Yesterday I opined on the tem­pest in a teacup that has been brew­ing over the last sev­er­al days (speak­ing of the alle­ga­tions by Clarendon res­i­dent Nzinga King that mem­bers of the Four Paths police cut her dread­locks against her will.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​n​e​w​-​e​v​i​d​e​n​c​e​-​s​u​r​f​a​c​i​n​g​-​n​z​i​n​g​a​-​k​i​n​g​-​m​a​y​-​b​e​-​l​y​i​n​g​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​t​r​i​m​m​e​d​-​b​y​-​c​o​ps/

This inci­dent, like most oth­ers involv­ing alle­ga­tions involv­ing the police quick­ly cement­ed peo­ple into camps. The entire dis­ci­pline of polic­ing has become a light­ning rod, not just in Jamaica but across the world, as police depart­ments con­tin­ue to be tone-deaf to their pub­lic’s demand for changes in how police offi­cers are allowed to operate.
The job of polic­ing has dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed; cit­i­zens are less like­ly to stand for abus­es of their rights, a stance I whole­heart­ed­ly support.
When police offi­cers go about their duties with­out mal­ice or ill will and make mis­takes, I am always sym­pa­thet­ic to those mis­takes, under­stand­ing that humans do make mistakes.
When police offi­cers vio­late rights because of pre­con­ceived ideas and bias­es, there is no sym­pa­thy com­ing from this writer.

Every offi­cer is taught the basics of the laws they are attempt­ing to enforce. They are also taught what statu­to­ry pow­ers they have to enforce said laws. Nowhere in the JCF train­ing man­u­al are offi­cers taught to vio­late any­one’s human rights. So if an offi­cer, or offi­cers any­where in Jamaica in this day and age decides to cut the hair from some­one’s head, that per­son should have no place in the JCF.
Even if a cit­i­zen asks an offi­cer to cut their hair, that offi­cer should polite­ly decline, ful­ly under­stand­ing the poten­tial back­lash from some­one get­ting the wrong impres­sion of that action.
As a friend and for­mer offi­cer insist­ed yes­ter­day, these alle­ga­tions do not need a long-drawn-out inves­ti­ga­tion from the top brass. The ques­tion is sim­ple, “did a mem­ber of the Four Paths Police unlaw­ful­ly cut the hair from the head of Nzinga King? Who is the mem­ber, and on what author­i­ty did that member/​s engage in that act?
To instill con­fi­dence in the police, the police com­mis­sion­er [must] move swift­ly to tell the pub­lic whether or not any offi­cer actu­al­ly cut the hair from the head of Ms. King immediately.
Each day that pass­es with­out that answer feeds the fire of spec­u­la­tion, builds sus­pi­cion that the depart­ment is hid­ing evi­dence, and increas­es ani­mos­i­ty toward offi­cers, and final­ly, it gives oppor­tunis­tic vul­tures, be they polit­i­cal or anti law enforce­ment, fod­der on which to feed.

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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. 

The claim by a young Clarendon woman Nzinga King that mem­bers of the Four-Paths police cut her dread­locks, has elicit­ed much debate and a swift deci­sion by the police high com­mand to ini­ti­ate a top-tiered investigation.
All good stuff; how­ev­er, I choose to await the out­come of the inves­ti­ga­tions ini­ti­at­ed by Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson.
Frankly, I was skep­ti­cal when I heard the sto­ry, and I still am. Not because police offi­cers have stopped doing dumb things, but because Rastafarianism has become such an accept­ed part of our Jamaican cul­ture that it has been hard for me to imag­ine that any police offi­cer would be so stu­pid to engage in activ­i­ties of that sort, but I may be wrong.
In the mean­time, some politi­cians from a cer­tain polit­i­cal par­ty, one Patricia Duncan-Sutherland, jumped head­first into the fray, and have been giv­ing media inter­views on behalf of the young woman and have helped the young lady and her fam­i­ly to secure legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the per­son of Isat Buchanan.

It is always easy to seek and get hype off the police in Jamaica, and truth­ful­ly some offi­cers make it easy for the wannabe politicians/​vultures to hop onto their fend­ers, but I digress.
One such failed politi­cian, of the Rastafarian dis­po­si­tion, even posit­ed that he intend­ed to stop by the police sta­tion to find out for him­self what had occurred.
Now seri­ous­ly, I hope that if and when he does decide to stop by the police sta­tion, in the face of an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, the police trim the locks from his head and send that idiot on his way.
That said, there are new rum­blings that the young woman lied to her school­mates about her age, lied that the police broke her cel­lu­lar device, and told her class­mates that she trimmed her own locks and regret­ted doing so. Frankly, if she lied about one thing it brings into ques­tion every­thing else she claimed happened.
One class­mate was not shy about telling the media that she was lying about the whole thing.
If this turns out to be a lie, I hope that the police will make an exam­ple of her by arrest­ing her and ensur­ing that she is pros­e­cut­ed to the fullest extent of the law for pub­lic mis­chief, or what­ev­er else Jamaican law allows statutorily.
If how­ev­er, any police offi­cer did vio­late her rights in that way they should be pun­ished accord­ing to the rules of the JCF and where pos­si­ble, held account­able civilly.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​3​5​2​873 – 2/

I thought it iron­ic that they chose Isat Buchanan to rep­re­sent her, a twice-con­vict­ed felon now prac­tic­ing law.
Isat Buchanan was bust­ed twice on felony crimes, even when bust­ed and con­vict­ed he lied that he was inno­cent rather than take respon­si­bil­i­ty for what he had done.
He now rep­re­sents anoth­er poten­tial Rastafarian liar. And that a failed Rastafarian politi­cian chose this as the hill he wants to die on to gain rel­e­vance, as he pon­tif­i­cates about going to find out for him­self what real­ly happened.
Just sweet…you sim­ply can­not make this shit up.….

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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. 

We can only try to doc­u­ment a few of the atroc­i­ties they com­mit against peo­ple of col­or, lie about them in sworn state­ments and when found to be lying there are no con­se­quences to them for their actions.>
Everyone knows that when you write a state­ment it ought to be a state­ment of fact as to the best of one’s rec­ol­lec­tion. Police offi­cers do not have the right to lie to incrim­i­nate an inno­cent per­son. Police and pros­e­cu­tors are duty bound by law to turn over excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence to defen­dants coun­sel, how­ev­er, police and pros­e­cu­tors sum­mar­i­ly lie and destroy evi­dence they [know] is exculpatory.
Prosecutors sum­mar­i­ly refuse to pros­e­cute police even when they are caught lying under oath in court, noth­ing is done so they move on to the next series of lies to con­vict peo­ple they do not like.
On the oth­er hand, their state­ments which ought to depict sequen­tial­ly their encoun­ters with mem­bers of the pub­lic are arbi­trar­i­ly rid­dled with lies and incon­sis­ten­cies- again with­out con­se­quence to them.

HERE IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE

Chicago police accused of wrongfully raiding another home

A Black fam­i­ly is suing the Chicago police depart­ment for alleged­ly break­ing down their door and point­ing guns at two chil­dren before attempt­ing to cov­er up that they had no evi­dence for the raid, The Associated Press report­ed Wednesday. The Winters fam­i­ly filed the law­suit Tuesday for police wrong­ful­ly raid­ing their home, which has report­ed­ly become a fre­quent occur­rence for peo­ple of col­or in the city.
On the night of Aug. 7, 2019, the chil­dren, two girls aged 4 and 9, were report­ed­ly sit­ting on the bed when police charged in the room with­out warn­ing or a war­rant. Police point­ed their guns at the sis­ters’ father, Steven Winters, whose back was lat­er knelt on by an offi­cer with a gun to the back of his head. Another offi­cer charged into the girls’ room and point­ed a flash­light and a gun at them, while a third offi­cer point­ed a gun at the chil­dren’s sleep­ing grandfather.

The inci­dent report­ed­ly left the chil­dren with “last­ing trau­ma … in the form of night­mares, bed-wet­ting, trou­ble sleep­ing, decreased appetite, cry­ing fits and fear and dis­trust of police,” accord­ing to the AP. The police depart­ment report­ed­ly tried to cov­er up the inci­dent by claim­ing they saw and heard a sus­pect run into the apart­ment, but these claims were proven false by the body cam­era footage that Al Hofeld Jr., the fam­i­ly’s attor­ney, acquired through an open records request. The city has yet to release body­cam footage of the inci­dent. “They do not show any­one enter­ing or exit­ing plain­tiffs’ build­ing or plain­tiffs’ apart­ment,” the law­suit said accord­ing to the AP. “Officers did not find any sign that any sus­pect had entered. Officers did not arrest any­one. The ter­ror and stress to this inno­cent fam­i­ly were all for naught. ”

This hap­pened in Miami Florida.
View these videos and tell me if these are police offi­cers or are they plain gang­sters who should receive the same treat­ment as gangsters?

Like I say as I report on these inci­dents dai­ly, these acts are not polic­ing. These are crim­i­nal thugs act­ing as ordi­nary crim­i­nals, they should be treat­ed as one would treat any oth­er criminal.

