones plead­ed not guilty Thursday at his arraign­ment in Putnam County Court.
On Oct. 28, 2021, Quinones pulled Alexander King over for alleged­ly using his cell­phone while driving.
King felt Quinones mis­treat­ed him and drove to police head­quar­ters to file a com­plaint. In the park­ing lot, Quinones con­front­ed him, ask­ing what King was doing there. King, who had begun record­ing with his cell­phone, told him he was going to see his supervisor.

The video appears to show Quinones grab­bing King by the neck and forc­ing him to the ground. It did not back up Quinones’ account that he includ­ed in the court doc­u­ments charg­ing King with attempt­ed assault, resist­ing arrest and dis­or­der­ly con­duct. The crim­i­nal charges against King were dis­missed last month. Charges relat­ed to an arrest of King fol­low­ing a traf­fic stop by Quinones ear­li­er that same month are also like­ly to be dis­missed as ear­ly as Monday. King, who tes­ti­fied before the grand jury, was elat­ed to learn of the indict­ment Friday.
It’s awe­some for me,” he said. “For a while I did­n’t think any­thing would come of it. We cer­tain­ly would­n’t be talk­ing now if I had­n’t tak­en that video.” Police Chief John Del Gardo and Mayor James Schoenig could not be reached for com­ment. Both defend­ed Quinones ear­li­er this year based on what they described as King’s aggres­sive reac­tion to being tick­et­ed. Quinones’ lawyers, Andrew Quinn and John D’Alessandro expressed dis­ap­point­ment with the indict­ment. Both have known Quinones for years, D’Alessandro as a col­league when both worked in the Yonkers Police Department and Quinn as the Yonkers PBA lawyer.

Quinn described him as a ded­i­cat­ed, well-respect­ed cop who spent more than a dozen years as an emer­gency ser­vices offi­cer, includ­ing time work­ing at Ground Zero fol­low­ing the ⁹⁄₁₁ ter­ror­ist attacks. ” .
A law­suit filed by King against Quinones and the vil­lage alleges exces­sive force by the offi­cer in addi­tion to wrong­ful arrest. The Quinones indict­ment does not accuse him of any­thing relat­ed to the phys­i­cal confrontation.
He is charged with three counts each of: first-degree fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records, offer­ing a false instru­ment and mak­ing an appar­ent­ly false state­ment, all felonies. He is also charged with one count of offi­cial mis­con­duct, a mis­de­meanor. Quinones, 58, was released with­out bail and is due back in court Nov. 22. He faces up to four years in prison if con­vict­ed of any of the felonies.
He joined the Brewster Police Department as a part-time offi­cer in 2016, four years after wrap­ping up a 23-year career in Yonkers. He has been out on dis­abil­i­ty for months over an injury unre­lat­ed to the King case.
He is the sec­ond vil­lage cop arrest­ed in the past year. Officer Wayne Peiffer plead­ed guilty in April in Brooklyn fed­er­al court to accept­ing sex­u­al favors in exchange for pro­tect­ing sex traf­fick­ers who brought pros­ti­tutes to Brewster.

A police offi­cer has been shot to death in the Mississippi Delta city where she grew up, and sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple were injured by gunfire.
Greenville Police Department Detective Myiesha Stewart, 30, was killed Tuesday night as she and oth­er offi­cers respond­ed to a call, accord­ing to Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell.
“Our com­mu­ni­ty is hurt­ing,” Greenville Mayor Mayor Errick D. Simmons said Wednesday out­side City Hall, where he was joined by law enforce­ment officers.
Simmons said Stewart is sur­vived by her 3‑year-old son, her par­ents and oth­er fam­i­ly members. 
Tindell said in a state­ment that a sus­pect was hos­pi­tal­ized and is in cus­tody. The com­mis­sion­er did not iden­ti­fy the sus­pect or spec­i­fy their injuries. Tindell pro­vid­ed no oth­er details about the cir­cum­stances of Stewart’s killing.
Greenville, with a pop­u­la­tion of about 28,775, is close to the Arkansas state line, about 110 miles (180 kilo­me­ters) north of Jackson, Mississippi. News out­lets report­ed that the shoot­ings hap­pened at the inter­sec­tion of U.S. Highway 82 and Mississippi Highway 1.

