From the E-Mail Bag

I received this last night from the local chapter of the October 22nd Coalition. Apparently they, along with the Tacoma chapter of the National Action Network and Revolution Books, are holding a meeting at Uptown Espresso in Belltown at 4pm on Saturday about the Malika Calhoun incident.

They've requested that the flier be posted and redistributed... It's available in PDF format here.

NOTE: this site is not affiliated with any of the groups sponsoring this event nor is it involved with the event in question.

Reader Request: Show Support For Community Leader at Court Hearing Today

This story came to my attention last night via Twitter @juliechang206 concerning the case of Wyking Allah who was essentially arrested for trespassing in the NW African American Heritage Museum that he helped found and worked with.

His arrest appeared to be, from what I recall reading at the time, more of an effort to keep him from saying what he wanted to say about some disconcerting "anti-gang" legislation in the works at the time during the opening ceremonies for the museum and cultural center than a question of his trespassing on property that he worked to create.

Several different organizations have been working on helping with his defense against those charges, this was from one of those groups, the UmojaFest P.E.A.C.E Center here in Seattle that Wyking also co-founded:

Subject: Support Wyking Allah in court tomorrow


From: Leith Jasinowski-Kahl
To: people who are down
Subject: Support Wyking in court tomorrow

Wyking Allah was unfairly arrested in March of 2007 for speaking the truth at an event organized on behalf of Seattle's ruling class.  Billed as the "grand opening of NAAM", the event was in fact a celebration of the privatization and theft of the African American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center from the Black working class community. This theft was engineered by white developers with the assistance of the Urban League. (See link below for more background on this arrest and the issues surrounding it.)

http://hiphopnews.yuku.com/topic/427/t/NW-Hip-Hop-newsletter-March-April-Edition.html

Wyking Allah is innocent of all charges.  He is an officer of the African American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center, which is both the rightful and legal owner of the land he was standing on at the time of his arrest.  He therefore cannot be guilty of trespass on the land of his own people.
http://www.aahmcc.org/facts.html

The next court hearing in the state's prosecution of this man of the people, Wyking Allah, will take place tomorrow:

Friday April 10th 10 AM Seattle Municipal Courthouse, 5th and James,  Room 1102

The defense has assembled an extensive list of witnesses to prove that Wyking was standing on his own institution's land. What is at stake tomorrow is whether the court will agree to hear the testimony of these witnesses, or whether it will again prove itself to be a kangaroo court of white supremacy by rejecting their testimony before it his heard.

All honest men and all honest women are called upon to be there tomorrow, in body if possible, and otherwise in spirit. Stay alert for more news as this struggle continues.

So, if you know Wyking or are familiar with this case, make plans to head down to the hearing and show your support.

Against Police Misconduct, Divided We Will Fall

I wanted to take some time and explain some things to readers who may wonder about my previous article. I realize that, at first glance, it might have sounded pretty defeatist.

So, let me start by saying that I didn't write it to suggest that people fighting police misconduct should give up, quite the opposite. I wrote it to explain how and why these efforts need to step it up. I wrote it to help focus on the tactics people who defend police misconduct use to bypass local police accountability efforts.

I wrote it to explain that, without addressing the federal and state laws that make it impossible for cities to rid themselves of bad cops, what does it matter if we identify all the bad cops and detail their abuses, or hold protests against them, or even convince city officials that something must be done?

The problem we face is that organizations and individuals dedicated to address police misconduct and brutality just can't bring ourselves to cooperate with each other on a local level, let alone work with similar efforts in other cities to put pressure on state government and federal lawmakers to change the current laws that encourage police abuses.

Many put pressure and blame on police chiefs and leaders without understanding how they are often denied the tools they need to address the problems they are blamed for... Sure, those groups might force one chief to be fired, but it helps little if the next one in still isn't allowed to fire troublemakers just like the last one.

We need to realize that the police have many resources; they have their unions, their 'benevolent' organizations, their memorial groups, their own lobbyists, armies of lawyers on retainer, and countless other support groups, that all work together to pass laws that protect officers from discipline and accountability on a local, state, and national level...

How can any of us, we who dedicate ourselves to fighting abuses of authority, police brutality, and systemic abuses of civil and human rights, hope to fight that power without understanding how effective it is and working together to counterbalance it on the same level?

After all, what good is it if we devote all our resources in divided efforts to force changes at a local level while all those police organizations have the ears and pocketbooks of state and federal lawmakers all to themselves without any opposing viewpoint being heard?

That's the uphill fight we face... and we can't keep pretending that a tiny rally of a dozen people in Seattle, or that a small website written by one guy, or any of these things we do individually are going to accomplish anything lasting on their own. We have to understand the united front we all face when we try to confront police misconduct and how they use that unity to defeat our individual efforts.

But, if we could just get it together and use each others strengths and focus on meaningful goals instead of just being reactive to each individual case of misconduct... maybe we would stand a chance against the daily onslaught of police misconduct and those who seek to perpetuate it.

It's time to face facts. The people opposed to police misconduct cannot hope to make progress unless they can become just as united in that cause as police organizations are in their efforts to help problematic officers avoid discipline for their abuses.

We must accept that, while we remain divided, we will be destined to continue to fail if we keep trying the same failed tactics over and over again…

…and I have to accept that it’s going to take a lot more effort on my part than what I’ve put forward so far in order to have any chance of addressing the seemingly ever-worsening problem of police misconduct.

Rally Today Against King County Sheriffs Department

-Updated 03/10/09 - 14:29- if anyone attended this rally let me know how it was and what was said, I'd appreciate it. I was not able to cover it due to the short notice.


I received the above press release via email last night, apparently around the same time anyone else did. I thought about not posting it, but decided that I'm obliged to... but with some caveats.

