The People's Record

Atlanta residents throw bricks, hammers at police cars over police brutality caught on video
April 10, 2013

Authorities say a group of residents threw bricks, rocks and hammers at Atlanta police cars amid anger over a recent arrest in their neighborhood east of downtown.

The disturbance happened around 6 p.m. Tuesday because residents were upset about what some consider excessive force used during an arrest by police the day before, which was captured by cellphone video, police said. Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campus told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that officers used batons and pepper spray during Monday’s arrest.

Campos said about 50 people had gathered Tuesday to demonstrate, and officers were sent to monitor them before the items were thrown at their cars. The cars were damaged, but no injuries were reported.

“Some of the protesters set upon the officers, throwing items at them,” Campos told the newspaper. “We understand there were bricks thrown, hammers thrown, some rocks, different debris thrown at them, at their cars.”

Residents in the neighborhood feel like they are unnecessarily and excessively targeted by police patrols and frisking, said Marlon Kautz, a volunteer with a group called CopWatch of East Atlanta, which works with residents in the neighborhood in an effort to prevent police brutality.

Kautz said he arrived at the apartment complex Tuesday evening and saw police shoving and beating two people. He didn’t see anyone throwing bricks or hammers but said he doesn’t doubt it.

“It wouldn’t surprise me because I know the public here is completely outraged by what they see as a continuing pattern of police harassment and violence in this neighborhood. They don’t feel like they have any recourse,” he said.

The neighborhood has traditionally been a poor black neighborhood that has been gentrifying in recent years, which has caused housing prices to rise dramatically and has resulted in some residents being edged out, said Kautz, who has lived in the area for three or four years. The new residents who are moving in are concerned about crime in the area, and that has led to increased police patrols, he said.

Source

I can’t find a link to the video, but I’ll update this post if I see it. 

Grand jury rejects criminal charges in police murder of Robert Saylor, man with Down syndrome killed at movie theater in January
March 26, 2013

Less than five miles from the theater where a man with Down syndrome died at the hands of the law enforcement officials he idolized, a grand jury on Friday heard the details of the case and decided that no crime had been committed.

“They felt no further investigation was necessary,” Frederick County State’s Attorney J. Charles Smith said at a news conference outside the county’s courthouse.

Grand jury proceedings are secretive in Maryland, but Smith said that his office presented the jury with 17 witness statements and that three deputies involved in the death — Lt. Scott Jewell, Sgt. Rich Rochford and Deputy First Class James Harris — all testified.

An attorney for the parents of Robert Ethan Saylor, who died at the age of 26, described their reaction as “extremely disappointed and saddened and concerned.”

“This is a really hard day for them,” attorney Sharon Krevor-Weisbaum said. “They’re going to have to digest this unsettling news and determine their next step.”

Nationally, the case has drawn wide attention from parents of children with Down syndrome and advocacy groups. More than 1,000 angry messages also fill the Facebook page of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office.

Saylor was known for his hugs and was so fascinated with the police that he would sometimes call 911 just to ask a question.

In January, he and an aide watched “Zero Dark Thirty” at a Frederick movie theater. As soon as it ended, Saylor wanted to watch it again and would not leave the theater.

Officials say this is what happened next: The aide, an 18-year-old woman, was getting the car when a theater employee called the three off-duty officers, who were working security at the Westview Promenade shopping center, and told them that Saylor needed to buy another ticket or leave.

Smith, who would not go into great detail about the investigation, said that when the deputies confronted Saylor, he verbally and physically resisted their attempts to remove him. He said they restrained him using three sets of handcuffs because of his large size. Smith said that when the deputies placed Smith on his stomach, it was for “one to two minutes” and that once Saylor began showing signs of distress, the deputies removed the handcuffs, called for help and administered CPR.

Krevor-Weisbaum said that a witness heard Saylor cry out for his mother, who even though he didn’t know it, wasn’t far away. Alerted by someone to what was happening, Patti Saylor was on her way to the theater and was almost there, Krevor-Weisbaum said.