Stewart grad­u­at­ed from high school in Greenville. She majored in crim­i­nal jus­tice at near­by Delta State University, where she played bas­ket­ball in the 2013 – 14 sea­son. “She was one who exhib­it­ed courage,” Simmons said. “She was one who put fear aside to help some­one else.”
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is exam­in­ing the shoot­ing of Stewart, as it does with all shoot­ings involv­ing offi­cers in the state.
“I am tru­ly sad­dened by the trag­ic loss of Detective Stewart,” Republican Gov. Tate Reeves wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “Please join me in prayer for her fam­i­ly, her friends, and the entire Greenville Police Department.”
Two oth­er Mississippi law enforce­ment offi­cers have been killed on duty this year. Johnny Patterson was struck by a car Jan. 13 while direct­ing traf­fic in front of an ele­men­tary school in Shannon, and he died eight days lat­er. Patterson was work­ing for the school and was assis­tant police chief in Verona. On June 9, Meridian Police Department offi­cer Kennis Croom was shot to death while respond­ing to a domes­tic vio­lence call.

Two police offi­cers answer­ing a domes­tic vio­lence call were killed and a third was wound­ed in a burst of gun­fire in Connecticut, author­i­ties said Thursday, dur­ing a week when at least 10 offi­cers have been shot around the country.

The sus­pect­ed shoot­er was also killed, and the shooter’s broth­er was wound­ed as bul­lets flew Wednesday night in Bristol, state police said. The wound­ed offi­cer was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal for surgery and expect­ed to recover.

Authorities said they were still work­ing to answer many ques­tions remained about the con­fronta­tion. No video of it has emerged publicly.

Witnesses said they heard three sets of gun­shots, about 30 in all.

“I heard a whole war going on behind me,” said Danny Rodriguez, who said he was out­side his home across the street when the gun­fire rang out. It was so intense that he could smell gun­pow­der in the air, he said.

“It was so loud and crazy,” said Rodriguez, who also recalled a woman scream­ing, “you … killed them!”

State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema said offi­cers were respond­ing to a report of domes­tic vio­lence at about 10:30 p.m. when they encoun­tered some­one out­side the address in ques­tion and shots were fired.

Police haven’t yet said who opened fire, who fired the fatal shots, or how many guns were fired in all.

“We lost two excep­tion­al Bristol police offi­cers, and a third was seri­ous­ly injured as a result of sense­less vio­lence,” Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould said at a news conference.

Sgt. Dustin Demonte, 35, and Officer Alex Hamzy, 34, were killed, the chief said. Officer Alec Iurato, 26, was wounded.

Demonte, a 10-year vet­er­an offi­cer and co-recip­i­ent of his depart­men­t’s 2019 Officer of the Year award, was “very focused on his career and fur­ther­ing his career and edu­ca­tion,” the chief said. Demonte, who earned a bachelor’s degree in crim­i­nol­o­gy, worked as a school resource offi­cer. He and his wife were expect­ing their third child, Gould said.

Hamzy had got­ten many let­ters of com­men­da­tion dur­ing his eight years on his home­town police force, the chief said. Like Demonte, Hamzy was an advi­sor to a police cadet program.

“The out­pour­ing of love, sup­port and prayers from so many is deeply appre­ci­at­ed,” Hamzy’s fam­i­ly said in a statement.

Scores of offi­cers lined a street and fol­lowed a vehi­cle car­ry­ing Hamzy’s body from the shoot­ing scene late Thursday morn­ing. Demonte died at a hospital.

Iurato joined the Bristol depart­ment in 2018 and has a bachelor’s degree in gov­ern­ment, law and nation­al secu­ri­ty, the chief said.

