Intro: "From Naomi Wolf's arrest in New York to shootings in Tucson and Florida, forces face allegations of abuse of power."
NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, Occupy Wall Street, Day 8, 09/24/11. (photo: jamie nyc/flickr)
Police Brutality Charges Sweep Across the US
22 October 11
From Naomi Wolf's arrest in New York to shootings in Tucson and Florida, forces face allegations of abuse of power.
fficer Michael Daragjati had no idea that the FBI was listening to his phone calls. Otherwise he would probably not have described his arrest and detention of an innocent black New Yorker in the manner he did.
Daragjati boasted to a woman friend that, while on patrol in Staten Island, he had "fried another nigger". It was "no big deal", he added. The FBI, which had been investigating another matter, then tried to work out what had happened.
According to court documents released in New York, Daragjati and his partner had randomly stopped and frisked a black man who had become angry and asked for Daragjati's name and badge number. Daragjati, 32, and with eight years on the force, had no reason to stop the man, and had found nothing illegal. But he arrested him and fabricated an account of him resisting arrest. The man, now referred to in papers only as John Doe because of fears for his safety, spent two nights in jail. He had merely been walking alone through the neighbourhood.
The shocking story has added to a growing sense that there are serious problems of indiscipline and law-breaking in US police forces. Last week the feminist author Naomi Wolf was arrested outside an awards ceremony in Manhattan. She had been advising Occupy Wall Street protesters of their rights to continue demonstrating outside the event. Instead, as she joined the protest, she was carted off to jail in her evening gown. That incident is only the most high-profile of many apparently illegal police actions around the protests. One senior officer, deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, created headlines worldwide when he pepper-sprayed young women behind a police barricade.
A report from the New York Civil Liberties Union recently looked at police use of Taser stun guns in the state, and revealed that in 60% of incidents where they were used, the incident did not meet the recommended criteria for such a weapon. Some cases involved people already handcuffed and 40% involved "at risk" subjects such as children, the elderly or mentally ill. "This disturbing pattern of misuse and abuse endangers lives," said the NYCLU's executive director, Donna Lieberman.
In Los Angeles, officers in the sheriff's department are accused of physically abusing some prison inmates and having sex with others. An internal report, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, revealed allegations that included beating people visiting relatives in jail. In Pittsburgh, there is the case of Jordan Miles, a high-flying high-school student stopped by three plainclothes policemen. Miles, 18 at the time, was walking to his grandmother's house and had no idea who the men were, as they did not identify themselves. He ran, but the officers caught him and beat him so badly that he ended up in hospital. He is undergoing neurological treatment for memory problems and has had to drop out of college.
Yet it was Miles who was charged with aggravated assault – a case that a judge later threw out. His mother, Terez Miles, said: "We are no strangers to police brutality in the city of Pittsburgh, but what they did was terrible and then they lied about it."
In Chicago, Jimmel Cannon, 13, was shot eight times by police who claimed that he had a BB gun in his hand. His family said that he had his hands in the air. In Tucson, Arizona, former marine Jose Guerena was killed by a Swat team on a drugs raid. They found nothing illegal, but Guerena was shot 23 times.
The list goes on. Miami is still dealing with the fallout of the fatal shooting of Raymond Herisse. He had been driving a car out of which police claimed gunshots came. However, it took three days before they produced a weapon. They also confiscated and destroyed the phones of people trying to record the incident.
"There is a widespread, continuing pattern of officers ordering people to stop taking photographs or video in public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply," said Chris Calabrese, of the American Civil Liberties Union. Campaigners say the spread of camera phones is why so many incidents of brutality are appearing.
In another recorded call, Daragjati complained to a friend: "I could throw somebody a beating, they catch me on camera, and I'm fired." Some activists have taken that to heart. Diop Kamau, a former officer, runs the Florida-based Police Complaint Center, which investigates allegations of police abuse nationwide. "Police are now facing an onslaught of scrutiny because everyone has a cellphone," he said.
Kamau said that many police departments still had a culture of secrecy and many officers believed that there was little likelihood of punishment even if caught. "The police fill in the blanks. They say what happened and they will be believed," he said.
One weakness is that there is no central organisation for the police, and local departments do not release data on complaints or allegations of abuse. "The problem is that there is an absence of research," said Professor John Liederbach, an expert in American policing at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. As the list of complaints and incidents grows, that might be about to change.
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Comments
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The young woman (turns out she's seventeen) came up to me at Occupy Colorado Springs, and begged for help. The night before (one OWSer later said she was high on drugs), she and two young men had left OWS protest, and gone to a nearby motel to get out of the cold.
The next mid a.m., she became curious and scared as a woman across the street stood staring at their room for a long time. The girl approached her, was raged at by the woman who, with no reason given, said she was calling 911.
Shortly thereafter, the girl was face down on the bed, her hands handcuffed behind her, and, as the two young men watched in horror, was Tasered six times.
She ended up in the E.R., where her parents came to help her. No citation, ticket, or advisement of rights was ever given to her.
I took her to the nearby weakly newspaper (the C.S. Independent), where photos were taken of her Taser burns and bruised wrists.
The assembled OWSers, taken over, to their dismay, by a questionable 'leader', were dismayed to hear her story, the same story that the 'leader' had minutes earlier refused to hear me tell. No big suprise here in the super fusion center of the country, where countless justice and peace organization have been infiltrated by govt. operatives, and rendered useless.
The young girl came up to me at Occupy Colorado Springs, and plead for my help. She and two young men OSW'ers had left Acacia Park due to the cold, and rented a room in a closeby motel. An OWSer later told me the girl appeared 'high' on some kind of dope. Whatever...