You cannot make these things up.
I thought that it was a serious crime for a motorist to knowingly hit a pedestrian or to be involved in any vehicular accident and leave the scene unless it is for a damn good reason like to save the life of the person injured or to avoid been killed by an angry mob etc.?
Well, obviously, I am wrong; if you are a cop, you can simply keep on going, and worse, no other cop will even bother to take a report. Talk about being above the law!!!

The offi­cer appears to have hit the boy but did­n’t stop to help him

L.A.’s KTLA5 reports, a moth­er and a com­mu­ni­ty, are out­raged after an alleged hit and run that left a 14-year-old boy injured. The car cap­tured on video hit­ting him was a California Highway Patrol cruis­er. The dri­ver fled the scene.

The inci­dent hap­pened on June 27^th. The boy was attend­ing a local car show in East L.A. when it hap­pened. Luckily wit­ness­es at the event not only saw what hap­pened but record­ed it as well. What’s most shock­ing is that after the offi­cer hit the boy, he just kept going. The boy suf­fered some seri­ous injuries, includ­ing a shoul­der injury and con­cus­sion, and the effects are still being felt a month lat­er. His moth­er, Sara Cervantes, said the con­cus­sion was so bad, the boy’s speech was slurred, say­ing, “You could tell that some­thing was wrong and he couldn’t talk cor­rect­ly; he was slur­ring his words.”

What’s more out­ra­geous is that oth­er offi­cers seem­ing­ly moved to pro­tect the offi­cer in question:

Community activists and the boy’s moth­er claim that the offi­cer didn’t stop to help the boy. They also said that sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als tried to report the hit-and-run to oth­er offi­cers who were patrolling the area, but not a sin­gle offi­cer would take a report.

Now out­rage has spread with­in the com­mu­ni­ty with calls for the CHP to release the officer’s name and ter­mi­nate him.
“It was absolute­ly dis­gust­ing to see the video of them just hit him and take off, and didn’t even try to find out where his par­ent was or seek med­ical atten­tion for him,” said Alejandra Estrada, a com­mu­ni­ty activist.
There’s still been no response from the CHP.

Of course not; why would they respond to the tax­pay­ing pub­lic that hires them and pays their salaries? They are unac­count­able to anyone?
But that is exact­ly what they are allowed to do in the United States. Why?
Because in the United States, the police have always been the oppres­sors of the abused African-American com­mu­ni­ty. Police serve as a bul­wark that pro­tects white supremacy.
Therefore, the thing we know as ‘police’ has always been an ene­my of the Black com­mu­ni­ty, regard­less of whether there are Black offi­cers in their departments.

Nothing like call­ing the Rambo cow­boys in because some­one is threat­en­ing to kill anoth­er in a domes­tic sit­u­a­tion .….……but has­n’t yet, at least. And what do the Rambo cow­boys do? Critically wound the per­son threat­en­ing harm and killing the inno­cent vic­tim that was being threatened.
Ends well, right?
Well, if you ask the peo­ple who stu­pid­ly believe that the answer to America’s police prob­lems is to mil­i­ta­rize the police fur­ther and not to defund them, employ more pro­fes­sion­als trained in de-esca­la­tion and domes­tic dis­putes, you will find a way to make the argu­ment that this was a pos­i­tive outcome.
It is clear­er by the day that the old cliché “give a man a ham­mer and every­thing becomes a nail” is appro­pri­ate when talk­ing about American police.
These guys show up in a hur­ry look­ing for every rea­son to dis­charge their ser­vice weapons. What their actions are demon­strat­ing is a blood-lust that dri­ves them into look­ing to dis­charge their weapons mul­ti­ple times at a sin­gle per­son, then seek to jus­ti­fy doing so.
We see this hap­pen­ing even when they arrive at a scene where they are in no dan­ger because they have all the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take cov­er and spend the nec­es­sary time talk­ing down a per­son going through a men­tal cri­sis; they quick­ly decide that fir­ing a bar­rage of bul­lets into the per­son is a bet­ter out­come than wait­ing to allow a per­son trained in deal­ing with men­tal health sit­u­a­tions to arrive. This is what has been legit­imized into accep­tance in America, sim­ply mak­ing it offi­cial for police to become on-the-spot exe­cu­tion­ers to dis­pose of peo­ple they do not want to deal with.
People of col­or, poor whites, peo­ple suf­fer­ing men­tal break­downs, peo­ple with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties, they sim­ply kill them then cre­ate a justification.
They did this to 21-year-old Ryan Leroux, who was expe­ri­enc­ing a men­tal break­down in Maryland days ago. Ryan Leroux had just lost his grand­moth­er, his job, his long­time girl­friend, liv­ing out of his car, and was hav­ing a men­tal breakdown.
He was at a McDonald’s dri­ve-through alleged­ly with a gun on the seat of his car. Police arrived and spent some time talk­ing to him, he threat­ened no one, but that did not stop the police from fir­ing a report­ed 25-bul­lets into his car, essen­tial­ly turn­ing his car into a coffin.

THIS IS HOW THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CHARACTERIZED THIS LATEST KILLING

Officer gunfire may have killed the mother of 3 in hostage standoff, San Antonio police say

An hours-long hostage stand­off in San Antonio end­ed with police crit­i­cal­ly wound­ing an armed sus­pect ear­ly Tuesday morn­ing and appar­ent­ly killing a moth­er of three with errant gun­fire, author­i­ties announced Wednesday.

“This is an extreme­ly trag­ic event for all involved, and I give my deep­est con­do­lences to the chil­dren and fam­i­ly of the deceased vic­tim,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said dur­ing a press conference.

McManus iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as 29-year-old Neida Tijerina.

“Officers dis­cov­ered that Ms. Tijerina had died from a gun­shot wound,” he said. “The Bexar County Medical Examiner per­formed an autop­sy this morn­ing. While they can­not yet con­clu­sive­ly state that Neida died as a result of the offi­cers fir­ing on the sus­pect, the phys­i­cal evi­dence appears to sup­port that conclusion.”

A spokesman with the med­ical exam­in­er’s office said Thursday that Tijerina’s cause of death is “bal­lis­tic injury of the chest,” and her man­ner of death as “homi­cide.”

McManus said police respond­ed to an apart­ment com­plex at about 9 p.m. on Monday “for a sui­ci­dal male threat­en­ing to kill his com­mon-law wife,” who was with her three young children.

When they arrived on the scene, McManus said police learned it was a hostage sit­u­a­tion. The sus­pect, Angel Sanchez, 28, was armed with a shot­gun and wear­ing body armor. Sanchez had a his­to­ry of domes­tic vio­lence and “indi­cat­ed to fam­i­ly that he was going to kill Ms. Tijerina and then kill him­self,” McManus said.

Police then called for addi­tion­al units, includ­ing SWAT and a hostage nego­tia­tor. Officers estab­lished a perime­ter and evac­u­at­ed near­by res­i­dents, McManus said. Sanchez then exit­ed the apart­ment and point­ed a shot­gun at officers.

“Sanchez was heard taunt­ing offi­cers try­ing to get them into a con­fronta­tion,” McManus said, and attempts to de-esca­late with him were unsuccessful.

Tijerina exit­ed the apart­ment but would not go with the police because “her chil­dren were still inside, and she did not want to leave them alone,” McManus said.

Sanchez then stepped out of the apart­ment a sec­ond time, hold­ing an infant, but then went back inside.

That’s when three offi­cers got on a roof of a near­by apart­ment build­ing, McManus said. Sanchez then exit­ed a final time and point­ed the shot­gun at offi­cers on the ground, police said.

“The three offi­cers who were pro­vid­ing cov­er from the roof opened fire on Sanchez, strik­ing him. Sanchez dropped his shot­gun, and offi­cers approached to take him into custody.”

That’s when offi­cers dis­cov­ered Tijerina dead inside the apart­ment, McManus said.

“I want to assure Neida’s fam­i­ly and the com­mu­ni­ty that this inci­dent will be inves­ti­gat­ed in its entire­ty,” McManus said but added that body cam­era video of the inci­dent would not be released because it involved domes­tic violence.

Tijerina’s three chil­dren ranged in ages from 3 months to 15-years-old and were unharmed, police said. Sanchez is described as the father of the baby.

Sanchez, who was crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed, is charged with three counts of aggra­vat­ed assault of a pub­lic servant.

NBC affil­i­ate WOAI in San Antonio spoke with Tijerina’s sis­ter, Jasmine.

She told the news out­let she was strug­gling to process what happened.

“Everything’s just … it’s a lot of emo­tions,” she said. “It’s just hard for me right now.”

David Thomas, a pro­fes­sor of foren­sics stud­ies at Florida Gulf Coast University, worked as a police offi­cer for 20 years in Michigan and Florida, doing duty in SWAT and as a negotiator.

Domestic vio­lence calls are gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered among the most dan­ger­ous for police, Thomas said, and there are many fac­tors that could have led to Tijerina’s death.

“It’s a night­mare sce­nario,” Thomas said.

He said that even if all three offi­cers who fired at Sanchez had hit him, a bul­let could have gone through his body and struck Tijerina.

Thomas said using a weapon while on duty can be tax­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, but acci­den­tal­ly shoot­ing some­one is a “worst-case sce­nario” for an officer.