“We need your thoughts. We need your prayers,” Gould told res­i­dents of the small city about 15 miles (24 kilo­me­ters) south­west of the state cap­i­tal of Hartford. Bristol is home to about 60,000 peo­ple and to the sports net­work ESPN, which is head­quar­tered about a half-mile (1 km) from the shoot­ing scene.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont ordered flags in the state to be low­ered to half-staff, call­ing the shoot­ing “a sense­less tragedy.”

It was the lat­est of sev­er­al shoot­ings of police offi­cers around the coun­try with­in two days.

On Tuesday night in Mississippi, Greenville Police Department Detective Myiesha Stewart was killed and sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple were injured by gun­fire as she and oth­er offi­cers respond­ed to a call, author­i­ties said.

Early Wednesday, three Philadelphia police offi­cers were shot and wound­ed at a homeand a sus­pect was killed when a SWAT team tried to arrest the man want­ed on a homi­cide charge, police said. And in Decatur, Illinois, two police offi­cers con­duct­ing a traf­fic stop were shot and wound­ed by a motorist who died after offi­cers returned fire, police said.

Late Wednesday, a sher­if­f’s deputy in cen­tral Florida was shot in the chest while inves­ti­gat­ing a report of a fam­i­ly dis­tur­bance at a home. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the deputy was “saved” by his bul­let­proof vest.

A Las Vegas police offi­cer was fatal­ly wound­ed ear­ly Thursday after he and a part­ner stopped a vehi­cle while answer­ing a domes­tic vio­lence call, the Clark County sher­iff said.

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This sto­ry has been updat­ed to cor­rect the spelling of the name of the wound­ed offi­cer. His name is Alec Iurato, not Alex Iarato.

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Contributing were Associated Press writ­ers Sue Haigh in Hartford, and Karen Matthews and Jennifer Peltz in New York City.

By Trone Dowd

Former Tucson cop Ryan Remington, 32, is fac­ing a charge of manslaugh­ter after shoot­ing a man sus­pect­ed of shoplifting.

The off-duty Tucson police offi­cer who fatal­ly shot a man in a wheel­chair nine times in the back is fac­ing a manslaugh­ter charge, a grand jury has decided.

Former offi­cer Ryan Remington, 32, is accused of reck­less­ly caus­ing the death of 61-year-old Richard Lee Richards, accord­ing to Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, who said there will be an arraign­ment this week.

“It appears now that this case will go to tri­al and we will do our best to ensure that it is a fair tri­al,” Conover said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Thursday. “My office, despite con­sid­er­able pres­sure to rush to judg­ment, took care­ful, cal­cu­lat­ed, and thor­ough steps to come to this deci­sion. We took the time to get it right.”

On Nov. 30, Remington, who was off-duty work­ing Walmart secu­ri­ty, was fol­low­ing Richards after he alleged­ly stole a tool­box. Richards, who was in a motor­ized scoot­er, alleged­ly flashed a knife to Walmart employ­ees who tried to con­front him.

“If you want me to put down the knife, you’re going to have to shoot me,” Richards alleged­ly told Remington as Remington fol­lowed him into the park­ing lot. As on-duty police offi­cers arrived, Richards tried to go into the Lowe’s store near­by. Disturbing body cam­era footage released by police last December shows that Remington shot Richards nine times from behind just as the arriv­ing offi­cers ordered Richards to stop. 

Remington could be seen on secu­ri­ty footage hand­cuff­ing Richards as he slumped out of his chair and bled out. Police tried to ren­der aid, but Richards was declared dead short­ly after the shooting.

Remington was fired from his job with the Tucson Police Department ear­li­er this year after an inter­nal investigation.

Remington’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Tucson Police Officers Association attor­ney Michael Storie, pre­vi­ous­ly argued that his client had tried numer­ous times to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion, leav­ing him no oth­er choice but to use force as Richards entered anoth­er store. He also said that Remington fired as many shots as he did as a result of his training.

Storie did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to requests for com­ment, but he told local NBC affil­i­ate KVOA that the charges against his client are “legal fiction.”

“Manslaughter doesn’t even fit,” Storie told the TV sta­tion. “I’ll be very, very inter­est­ed to read the grand jury tran­script and what went on in that room where I was not present.”