First, let me be clear that I was not one of the supposed "other groups and activists" mentioned in this press release. I had no part in this, was not talked to or consulted about it, nor was I informed of it prior to the official press release, which was all I received about it from the October 22nd Coalition who appears to be working in conjunction with the National Action Network.

Second, I don't support it. To be specific, since I know so little about it and based on the content of the release, I'm not able to support it. Heck, I can't even go to it because of the short notice.

I really can't support it because calling for a rally at the very last minute, a full 12 days after the release of the video showing Malika Calhoun being assaulted by King County Sheriff's Deputy Paul Schene and almost a full month after the initial story broke about Schene being charged with assault over the attack, seems a bit late to the game, especially since neither sponsoring group had anything at all to say about it up to this point.

In fact, it appears ill-planned and ill-conceived to on give everyone not even a full day's notice of such a rally. It appears doomed to offer only a token show of support which will only give the appearance that nobody in King County cares about police brutality. If it were properly planned we would have heard about a planned protest well in advance so word could have gotten out and it could have been better attended.

Third, I can't support the aim of the protest, which is to hold King County Sheriff Sue Rahr solely accountable for what Paul Schene did.

If you think the sheriff should have done more than just put him on paid leave then protest against the county that negotiated the current contract with the police union that determines how she can discipline officers in cases like this.

While you're at it, lobby the state legislature to reform the Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) that always sides with the police unions against local governments when they try to enact accountability reforms but are turned back at the bargaining table by aggressive police unions. Tell them to give local governments the power to enact the police accountability reforms that their citizens have demanded instead of kow-towing to powerful police unions and their political endorsements.

Have a problem with Schene only being charged with a misdemeanor that caries a MAXIMUM one year sentence? Don't blame the sheriff, she doesn't choose what he is charged with. Don't blame King County Prosecutors either for only being able to charge him with the laws that exist. Protest the state government to pressure them into enacting a law against official misconduct and make it a felony offense for officers to abuse detainees like Schene did to Calhoun.

Don't like it that Schene likely can't be fired even if he's convicted for a misdemeanor in this case? Lobby the state government to give local departments the discretion to fire officers for misdemeanors like this and reform the PERC so it stops overruling departments that do fire officers for similar offenses and penalizes them for doing so on top of giving officers back pay and forcing them to rehire bad cops.

But... since these two groups apparently don't understand the situation here and didn't bother to ask around, they are over-simplifying the problem by going after Sue Rahr, who has actually been amenable to accountability reforms... and who has not come to the defense of Schene like Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske would have.

Instead, these groups seek to punish her for trying to do what we, as police accountability activists, would hope most police leaders would do in a case like this, which is to be open about what happened and press charges against an officer who did something wrong without being shamed into doing so in the press first.

Instead, these two groups who refused to include other police brutality activists in their plans are going to put up a half-hearted and poorly planned protest based on an ill-informed premise that will ultimately do more harm to everyone's efforts to improve police accountability than anything. Especially by over-simplifying a very complex problem that needs reforms imposed from far higher up than they are targeting.

Let me be honest here... I loathe having to say all this, I have few allies in Seattle and there aren't many people who support improved police accountability here, so it's important to cultivate relationships with anyone who wants to stop police misconduct. I wish I could support this, I wish I could be there... but I wasn't given enough information to support it and the information I see doesn't address the issues that need to be addressed to help reduce cases of police misconduct in this area.

But, I don't do this to make friends, I do this for the people who suffer from police misconduct and I owe it to them to make sure my efforts are directed towards reducing police misconduct, so I cannot betray that and support efforts that appear, to me, to potentially do more harm than good to that effort.

So, my apologies to the October 22nd Coalition and the National Action Network, but I cannot support your planned rally tomorrow in good conscience. I wish you luck in the future and hope that, next time, you work harder to reach out to other groups and plan your efforts better. I hope I'm wrong about your rally today, but based on what I received I can't support it.

Why Threatening Bad Cops Makes No Sense

Depiction of a group of vigilante "baldknobbers" from the 1919 movie "The Sheppard Of The Hills".
Baldknobbers were groups of vigilantes in Arkansas and Missouri who were responsible not only for attacking horse thieves, but also murdering their critics and their families, as well as several racially motivated lynchings in the mid to late late 1800's and early 1900's.

An act of police misconduct is nothing more than vigilantism. In fact, there is no difference between a police officer beating someone they suspect might have committed a crime as a form of "street justice" or you beating someone up if you suspect they committed a crime.

When the world sees acts of police brutality, it evokes a strong reaction on several levels for most people. It makes us fear what police could do to us, it makes us wonder at the kinds of people we entrust with the power to enforce our laws, it causes us to question whether our justice system is still just, and it creates a sense of outrage that a person can get away with a crime just because of their chosen occupation.

Needless to say, there are numerous reasons why videotaped images of a 15-year-old girl being attacked by King County Sheriff's Deputy Paul Schene sparked strong emotions across the globe. It also takes little effort to understand the outrage the video of Oscar Grant's death created when it made it into the public square.

So strong, in fact, that the lawyers for Schene and Mehserle both reported that those officers, their families, and the lawyers themselves began to receive death threats after the stories went public.

But... what does it make any of us if we lower ourselves to the same level as an officer who we believe has committed a crime when we seek to circumvent the law and threaten the lives of those officers, their families, and those who's job it is to defend them in court?

Does it not make us exactly the same as those officers when we stoop to their level and try to be judge, jury, and executioner just like they did?

After all, how just is it when we seek to answer an injustice with injustice?

Aside from the ethical considerations, making threats against officers accused of misconduct is ultimately counterproductive on a number of levels... worst of all these is that it gives police unions the ammunition they need to pressure legislators into enacting new laws that let them hide acts of misconduct and escape justice without any public scrutiny...