“He or she feels absolute­ly respon­si­ble for that loss of life,” Thomas said. “They car­ry that bur­den with them. (NBC reported)»»»»»

How many arti­cles have I writ­ten in which I make the case that pros­e­cu­tors are cul­pa­ble in police cor­rup­tion when they drag inves­ti­ga­tions out, hop­ing that pub­lic out­rage will dis­si­pate, then issue deci­sions claim­ing that they did exhaus­tive inves­ti­ga­tions and found no crim­i­nal conduct?
The oth­er ques­tion is, how often has this writer argued that the idea of a neigh­bor­ing police depart­ment tak­ing over an inves­ti­ga­tion, then politi­cians, pros­e­cu­tors, and police claim that that-that con­sti­tutes an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion is laughable?
If you do not know, nei­ther do I because I have writ­ten so many of these types of pieces. I am a lit­tle trou­bled by offi­cials, whether politi­cians, lawyers, or police, who think so lit­tle of our abil­i­ty to think for ourselves.
Thanks to a spe­cial pro­vi­sion in Wisconsin Law, a Judge was asked to take a sec­ond look at a case in which a police offi­cer shot a man sit­ting in his car to death.
The black offi­cer had killed two oth­er peo­ple while on duty in his short five-year career, but pros­e­cu­tors ruled that they saw noth­ing wrong in all three cases.
The fam­i­ly of the last of the offi­cer’s vic­tims decid­ed to use the spe­cial pro­vi­sion in Wisconsin law to ask a judge to take a look, and what do you know? The judge over­ruled the pros­e­cu­tors and ordered a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor to pros­e­cute the case with­in 60-days.
We know that pros­e­cu­tors’ offices depend on the police to do inves­ti­ga­tions, but police are not doing any­one a favor when they do their jobs; it is their job to go after criminals.
Whenever an offi­cer or a group of offi­cers believe they are too big or impor­tant for the job, they should step away; no one has a right to be a cop.
Prosecutors should not fear retal­i­a­tion from police offi­cers or their unions. The prob­lem, as I have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed out, is not the sup­posed close work­ing relationships.
It is about race in some cas­es, cam­paign dona­tions, and polit­i­cal endorse­ments. That is what’s at stake, not work­ing relationships.
Philidelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, a for­mer Public defend­er, has done heavy lift­ing before and after being elect­ed District Attorney in his city. In the process, he has come up against immense pres­sure from police, police unions, police apol­o­gists, and sup­port­ers of the sta­tus quo who want things to remain the way they have always been.
DA Krasner cleaned house when he took office and estab­lished an office where the rule of law applies to every cit­i­zen with­in the reach­es of his jurisdiction.

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

Wisconsin officer to be charged in death of Black man after judge overrules prosecutor

Milwaukee County Judge Glenn Yamahiro said prob­a­ble cause exist­ed to charge Joseph Mensah in Jay Anderson Jr.’s death.

MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin judge on Wednesday found prob­a­ble cause to charge a police offi­cer in the 2016 slay­ing of a Black man who was sit­ting in a parked car, tak­ing the rare step of over­rul­ing pros­e­cu­tors years after they declined to charge the officer.

Milwaukee County Judge Glenn Yamahiro said prob­a­ble cause exist­ed to charge Joseph Mensah with homi­cide by neg­li­gent use of a weapon in Jay Anderson Jr.’s death. He ordered a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor to file the charge with­in 60 days formally.

Yamahiro’s deci­sion marks a vic­to­ry for Anderson’s fam­i­ly, who took advan­tage of a lit­tle-used pro­vi­sion in state law to ask the judge for a sec­ond look at the case.

Mensah, also Black, dis­cov­ered the 25-year-old Anderson sleep­ing in his car at 3 a.m. in a park in Wauwatosa, a Milwaukee sub­urb. Mensah said he shot Anderson after Anderson reached for a gun, but Anderson’s fam­i­ly dis­putes that. The judge on Wednesday said the evi­dence did not back up Mensah’s ver­sion of events.

Anderson was the sec­ond of three peo­ple Mensah shot to death dur­ing a five-year stint with the Wauwatosa Police Department. Prosecutors cleared him of crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing in each case.

Anderson’s fam­i­ly asked Yamahiro to review that case under an obscure state law that allows judges to direct­ly ques­tion wit­ness­es in what’s known as a John Doe pro­ceed­ing. A judge who finds suf­fi­cient evi­dence for charges can file them direct­ly, leav­ing pros­e­cu­tors out of the equa­tion. At least six oth­er states have sim­i­lar statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions, but attor­neys say the process is rarely used in Wisconsin.

The judge said he decid­ed that the sin­gle charge against Mensah was war­rant­ed based on tes­ti­mo­ny about the cir­cum­stances of the shoot­ing. Mensah should have been aware that pulling his weapon on Anderson cre­at­ed an unrea­son­able risk of death, Yamahiro said.

The judge said that Mensah could have tak­en steps to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion, includ­ing wait­ing for back­up that was on the way.

Anderson’s behav­ior was con­sis­tent with some­one intox­i­cat­ed, had been asleep, and was try­ing but hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing with Mensah’s orders, Yamahiro said.
Read the full sto­ry here; https://​www​.nbc​news​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​u​s​-​n​e​w​s​/​w​i​s​c​o​n​s​i​n​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​-​b​e​-​c​h​a​r​g​e​d​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​j​u​d​g​e​-​o​v​e​r​r​u​l​e​s​-​n​1​2​7​5​310

It nev­er stops read more.
https://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​2​1​/​0​7​/​2​8​/​n​y​r​e​g​i​o​n​/​n​y​p​d​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​d​i​s​c​i​p​l​i​n​e​-​r​a​p​e​.​h​tml

https://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​o​u​t​r​a​g​e​-​g​r​o​w​s​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​d​e​p​u​t​i​e​s​-​b​e​a​t​-​n​a​t​i​v​e​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​n​-​m​a​n​-​k​i​l​l​-​h​i​s​-​dog

https://​atlantablack​star​.com/​2​0​2​1​/​0​7​/​2​8​/​u​n​a​c​c​e​p​t​a​b​l​e​-​a​t​l​a​n​t​a​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​-​s​e​e​n​-​d​e​l​i​v​e​r​i​n​g​-​h​e​a​d​-​k​i​c​k​-​t​o​-​h​a​n​d​c​u​f​f​e​d​-​m​e​n​t​a​l​l​y​-​i​l​l​-​w​o​m​a​n​-​s​u​s​p​e​n​d​e​d​-​w​i​t​h​o​u​t​-​p​a​y​-​s​e​c​o​n​d​-​c​o​p​-​r​e​l​i​e​v​e​d​-​o​f​-​d​u​t​y​-​f​o​r​-​n​o​t​-​s​t​o​p​p​i​n​g​-​h​im/

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Years ago, I wrote a series of arti­cles warn­ing that (a) the con­tin­ued mil­i­ta­riza­tion of America’s police depart­ments, (b) the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of police, © blan­ket pro­tec­tion of police through poli­cies like qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty, (d) not doing any­thing about the FBI’s warn­ing that white suprema­cists and skin­heads had invad­ed police departments,(which were already ver­i­ta­ble white suprema­cists clubs) and oth­er issues, would cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion that would desta­bi­lize American society.
That time has been here for years. The low­er courts are forced to do the same through repeat­ed pro-police rul­ings, and the nation’s high­est court refus­es to dis­con­tin­ue the pol­i­cy of qual­i­fied immunity.
Citizens across the coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly cit­i­zens of col­or, are at the mer­cy of entire police depart­ments, many oper­at­ing out­side the laws.
In California’s Los Angeles County, Sheriff Alex Villanueva heads a depart­ment that has been accused of hav­ing gangs of Gang mem­ber offi­cers all tat­tooed up oper­at­ing in the open for years.
According to whistle­blow­er mem­bers, they are alleged to bru­tal­ize and kill inno­cent cit­i­zens, after which they meet at spe­cial water­ing holes to cel­e­brate their kills.
Sheriff Alex VillanuevaIna lied that he has seen no evi­dence of gang activ­i­ty in his depart­ment despite oth­er deputies and a long list of cit­i­zens tes­ti­fy­ing that this prob­lem exists. It is either of two things Villanueva is scared shit­less of the thugs who oper­ate right under his nose, or he is a part of that crim­i­nal gang.
Naming or sin­gling out a par­tic­u­lar police depart­ment when we talk about crim­i­nal con­duct or police vio­lence is an effort in futil­i­ty. It is much eas­i­er to name a sin­gle depart­ment that oper­ates not as a crim­i­nal enter­prise or allows racism to exist with­in its ranks.
https://​knock​-la​.com/​l​a​s​d​-​g​a​n​g​s​-​l​i​t​t​l​e​-​d​e​v​i​l​s​-​w​a​y​s​i​d​e​-​w​h​i​t​i​e​s​-​c​a​v​e​m​e​n​-​v​i​k​i​n​gs/

Writers and activists try to expose their crimes occa­sion­al­ly; how­ev­er, their unions feed the pub­lic feed an ador­ing white pop­u­la­tion with the same tired old nar­ra­tive about how dif­fi­cult their jobs are and how unap­pre­ci­at­ed they are.
In the end, noth­ing gets done because the police were cre­at­ed to keep blacks in their place. Today, police oper­ate with the same bar­barism and bru­tal­i­ty when deal­ing with peo­ple of col­or as they oper­at­ed when they were called slave patrols.
Until and unless the prim­i­tive nean­derthal vio­lence that police rep­re­sent becomes a major issue for white peo­ple, it will remain a part of life that peo­ple of col­or must deal with daily.
Even when they are forced to wear body cam­eras, they [still]operate with a sense of dis­dain and dis­re­spect for the pub­lic that is not just shock­ing but appalling to some­one like me who spent a decade in law enforcement.
Here is an exam­ple of that, an Aurora, Colorado police depart­ment thug in uni­form pis­tol-whip­ping a young black man, not just blood­y­ing him but leav­ing huge con­tu­sions on his face, and for absolute­ly no rea­son at all, not that this lev­el of vio­lence could ever be jus­ti­fied under any circumstances.