In February, the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore ruled Saylor’s death a homicide as a result of asphyxia. On Friday, Smith said that the report indicated that Down syndrome and obesity made Saylor more susceptible to breathing problems.

Krevor-Weisbaum said that Saylor had no ongoing health problems. She added that his parents had not seen the autopsy report, although they have requested it, along with all the files from the investigation. She said the family has been concerned that the investigation was handled by the same sheriff’s office that employs the deputies.

Since February, the deputies have been on paid administrative leave. An attorney for them said Friday that they welcomed the chance to testify and did so voluntarily.

“They’ve stood by patiently waiting for this day to come,” attorney Patrick J. McAndrew said. “This was an unfortunate set of circumstances. Each of these professionals, devoted law enforcement officers, did what was necessary under the circumstances, and they did what their training dictated that they do.”

Source
Photo courtesy of Emma Saylor

In other news about cops getting away with murder, no charges were brought against Officer Nick Bennallack who killed Manuel Diaz in Anaheim last summer because shooting an unarmed man was found to have been “reasonable & justified”.

The mother of a man killed by police in Anaheim held a protest after the officer who shot him was unjustly cleared of wrongdoing
March 21, 2013

Genevieve Huizar’s protest was planned for 9:30 a.m. Thursday in front of the central courthouse in Santa Ana. It comes a day after officials decided not to press charges against Anaheim Police Officer Nick Bennallack.

Manuel Diaz, 25, was unarmed when he was shot last July. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in its findings that officers recognized Diaz as a gang member who went by the nickname “Stomper.” He and two other men started running when they saw officers approach. Investigators said Diaz ignored commands to stop and appeared to reach into his waistband as though grabbing for a weapon.

Bennallack said he feared for his life and the life of his partner and fired his weapon. Authorities say Diaz was shot twice, including once in the head. It was later determined Diaz was not armed. His cellphone was found nearby.

OCDA investigators interviewed nearly 50 witnesses. After examining all of the evidence, investigators found Bennallack’s actions were justified and he acted in self-defense.

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No charges in police murder case that ignited Anaheim unrest
March 20, 2013

Officer Nick Bennallack was on a gang-enforcement patrol in the Anna Drive neighborhood on the afternoon of July 21 when he pulled up to a small group of men. Manuel Diaz, 25, a convicted gang member, bolted, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office concluded.

The officers gave chase, down an alley and into the front yard of an apartment house. There, Bennallack fired two shots, one hitting Diaz in the back-right side of his head, the other hitting him in his right buttock, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

The police association said shortly after the shooting that officers saw Diaz pull something from his waistband and turn. Diaz was found to be unarmed; investigators found a cell phone registered to Diaz, as well as the two ammunition cartridges from Bennallack’s gun and a drug pipe, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Diaz’s mother, Genevieve Huizar, said she plans to stage a demonstration Thursday morning in front of the courthouse in Santa Ana.

“This is completely unjustified,” Huizar said. “The D.A. appointed himself the judge and jury for this officer. I’m never going to stop fighting until Nick Bennallack is in prison.”

Huizar has sued Anaheim for $50 million. Her attorney, Dana Douglas, said several witnesses reported seeing Diaz hit first in the buttocks. He fell to his knees, she said, and then was hit in the back of the head.

The D.A.’s account of events and his decision not to file charges does not change anything about the family’s civil lawsuit, Douglas said.

“This is exactly the result we unfortunately expected,” she said.

Bennallack said in a statement to investigators that he fired because he thought Diaz had a gun and was about to shoot at him and the officer with him. The other officer, Brett Heitmann, told investigators that he heard Bennallack shout something like “Guhhh!” immediately before the shooting, which he took to be the start of a warning: “Gun!”

The District Attorney’s Office concluded that Bennallack believed he was in imminent danger of being killed by Diaz, Rackauckas said.

“It is our legal opinion that the evidence does not support a finding of criminal culpability on the part of Officer Bennallack,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner said. “There is significant evidence that the officer’s actions were reasonable and justified under the circumstances.”