Jamee Kimble was dri­ving in on Oct. 1 when she and her kids were struck head-on by a police car going around 10 mph in Virginia. It wasn’t an accident.

“They had me hold both of my hands out the car win­dow while they point­ed a gun at me scream­ing that I could become a threat if I moved, in front of my kids,” Kimble said in an Instagram post doc­u­ment­ing the con­fronta­tion in Fairfax County.

Kimble was then hand­cuffed and put into the back of the police vehi­cle, she said.

Kimble had been at the hos­pi­tal hav­ing her Cesarean sec­tion birth just days before the encounter with police, which she said was her ali­bi for the ques­tions they had asked her.

In the end, police pub­licly con­firmed it: Kimble was not who they were look­ing for.

So why, exact­ly, was she caught in the mid­dle of a felony traf­fic stop? Police released a state­ment after Kimble post­ed her video on Instagram, which gar­nered thou­sands of com­ments and views.

Fairfax County police got an alert around 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 1 of a “felony vehi­cle with occu­pants list­ed as armed and dan­ger­ous” trav­el­ing in the area of Richmond Highway and South Kings Highway, offi­cers said in a news release.

Police found the vehi­cle and ran into the front bumper of the car at an “esti­mat­ed speed under 10 mph,” then detained the occu­pants — which were Kimble, two chil­dren and anoth­er woman, the release said.

Officials con­firmed that the vehi­cle Kimble was inside was involved in an inci­dent in Arlington County, prompt­ing the traf­fic stop, the release said. However, when offi­cers real­ized that nei­ther Kimble, nor any oth­er occu­pants of the car, were involved in the inci­dent and did not own the car, they were released.

Kimble says that being released doesn’t mit­i­gate what happened.

“I still am very angry and, more than any­thing, hurt because I teach my chil­dren that the police are sup­posed to pro­tect us, and that if they need any­thing they can call them for help,” Kimble told NBC Washington. “This was a very trau­mat­ic sit­u­a­tion, and for a long time, prob­a­bly for­ev­er for me and my 5‑year-old, this will for­ev­er affect us…“I could have lost my life. My kids could have lost their lives. Luckily, every­one in the car was in a seat belt.”

Kimble told NBC that her 1‑year-old son, her 5‑year-old daugh­ter and a friend were head­ing to Walmart to get groceries.

In the video, Kimble demands that the offi­cers be fired.

The Fairfax County Police Department ini­ti­at­ed an admin­is­tra­tive review of the inci­dent, accord­ing to the release.

As Democrats want leg­is­la­tion lim­it­ing author­i­ties’ abil­i­ty to use cell­phone track­ing tools to fol­low people’s where­abouts, imag­ine these dev­as­tat­ing tools in the hands of racist, mur­der­ous, and abu­sive police.

Civil rights lawyers and Democratic sen­a­tors are push­ing for leg­is­la­tion that would lim­it U.S. law enforce­ment agen­cies abil­i­ty to buy cell­phone track­ing tools to fol­low people’s where­abouts, includ­ing back years in time, and some­times with­out a search warrant.

Concerns about police use of the tool known as “Fog Reveal” raised in an inves­ti­ga­tion by The Associated Press pub­lished ear­li­er this month also sur­faced in a Federal Trade Commission hear­ing three weeks ago. Police agen­cies have been using the plat­form to search hun­dreds of bil­lions of records gath­ered from 250 mil­lion mobile devices, and hoover up people’s geolo­ca­tion data to assem­ble so-called “pat­terns of life,” accord­ing to thou­sands of pages of records about the com­pa­ny Sold by Virginia-based Fog Data Science LLC, Fog Reveal has been used since at least 2018 in crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions rang­ing from the mur­der of a nurse in Arkansas to trac­ing the move­ments of a poten­tial par­tic­i­pant in the Jan. 6 insur­rec­tion at the Capitol. The tool is rarely, if ever, men­tioned in court records, some­thing that defense attor­neys say makes it hard­er for them to prop­er­ly defend their clients in cas­es in which the tech­nol­o­gy was used.