This is the so-called police depart­ment that mur­dered 23-year-old Elijah McClain as he walked home from a con­ve­nience store.
Aurora crim­i­nals in uni­form tack­led McClain to the ground, put him in a carotid hold, and called first respon­ders, whom they then instruct­ed to inject Elijah with ket­a­mine. The young man had a heart attack on the way to the hos­pi­tal and died days lat­er after being declared brain dead.
Elijah McLain’s crime was walk­ing home after going to the store.
Unfortunately, accord­ing to a supreme court doctrine(qualified immu­ni­ty), crim­i­nals like these can avoid fac­ing the full force of the law crim­i­nal­ly and civilly.

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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. 

Earlier today, I walked out­side my busi­ness place, and as is cus­tom­ary, there were blue & red flash­ing police lights; some­one pulled over. In the city of Poughkeepsie, where my busi­ness is sit­u­at­ed, I am almost at the end of the city police’s juris­dic­tion and where the Town police area begins. They actu­al­ly inter­lock, but the city cops are gen­er­al­ly less both­er­some of the residents.
On the oth­er hand, the town uses the poor black res­i­dents of the City as a feed­ing tree. Town cops posi­tion them­selves at the city’s edge on the upper main, where they ter­ror­ize res­i­dents enter­ing and leav­ing the city. The major­i­ty of the res­i­dents are black.
In addi­tion to the city and Town, there are the state police and the Sheriff’s depart­ment, all four agen­cies for one area. In fair­ness to the Sheriff’s deputies, they are hard­ly around the city harass­ing res­i­dents; the ter­ror comes from the Town of Poughkeepsie Police, where they become par­a­sites to the black res­i­dents to fund their overtime.

A few min­utes after I observed them, it start­ed to rain, and the pow­er went out in some sec­tions of the block, leav­ing traf­fic lights knocked out. As I head­ed home, I real­ized that the traf­fic lights were out fur­ther up the block at three oth­er major inter­sec­tions, pos­ing a chal­lenge for motorists.
As you may have imag­ined, there was not a sin­gle cop or cop-car for the four agen­cies, attend­ing to ensur­ing the safe­ty of motorists and pedes­tri­ans alike.
It is impor­tant to include that it was no longer rain­ing, so it had grown dark­er, which made it even more ratio­nal that a cop-cruis­er with flash­ing lights would have been post­ed at the traf­fic lights to ensure the safe­ty of the pub­lic who pays their salaries and lucra­tive benefits.
It kind of put to lie the idea that cops are there to pro­tect and serve. It seems to me they are there to rip and run.

THEN THERE WAS THIS

And then there was this recent inci­dent in which a young man was mur­dered by the police even after they had all of the time in the world to take cov­er and ensure that they are pro­tect­ed. They end­ed up doing what they like to do, kill.
As long as soci­ety glo­ri­fies and endors­es this bar­barism, we are all worse off for it.

https://​www​.face​book​.com/​6​0​9​8​7​6​2​3​7​3​3​/​v​i​d​e​o​s​/​1​2​3​3​4​5​2​3​4​7​1​0​5​887

So they killed the guy, and you are sure to know what comes next, the stan­dard dri­v­el; accord­ing to News 4, DC Police offi­cers in Maryland fatal­ly shot a 21-year-old out­side a McDonald’s restau­rant after an “armed stand­off,” the Montgomery County Police Department said in a news release Saturday.
The shoot­ing took place Friday night after police said offi­cers respond­ed to a call about a cus­tomer who had ordered food but was refus­ing to move through the dri­ve-thru lane at the McDonald’s in Gaithersburg, about 30 miles (48 kilo­me­ters) from Washington.
Once an offi­cer spot­ted a hand­gun on the front pas­sen­ger seat of the man’s car, back­up was called, police said. Additional offi­cers secured the area and evac­u­at­ed McDonald’s staff.
According to police, an “armed stand­off” ensued, dur­ing which offi­cers tried nego­ti­at­ing with the dri­ver for about 30 minutes.
“Circumstances that are still under inves­ti­ga­tion led to offi­cers fir­ing their weapons, and the dri­ver was shot,” the news release said.
Officers ren­dered aid to the dri­ver until he was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead, police said.
The offi­cers involved are on stan­dard admin­is­tra­tive leave.
Sure, we know they get paid leave to relax after they com­mit these state-sanc­tioned exe­cu­tions, and that’s it.
What kind of coun­try sanc­tions this kind of bar­barism as stan­dard behav­ior and calls itself a civ­i­lized society?

According to the mur­dered 21-year-old’s dad, his son, Ryan Leroux, was mur­dered. He had just lost his grand­moth­er, his job, his long­time girl­friend, liv­ing out of his car, and was hav­ing a men­tal breakdown.
He chal­lenges the police ver­sion of events that claimed that Leroux lift­ed a gun in his hands, so they fired a bar­rage of shots end­ing his life.
See link here https://​www​.nbcwash​ing​ton​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​l​o​c​a​l​/​v​i​d​e​o​-​s​h​o​w​s​-​m​o​m​e​n​t​s​-​m​o​n​t​g​o​m​e​r​y​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​k​i​l​l​e​d​-​r​y​a​n​-​l​e​r​o​u​x​-​g​a​i​t​h​e​r​s​b​u​r​g​-​m​c​d​o​n​a​l​d​s​/​2​7​4​6​1​38/
The father said there was no rea­son to mur­der his son. That is the under­state­ment of the decade. When ques­tioned by jour­nal­ists as to whether he at any time saw a weapon in mis­ter Leroux’s hands, the chief said no.

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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. 

Senior super­in­ten­dent of Police James Forbes is set to return to work on Wednesday, July 28^th. Forbes was sen­tenced in May of 2014, Forbes was found guilty of attempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice and fined $800,000 or six months at hard labor.

Forbes & busi­ness­man Bruce Bicknell were charged in 2012, sur­round­ing alle­ga­tions that attempts were made to get a traf­fic tick­et issued to Mr. Bicknell quashed. Bicknell was freed by the courts. The appeal was heard in 2018.
The Court of Appeal apol­o­gized for the delay in the deci­sion but said admin­is­tra­tive issues had made the delay unavoidable.
YAH…
This pub­li­ca­tion is pleased that James Forbes is return­ing to serve the coun­try we all love. He has a lot more to offer, I hope he will return to work a man much wiser.

When you thought American cops could­n’t find any new ways to dis­grace the badge they are so proud to wear and dis­grace their pro­fes­sion, they show that there is no floor to how low they will go to abuse their power.
What makes their actions even more rep­re­hen­si­ble is (a) the Government’s insis­tence on inter­fer­ing in small­er coun­tries polic­ing prac­tices and tak­ing puni­tive mea­sures against them, & (b) that there is a huge part of the coun­try for whom crim­i­nals can do no wrong as long as they wear police uniforms.
The sad real­i­ty for the coun­try is that as vio­lent crime begins to creep up again after decades of decline, police rep­u­ta­tion across the coun­try is in tat­ters, except for the polit­i­cal right for whom police is a vital par­ty of their white suprema­cist infrastructure.
The nation is so heav­i­ly invest­ed in the police state that it has cre­at­ed that it is impos­si­ble to see how it could extri­cate itself from the cocoon in which it has woven itself. Whether it be the need for the over 18’000 depart­ments nation­wide, as a means to keep its black com­mu­ni­ty on the reser­va­tion, or the pri­vate­ly run pris­ons that oper­ate on the express under­stand­ing that jail cells must be filled to a stat­ed capac­i­ty, polic­ing as we know it, bru­tal, cor­rupt, racist, crim­i­nal, is going nowhere soon.