At the time of the shooting, Bennallack was under investigation in an earlier fatal shooting at an Anaheim apartment building. The District Attorney’s Office cleared him in that unrelated January 2012 shooting a few months ago.

Bennallack is a five-year veteran and a department rookie of the year. He returned to duty two weeks after the shooting of Diaz, after officials reviewed preliminary results of their investigation.

On Anna Drive on Wednesday, few residents wanted to speak about the District Attorney’s Office’s findings, saying they were afraid to give their names after a gang sweep targeted the neighborhood last year.

But Margarita Flores, 42, who runs a produce truck on Anna Drive, said the officer should have faced charges.

“What he did was not right,” she said. “Those who were fond of (Diaz) are going to be mad – against the police, against everybody.”

The Diaz shooting touched off more than a week of unrest in Anaheim and helped expose deep and long-standing divisions in the city.

It started in the hours after the shooting, when residents who knew Diaz from the neighborhood gathered at the site, yelling at officers and demanding answers. Officers fired bean-bag rounds and pepper balls into the crowd at close range; a police dog charged into the crowd, toppling a baby stroller and biting at least one person.

Anaheim police Chief John Welter later apologized, saying the police dog broke loose from its handler.

A few nights later, after another fatal police shooting about which D.A.’s Office has not issued a report, a crowd estimated at 1,000 gathered in front of Anaheim’s City Hall, where a City Council meeting was under way. Some had come to demand greater accountability for police and a greater voice for neighborhoods such as Anna Drive. Others had come from outside of Anaheim to protest police brutality.

Scores of officers in riot gear confronted them and, when they would not disperse, fired pepper balls and bean-bag rounds at them. As the crowd scattered, a few people smashed windows and vandalized storefronts.

Source

Justice for Manuel Diaz, Kimani Gray & all other victims of police murder now!

anarcho-queer:

There will be an open assembly on Wednesday, March 20th @ 7pm and a ‘mass march’ next Sunday in East Flatbush to protest the killing of Kimani Gray. 

Oakland is also having a march in solidarity with NYC on Thursday. For more info, visit their event page on Facebook. 

BE THERE. REBLOG. DEMAND JUSTICE.

Police violence meets anti-police brutality protesters in Montreal
March 15, 2013

A few hundred protesters gathered at the corner of Ontario St. and St. Urbain St., just north of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal headquarters to protest against police brutality. The annual demonstration, now in it’s 17th consecutive year, started somewhat unusually, with the SPVM blocking every road leading out of the corner in an attempt to halt the march from beginning.

The demonstration was declared illegal almost immediately after its start around 5 p.m., due to organizers failing to provide an itinerary for the demonstration.

Arrests began when the crowd had yet to leave the square, resulting in a brief brawl and at least one injured protester.

As the police unblocked St. Urbain St., the crowd marched south but were forced to disperse into various groups—before making it one block down the road.

A few firecrackers were lit by protesters but the crowd was less violent than in previous years, when marches had quickly devolved into riots.

Different crowds throughout downtown were kettled, stopping the hundreds of protesters from ever regrouping. Police were reluctant to let any one out of the blockades.

For the next three hours the fractured demonstrations were broken up by SPVM officers blocking multiple street corners, forcing protesters into smaller groups, where they were then kettled and arrested.

Some protesters were released, though those who were not were identified and brought into busses to be taken to an undisclosed location.

Because of the immediate kettling, there was significantly less damage sustained than last year, when multiple store and car windows were smashed throughout the downtown core.

During one larger kettle, one injured SPVM officer was put into an ambulance on a stretcher, which elicited some cheers from the crowd. Many protesters were injured before, or during arrest, but as of now it is unknown as to how many injuries were sustained.

Last year’s demonstration saw 226 arrests. At press time, the Montreal police have announced more than 250 arrests took place Friday—most falling under article P-6, which bans the wearing of masks and requires protest organizers to provide the route of the demonstration.