“Americans are increas­ing­ly aware that their pri­va­cy is evap­o­rat­ing before their eyes, and the real-world impli­ca­tions can be dev­as­tat­ing. Today, com­pa­nies we’ve all heard of as well as com­pa­nies we’re com­plete­ly unaware of are col­lect­ing troves of data about where we go, what we do, and who we are,” said Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Panelists and mem­bers of the pub­lic who took part in the FTC hear­ing also raised con­cerns about how data gen­er­at­ed by pop­u­lar apps is used for sur­veil­lance pur­pos­es, or “in some cas­es, being used to infer iden­ti­ty and cause direct harm to peo­ple in the real world, in the phys­i­cal world and being repur­posed for, as was men­tioned ear­li­er, law enforce­ment and nation­al secu­ri­ty pur­pos­es,” said Stacey Gray, a senior direc­tor for U.S. pro­grams for the Future of Privacy Forum.

The FTC declined to com­ment specif­i­cal­ly about Fog Reveal.

Matthew Broderick, a Fog man­ag­ing part­ner, told AP that local law enforce­ment was at the front lines of traf­fick­ing and miss­ing per­sons cas­es, but often fell behind in tech­nol­o­gy adoption.

“We fill a gap for under­fund­ed and under­staffed depart­ments,” he said in an email, adding that the com­pa­ny does not have access to people’s per­son­al infor­ma­tion, nor are search war­rants required. The com­pa­ny refused to share infor­ma­tion about how many police agen­cies it works with.

Fog Reveal was devel­oped by two for­mer high-rank­ing Department of Homeland Security offi­cials under for­mer President George W. Bush. It relies on adver­tis­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers, which Fog offi­cials say are culled from pop­u­lar cell­phone apps such as Waze, Starbucks and hun­dreds of oth­ers that tar­get ads based on a person’s move­ments and inter­ests, accord­ing to police emails. That infor­ma­tion is then sold to com­pa­nies like Fog.

Federal over­sight of com­pa­nies like Fog is an evolv­ing legal land­scape. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission sued a data bro­ker called Kochava that, like Fog, pro­vides its clients with adver­tis­ing IDs that author­i­ties say can eas­i­ly be used to find where a mobile device user lives, which vio­lates rules the com­mis­sion enforces. And a bill intro­duced by Sen. Ron Wyden that is now before Congress seeks to reg­u­late the way gov­ern­ment agen­cies can obtain data from data bro­kers and oth­er pri­vate com­pa­nies, at a time when pri­va­cy advo­cates wor­ry loca­tion track­ing could be put to oth­er nov­el uses, such as keep­ing tabs on peo­ple who seek abor­tions in states where it is now illegal.“It wasn’t long ago that it would take high-tech equip­ment or a ded­i­cat­ed group of agents to track a person’s move­ments around the clock. Now, it just takes a few thou­sand dol­lars and the will­ing­ness to get in bed with shady data bro­kers,” said Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “It is an out­rage that data bro­kers are sell­ing detailed loca­tion data to law enforce­ment agen­cies around the coun­try — includ­ing in states that have made per­son­al repro­duc­tive health deci­sions into seri­ous crimes.”

Because of the secre­cy sur­round­ing Fog, there are scant details about its use. Most law enforce­ment agen­cies won’t dis­cuss it, rais­ing con­cerns among pri­va­cy advo­cates that it vio­lates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which pro­tects against unrea­son­able search and seizure.

Advocates on both sides of the aisle should be con­cerned about unre­strict­ed gov­ern­ment use of Fog Reveal, said for­mer Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as U.S. House Judiciary Chairman.

“Fog Reveal is eas­i­ly de-anonymized track­ing of Americans’ dai­ly move­ments and loca­tion his­to­ries. Where we go can say a lot about who we are, who we asso­ciate with, and even what we believe or how we wor­ship,” said Goodlatte, who now works as a senior pol­i­cy advi­sor to the Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability. “The cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate means that this tech­nol­o­gy could be used against peo­ple left, right and cen­ter. Everyone has a stake in curb­ing this technology.