In other words, threatening officers such as Paul Schene and Johannes Mehserle not only makes you the same as they are... it gives the future Schenes and Mehserles the ability to do the same things those officers are accused of without the fear of being caught...

Threatening officers accused of misconduct creates more misconduct, not less. It creates more injustice, not less. It gives them more power, not less.

It is, ultimately, wrongheaded to seek to become that which you seek to fight. Just as it is wrong for a police officer to resort to illegal tactics in the course of their job, it is wrong for us to resort to illegal tactics to answer those acts of injustice. In other words, it is wrong for us to become them in answer to what they have done.

So, for any of you out there who might think about threatening an officer who was accused of misconduct, or their families, or their lawyers.... please don't, because all that will accomplish is to create more monsters and make it harder for us to spot acts of misconduct... not to mention that it turns you into the very same monster that you seek to fight.

Don't believe me? Just see what happened in Baltimore when an officer received threats after a video of him attacking a teenager was released to the public.

Sure, the system as it is might let all these officers get away with such upsetting acts... but the answer is to fix the system so that they are treated like any of us are when we stand accused, not think yourself above it like those officers did when they broke the law under the guise of enforcing it.

If you think otherwise, you might as well put on one of their uniforms now, because you're more like them than you'll ever know.

Of Being A Better Advocate

Life lessons come at strange times, but the important thing is to be aware of them for what they are and to learn what they are there to teach you.

Today I almost ended up on The Ron Reagan Show which airs on AirAmerica radio. The producer wrote me and asked if I would be willing to talk with them about the Malika Calhoun story and, presumably, the accountability problems in Seattle and King County which enabled deputy Paul Schene to beat up a 15-year-old girl in a SeaTac holding cell.

Well, I'm a modest and very soft-spoken person, especially since I was assaulted and then mistreated by police here in Seattle. That, plus the brain injuries and PTSD from that event affect me still and have all but crumbled any of the self confidence I ever had. This, of course, makes it difficult for me to do interviews, especially live interviews or any public speaking.

It wasn't always that way. In school I had a deep, resounding voice which landed me, for better or worse, in the role as narrator in any school play or choir activity and often had the theater teachers begging me to try out for roles.

But that changed after I became a victim of misconduct, so when I replied to the Ron Reagan show's producer I told her the truth; that I might not be the best pick and I gave her a lot of names to check with instead.

Sure, I still offered to step in if they couldn't get anyone else to represent the victim's side of the debate, but I was honest when I told them I get nervous doing interviews and might not do well live instead of just jumping at the chance and saying "yes".

I wasn't able to listen to the show, but I did pop in to their chat forum for a second to see what the audience reaction to the interviews they did would be.

I knew they were having the King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg on, which I thought would be ok since the man has the unenviable task of trying to prosecute a police officer in a city that, up to now, has been eternally unwilling to convict one.

But, apparently, instead of any of the people I suggested, they appear to have had a member of the police guild on instead, which seemed to really infuriate the listeners as this ended up being an utterly one-sided story in favor of Paul Schene... again, at least judging by the chat members' reactions to the interviews.

...Disappointing. But, ultimately... entirely my fault.

I've always said here that I know I'm not the best suited person to write this site, but despite my flaws I do happen to be the only person willing to do it and that someone has to do it.

...the life lesson is that I must apply that line of thought to all aspects of being an advocate for victims of police abuse and detainee mistreatment.

Next time, if there is one, I won't be so mamby-pamby about it and I'll do whatever interviews that are offered with all the conviction I can muster.

Even though I deserve heaps of derision for not speaking out when I had a chance to do so. All I ask is that, if I still don't live up to the task, please don't be too hard on me for trying to be a better advocate for police misconduct victims when others wouldn't.

After all, someone has to do it, even if that only someone is as flawed as me.

Worst Police Misconduct Video of 2008 Reader Poll

So much happened in 2008 and it seems like we've been losing the battle against police misconduct because of all the stories we've seen...

Or is it just that these stories have always been here and that we're just now hearing more about the stories that usually get covered up thanks to brave citizens out there who videotape the police when they misbehave and because surveillance technology has become so ubiquitous?

Do these show us how bad misconduct is, or how much misconduct out there happens without us ever knowing about it?

So, let's take a look back at the stories of police misconduct in video that happened in 2008...

After watching these feel free to vote for the worst... not just by how much brutality officers display, but also the level of disregard for society and the law they show and how badly their actions violate the public trust that was granted to them.

VIDEO 1

West Palm Beach Florida officers repeatedly and viciously punch a handcuffed robbery suspect in the head until he falls to the ground face first. Then, if that wasn't enough, while he's face down on the ground they kick his head hard enough to make it visibly bounce in the video. Truly disturbing to watch... at least it was for me.

VIDEO 2

NYPD officer body-checks a bicyclist at a Critical Mass ride in New York City. The officer initially claimed the rider attempted to assault him and filed charges against him... at least until this video surfaced. Now the officer has been indicted for providing false testimony.

VIDEO 3

Then there's the video of a Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's deputy dumping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair at a Tampa area jail because she didn't believe he was paralyzed. Even after dumping him out she never stops to think that maybe she's wrong as she began to rifle through his clothes while he laid on the floor with broken ribs.

VIDEO 4

NYPD officers repeatedly striking a man's legs during an arrest. Officers claimed he was resisting and attempted to hit them with an umbrella while the victim and his relatives say he was stopped by police suspecting he had alcohol when he tried to bring ice into a park on July 4th.

VIDEO 5

Even though this incident occurred in November of 2007, the video was not made available until February of 2008. This video captures a portion of the beating Mark Hays suffered at the hands of the Seattle Police Department's "elite" Anti-Crime Team not even two months after the ACT got bad press for beating a Canadian couple for jaywalking. This incident was also sparked by Hays and his friend jaywalking in front of an unmarked ACT SUV and escalated from there.