The myr­i­ad depart­ments in some cas­es oper­ate as guns for hire, speak­ing of the sher­if­f’s depart­ments that are run by elect­ed coun­ty offi­cials who pro­vide their ser­vices to the county.
It is a con­vo­lut­ed web of deceit and decep­tion in which the cops, pros­e­cu­tors, and judges all share the same goal, and that goal does not always line up with the goals and aspi­ra­tions of black and native people.
We have tried to bring to your atten­tion some of the facts that sup­port our claims that jus­tice in many instances is what [they]determine it to be.
When the aver­age per­son of col­or can be locked up on man­u­fac­tured charges after some cop abus­es them phys­i­cal­ly, not to men­tion their rights being vio­lat­ed, but a cop can com­mit bla­tant crim­i­nal offens­es and pros­e­cu­tors do not pros­e­cute, you know the sys­tem is a farce.
But please do not take it from me see for your­selves, and the irony of it all is that their crimes are no longer a prob­lem just for black and brown peo­ple. In fact, their crimes are also affect­ing their own mem­bers, past and present.
When they break the laws, they are sent on leave for a bit until things qui­et down. They sell that to the sheep who give them their mon­ey and ore pow­er as a sig­nif­i­cant part of their inves­ti­ga­tions. The real­i­ty is that cops who com­mit crimes get paid leave.

Even when they engage in con­duct that is too egre­gious to ignore, they allow them to resign instead of fir­ing them. But even when they are fired, they sim­ply go to the next town down the road and they are hired and back on the streets in no time.
Complaints of mis­con­duct pile up to dozens and dozens, and instead of fir­ing them, they pro­mote them.
When they kill, they make them cop of the year.
Here is one case in which pros­e­cu­tors ignored a felony pros­e­cu­tion and turned the oth­er way sim­ply because the offend­er wears a uni­form and has a badge.
This makes the pros­e­cu­tors and their offices crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it in the crimes these police offi­cers are committing.

Orange County Pays Out $195K to Teen Threatened at Gunpoint by Off-Duty Sheriff’s Deputy

By Brandon Phở

Two years ago, an off-duty Orange County Sheriff’s deputy pulled his gun on an unarmed South County teen dur­ing a con­fronta­tion at a San Clemente skatepark.

This month, Orange County Supervisors approved a $195,000 set­tle­ment agree­ment with the teen, Max Chance III of San Juan Capistrano, after he sued the coun­ty over neg­li­gence, assault, emo­tion­al dis­tress and civ­il rights vio­la­tions around the incident.

Yet Thalken remains employed at the depart­ment in a “non-field capac­i­ty,” said Sheriff spokesper­son Carrie Braun in a Wednesday state­ment, adding that unspec­i­fied “dis­ci­pline was issued and served.”

Chance — whose father, Max Chance Jr., hap­pens to be a retired deputy who once super­vised Thalken, accord­ing to attor­neys — was 16 at the time of the incident.

The OC Board of Supervisors approved the set­tle­ment on July 13.

Representing Chance in his law­suit against the coun­ty were father-and-son attor­neys Eric and Connor Traut, the lat­ter of whom is the cur­rent may­or of Buena Park.

“I think they need to go over their writ­ten poli­cies again to ensure that peo­ple aren’t sub­ject­ed to this sort of thing again,” said Eric Traut in a Wednesday phone interview.

Traut said his team called in an expert review of OC Sheriff poli­cies “that relate to con­duct of Sheriff’s deputies on and off duty, and this con­duct was pro­hib­it­ed in their own writ­ten poli­cies, so it’s my hope they’ll … ensure this con­duct doesn’t hap­pen again.”

Braun, in an email response to ques­tions about that, said “the Department rou­tine­ly reviews pol­i­cy through brief­ing items for sworn staff” in the jails, courts and field deputies on patrol.

§

Chance, in his law­suit, alleges he suf­fered emo­tion­al anguish, as well as post trau­mat­ic stress fol­low­ing the incident.

The teenag­er was at the skatepark with some friends when Thalken walked over from the adja­cent lit­tle league field that night.

The law­suit says Thalken appeared intox­i­cat­ed and angered by the music play­ing from a near­by live band, shout­ing “Where is the tough guy” while anoth­er bystander mim­ic­ked Thalken’s drunk-like walk.

Chance had done noth­ing to insti­gate Thalken besides rais­ing his skate­board and back­ing away in self defense, the law­suit says, when Thalken tried to grab the teenager’s wrist.

That was when Thalken pulled his gun on Chance, cap­tured on video by observers.

Thalken only iden­ti­fied him­self as law enforce­ment once Chance com­plied with his demands to get on his knees, accord­ing to the law­suit, which also alleges that Thalken mis­rep­re­sent­ed what hap­pened when oth­er deputies arrived on scene and when the teen’s father called Thalken and revealed that the teenag­er was his son.

§

The law­suit was filed in Orange County Superior Court on March 9.

“As part of a set­tle­ment agree­ment like this, you can’t make it con­tin­gent that the deputy is fired,” Traut said. “However, I do hope there is some dis­ci­pli­nary action oth­er than remov­ing him from duty for a short peri­od of time, which they did after this inci­dent and took some lim­it­ed inter­nal steps with him.”

Braun, in the Sheriff’s Dept. state­ment, said Thalken was “imme­di­ate­ly” placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave “while the case was inves­ti­gat­ed and sub­mit­ted to the District Attorney’s office.”

The D.A.’s office under Todd Spitzer ulti­mate­ly opt­ed not to file crim­i­nal charges.

There are two sets of rules, one for cops and their cohorts, usu­al­ly oth­er gang­sters in blue or white men they don’t even know. Yet some melanat­ed fools are run­ning their mouths about black crime in the American soci­ety, black and black crime which are both con­cern­ing phe­nom­e­nons but must be viewed in context.
The most dis­re­spect­ful and infu­ri­at­ing part of these bla­tant acts of cor­rup­tion is the offi­cial lies they con­coct and force-feed the pub­lic to cov­er their own asses.
But what do you expect from these crim­i­nal gangs when they are allowed to inves­ti­gate them­selves and years lat­er declare that after an exhaus­tive inves­ti­ga­tion, they found no wrongdoing?
Sure, I am a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer, and as I have encoun­tered after many years of writ­ing, peo­ple ask how can you be so crit­i­cal of cops, and you were a cop?

My answer then and now is sim­ple, I was a damn good cop, and none of what these crim­i­nals are doing today is in your interest.
As you look at the offi­cial bull­shit the depart­ment puts out; please con­sid­er the words expressed by the deputy on scene, which is a dead give­away that he knew the cap­tain was impaired, that he knew he was doing some­thing uneth­i­cal and may be crim­i­nal even.
Even if a mem­ber of the pub­lic is dri­ving tired, that mem­ber of the pub­lic is open to be tick­et­ed or arrest­ed for Driving While Impaired. The impair­ment does [not] have to be from drugs or alcohol.
It is for those rea­sons that long-dis­tance truck­ers and oth­er dri­vers have to adhere to strin­gent rest pro­to­cols or risk prison in the event of an acci­dent or being tick­et­ed heav­i­ly if pulled over and found to be in con­tra­ven­tion of said protocols.

Here is where they real­ly flushed the pub­lic with shit; “the dri­ver showed “no signs of impair­ment or fur­ther con­cerns to deputies.”
Can you imag­ine a black man, not a cop, dri­ving down the streets passed out, foot on the brakes, engine run­ning, and police com­ing to the con­clu­sion that he was not impaired?
If you are unable to objec­tive­ly agree that the black dri­ver would be treat­ed much dif­fer­ent­ly, you are full of crap and there is no truth in you. Juxtapose this event with the dai­ly occur­rences where they pull over black dri­vers and ille­gal­ly search their cars, have the dogs dam­age their cars by claim­ing that they smell marijuana.
The deputy on scene had every respon­si­bil­i­ty to do a sobri­ety test, but that was not his intent. He want­ed to end that encounter as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to pro­tect the thin blue line, so it was, “You’re good, just leave, [this] didn’t hap­pen.”
So here is where the rub­ber meets the road folks, the word “this” is the crime; that is what proved that the deputy knew he had bro­ken the law and that he was aid­ing him to avoid being held accountable.
That is mens re.a, the inten­tion or knowl­edge of wrong­do­ing that con­sti­tutes part of a crime,»»

PASSED OUT IN TRAFFIC, DRUNK OR NOT, WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

A Florida sheriff’s cap­tain who passed out in traf­fic while his engine was run­ning was per­mit­ted by a deputy to leave the scene with­out under­go­ing a med­ical eval­u­a­tion or sobri­ety test ear­li­er this month.
“You’re good, just leave; this didn’t hap­pen,” a respond­ing deputy said when the dri­ver announced that he was a cap­tain with the sheriff’s department.
As footage of the inci­dent has been made pub­lic, the deputies involved are not under review, and no inci­dent report was filed fol­low­ing the stop, accord­ing to the sheriff’s office.
Seminole County Sherriff’s Capt. Kip Beacham was off duty on July 8 when con­cerned dri­vers on the road called 911 because he was stopped near an inter­sec­tion, passed out with his foot on the brake, and his engine running.

Deputies and fire­fight­ers arrived and boxed Beacham in with vehi­cles to check on the dri­ver of the SUV. About a full minute of bang­ing on the driver’s side win­dow was need­ed to wake Beacham up.
“He either OD’d or asleep?” a deputy said, body cam­era footage shows. The deputy then asked Beacham if he’d fall­en asleep, appar­ent­ly before real­iz­ing who the man was.
“Hey man, hop out. Sheriff’s office, step out,” the deputy said.
When the door opened, the deputy asked if the dri­ver need­ed any med­ical atten­tion, and Beacham replied, say­ing he was alright. He also told offi­cers he had fall­en asleep when they asked about what happened.
When a deputy noticed Beacham had hand­cuffs on his belt and asked why, he replied, “Yeah, I’m a cap­tain with the sheriff’s office, man.”
A deputy replied, “Oh, oh, sh‑t, I’m sor­ry, man.”
“You got­ta do your job, man,” Beacham said.