Source

Interview: waging the fight for migrant justice from under a border patrol truck
March 13, 2013

As with many deportations, René Meza Huerta’s started with a traffic stop. The Tucson Police Department (TPD) had received a call about a suspected kidnapping of six children from a man who saw Huerta’s and his girlfriend’s children getting into the hatchback of their newly purchased 99 Mercury Cougar. TPD was searching for the car when they pulled Huerta over in the early afternoon of Sunday, February 17. After determining that no kidnapping had taken place, TPD officers asked Huerta for his driver’s license, a document he did not have. Deciding that they had probable cause to suspect Huerta was in the country without proper documentation, TPD called the Border Patrol (BP), which came to detain him.

This is a scene that plays out constantly in communities within 100 air miles of the US-Mexico border, the so-called “constitution-free zone” where BP has expansive powers of search and seizure. In Arizona, this is compounded by Senate Bill 1070 (also called SB 1070), the state’s infamous 2010 “show me your papers” law that was partially upheld by the US Supreme Court in June of 2011. Section 2(b) of the law, which was not struck down, requires all state law enforcement officers, “when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation,” when “reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States.”

There’s a lot about Huerta’s deportation that makes it totally unexceptional, most importantly that it resulted in the separation of yet another parent from his children. What sets it apart is that somebody tried to stop it: Raúl Alcaraz Ochoa, a day labor organizer with the Southside Worker Center and member of the migrant justice group Corazón de Tucson.

Ochoa’s decision to place himself under a BP truck to prevent the detention and likely deportation of Huerta was a bold act of civil disobedience and a tremendous personal risk. Ochoa, who was born in Mexico, is a legal permanent resident, meaning that he is subject to deportation if convicted of certain crimes. Ochoa’s and Huerta’s arrests sparked a 300-strong protest in front of TPD’s headquarters the next day, little more than 12 hours after the previous afternoon’s events. Attendees demanded the immediate release without charges of both men, an end to TPD/BP collaboration and a halt to all deportations.

Truthout interviews Raúl Ochoa below.

Murphy Joseph Woodhouse for Truthout: Could you give me a brief account of what happened and what you did the afternoon of Sunday, February 17?

Raúl Alcaraz Ochoa: I was biking from my home to a community meeting. About a block east of there, just as I was about to arrive at the meeting, I saw three Tucson Police Department vehicles that had pulled over a car to my left on a corner one street over. I walked my bike to the scene, and I saw that there was a man who was handcuffed and in the custody of the police officers. I approached the car and there were six kids inside, six children. They were scared; they were startled; they were crying. I approached René’s partner and she was crying and she really didn’t know what to do. She explained to me what had happened. She said that they got pulled over by the police and that [the police] had called the Border Patrol.

When she told me this, I took out my notebook and I started writing everything down: the time, the officers’ names, the patrol car numbers, just as much information as I could. An officer approached me; he was a sergeant. He asked me if I needed help. I immediately asked him, “Why did you call Border Patrol on this family?”

When I asked that, he said, “My officers are obligated and required to call Border Patrol because of SB 1070.” I responded to that, “You actually have discretion even within 1070. You only need call Border Patrol when practicable and if it’s not going to hinder another investigation.” And then he told me that they had received a call that René had abducted children and that’s why they had stopped him.

“So you mean to tell me that these children in the middle of the street crying for their father because you have him handcuffed - are you telling me that these children were abducted by him?” And then he said: “Well, no no no no. We determined, after the investigation, that that was not the case, that he was not abducting the children.”

“So why is he still handcuffed?” I asked. “Why is he under your custody?” That’s when he said that they had reasonable suspicion to believe that he was undocumented. Then I asked him to define what reasonable suspicion was and why René was reasonably suspicious. He refused to answer and threatened to have me arrested if I didn’t leave. I told him I wasn’t going to move because I was on a public sidewalk within a reasonable distance and I wasn’t interfering with any of his duties. Then the Border Patrol came onto the scene. It was one vehicle and one agent. Once the Border Patrol parked, I immediately thought “I’m going to get under the vehicle. I’m going to try to impede as much as possible them taking away this father away from his crying children.”