VIDEO 6

This other Seattle Police video came at the very beginning of the year on January 1, 2008. Marcell Richardson was trying to get into a local McDonalds after he had to step out and shut off his car alarm when police decided to shut the place down for crowd control. Officers stopped Marcell and when he tried to explain he had already ordered food he was pepper sprayed and grabbed. He became disoriented and he ran. Officers caught him and then punched and pepper sprayed with a large OC canister until he was left face down on all fours gasping for air and apparently compliant. But that wasn't enough for the officers who then fired a taser into his back. Prosecutors later dropped the obstruction and resisting charges they filed against him.

VIDEO 7

In a case that highlights the amount of animosity the police have for news reporters, Denver police officers arrest and choke ABC reporter Asa Eslocker during the Democratic National Convention for standing on a public sidewalk while trying to do a report.

VIDEO 8

In this double-feature, highlighted by Amy Goodman's reporting on the video of her own arrest as well as video of the violent arrest of Democracy Now! producer Nicole Salazar provide just a highlight of Minneapolis and St. Paul police abuses that included the arrests and assaults of several credentialed reporters during the Republican National Convention in 2008, including several videographers and a reporter from The Stranger from Seattle.

VIDEO 9

The well publicized incident in Philadelphia where several officers pulled three suspects from a car and brutally kicked and beat them. Officers claimed they were suspects in a shooting but never found a gun until several weeks later, supposedly, and conveniently, under a blanket in the field next to where the beating took place.

VIDEO 10

This shocking video shows Stark County Ohio Sheriff's Deputies forcibly stripping a female detainee who was arrested after she called police to stop a relative who attacked her. After a complaint was filed by her husband the police exonerated all officers, saying the abuse never took place... until this disturbing video surfaced that is.

VIDEO 11

This video shows a Shreveport Police officer attempting to interview a DUI suspect turn off the video camera and then turn the camera back on again to show the handcuffed woman laying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. The officer claimed that the woman just fell down... The officer was eventually fired after an investigation showed the shocking extent of the woman's injuries from the officer beating her. No criminal charges were filed though.

VIDEO 12

This video captured during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Debate at Hofstra University shows Iraq War veteran Nick Morgan's head being crushed by a Nassau County New York police horse's hoof. Sgt Morgan suffered a broken cheekbone and permanent brain damage from the incident and from a subsequent denial of medical care when he was arrested after being trampled and knocked unconcious. The veterans were merely asking to be let into the debate so they could ask the candidates a question about the Iraq war and how veterans would be taken care of after they returned home.

VIDEO 13

One of the more infamous officers of the year was Baltimore Maryland's officer Salvator Rivieri who was caught on this video in the summer of 2007 harassing and then assaulting a teenage skateboarder. When the video was released in 2008 the national news picked up the story, which prompted another video to be released by a artist who was threatened by the same officer at the same location that same summer.

The officer got a paid vacation and a lot of attention... so much so that the police department used it as an excuse to keep the names of officers involved in shootings or misconduct secret from the public... talk about the police learning the wrong lessons.

Note: This reader's poll has ended and the results will be posted shortly in a different article.

Police Officer Threatens Woman Who Blogs About Officer-Involved Domestic Violence

A Screenshot of one threatening email messages sent to Officer-Involved Domestic Violence (OIDV)advocate at the Behind The Blue Wall blog.

Harassing and sending threatening messages to police accountability activists and people who report on police misconduct is a favorite pastime for police officers. Often unpunished and ignored by mainstream media, officers often feel as though it is their right to silence any critics... and most people tend to agree by telling advocates that they should simply expect to be threatened for talking about police misconduct and accept it.

This past year several sites devoted to uncovering issues of police misconduct have gone silent, including the well-known BadCopNews.com which compiled several cases of misconduct from around the world on a daily basis for years. While bloggers who write about political misdeeds or other issues enjoy protections from such abusive and threatening behavior, police misconduct bloggers have to suffer it and prepare as best they can for the eventuality when officers might make good on their threats.

Sadly, just last week another advocate against police misconduct has been added to the list of citizen reporters who have suffered such abuse and has learned that police departments always refuse to investigate threats issued by their own officers made against citizen reporters.

On December 14, the writer of Behind The Blue Wall started receiving harassing messages that she claims to have tracked down to a Palm Beach Sheriff's Deputy that she had posted some news articles about. The officer in question, Deputy Ira Peskowitz, has apparently been in the news quite often due to allegations ranging from domestic violence to alleged threats made to fellow officers.

She claims the officer, apparently upset that those articles had been republished on a her blog, created a fake Myspace page so he could initiate contact with the blogger via her Myspace presence and then escalated to emails that culminated with this message:

"When I find you and I will, your going to understand what it's like to be a fish out of water. God help you and your family. I tracked your IP address and I'm coming for you ...... you don't know when to stop and when you do it will be too late for you to start ever again."

The author apparently traced the messages back to officer Peskowitz and attempted to file complaints against the officer with the Palm Beach Sheriff's office to no avail. She also, fearing for her and her family's lives, contacted her local police department and was only told to call back if the officer was actually "banging on her door".

Fearing the officer would make good on his threats, and seeming to have good reason to do so as other officers who claimed to be threatened by him had resorted to filing restraining orders against him, went public with the threats in hopes that would cause the officer to think twice about making good on the threats.

Fellow bloggers, many of whom have also faced threats from police officers in response to their reporting, have offered their support and reposted information about the threats, including the author of the Riverside California blog Five Before Midnight, who has also had to suffer threats by police, as well as the Michigan OIDV Advocacy group who created a site devoted to the threats made so far.