Then the 24-year vet­er­an of the force who over­sees the Community Justice and Rehabilitation Division was allowed to leave with­out under­go­ing a med­ical eval­u­a­tion or sobri­ety test.
Instead, the deputy gave Beacham a fist bump and told him, “You’re good, just leave, this didn’t hap­pen.”
A spokesper­son for the sheriff’s office told WFTV9 that after wak­ing up, the dri­ver showed “no signs of impair­ment or fur­ther con­cerns to deputies.” Adding, “A sheriff’s office spokesper­son said every sit­u­a­tion is unique, and it is ulti­mate­ly the deputy’s dis­cre­tion based on train­ing and expe­ri­ence.” Citing health pri­va­cy laws, the spokesper­son declined to share more details about the captain’s con­di­tion the day of the incident.

The state­ment con­tin­ued, “The deputies cleared the event based on the cir­cum­stances they wit­nessed and their inter­ac­tions on scene.”

Look at this video of a police Seargent, Tyler Longman telling a hand­cuffed, men­tal­ly agi­tat­ed Michael Chad Breinholt, “you are about to die, my friend,” then shoot­ing Breinholt, killing him.
The killing of Breinholt was the third known killing by Sergeant Tyler Longman.
It may not sur­prise you that this killing hap­pened almost two years ago and that Longman is back on duty. But wait, there is more; those of you who fol­low my work also know that I con­tin­ue to make the case that cor­rupt pros­e­cu­tors and Corrupt and com­plic­it judges are a big part of the police cor­rup­tion scan­dal in the United States; so it sure­ly should not sur­prise you that the dis­trict attor­ney has not filed charges either has he said there is noth­ing here.
If there were noth­ing there, the dis­trict attor­ney would sure­ly have said it two years ago. The fact that noth­ing has been said or done by the DA’s office is a clear sign that they know that there can be no rea­son­able jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for mur­der­ing a mental/​inebriated man inside a police facility.
The obvi­ous con­clu­sion is that the dis­trict attor­ney’s office is aid­ing the police to see if this will blow over.
It is also impor­tant to under­stand that the media had to fight like hell to get this video from the police department.
So as we all know, Police Departments are laws unto themselves.
They make arrests, make deci­sions on life and death, exe­cute offend­ers and non-offend­ers alike, then decide if any­one sees or has the right to see what they did.

These things hap­pen to peo­ple of col­or, and the major­i­ty of the white com­mu­ni­ty stares into space as if “oh well!” Here is the rub though, Michael Chad Breinholt was not black.
Michael Chad Breinholt was white„ but that did not stop them from esca­lat­ing this minor issue into a sit­u­a­tion that would jus­ti­fy them killing him.
Most impor­tant­ly, the cop who killed Michael Chad Breinholt had killed twice before while on duty.
Some peo­ple stu­pid­ly believe that these types of blood­thirsty killings will only be vis­it­ed on Black and Brown peo­ple„ which brings me back to a Michael Niemoller’s quote that I have come to use quite a bit these days; First they came for the social­ists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a social­ist. Then they came for the trade union­ists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade union­ist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Unfortunately, the moth­er of Michael Chad Breinholt is left to grieve the loss of her son. Whether she was sym­pa­thet­ic to the tens of thou­sands of moth­ers and fathers who lost their chil­dren to police vio­lence is irrel­e­vant at this point.
The larg­er issue here is that this police vio­lence may dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly be affect­ing Black peo­ple at this point by virtue of Black’s per­cent­age in the wider soci­ety, but make no mis­take about it, these abu­sive psy­cho­path­ic killers are killing even more whites numer­i­cal­ly that they are killing Blacks.
It seems how­ev­er that the white soci­ety are pre­pared to accept these white vic­tims as col­lat­er­al dam­age in the larg­er war on black people.
It is kind of like drain­ing the pool and doing with­out pub­lic pools and suf­fer­ing in the sum­mer heat rather than share the pool with black cit­i­zens, some­thing that they are know for.

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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.

As Jamaicans, it seems that wher­ev­er we live out­side our native Jamaica, we tend to make par­al­lels with Jamaica on every issue we discuss.
Crime has been one of the most top­i­cal issues dis­cussed among Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra and at home. For mem­bers of the dias­po­ra who gen­uine­ly have an inter­est in a crime-free Jamaica, the steep­est hill to climb is the con­sis­tent push-back from our con­tem­po­raries at home who con­tin­ue to argue that (crime de every weh), trans­la­tion, crime is everywhere.
As such, the ever-increas­ing vio­lent crime sta­tis­tics have not engen­dered dis­gust, revul­sion, or the will to fight back. The pop­u­la­tion has set­tled into a dan­ger­ous state of accep­tance, a new nor­mal of how things are.
So much affects how we can bring this mon­ster under con­trol, includ­ing whether there is a desire to in the first place because there is mon­ey involved for the play­ers or whether the dias­po­ra has the stand­ing to demand change in our country.
I would posit that the dias­po­ra does have the stand­ing, con­sid­er­ing that it pours an incred­i­ble amount of finan­cial resources into the coun­try, mak­ing itself the num­ber two largest stream of for­eign mon­ey flow­ing into the country.
On that basis, the dias­po­ra does not only deserve a seat at the table; it needs to have sev­er­al seats at the table.
Money talks bull­shit walk! Those who think that because they were nev­er able to leave, left, and were sent back, or chose [not] to leave makes them patri­ots need to take sev­er­al seats to the side, not at the table.
Patriotism is not about where you live or whether you could leave, or whether or not you chose to leave.

Over the years, I have writ­ten sev­er­al arti­cles in which I said that a large part of the prob­lem Jamaica faces with crime comes from the nation’s high tol­er­ance for it.
As I said pre­vi­ous­ly, one of the more stri­dent argu­ments against my insis­tence that crime is far too high in Jamaica has been that.….…yup, “crime de every weh
Of course, they then com­pare the United States, crime sit­u­a­tion, which of course expos­es a sig­nif­i­cant mis­un­der­stand­ing of how crime sta­tis­tics are looked at, or even how mis­guid­ed that com­par­i­son is based on sev­er­al factors..”.
Two of the fac­tors that are not con­sid­ered are (a)the size of the American pop­u­la­tion of 320 mil­lion com­pared to its vio­lent crime sta­tis­tics when com­pared to ( Jamaica’s 2.8 mil­lion) and its vio­lent crime statistics.
(b)The size of the United States,3.8 mil­lion square miles (9.8 mil­lion square kilometers)compared to Jamaica,10,992 km² (4,244 sq mi).
When all of the data is tab­u­lat­ed in the United States and aver­aged among the American pop­u­la­tion of 320 mil­lion, it shows that though the United States is indeed a vio­lent coun­try, it is nowhere even remote­ly close to Jamaica when it comes to vio­lent crime.
Violent crime is expo­nen­tial­ly high in some areas of the United States while almost unheard of in some areas in the coun­try’s vast expans­es. Crime is indeed a top­ic of dis­cus­sion in America, not because it is an exis­ten­tial issue for the coun­try but because it makes good polit­i­cal fod­der for one side of the polit­i­cal divide, which would rather see the police have free rein to mur­der inno­cent black and brown Americans.

ACQUIESCENCE

Generally, when there is a high crime rate in a coun­try or parts of a coun­try, the root caus­es are that those who should stop it are com­plic­it in it. Nowhere is this more true than in the United States and Jamaica though not for the same reasons.
The high crime rate in both coun­tries may be attrib­uted to the same acqui­es­cence, lack of will, and com­plic­i­ty which I allud­ed to.
In Jamaica, though the present admin­is­tra­tion may be some­what bet­ter on crime than its pre­de­ces­sor, it is nowhere near where it should have been on this issue. Sure, they have upgrad­ed police sta­tions and changed oth­er ameni­ties; how­ev­er, the laws have not been strength­ened. Neither have the admin­is­tra­tion pledged the req­ui­site sup­port the secu­ri­ty forces need to do their jobs effectively.
It is near­ly impos­si­ble to explain just how impor­tant that sup­port is to the fight against vio­lent crim­i­nals and crime syndicates.
Jamaica’s nation­al mur­der toll of 755 is five per­cent high­er than the 716 tal­lied for the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od in 2020, one Jamaican dai­ly reports.