Once I got closer to the Border Patrol vehicle and I saw that the agent was walking toward the vehicle with René handcuffed, I immediately rushed in front of the vehicle and lay down on the ground and crawled underneath the vehicle. As soon as I did, the officers rushed up to the vehicle and screamed, “What the hell are you doing?” And then one of them grabbed me by the arm and then he let go like he was really confused and surprised. They didn’t know how to respond. When he let go of me, that’s when I crawled deeper underneath the car. The Border Patrol agents were taking pictures of me and I was taking pictures back. I was calling people, sending messages and telling people to come. Then the Border Patrol agent came up to me and said if I didn’t leave the area, if I didn’t get out from underneath the vehicle, then I would get felony charges for impeding the work of a federal agent. They threatened to pepper-spray and Taser me. Eventually they pepper-sprayed me to get me out, and then they dragged me on the concrete floor until we were in an area where they could handcuff me and take me away to the Border Patrol station. That’s where René and I were taken.

Why did you feel compelled to intervene?

I work with day laborers, with domestic workers, with mothers and fathers, and youth. On a regular basis I receive calls from people, friends, colleagues, coworkers, who tell me they have been stopped by the police and that they may potentially call Border Patrol. Sometimes I don’t even know that this happens until I get a call from somebody in detention who has been incarcerated. Police pull them over, stop them and then call Border Patrol. This happens on a regular basis. This is daily life in Tucson, Arizona, in one of the most militarized regions of the continent. I regularly hear about my community, my family members, my coworkers being taken, pulled over by police and then handed over to Border Patrol and disappeared from their communities: torn apart, family separation, community disruption taking place invisibly. I constantly deal with the effects of detentions and deportations and how they tear people and families apart. I have witnessed firsthand the effects of all of these injustices that take place.

After dealing with them from the time I was little and detained along with my parents when we were crossing over to the United States when I was young, all the way to my auntie getting her house raided by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, to working here in Tucson, Arizona, amidst SB 1070, and working with families and day laborers and them constantly getting pulled over, harassed and incarcerated, I felt like enough is enough. We do everything that we can; we document when abuse happens; we take pictures; we show videos. But at this point, seeing René being handcuffed in front of his six children, and his six children crying their eyes out and screaming for their father to be given back to them, and then just thinking that these are children who are possibly not going to have their dad with them this evening at home, comforting them, I felt like I needed to do something that was more than just document what was going on. I felt like I needed to put my body on the line to interrupt this detention from taking place. That’s what I felt needed to be done at the moment. I needed to do everything in my power to be able to attempt to stop this injustice that takes place due to unjust immigration and state laws.

In your view, what is the importance of direct action and civil disobedience in the context of the ongoing debate around immigration policy?

Currently, the only thing that can save us from the right-wing immigration reform debate is grassroots community organizing, direct action and civil disobedience. If there is no massive movement that resurfaces again, much like the DREAMers have done in the past and continue to do, if there isn’t a focus on strategizing around community organizing and direct action, then our movement is going to be hijacked and co-opted by the center-right tendencies of the big national Hispanic organizations that claim to represent us.

In the conversations around immigration reform, I believe it is key to demand a moratorium on deportation, ending detention and family separation, and a halt to the militarization of the US-Mexico border. To give voice to those demands, we are going to need to continue and escalate civil disobedience and direct action. In order to be able to amplify these messages and these demands that don’t have the mainstream appeal within the movement, I think we need to learn from the actions that the DREAMers have done, the UndocuBus, the civil disobedience that took place in North Carolina and along the journey to North Carolina, where undocumented people were speaking for themselves and making that sacrifice and taking that risk to come out of the shadows, undocumented and unafraid. That’s where the power lies.

It is up to people power, how much the people believe in their own power and act on that power to really create political pressure for an immigration reform that truly lives up to our visions of equity and liberation; an immigration reform that will be meaningful and that will include all of the 11 million people who are undocumented at the moment. Living under this deportation regime, I am not sure this can happen, but we must utilize all direct action tactics to make our undocumented dreams a reality.

Read more here

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A few may be above the influence, but the rest of us are getting crushed beneath it.