Chicago’s finest.
Autopsy Shows African-American Teen Kendrec McDade Was Shot Seven Times By Police
Last March, police received a report that a taco truck in Pasadena, California had just been robbed. According to a recently released autopsy report, the two officers who arrived to investigate this report ran down and eventually shot a young black suspect seven times:
Nineteen-year-old Kendrec McDade was shot at point-blank range by one Pasadena police officer and handcuffed after being struck by a total of seven bullets, according to the autopsy report released Friday by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office… . Three of the wounds — two in his abdomen and one in his right arm — are considered potentially fatal because they lacerated arteries, according to Pasadena police. One bullet entered through the back of the right arm and another the back of the right forearm.
McDade, of Azusa, was killed when Pasadena officers Jeff Newlen and Mathew Griffin responded to a report of an armed robbery at a taco truck in northwest Pasadena. One of the officers pursued him on foot and the other from his police cruiser.
The first officer who fired did so while seated in the patrol car as McDade approached with his hand at his waistband. McDade and the officer were “within a foot” of each other, according to the autopsy report.
It is not yet clear whether McDade was actually involved in the taco truck robbery or if he was merely a bystander. It is clear, however, that the police who shot McDade did so under a cloud of false information. McDade was not armed, and the alleged theft victim later admitted that he lied about his assailants having weapons in order to provoke a faster response by police.
McDade also does not fit the profile of the kind of person who would normally commit armed robbery. He has no gang ties or prior arrests, was a star football player in high school, and was a student at Citrus College at the time of his death.
NYC Officials Sue Police Over Response To Protests
Four lawmakers sued the city Monday over its handling of the Occupy Wall Street protests, saying police conduct is so problematic that the force needs an outside monitor.
The city and police violated demonstrators’ free speech rights, used excessive force, arrested protesters on dubious charges and interfered with journalists’ and council members’ efforts to observe what was going on, the four City Council members and others say in the federal civil rights suit.
“This unlawful conduct has been undertaken with the intention of obstructing, chilling, deterring and retaliating against (the) plaintiffs for engaging in constitutionally protected protest activity,” says the suit, which was filed a day before Occupy and labor activists planned a large May Day march.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended police handling of the protests.
“This police department knows how to control crowds without excessive force. They do allow you to protest, but they don’t let it get out of hand,“ he said after some council members complained about what they called police brutality at a March Occupy demonstration.
While Occupy activists have gone to court before over particular episodes in the movement’s contentious history with the city, the new lawsuit is a nearly 150-page compendium of complaints, amplified by the council members’ participation. A local Democratic Party official, freelance journalists and Occupy activists also are plaintiffs.
Police Break-Up Women’s Protest In Guinea, Some 20 Injured
Guinea police fired tear gas at women protesting over upcoming elections, as well as kicking and hitting them to break up the rally, leaving about 20 injured, an AFP journalist witnessed Thursday.
About 200 women from several opposition parties gathered near the headquarters of the electoral commission (CENI) in the capital Conakry, demaning a restructuring of the body ahead of legislative polls on July 8.
“Down with CENI!”, “Viva democracy!”, the women shouted, also clamouring for the resignation of the electoral commission president Louceni Kamara, and demanding free and transparent elections.
Police prevented them from protesting directly outside the headquarters, and after ordering them to “immediately leave the premises” fired canisters of tear gas.
Some were kicked or hit with belts, AFP witnessed, counting 18 injured, some lightly while about six had blood-stained faces.
A spokesman for the protesters, Hadja Biya Diallo, said three of the women had been arrested, while a policeman speaking on condition of anonymity said there were “many arrested.”
“These protesters were sent by their chiefs,” the leaders of the opposition, said a police official at the scene. “We will not tolerate anarchy in this country.”
Whistleblowing Wednesday: The BPD Officer Who Choked An Occupy Queer Protester Has Been Identified As Vaden Scantlebury
The following series of photos was taken by Paul Weiskel at the Boston Commons on April 15, 2012. The photos depict a Boston Police Department patrolman identified as Vaden Scantlebury who grabs a protester by the neck and then becomes angry at the photographer for attempting to take his picture.