In the United States, with its 17,985 law enforce­ment agen­cies, the issue is not that there is the same kind of sup­port for crim­i­nal­i­ty through the var­i­ous lev­els of governance.
The issue for America is that the Constitution guar­an­tees in the sec­ond amend­ment that Americans have a right to bear arms. This is the only amend­ment to the con­sti­tu­tion that many Americans have feal­ty to.
Not the right to peace­ably protest, not the right to free speech, not the right to prac­tice one’s reli­gion, not the right not to have Government invade your pri­vate space with­out a war­rant, not the right not to have your prop­er­ty seized by the government.
None of that, only the right to bear arms applies-at least to the Republican party.
The right to bear arms for the Republicans is a gift that keeps on giv­ing because to its [fol­low­ers] (it is now a cult), it is their pro­tec­tion that will allow them to main­tain white suprema­cy, even if it means over­throw­ing the gov­ern­ment as they tried to do on January 6^th, 2021.
In both coun­tries, it is the lack of will to address spe­cif­ic areas that gen­er­ate vio­lent crim­i­nal activ­i­ty that con­tin­ue to cause or aid vio­lent crime producers.
Stop the wan­ton sale of guns in America and, as for Jamaica, give the police the sup­port they need, and vio­lent crime begins to trend south.

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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 iteration of how America has become a police state- police in Utah arrested a 19-year-old college student because she crumpled up a pathetic ‘back-the-blue’ sign, and threw it in the garbage as he abused her colleagues in a traffic stop in a backwoods town of fewer than 2’000 people.
Now check this out, even the people whose brainchild the law was, say that was not the intent of the law. It was designed to protect marginalized people who become victims of legitimate hate.
But this is exactly what these Republican-run states do wherever there is a national outcry against police violence they attach all kinds of police protections in legislation that would legitimately pass muster, effectively making police in America part of a national marginalized community.
If you are wondering why this is so, read up on how policing came into being in the United States from slave overseers to slave-catchers to what it is today.
They wear uniforms today but their functions remain as they did hundreds of years ago. Police still operate as foot soldiers for white supremacy.

Lauren Gibson was in a car­a­van of friends head­ing from their camp­ing spot in Panguitch, Utah, back to California last week when one of the cars was pulled over for speed­ing. The stop took place near a gas sta­tion in the small town of less than 2,000 people.
Before the day was over, the 19-year-old was on her way to fac­ing hate-crime charges in what crit­ics describe as one of the more absurd exam­ples yet of aggriev­ed cops undu­ly liken­ing them­selves to mar­gin­al­ized minor­i­ty groups in a coun­try rife with hate crimes.

Gibson said the Garfield County Sheriff’s Deputy who pulled over her friend’s car was aggres­sive and even­tu­al­ly wrote her friend a tick­et for speed­ing. After watch­ing the inter­ac­tion, she said, she was upset and picked up a rust­ed “Back the Blue” sign that she said her friends had found on the side of the road and kept in one of the cars. (The deputy would lat­er sus­pect that it had been stolen from the gas sta­tion and even went inside to check, but learned it had not been.) After the deputy fin­ished writ­ing his tick­et, she told The Daily Beast, she waved the sign at the offi­cer, stepped on it, and threw it in the trash.

Gibson, a California col­lege stu­dent, said she wouldn’t describe her­self as “anti-police,” even though she does believe some tend to abuse their pow­er. The dis­play of emo­tion, she said, was due to her anger over how her friend was treat­ed and the effect the traf­fic stop seemed to have on her. “I just want­ed to, I don’t know, make her feel bet­ter or some­thing or stand up for her,” Gibson told The Daily Beast.
Instead, Gibson was arrest­ed by a sheriff’s deputy and charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct and crim­i­nal mis­chief with a hate-crime enhance­ment for her attempt to “intim­i­date law enforce­ment,” accord­ing to a prob­a­ble cause affi­davit obtained by The Daily Beast.
The charge was a shock to Gibson. And hate-crime experts famil­iar with Utah’s laws say they also believe it is a stretch at best.

The tone-deaf­ness of police offi­cers across the United States in the use of force had one of its lat­est iter­a­tions in Rock Hill North Carolina, on June 23^rd, 2021.
Officers of Rock Hill police pulled over a motorist who was obvi­ous­ly known to them to be a drug deal­er. The dri­ver Ricky Price was removed from the con­vert­ible after offi­cers told him he had made an ille­gal lane change.… a ruse they use to jus­ti­fy ille­gal stops and some­thing the pros­e­cu­tors and judges embrace.
In a well-cir­cu­lat­ed video on social media, the cops brought in a canine to sniff Price’s car, and true to form; there was a hit.
Another ruse police use to ille­gal­ly search peo­ple’s vehi­cles while claim­ing that their dog gave them a hit signal.

Data col­lect­ed by inter­est­ed par­ties show that the vast major­i­ty of those hits end up with noth­ing ille­gal found. Still, it does not mat­ter because the point is to humil­i­ate and vio­late rights rather than enforce the laws.
Ricky Price was threat­ened with arrest by the undu­ly and over­ly aggres­sive offi­cers after he told them that he gave no con­sent to search his vehicle.
He com­plied, exit­ed the car and the cops com­menced to search his car. The cops claimed they found a gun and a small quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na in a cylin­dri­cal container.
No one should shed any tears for a drug deal­er who dri­ves around with a weapon; how­ev­er, the police must do their jobs bet­ter and with­out the undue brava­do that con­tin­ues to bring shame and ridicule to police each day.
From the off­set, the cops were deter­mined to hem Price up on what­ev­er charge they could, begin­ning with the con­coct­ed excuse to ini­ti­ate the stop in the first place.
After alleged­ly find­ing the small quan­ti­ty of weed, one cop told Price that the minute quan­ti­ty did not mat­ter; it was dif­fer­ent for him, in response to Ricky Price’s ques­tion of whether the penal­ty for the lit­tle weed was­n’t just a fine?

Ricky Price asked if he could call his fam­i­ly mem­bers to come to col­lect his belong­ings, a clear sign that he had no inten­tion of fight­ing the cops; he knew he was going to jail. Throughout the whole inci­dent, the elder Price know­ing he was caught was calm and respectful.
They allowed him to make the call, anoth­er indi­ca­tion that he had sur­ren­dered to being arrest­ed peace­ably as borne out by the video record­ings. His younger broth­er Travis Price arrived and start­ed to ask the offi­cers what was going on when all hell broke loose.
It was then that Rambo cop Jonathan Moreno attacked the younger Price, knocked him to the ground, and begged him to fight. Moreno grabbed Travis Price around the throat even though he was not com­mit­ting a crime and was not under arrest and there­fore could not be resist­ing arrest.
Oh, in case you are unaware of the laws, cops across the coun­try are allowed to claim that cit­i­zens resist arrest, and just so you know, that is anoth­er felony charge.
When you hear Black peo­ple talk about reimag­in­ing polic­ing, these are the moun­tains they are forced to climb each day.
Seeing what was hap­pen­ing to his younger broth­er Ricky Price yelled at the cops that Travis was his broth­er who was there to col­lect his belong­ings; they ignored him and con­tin­ued to attack and choke Travis upon which the elder Price respond­ed in defense of his broth­er as I hope any nor­mal per­son would and should.
He was thrown to the ground, hand­cuffed, and beat­en, result­ing in his blood splat­tered all over the black­top where they had him handcuffed.
The inci­dent was record­ed by an onlook­er who live-streamed the entire inci­dent on Facebook. Because the entire inci­dent was out into the open, the Rock Hill police had no rea­son to claim that they would not release their record­ing because there was an active inves­ti­ga­tion in progress. The out­ra­geous inci­dent sparked sev­er­al nights of protest in the area.

Jonathan Moreno was ter­mi­nat­ed Wednesday, July 7^th, and charged with assault, said Chief Chris Watts of the Rock Hill Police Department. Watts announced at a Thursday after­noon news conference.
According to the Herald online, Moreno stat­ed at the news con­fer­ence. He said he was sor­ry for what he did and apol­o­gized to Travis Price, who attend­ed the news con­fer­ence. “I am here to own it and make it right,” Moreno said.
Moreno said at the news con­fer­ence he made mis­takes and direct­ed his words at Travis Price, who attend­ed the con­fer­ence with his lawyer.
“I know now you were allowed to be in the area,” Moreno said to Travis Price. “I apol­o­gize for the mis­un­der­stand­ing. My mis­takes and meet­ing you in such a neg­a­tive way, I wish my emo­tions did not get the best of me. My choice of words does not define my char­ac­ter. I sin­cere­ly apol­o­gize for what you have experienced.”
In the police video released Thursday, Moreno can be heard chal­leng­ing Travis Price to “fight” while on the ground with Travis price dur­ing the arrest. Moreno also says to Travis Price, “It’s just you and me,” and “quit cry­ing.”

Police said Travis Price pushed Moreno and lat­er charged him with hin­der­ing police, but the videos show no push from Travis Price. On the video record­ing, Travis Price can clear­ly be heard telling Moreno that he did not touch him and it was Moreno who attacked him.
These tac­tics are used dai­ly by over­ly aggres­sive police offi­cers, who then arrest peo­ple they do not like on trumped-up assault and resid­ing charges.
Local pros­e­cu­tor Kevin Brackett claimed the charges against Ricky Price, Travis Price’s broth­er, remain pend­ing. Brackett said Thursday at the news con­fer­ence that Ricky Price clear­ly punched a police offi­cer in the face. Ricky Price start­ed the con­flict that turned into a vio­lent struggle.
A clear lie by Brackett, Moreno esca­lat­ed the inci­dent result­ing in the entire inci­dent get­ting out of con­trol. I won­der what this pros­e­cu­tor would have done if he wit­nessed the police attack and choke his broth­er, who had com­mit­ted no crime?
Of utmost impor­tance is the (poi­son fruit weapon) the police claimed to have recov­ered from Ricky Price’s vehi­cle; if the rea­son for the stop was illegal/​contrived, how can the evi­dence derived from it hold up in a just court of law?
Stay tuned, Ricky Price, though an un-sym­pa­thet­ic fig­ure is no less deserv­ing of jus­tice under the law than any oth­er citizen.
Ricky price has one neg­a­tive against him out­side of his crim­i­nal record, his black skin.