The New York Police Department used Fog Reveal at its Real Time Crime Center in 2018 and 2019, a pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed rela­tion­ship con­firmed by pub­lic records. A spokesper­son said in an emailed state­ment that the NYPD used Fog on a tri­al basis, “strict­ly in the inter­est of devel­op­ing leads for crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions and life­sav­ing oper­a­tions such as miss­ing per­sons.” The depart­ment did not say if it was suc­cess­ful in either scenario.

Two non­prof­its that have sup­port­ed pri­va­cy rights cas­es in New York City said the tool exploit­ed con­sumers’ per­son­al data and was “ripe for abuse,” accord­ing to Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn.

“The lack of any mean­ing­ful reg­u­la­tion on the col­lec­tion and sale of app data is both a con­sumer and pri­va­cy cri­sis,” Legal Aid Society Staff Attorney Benjamin Burger wrote in a recent post. “Both fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments need to devel­op poli­cies that will pro­tect con­sumer data.”(The Grio)

How is this not attempt­ed mur­der? If any­one else but a cop com­mit­ted this egre­gious abuse of pow­er result­ing in the poten­tial vio­lent death of anoth­er per­son and result­ing in seri­ous injury, would they not be in custody?
Once an offi­cer detains a per­son and places them in hand­cuffs, the deten­tion switch­es to safe custody.
It is incon­ceiv­able that an offi­cer would cuff a per­son, place that per­son in a squad car, lock the door and leave the per­son on active train tracks regard­less of the train schedule.
It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble to me under what cir­cum­stances an offi­cer or a police depart­ment would seek to jus­ti­fy this kind of gross negligence.
But this is not to be seen as a one-off inci­dent as cops believe they are gods. They ini­ti­ate traf­fic stops at the most dan­ger­ous places, often­times plac­ing the lives of the cap­tive motorists at seri­ous peril.
And God for­bid that the per­son being pulled over acti­vates their haz­ard lights and attempts to dri­ve to a safer place to stop; that dri­ver risks being mur­dered on the side of the road by these hyped-up maniacs.
They ini­ti­ate traf­fic stops block­ing pri­vate dri­ve­ways, entrances, and exits to busi­ness estab­lish­ments and oth­er premis­es and acts like they have an absolute right to do as they please.
The actions of the cops in this inci­dent will not change any­thing because if a court finds neg­li­gent behav­ior, they will not be pay­ing a cent, the cit­i­zens will foot the bill, and though this is crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, they will not be held accountable.
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A young Colorado woman detained by police was seri­ous­ly injured after get­ting hit by a freight train as she sat in the back of a patrol car. The cop, who parked his car on the train tracks, has been placed on paid leave as offi­cials inves­ti­gate the accident.
On Friday, Sept. 16, Yareni Rios-Gonzalez was tak­en into cus­tody by an offi­cer from the Platteville Police Department on sus­pi­cion of felony men­ac­ing, pos­si­bly an act of road rage in Fort Lupton, Colorado, involv­ing a gun. Once he detained her, he placed the young woman in the back of his cruiser.

The cop left the 20-year-old in his squad car, which was parked on the train track cross­ing near U.S. 85 and County Road 38, north of Platteville, near Denver, to join Fort Lupton offi­cers to search the woman’s vehi­cle that she parked a few feet away from the tracks, NBC News reports.

While the police offi­cer and two oth­er cops from the Fort Lupton Police depart­ment searched Rios-Gonzalez’s truck, a train trav­el­ing north­bound struck the patrol car with the sus­pect in it, leav­ing the Greely, Colorado, res­i­dent in seri­ous condition.

A video of the inci­dent has been released. It shows one offi­cer shout­ing at anoth­er, “move your car” before the oth­er cop looks at the car, turns to look at the train, and then walks off the tracks just before the loco­mo­tive smash­es into the police cruiser.

The woman sus­tained nine bro­ken ribs, a frac­tured ster­num, a bro­ken arm, and many oth­er injuries to her head, back, and legs. Though her injuries are severe, a report on Sunday, Sept. 18, said she was expect­ed to live.