The Boston Police are reportedly investigating the incident along with the ACLU. A video of the incident is also available. His badge number is 4534.
Boston Police Investigating Officer’s For Choking A Gay Protester
Boston Police is investigating its officers’ response to rowdy duel protests at the Boston Common on Sunday, Tax Day, after a photo surfaced showing “a city officer with his hand around a protester’s neck.” As Daily Kos’ Scott Wooledge reports, the Tea Party-organized event was co-sponsored by the vehemently anti-gay MassResistance and featured Scott Lively, “professional worldwide hunter of homosexuals and top proponent of ‘gay cure’” and a proponent of Uganda’s infamous ‘kill gays’ legislation.
As counter-protesters — including Occupy Boston Queer and Trans Direct Action Working Group — expressed their opposition to Lively’s participation, one of the speakers said from the podium, broadcast across the loud speakers at the Commons, “We will not be silenced by faggots.” Read a first-hand account from the protester roughed up in the picture at Back2Stonewall.
Campus police pepper-sprayed as many as 30 demonstrators after Santa Monica College students angry over a plan to offer high-priced courses tried to push their way into a trustees meeting, authorities said. (April 4)
Howard Morgan, A Black Cop Who Was Shot 28 Times By Several White Cops, Faces Attempted Murder Charges
As much of the country follows the Trayvon Martin case, activists in Chicago are hoping to bring some of that attention to Howard Morgan, a former Chicago police officer who was shot 28 times by white officers — and lived to tell his side of the story.
Morgan was off-duty as a detective for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad when he was pulled over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street on Feb 21, 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. While both police and Morgan agree on that much, what happened next is a mystery.
According to police, Morgan opened fire with his service weapon when officers tried to arrest him, which caused them to shoot him 28 times. His family, however, very much doubts those claims.
“Four white officers and one black Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad police man with his weapon on him — around the corner from our home — and he just decided to go crazy? No. That’s ludicrous,” Morgan’s wife, Rosalind Morgan, told the Sun-Times.
She was not the only person to doubt CPD’s side of the story. A Change.org petition signed by more than 2,600 people called for all charges against Morgan to be dropped, and now Occupy Chicago is getting involved.
“After being left for dead, he survived and was then charged with attempted murder of the four white officers who brutalized him,” Occupy wrote on their website, adding that Morgan was found not guilty on three counts, including discharging his weapon. The same jury that cleared him of opening fire on the officers, however, deadlocked on a charge of attempted murder — and another jury found him guilty in January.
That jury was not allowed to hear that Morgan had been acquitted of the other charges.
Protesters and Morgan’s family say the second trial amounted to double jeopardy, and claim officers have gone to great lengths to obstruct justice in the case:
“Howard Morgan’s van was crushed and destroyed without notice or cause before any forensic investigation could be done.Howard Morgan was never tested for gun residue to confirm if he even fired a weapon on the morning in question.
The State never produced the actual bullet proof vest worn by one of the officers who claimed to have allegedly taken a shot directly into the vest on the morning in question. The State only produced a replica.”
“If they can do this and eliminate double jeopardy and your constitutional rights, then my God, I fear for every Afro-American — whether they be male or female — in this corrupt unjust system,” Morgan’s wife told the Sun-Times.
Howard Morgan will be sentenced Thursday. He faces 80 years in prison.
Family Seeks Name of Racist White Plains Officer in Chamberlain Shooting
The son of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a 68-year-old who died two hours after being shot by police during an incident in his apartment in November, petitioned White Plains City Hall on Monday to pressure police into publicizing the name of the officer who shot him. The Chamberlain family also asked city hall to urge the Westchester District Attorney’s Office to release audio and video of the incident.
Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. said not knowing which officer responding to a medical alert at the Winbrook Public Housing complex shot his father, a former U.S. Marine and corrections officer, crippled his trust that an investigation presented to a grand jury would be dealt with in a “transparent” manner.