Just as victims of police misconduct are often treated like third-class citizens, subjected to arrests made just to cover up for misconduct and ridiculed publicly by police officers and city officials, so too do the advocates for those victims become relegated to third-class citizen status and find themselves no longer protected by the same rights others enjoy.

In the end, all we can do as advocates against police misconduct is stand by each other and hope that, by shining a light on such misconduct as this, officers may think twice about making good on their threats of violence and the misuse of their authority to punish people who merely speak out against misconduct.

We too stand with the author of Behind The Blue Wall and offer what support we can in the hope that it might be enough to disuade further abusive retaliation against her for simply advocating for the victims of officer-related domestic violence.

From The Mailbag - WTO 9th Anniversary

Clips from a video by Paul Richmond of the WTO protest showing an officer pull a protester's head up by the hair and then pepper-spraying him at point-blank range in the face.

Received an email yesterday from attorney Paul Richmond reminding me that it, yesterday, was the ninth anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle. Attorney Richmond, for those who don't know, is an area lawyer who gives presentations on how to videotape police activities at protests and was a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) during the WTO protests who is now contemplating a run for congress in 2010.

Along with his reminder he's put up some previously unreleased footage he captured from the WTO protests. In one video he shows the police launching tear gas at protesters long before any cases of property damage, that was often cited as the reason for the gassing, had occurred.

Then, in another video, he shows officers spraying canisters of pepper spray directly into the faces of seated protesters at point-blank range after pulling their heads up by their hair to get a clean shot at their eyes.

While such footage he shared can be disturbing, some of the most egregious abuses came later where cameras couldn't see it and where lawyers couldn't document it, in the King County Jail. Here there were reports of people being strapped to a restraint chair, nicknamed "The Devil's Chair" by jail officers, to have their eyes swabbed with chemical spray as a means of punishment and stories of protesters forcibly stripped in their cells for complaining about conditions.

Just as what happened to protesters at the DNC in St. Paul, Minnesota showed that police tactics haven't improved much since then, the jails have both shown that the same holds true for them as well.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch For 10-22-08

Today is October 22: The 13th Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality

Wear black today in support of police brutality victims.

For a list of events near you, click the link above.

Chicago's Torture Squad Leader Finally Arrested
The infamous Jon Burge of Chicago PD's torture squad of Area 2 who has long been accused of being responsible for the torture of up to 122 people in efforts to coerce false confessions by electrocution and other means, has finally been arrested 26 long years after he had first been accused of such horrendous crimes. He now stands accused of two counts of Obstruction and one count of perjury that may land him in prison for up to 45 years. The wheels of justice, when they move at all, move slowly... so long as there are those who are dedicated to moving them.

Falsely Imprisoned Man Demands Justice After 5 Years Behind Bars
A Lee Summit Missouri man who spent 5 years behind bars on false child molestation charges that were made up by a Lee Summit detective and his ex-wife that the detective was dating, stood up in a city council meeting and demanded to know why that officer has never been disciplined for it.

Officer's Accused Of Brutal Beating Death Have Been Sued For Misconduct Before
Suffolk County NY officers who face a federal civil rights suit over the beating death of Kenny Lazo had been the subject of other lawsuits in the past. An independent autopsy reported Lazo died after being choked and bludgeoned by a flashlight for a prolonged period of time while cuffed while his face was resting on a hard surface.

Officials Blame Good Samaritan For Her Own Mistreatment
School officials blame the girl who intervened to break up a fight for being thrown to the ground by a school security officer in the now well known video seen on the national news. This would seem to contradict most good Samaritan laws though.

Police Union Distributes Disturbing Election Fliers
A Richmond Police Officers Association's election campaign efforts in California raises uproar over what activists decry as a "blatantly racist" mailers espousing the police unions position on this year's election. ACLU board member calls the police union fliers the most racist he's seen in his 10 years with the ACLU.

ACLU Study Finds Evidence of Racial Profiling
ACLU report alleges LAPD practices racial profiling against blacks and latinos, citing a rate of 4500 per 10000 field stops for minorities vs 1750 stops for whites. The LAPD responds that the study misses that they're doing better than they used to.

Police Department's Split With DEA Finally Explained
Previously reported split between Yakima Wa Police Dept and the DEA appears to be stem from sexual harassment and retaliation charges brought be a police officer against his DEA supervisor.

Officer Who Abused Police Dog Demands To Be Reinstated
North Carolina State Patrol is appealing a ruling by a state personnel commission that is forcing them to reinstate a trooper who was fired after it was found that he had kicked the police dog he was handling. Wouldn't that be considered as assaulting an officer?

Racism Rising In Seattle

James Bible, head of the Seattle-King County chapter of the NAACP, 

complains of racial profiling by Seattle Police in an interview with KING5 News.

My mother was an immigrant from a small Greek island who blessed me with bronze-colored skin and a rare blood disorder similar to sickle-cell that is only found in Mediterranean people. Yet, my father's grandfather immigrated from Finland and this combination appears to confound many, or at least those who are comfortable enough to ask me, bluntly, "So, what are you anyway?"... which ultimately leads to discussions of presumption and confessions that I was thought to be mixed, Hispanic, Native American, or something else...

Honestly, this has caused some problems for me, not just from when I was beaten by a gang of racists here in Seattle or when I've been yelled at by white people here about how "my people" are taking their jobs, but also as I was growing up in some more intolerant rural areas of Ohio. It was there where the only friends I had were black because the white kids didn't find me similar enough to their liking. So it was a learning experience for me that when I would stay with my best friend at his house and go to his family events or to his church that I was usually accepted and treated kindly even though I was lighter in color than everyone else there... even though he wasn't really welcomed at my house by my family.

It's not that he was outwardly told he wasn't welcomed. But there was obvious, at least what should have been to me, discomfort for everyone whenever I would bring him over... It wasn't that my family was outwardly racist, but they were inwardly tolerant of intolerance and it showed to others, but I suppose I chose not to see it.