As these crim­i­nals are exposed by inde­pen­dent video record­ings done by patri­ot­ic cit­i­zens, look for their cohorts in state leg­is­la­tures to begin to clamp doing on the rights of cit­i­zens to video­tape their crimes.

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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.

WELCOME TO AMERICA

By Nick Sibilla…

Two Texas police offi­cers who ignit­ed a man by tas­ing him, even after they saw him douse him­self with gaso­line and were warned, “If we tase him, he’s going to light on fire,” were grant­ed legal immu­ni­ty last week when a fed­er­al court tossed the sur­viv­ing family’s civ­il rights law­suit against the offi­cers involved.

On July 10, 2017, Gabriel Eduardo Olivas threat­ened to kill him­self. Panicked, his son dialed 911. Three offi­cers from the Arlington Police Department — Jeremias Guadarrama, Ebony Jefferson, and Caleb Elliott — respond­ed and quick­ly found Olivas in his bed­room, hold­ing a red gas can. Elliott warned the oth­er offi­cers: “If we tase him, he’s going to light on fire.” To try and immo­bi­lize Olivas, Elliott pep­per-sprayed him. It blind­ed but didn’t stop, Olivas. Instead, Olivas doused him­self in gaso­line and yelled that he’s going to burn the place to the ground.
Thinking he saw a lighter in Olivas’ hands, first Guadarrama, then Jefferson, fired their Tasers at the sui­ci­dal man now drenched in gaso­line. Olivas burst into flames, just as their fel­low offi­cer had warned.

Several days lat­er, Olivas died in the hos­pi­tal, with more than 85% of his body cov­ered in burns. Outraged, his fam­i­ly filed a civ­il rights law­suit in fed­er­al court, assert­ing that Guadarrama and Jefferson vio­lat­ed Olivas’ rights when they tasered him amid con­sid­er­able explo­sive hazards.
The two offi­cers respond­ed that they were shield­ed by “qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty,” which pro­tects gov­ern­ment employ­ees from any legal lia­bil­i­ty, unless they vio­late “clear­ly estab­lished” rights. Last year, a fed­er­al judge denied qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty to Guadarrama and Jefferson, rul­ing that “more fac­tu­al evi­dence is need­ed.” It set the case for tri­al that spring, but those plans were quick­ly derailed by the offi­cers’ appeal to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. As the Fifth Circuit explained, “qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty is an immu­ni­ty from suit, not mere­ly a defense to lia­bil­i­ty,” and so “it is effec­tive­ly lost if a case is erro­neous­ly per­mit­ted to go to trial.

Unanimously sid­ing with the offi­cers, the Fifth Circuit declared that “nei­ther officer’s con­duct was unrea­son­able, nor was the force they employed clear­ly exces­sive,” and so, “there was no con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion.” In over­turn­ing the denial of qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty, the court empha­sized that Olivas was threat­en­ing felony arson and “posed a sub­stan­tial and imme­di­ate risk of death or seri­ous bod­i­ly injury to him­self and every­one in the house.” Tasing Olivas was to “pre­vent Olivas from light­ing him­self on fire,” the court added.
Read full sto­ry @https://​www​.forbes​.com/​s​i​t​e​s​/​n​i​c​k​s​i​b​i​l​l​a​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​2​/​1​9​/​c​o​u​r​t​-​g​r​a​n​t​s​-​q​u​a​l​i​f​i​e​d​-​i​m​m​u​n​i​t​y​-​t​o​-​c​o​p​s​-​w​h​o​-​s​e​t​-​a​-​m​a​n​-​o​n​-​f​i​r​e​-​b​y​-​t​a​s​i​n​g​-​h​i​m​/​?​s​h​=​2​d​b​c​b​a​c​f​c​ff7

As a black man with a black wife, I am con­cerned every time that my wife steps into her car to go out onto the streets.
I am not con­cerned about reg­u­lar crim­i­nals doing some­thing bad to her. I am con­cerned about the crim­i­nals who wear uni­forms and are vest­ed with the pow­er to abuse and take the lives of oth­ers under the col­or of law.
It does not mat­ter that my wife is a col­lege-edu­cat­ed woman or has giv­en decades of ser­vice to the Federal Government begin­ning in her ear­ly twen­ties. And it cer­tain­ly does not mat­ter that under most cir­cum­stances, she may be heads and shoul­ders intel­lec­tu­al­ly over any cop that would pull her over and seek to abuse her.
I have giv­en that ques­tion much thought, and I would­n’t say I like how the prospect of that hap­pen­ing makes me feel.
As the nation faces a reck­on­ing after the George Floyd killing, and as peo­ple begin to talk about reimag­in­ing polic­ing, all of a sud­den, the nation is fac­ing a nation­al upsurge in shootings.
Violent crimes have trend­ed down across America for over two decades. Is any­one skep­ti­cal about this crime surge as soon as some cities con­tem­plate mov­ing resources from police to areas where those dol­lars would be bet­ter spent?

Police across the United States con­tin­ue to use mun­dane traf­fic stops to esca­late minor and insignif­i­cant infrac­tions into major arrests fol­lowed by a litany of felony charges.
The laws give them the pow­er to man­u­fac­ture charges, and pros­e­cu­tors are all too hap­py to pros­e­cute those charges with vig­or befit­ting some­one who actu­al­ly saw the com­mis­sion of those offenses.
A sim­ple fail­ure to indi­cate before ini­ti­at­ing a turn can result in major felonies because the Ku-Klux-Klan mem­bers pos­tur­ing as police offi­cers make them so.
First off, they bark sev­er­al con­tra­dic­to­ry orders which no one can fol­low, [all part of their God-comlpex]. They bark those con­tra­dic­to­ry orders know­ing that no one can fol­low those com­mands, but that is exact­ly the point.
And so when the dri­ver refus­es to move out of fear of being gunned down in their own cars over what may have even been an ille­gal stop, they pro­ceed to break win­dows and destroy peo­ple’s cars, they then drag the dri­ver out of their car under the fraud­u­lent claim that the dri­ver refused to fol­low their commands.

God help the dri­ver if they are Black because if they are Black, the best that can come of that sit­u­a­tion is that they get bad­ly beat­en and hit with mul­ti­ple felony charges.….….… The upside is that the dri­ver escapes get­ting sev­er­al bul­lets to the back and a few to the head.
And if you believe the tax-pay­ers-fund­ed body-worn cam­eras make a dif­fer­ence, think again.
There are no hard and fast rules that man­date that these crim­i­nals must turn on the cam­eras. And so, even if they turn them on ini­tial­ly when they are about to com­mit crimes against the pub­lic, they either turn them off or cov­er them with their hands.
And of course, as you may imag­ine, there are no penal­ties for those clear acts lead­ing up to more seri­ous crim­i­nal conduct.
Even in the rare instance that they video­tape an encounter, their depart­ments insist that the footage is not pub­lic prop­er­ty, even though our tax dol­lars pay for them and pay the crim­i­nals who are parad­ing as cops.
A court-ordered release of cop videos to the pub­lic some­times ends up with dis­tort­ed, redact­ed, dis­turbed, and even tam­pered videos being released, and no one is held accountable.
Police offi­cers plant evi­dence and fab­ri­cate evi­dence to crim­i­nal­ize peo­ple of color.…..people they hate… Black people.

When they com­mit crimes, Prosecutors cov­ers for them, some judges nul­li­fy jury ver­dicts to pre­vent them from going to prison, and of course, the supreme court gives them blan­ket immu­ni­ty to do as they please with­out civ­il lia­bil­i­ty under a doc­trine the court cre­at­ed, not a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­struct, a court cre­at­ed one. (Qualified immunity).
There isn’t even a mech­a­nism to pun­ish cops who are caught lying under oath in court, even though the aver­age cit­i­zen who lies under oath faces prison time and is usu­al­ly pros­e­cut­ed and impris­oned for com­mit­ting perjury.
In case after case in which police encounter with Black res­i­dents are record­ed, it becomes clear­er that the police do every­thing in their pow­er to esca­late minor traf­fic infrac­tions and turns them into some­thing that seems to jus­ti­fy the use of force.
I see it as an across-the-board dis­re­spect for African-Americans, but I also see it as some­thing else.
The Klan is no longer inter­est­ed in wear­ing white sheets when they can wear black robes and police uni­forms. Why wear white hoods when a busi­ness suit and stilet­to pumps do the same trick.
My fear, in the end, is not about what they could do to a mem­ber of my fam­i­ly. My fear is about the reac­tion they could trig­ger if they ever used those racist tac­tics on a mem­ber of my family…

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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.