Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

Hell yes

(make sure to read the thread, in which Rep. Peters appears and Bill Corbett drags him to hell.)

Everyone: END POLICE BRUTALITY

JK Rowling: I noticed we aren’t talking about me

— clean slate (@PleaseBeGneiss) June 7, 2020

guys? mpls city council just voted to abolish the police

am i understanding this correctly?

this is wild

yeah i'm speechless

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/city-council-announces-intention-to-disband-minneapolis-police-department

it’s being described as a “veto proof majority” but i don’t understand how any of it actually works

The Council’s move is consistent with rapidly-shifting public opinion regarding the urgency of overhauling the American model of law enforcement. Since Floyd’s killing and the protests that ensued, officials in Los Angeles and New York City have called for making deep cuts to swollen police budgets and reallocating those funds for education, affordable housing, and other social services. Law enforcement officers are not equipped to be experts in responding to mental health crises, often leading to tragic results—nationally, about half of police killings involve someone living with mental illness or disability. As a result, public health experts have long advocated for dispatching medical professionals and/or social workers, not armed police, to respond to calls related to substance use and mental health. Polling from Data for Progress indicates that more than two-thirds of voters—68 percent—support the creation of such programs, versions of which are already in place in other cities such as, Eugene, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado.

“Our commitment is to do what is necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth that the Minneapolis Police are not doing that,” Bender said Sunday. “Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”

https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/

wow

nyc curfew ends tonight, city is supposed to open tomorrow, deblasio said he's going to start cutting NYPD funding... will believe the last is significant when i see it
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/nyregion/deblasio-nypd-funding.html

he ended the curfew today, actually, for some reason, and so no curfew tonite

Last night in East Oakland CHP officers shot and killed Eric Salgado during a traffic stop on the 9600 block of Cherry St. His family is out here mourning.
Police have not released much information about the incident. pic.twitter.com/e4JxH7Xjln

— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) June 7, 2020

They also shot his pregnant girlfriend who was in the car with him.

my partner is surrounded by cops in an intersection right now, in a peaceful group. surrounded by cops in riot gear. it's a peaceful protest. they turned their sirens off and are calling in backup.

i'm so angry, and terrified. i didn't go with her this afternoon. i could have. i stayed home and rested instead.

I'm so sorry Karl :(

I'm so sorry <3 - hoping for her and the group to stay safe from those chickenshits. don't blame yourself for resting - everybody has to at some point.

i am sitting here listening to the scanner, giving updates to the signal thread for ride/legal support. and my downstairs neighbor drove down to be nearby and update us. but my heart is breaking to not be there.

hope they are ok Karl

she turned her phone off an hour ago. they've been surrounded since then. also there is a LRAD (sound weapon) van a block away. i've seen multiple photos of it and compared it to other LRAD images online - I know the exact model. fucked up

trying to send them messages to put in ear plugs if possible and to protect their ears

Benn & Gear on Youtube experimented with LRAD blocking in a video that went up this week. Printer paper and glossy posterboard were the most effective blocking it.

thank you. She has cardboard but I let her know for others

also try to get perpendicular to the plane of its surface

i.e. to the side

how dangerous are they? just very general advice, please. i know that they're considered to be risky by ACLU because of potential hearing damage, but that they're still doing studies?

there are a million other things going on that i'm also monitoring and communicating, and want to make sure it's prioritized appropriately

I know they’ve been found to constitute excessive force in some courts.

this seems like a very extreme example of use in terms of time and proximity, but:

The NYPD is being sued by six plaintiffs who claim they were assaulted by an LRAD during a 2014 protest in Manhattan in support of Eric Garner. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that two officers sustained the “deterrent” or “alert” mode continuously for 15 to 20 minutes on targets who were within 10 feet of the device.

According to the suit, the plaintiffs suffered intense pain, permanent tinnitus, migraines, dizziness, confusion, and vertigo. One plaintiff claimed that he was temporarily blinded from the officers’ pepper spray, rendering him helpless to get away from the LRAD. The sonic pressure from the device pushed a bone in his ear inward, impacting and damaging a nerve in his ear, according to the lawsuit.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-lrad-went-from-a-pirate-deterrent-to-a-police-crowd-control-tool

Hope your partner is ok, Karl.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis city council has just pledged to dismantle its police department.

she is ok.

i was trying to rest, today. but it's pointless - if she's there, i'm restless, locked at my computer doing all the scanner listening and trying to figure out what's going on from a distance. i should have been there with her.

seriously, #ACAB

glad to hear she's ok

yeah same

glad you heard good news here. get some rest if you can.

Karl, any updates?

Also

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/lynching-federal-hate-crime.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR2TwOoJvvDHnyTejdeEq63cmIje3J0DcYQX4uESG1_lYduE5c55srfWCjk

Losers scrambling for their jobs

(This is an absolute good but I feel like 5 months ago this wouldn’t have been on the table)

(This is an absolute good but I feel like 5 months ago this wouldn’t have been on the table)

"YOU ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR JOB"

“You about to lose your job!” #DefundThePolice #nycprotests #nycbudgetjustice pic.twitter.com/YakieTl9AK

— Samantha Lee Robles (@Samanthaleenyc) June 8, 2020

Raymond that appears to be from 2018?

yeah there was a Lynching bill that passed the Senate unanimously in 2018, but it expired because the House didn't pass it by the time Congress ended, and that's what the article is talking about. the current bill is a revised version of the 2018 bill, which is why Kamala Harris was incredulous that Rand Paul was objecting to it now.

ah thanks

lol that imarkkeyz took off as expected

Ty for that xp

xp to raymond

thanks for asking, everyone is safe and sound at home now. wasn't just my partner, was also one of my downstairs neighbors. i'm really glad to live where i am now. we have a really supportive building, both above and below us, and we all coordinate and help each other out. invaluable

as an addendum, she told me that the most frightening part of the whole night was actually as the protest was dispersing. a crazy old white guy started yelling at everyone, yelling the usual old crazy white guy shit. so far, sadly normal, and there were good protest organizers that calmed everyone down and de-escalated. but then he suddenly opened his trunk and reached in and everyone thought he was reaching for guns, so everyone started fucking booking it. turned out it was not guns, thank god. in response, a police officer slooooooooowly walked over to the old guy, smiled, walked him off, etc

I feel like we've been extremely lucky that no right wing nutjobs have opened fire at any of these protests so far. It's a possibility that really scares me.

I'm glad nothing like that happened, but it sounds like a very frightening situation

I feel like we've been extremely lucky that no right wing nutjobs have opened fire at any of these protests so far. It's a possibility that really scares me.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Sunday, June 7, 2020 10:18 PM (three minutes ago)

One did (well, some white guy did) hours ago, in Seattle, after driving a car into a crowd of protestors. He shot a man in the arm who was trying to get his gun. He then brandished his gun, walked up to the police line unmolested by the cops who had used pepper spray and explosives against protestors the night before, and was taken into custody.

someone did that at the 4th pct protests for jamar clark a few years back in mpls, he's in prison for 15 years now