But, after I grew older I found out that that inward tolerance of intolerance can easily change into outward bigotry when I had my father over for my son's birthday and he started making racist comments about a football game we were watching... I was stunned, and ultimately I told him he had to leave because I didn't want my children to be exposed to that from their own grandfather... and because It personally hurt me because I myself had to deal with intolerance as a child as well.

Now, lately, I've been hearing a lot of stories on the street about racist and neo-nazi groups that have been coming into Seattle more and more frequently. People would tell me about a group of middle-aged guys with SS pins and other racist paraphernalia walking around the downtown area trying to recruit kids and I've heard stories of the groups of kids with swastika patches hanging around the malls harassing people as well.

Then there were the stories in the news about racist and bigoted graffiti being spray-painted on cars, fences, and buildings closer to Seattle than the usual strongholds for racist groups, like Renton. There were news stories of hateful pamphlets and fliers being left in mailboxes and lawns as well... then came the attacks.

Stories were coming through about people being attacked due to their racial background and their sexual orientation more and more frequently in Seattle, but nobody is sure about how frequently because the police department didn't want to track those as "hate-motivated crimes". In fact, many in the GLBT community were starting to accuse the Seattle police of refusing to investigate hate crimes and cases of assaults that were motivated by homophobia and the NAACP was accusing the SPD of doing the same about race-based attacks. The SPD promised to do something about it but due to a lack of unified pressure from the community, that failed to materialize and hate crimes have increased.

Now, as things often do, the problem has gone to the next stage where the police themselves are now being accused of showing racial bias in their policing. Citizens interviewed by the news media are telling stories of police stopping minorities just because they have new clothes on the assumption that they had to have stolen them instead of buying them. Police also stand accused of picking out any minorities who might be among a group of whites and telling them they are garbage and not welcomed.

Bigotry, of course, is a weed that grows best in the soil of apathy and seeks to, as it's simple goal, to divide people from one another. It seeks to separate black from white, homosexual from straight, and anything that is different from that which is homogeneous. What I've seen in Seattle is that, while each group decries discrimination against it's own, they don't work together to decry the same when it happens to the other group.

In fact, oddly enough, my own experience is that when I've tried to reach out and offer my support to these groups of people I get rebuffed, as if my support isn't welcomed... not that this should be considered discriminatory, but it does divide us and, ultimately, it means that we are divided in our responses to bigotry in all it's forms... it means that bigotry has succeeded in it's goal of division.

The result is that events meant to draw attention to racial profiling by police, police brutality that targets minorities, and the refusal of the police department to consider homophobic assaults as hate crimes draw very small crowds and are ultimately ridiculed or ignored by the press and the city itself. So... ultimately... we only have ourselves to blame for allowing bigotry to divide us, even if that bigotry remains silently outside of ourselves or comes unspoken from within.

Sure, Seattle is becoming more friendly to racism and bigotry because of the influx of right-wing suburbanites drawn here by aggressive gentrification, but that is only part of the problem. There remains divides between us, spoken or not, that ultimately makes Seattle a more welcoming place for hate than most of us are ready to admit... and it really shouldn't surprise us now that racism and hate have found fertile ground in a city where we chose stand divided against it or to ignore it... just like I ignored it and speak out against it happening in my own family when I was younger... and that ultimately divided us too.

It's a shame, really, because you don't have to be only black, or white, or gay, or straight to be a victim of police misconduct or bigotry... but we still keep approaching it as if it is not everyone's problem when it really is.

Was October 22nd, 2007 The Last National Protest Against Police Brutality?

For a while now we've been tracking the demise of several police accountability activist sites and organizations and the trend appears to be fairly far-reaching and, as of yet, unexplained. The trend appeared to have culminated in the sudden shutdown of the long-lasting and very outspoken BadCopNews.com, a site that aggregated international stories of police abuses and misconduct which is now only partially available in archives. (this is also part of the reason why this site has started focusing more on national stories of misconduct, because nobody else is really doing that anymore.)

That the news of that shutdown came right before the crackdowns on police accountability activists and copwatch organizations in Minnesota ahead of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul definitely hightened my own awareness of just how perilous speaking out against police abuses can be in the US and leads me to wonder what happened to all the sites and activists that have gone silent this year since BadCopNews wasn't the only site to shut down this year. From what I have observered myself, there have also been at least 7 sites which have either been completely shutdown without a trace or have just stopped updating for several months now, half of which went down in the month of May, including Spokane Police Abuses which was also last updated in May.

But perhaps what is even more disconcerting now is that the national October 22nd Coalition, which organizes a national day of protest each October against police brutality and has close ties to the Stolen Lives Project which published "Stolen Lives: Killed By US Law Enforcement" that documents the lives of people who have died in encounters with police, has also appeared to have gone silent as well, throwing doubts on whether or not there will be a national protest against brutality on what would have been the 13th annual protest this year.

The national October 22nd Coalition site has not been updated since last year and several of the local affiliate sites have also gone silent, including Seattle's 1022 site and the Bay Area California site. The only site that still seems operational is the New York site but even there the plans for this year's march in NYC appear in doubt as specifics are listed as TBA.

Email messages left with the national and Seattle chapter have gone unanswered and the national hotline number forwards to an automated answering service that tells callers to contact the national office via email or directs you to their site for more information. There has been no word on why the organization, formed in 1995, might have disbanded, but there appeared to be no indications of any problems last year when protest marches appeared to go off without problems; unlike a 2003 incident where Seattle police revoked the group's permit to march which then prompted a civil suit that cost the city $47,500 in a 2006 settlement with the group.