The young woman has now secured an attor­ney, who said his client was “fran­ti­cal­ly” try­ing to escape the vehicle.

“She was fran­ti­cal­ly try­ing to get out,” per­son­al injury lawyer Paul Wilkinson told 9NEWS in an inter­view. “Of course, the doors were locked.” 

He con­tin­ued, “She’s def­i­nite­ly upset about what hap­pened. She doesn’t under­stand why she was left in the car. She was yelling to get their atten­tion and could see the train coming.”

Law and Crime reports that Platteville Police Chief Carl Dwyer did not reveal the officer’s name or any addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion regard­ing the col­li­sion, but shared he was placed on paid leave.

“The Town of Platteville con­tin­ues to work coop­er­a­tive­ly with CBI and CSP dur­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion regard­ing this inci­dent,” he shared with FOX 31.

911 calls help piece togeth­er what lead to Rios-Gonzalez being placed in the patrol.

The per­son who ini­ti­at­ed the call claimed a woman in a sil­ver Toyota Tundra truck “pulled a gun” on the caller dur­ing a tail­gat­ing event.

Three agen­cies (FLPD, Weld County’s Sheriff Officer, and PPD) were look­ing for the sil­ver truck, with the lat­ter locat­ing a vehi­cle that fit the descrip­tion first.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said in a state­ment, “The dri­ver of the vehi­cle pulled to a stop just past the rail­road tracks, with the patrol offi­cer behind the car on the tracks.”

It fur­ther read, “Two Ft. Lupton offi­cers arrived on the scene and the team con­duct­ed a high-risk traf­fic stop and detained a lone female occu­pant (age 20, Greeley) plac­ing her in the back of the Platteville patrol car detained on sus­pi­cion of felony menacing.”

“While the offi­cers cleared the sus­pect vehi­cle as part of the inves­ti­ga­tion, a train trav­el­ing north­bound struck the PPD patrol car,” it continued.

The CBI also stat­ed the offi­cers per­formed life-sav­ing mea­sures on Rios-Gonzales after the crash, before she was tak­en to the hospital.

Chatter cap­tured on the radio record­ing, secured by KUSA, sug­gests the offi­cers on the scene held Rios-Gonzalez “at gun­point.” But that was not revealed in the CBI’s report.

The radio chat­ter also cap­tures the fran­tic moments after the accident.

One offi­cer from Ft. Lupton says, “Dispatch, Lupton 346: patrol car was just hit by a train.”

“Dispatch, Lupton 346: get med­ical emer­gent [sic],” the cop con­tin­ued. “The sus­pect was in the vehi­cle that was hit by the train.”

“Copy,” the dis­patch­er replied.

The offi­cer whose car was struck said, “Just advis­ing … we can’t get the doors open on the unit, and the female pas­sen­ger is inside my unit.”

A bifur­cat­ed approach will be tak­en dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions of this incident.

The CBI has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into Rios-Gonzalez. The Fort Lupton Police Department is inves­ti­gat­ing the ini­tial 911 call that prompt­ed the search for the truck. Lastly, the Colorado State Patrol is look­ing into the “seri­ous-injury traf­fic acci­dent” caused by the train ram­ming into the car.

Ed Obayashi, a California sher­if­f’s deputy who spe­cial­izes as a police tac­tics expert, said he could not “fath­om” why the offi­cer would park his patrol vehi­cle on the tracks and believed the neg­li­gence opened the depart­ment up to a civ­il lawsuit.

“I can’t fath­om why he would leave his vehi­cle on the tracks with the sub­ject inside. Why didn’t you move the vehi­cle off the tracks? That’s going to be the biggest ques­tion,” he said.

“Those who are in your cus­tody,” the expert con­tin­ued. “You’ve detained them or they’re in the back of your patrol car, you have a duty of care towards that sub­ject,” the expert posit­ed. “In oth­er words, since you have assumed con­trol, phys­i­cal con­trol, over them and their move­ments, you are by def­i­n­i­tion respon­si­ble to pro­tect them in any sit­u­a­tion.”

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