“In the other incidents that you have out here of questionable shootings, the officers’ names were given out. So it only makes my family and I wonder why isn’t this officer’s name released?” said Chamberlain Jr.
“Had that been myself or any other citizen inside here that shot and killed someone, our whole life history would be on television, on the radio and in the newspaper. I feel that it’s only right, it’s only fair that that officer’s name be released.”
Mayor Thomas Roach spoke on behalf of his six fellow Democratic Common Council Persons, offering his condolences to the Chamberlain family. Roach wouldn’t discuss his thoughts on releasing the officer’s name and recordings of the Nov. 19 incident. He told the dozens of supporters, the Mount Hope A.M.E. Zion Church Pastor and other civil rights leaders he had confidence that Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore would thoroughly investigate the matter.
“A full investigation is owed to the late Mr. Chamberlain, his family, the police officers involved and our community,” said Roach. “This is a nightmare. And you wake from a nightmare with truth. And that’s what we’ll all pursue here.”
The Chamberlain family was allowed to view audio and video of the shooting as a courtesy. The family is now calling on the district attorney’s office to publicly release the recordings, which their attorney said documents officers taunting Chamberlain Sr. and using a racial slur before breaking down his door. The recordings, the Chamberlain family said, question police’s claims that Chamberlain Sr. was armed when police entered his 135 S. Lexington Ave. apartment.
A Walmart cop threatens to tase several black men for filming him.
The man filming told the cop ‘We are not hostile people’ to which the cop replied ‘Well you fooled me’. The cop said the men resisted arrest but the video clearly shows that the men were backing up after he draws his taser gun.
At the end of the video, another one of the men informs the officer that he’s a dialysis patient.
“You were about to taze somebody– you don’t even know what I go through,” he says. “You might-a, coulda killed me. I’m a dialysis patient, sir! You could have tazed me and made my blood pressure go up.”
The men where later hand-cuffed to be arrested but released after another cop came to their rescue. The incident was only resolved after the cop tried to bribe and threaten the men to erase this footage or go to jail (According to the video description).
Kenneth Chamberlain
Police Called Out on False Medical Alert Kills 68 Year Old Black Veteran
As the Trayvon Martin case draws national attention, we look at another fatal shooting of an African-American male that has received far less scrutiny.
Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68-year-old African-American Marine veteran, was fatally shot in November by White Plains, NY, police who responded to a false alarm from his medical alert pendant.
The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. Audio of the entire incident was recorded by the medical alert device in Chamberlain’s apartment.
We’re joined by family attorneys and Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., who struggles through tears to recount his father’s final moments, including the way police officers mocked his father’s past as a marine.
“For them to look at my father that way, (with) no regard for his life, every morning I think about it,” he says.
An audio and video tape that may prove that police said a racial slur and acted unprofessionally is being withheld.
NYPD Chief Hits OWS Protester In The Face With Baton (1:19)
At 61 years old, the NYPD’s “Chief of Department” Joseph J. Esposito is the highest uniformed ranking officer in the department. He’s almost on the cusp of the mandatory NYPD retirement age of 63, but judging by this video, it looks like he’s been taking his calcium supplements. Shot during a march Saturday night and obtained by the Daily News the video shows Esposito vigorously wielding his baton on unsuspecting Occupy Wall Street protesters. The action, as it were, begins at the 1:19 mark, and you may want to enlarge to full screen.
Esposito was using brute force to keep demonstrators compliant with police orders. It’s difficult to say from this video whether it was justified, but the Times seems to intimateit wasn’t, interpreting the video thus:
“The chief, holding his baton at both ends, delivers a blow at shoulder level, knocking him back. When the man lurches forward, the chief delivers what appears to be a more aggressive second blow, aiming up and striking the man high on the shoulders, and possibly the face, as his head jerks back from the force.”
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, on the other hand, succinctly says “The video speaks for itself.”