There has been no indication of any other groups forming protests or organizing on a national or local level to protest on what is typically considered to be the national day of protest against police brutality this year, which appears to be quite a setback for police accountability activists and organizations everywhere.

UPDATE: Shortly after publication of this article we received a statement from the October 22nd Coalition's national office that states they are behind but still planning events for this year, though none are definite as of yet. Hopefully this is true... yet with 10/22 less than a month away I hope they will have enough time to coordinate their plans with other groups and activists.

Losing The Battle Against Police Misconduct

The photo above is of a Kentucky University journalism student, with press badge, being doused with chemical spray before he was arrested. Note that it's clear he, the only one in range with a camera, is being intentionally targeted by the officer. The photo was taken by Matthew Rourke of the Associated Press, who was also arrested shortly after taking this photograph.
-source: The Kentucky Kernel

Slowly, but steadily, we are losing the battle against police misconduct.

The number of cases of misconduct appear to be growing...
Yet efforts to enact accountability reforms are constantly under attack by police organizations and grow more ineffectual each day as new loopholes in current accountability systems are discovered and abused.

Police unions and other organizations designed to increase the influence of the police in the political arena are growing rapidly in number and in strength...
Yet the number of citizen activists and organizations that deal with police misconduct issues are diminishing in number and in ability to talk freely about abuses.

New laws are continually being enacted to protect the police from charges of abuse and to keep the public in the dark about cases of misconduct, yet activists and the press continue to have access to disciplinary information restricted and their voices censored.

If all of this wasn't bad enough, then came St. Paul Minnesota where at least 9 journalists and photographers were detained so far this week while covering the police response to protests and several other journalists and police misconduct activists were detained and/or subjected to "preemptive" raids.

While those who were targeted in those raids have continued to cover police activities as best they can, the implications of these intimidating tactics and the arrest of credentialed journalists have sent a chill over all who try to cover police misconduct issues and act as advocates for victims of police brutality. It appears to signal a new chapter in the story of constant battle to improve accountability, the use of direct police action against critics by the police without any second thought to adverse public perception or civil rights abuse charges.

Even before these ominous actions were undertaken against those who dared to speak out against brutality and report about corruption, many have had to deal with more subtle forms of intimidation and threats by police officials and government agencies which have already taken their toll on the number of people who are willing to stand up and speak out about civil right and human rights abuses in the US.

In fact, several sites and organizations that cover police brutality have grown silent without any explanation in recent months. Most recently, just last month in fact, one of the most outspoken voices against police misconduct, BadCopNews, suddenly went quiet after posting volumes of information and stories of abuses in the US, at an average of at least a dozen stories of misconduct a day since 2001 in fact.

I've counted at least 6 other sites and organizations that have gone quiet this year alone, and I fear the actual number is likely much higher. While we can only speculate about the reasons why these citizen journalists and activists go silent, it's reasonable presumption that it has much to do with the intensive harassment such writers receive from the police, and not just the police departments that they normally cover.

This site itself, in fact, has been harassed by police organizations and officers from across the US, with messages ranging from illegitimate threats of legal action to outright threats of bodily harm and/or death if the site's writer, me, ever came to their town. Sadly, I'm not alone in that as I know of at least 5 other writers that have had to deal with similar threats, one of whom suddenly disappeared without a trace in July.

Things were already looking grim before those events of this week shattered the perception that, perhaps, our best chance at avoiding the possibility of such threats against us being acted on would hinge on us continuing to speak out about abuses, to continue to be seen and visible. It's now clear that this isn't the case as many of the journalists and activists who were arrested haven't even been mentioned in the media and experienced abuses and denials of medical care while imprisoned.

These are frightening times, if any readers wonder why I devoted so many posts to what was happening all the way out in Minnesota, consider this... if the police there can get away with doing that to credentialed members of the press, imagine what police anywhere in the US could get away with doing to one of us.

Don't get me wrong, I don't plan on voluntarily going under, if I am silenced it will be against my will, as I'm sure is true for those brave people still covering the protests in St.Paul as well. But I do want people to think about just how grave what happened in St. Paul this week really is. I want people to understand just how dangerous of a risk it is that the voices raised against police abuses are in danger of being silenced like this...

After all, if none are left to speak out about such abuses, just think how much worse those abuses are going to get.

Police Target Anti-Brutality Groups Ahead Of Convention

An interview with Michelle Gross of Communities United Against Police Brutality

Among the numerous reports of several politically motivated raids taking place over the weekend in Minnesota to preemptively disrupt groups planning on protesting the Republican National Convention was this story of an anti-police brutality activist who's documents were ransacked back at her home while she was detained elsewhere in one of the questionable raids.

While it's clear that at the very least Michelle Gross, of Communities United Against Police Brutality, was the victim of a burglary. But because nothing of any real value was stolen during the burglary and it was clear that documents and photographs stored in her garage and car were rifled through while she was detained at a meeting of activists planning to protest the convention, so she strongly suspects that the police did it.

Given the kinds of things police have said to me about what I do here and what they would like to do to me, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt her... and it's pretty damn frightening seeing how our civil liberties in this nation are being trampled. But, both her and her husband have both said they won't let this form of intimidation stop them from participating in the protests and documenting any police misconduct.

To add some degree of credibility to the claim that police in Minnesota are targeting police misconduct activists and reporters, police also raided the house of a journalist who was hosting members of I-Witness, a group of journalists and citizens that monitor police misconduct from New York. Police handcuffed and detained several of the reporters for hours and other journalists watched from a backyard next door while police searched through the group's documents and video equipment. In addition to that raid, police also detained two more I-Witness reporters elsewhere with no reason given for the detention.

Here was the statement issued by the I-Witness group as the raid was taking place:

IMC-US , Aug 30, 2008 @ 20:20 GMT
From: I-Witness Video


This is Eileen Clancy, one of the founders of I-Witness Video, a NYC-based video collective in St. Paul to document the policing of the protests at the Republican National Convention.


The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.

...For those that don't know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004
success.

We are asking the public to contact the office of the St. Paul mayor to stop this house arrest, gross intimidation by police officers and the detention of media activists and reporters.


- Eileen Clancy

When police are brazen enough to do something like this, to target reporters and groups that monitor police activity, you really have to start think that they plan to do some pretty brutal things to anyone who dares to protest during the convention. Both groups see this as a form of preemptive intimidation ahead of the event but still pledge to stay and document any cases of abuse or misconduct that they see. However, having now been identified by the police, I fear they will be the first targets for any brutality that the police decide to unleash next week.

...I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

UPDATED 8/31/08

New Poll and Stuff

As you can see above, there's a new poll. I'm trying to figure out how to better serve as an advocate for victims of police misconduct and detainee abuse, so I figured I'd ask our readers for help. It's a multiple choice poll, so you can pick more than one answer... though, as you can see, a few police officers visiting from the city's network address chose an option that they'd like to see happen here, which is me arrested for speaking out. (big surprise, huh?)

An interesting aside about one of those items, more legal information, victim support, etc... One of the most visited pages on our site is the misconduct attorney contact page that gives victims and their families a list of civil rights attorneys in the Seattle area that they can contact. Well, we've been hearing rumors that there has been a sharp increase in the number of suits filed against the city alleging police misconduct, so many in fact that the mainstream news outlets have stopped covering it because it's become so common.

Also, we've heard that since there are so few civil rights lawyers that serve the Seattle area that they're backlogged and can't take many more clients. So, if you do use the misconduct attorney contact page, make sure you follow our advice. Contact several of them, not just one. You might get turned down a few times, so keep trying. Since the city can't seem to enact policies that will help prevent misconduct and bring accountability to the department, and since the news media has stopped covering these issues, the only hope to enact change is through the city's pocketbook.

Take care out there.

He Asks For A Link...

Stills from a video of a
Knoxville Jail guard beating a mentally ill
jail detainee while restrained in a "Devil's Chair".

I had comment in response to this post today. He stopped by to tell me that he believes me and to tell me about his story... and then all he asks is this:

I'd love a link from your website...just to help make people aware...and I'd be glad to link to you too...it's horrible...it needs to be stopped...you are helping...

You see, he's a victim of torture and was strapped into one of the infamous "Devil's Chairs" just like the ones used here in the King County Jail and many other jails in the nation. This restraint chair has been abused by corrections officers all over the nation, as is well documented here, and is still in use today in many county facilities, jails, and juvenile detention centers, where prisoners are still tortured as they were in King County, by guards pepperspraying inmates and then strapping them in without decontaminating them, beating them, or worse... many have even died from this kind of sadistic torture, I'm sad to say.

...and it saddened me to read this person's difficult attempts to find justice after he had been the victim of this devil's chair in Minneapolis.

All he wants from me is a link, I wish I could give him more than that. I wish I could give him justice, give him peace, do more than tell him I believe him and that I know how it feels to relive that torture every day in your mind... day after day. I know how it feels to be denied justice, to feel so isolated just for being tortured in a nation that decries torture occuring in other nations but turns a blind eye to those they torture here within their own borders.

I wish him luck, I wish him peace, and I sincerely hope he finds justice someday... and I hope there is solace in knowing that he is not alone, even though I know he wishes, as do I, that there weren't others who have been through what we have been through... who have been tortured in America and ignored, villified, threatened, and left without a way to find peace... just because we are victims of torture who dare to speak out.

Hopefully, together, we may yet stop the torture... yet for now, we can only hope and keep trying. And I hope that my words bring him some small solace at least.

Here is his site:

www.stoptorture.us

Please help us, before you become us... Stop the torture now.

About that advice...

Last month I posted some advice based on one of the steps I take to address my own concerns for my personal safety in regards to my own justified fear of police retaliation. Being that I always have my cellphone on me and a number I know will be recorded on speed dial.

For those who may have thought that it wasn't good advice or a serious suggestion, I ask you to check this story out.

Last February Irshad Amhed was stopped by officers in the Entertainment District. Police smashed his car window, tasered him and dragged him and his passengers out of the vehicle before charging him with resisting arrest. But Amhed is fighting that charge, and he has some strong evidence on his side. Amhed called his lawyer after he was stopped by police and ended up capturing the stormy incident that followed on his attorney's voicemail.

Now, you may say to yourself that statistically it's unlikely that you're going to encounter one of Seattle's abusive cops... but, by simply having your cellphone with you at all times and a phone number that you know will be recorded, like a lawyer's, on speed dial you can greatly improve your chances of prevailing in a case against police misconduct or brutality.

Don't rely on your camera or cellphone camera if it doesn't send video or images directly to another site because police can and probably will erase it. Also, make sure you don't gesture aggressively with the phone or else an officer might shoot you.

If such little effort and forethought can only help, why take the risk of an unprepared encounter with an aggressive and unaccountable cop?

Be careful out there, people.

Video of a Central District Traffic Stop

Someone at Normgregory.com posted a video taken of a traffic stop in the central district. While I agree that dispatching 6 SPD cruisers to pull over an elderly man for a traffic violation and then arresting him seems like overkill to me... (some witnesses stated the police made him come out at gunpoint).

at least one of the officers was good enough to walk over to the spectators and person taking the video to answer their questions about what was going on in a rather polite manner. Past incidents (especially this violent one) indicate that they are more incline to arrest people who photograph or videotape them making arrests.

The SPD needs more officers like that if they want to improve their poor relationship with the citizens of this city... but they can only do so much to repair the damage done by overkill displays like that.

Thanks for being diligent and taking that video, keep up the great work!