The next a.m., the girl watched as their motel room was surveilled by a woman standing across the street. After the woman had not moved for a long time, the girl crossed the street, asked if something was wrong, and received a raging "I'm going to call the police."
Touching the woman's hand that held the cell phone in order to reassure her, the girl was shocked when the woman pushed her away and began dialing 911.
Within a few minutes, the girl lay face down on the bed in the motel room, her hands handcuffed behind her. As the two young men she'd shared her room with watched, the police Tasered her at close range six times. She was then taken to the E.R., where her parents came to help their 17 yr. old. No ticket or citation was ever given her by the bad cops, or any advisement of rights.
I took her to the close by C.S. Independent, where photos we taken.
This is America, we have a right to protest peaceably, it's in the Constitution.
NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN!!
They already have armored vehicles look at the Riot Police that are armed to the teeth and harass all that are trying to express their rightful opinions.
Quote:
As Herr Bush said not so many years ago,"The Constitution is nothing but a goddamn piece of paper" If the highest elected official in the country can desert from the military, hide the fact and the facts that he was a druggie and a deserter and a charlatan. Also, to have an entire Political Party Stand at his side after his total disregard and disrespect of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the very same documents that he took several Oaths to Support and Defend is to me total treason. These people, even the lowest Republican feels that they all are above the law and that their retarded interpretation of History and the Law is Holy. You are up against self centered insanity, plain and simple.
Quote:I think that there should be open season on everyone who believes as they do, At the rate that they are going that will not be too far in the future. Revolution looks like it's is just around the corner, and the Tree of Liberty is getting very thirsty
@maheanuu: Please read: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
In 2006, the source of that quote (Capitol HIll Blue) retracted the article purporting that GWB said that.
The problem we face when quoting those who quote others is that the likelihood of distortion or fabrication increases. We should not allow ourselves to behave or parrot the behaviors of the supporters of the oligarchy.
Fact checking is tedious but important if we want to maintain the higher ground.
Below is a quote from http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=Why-I-Pledge-Allegiance-to-by-Tom-Loret-110324-497.html&c=a
"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
I've talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper." [38]
So which is it gonna be, either Doug is a liar or a coward, or both... I will take word of OPED News over Capitol Hill Blue any day of the week or hour of the daY!
Op Ed News to me is a hell of a lot more honest than a Right wing rag that wants support from the repigs...
True, but there are still some people who are Republican because their families were, or they are squeamish with democratic policy that they do not understand, and then they are reinforced by others around them. Which is why I think that it is high time that America is educated about the truth.
I can remember in the 1960s that the first thing done at any demonstration was a flyer that would be handed out to passers-by with a few facts (such as who was making plastic shrapnel, etc.). We have the facts, but the flyers today are often internet that is ignored. So, one project that needs to be done is to consider how to educate. Door to door? youtube, twitter, etc.? something else? all of the above and more? I have often wondered how to reach some people I know. In the 1930s, the game of Monopoly was invented to teach people that once one player owns the Boardwalk and Park Place, nobody else has a chance to win. It educated a lot of people back then, although lots of people didn't get the sarcasm that greed actually killed the economy on the players' board. But others got the point big time. Anybody invent games?
The movie "Idiocracy" may be the most important movie produced in recent years. It is supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek comedy but it is so prophetic it is scary. Because of our technological advances we have this belief that we are smarter than all of the generations before us but this is deceptive as we have a less open, free thinking & solution solving society overall.
cont'd
This from that "goddammed piece of paper" that W. disdained, that we all should be living by, and that those of us who have been activists, peacefully demonstrating against injustices for many years, have used as our guiding light (the enhancements are mine):
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
BUT when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, IT IS THEIR DUTY, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
The Declaration of Independence July 1776
Let's sweep the country clean of all unjust rule. We have a right, nay, a mandate to do so.
Onward OWS!! And as Barbara K always says: NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN!
This from that "goddammed piece of paper" that W. disdained, that we all should be living by, and that those of us who have been activists, peacefully demonstrating against injustices for many years, have used as our guiding light (the enhancements are mine):
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
BUT when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, IT IS THEIR DUTY, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
The Declaration of Independence July 1776
Let's sweep the country clean of all unjust rule. We have a right, nay, a mandate to do so.
Onward OWS!! And as Barbara K always says: NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN!!
A-A-A-MEN!
30 years ago citizens in many cities declared they were more afraid of the cops than the bad guys. First I heard that was in Birmingham and then New Orleans, and that was not due to just racial issues.
Democrats have done little to stop the increasing militarization of police or the brutality, so blame both parties.
We need to organize and make sure those who don't have ID's can get them.
George Carlin was right, we are merely pawns in the RICH, CORPORATE MAN's games!
@in deo veritas: Your analogy has fatal implications. I would rather imagine a situation where the pawns decide not to play. As the old peace adage goes "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"
The "Kings" only have power because the pawns allow themselves to be manipulated by the fear and propaganda spread by the elite.
Our world will change for the better when each of us assume responsibility for how we conduct our lives instead of following the orders of those who would use us for their own benefit.
No, it will be "We three kings of orient are" bearing gifts to the disenfranchised . The kings will have usurped the old model Chess game and recaste it, because the old was destructive of human potential. Their gift? A new modality guided by egalitarian and humane considerations. The hope? The new game will further energize a rising consensus on ethics and universal participation.
The specific behavior of police against OWS is a matter of "haves" vs. "have nots" (the 1% vs. the 99%), because corporations are huge contributors to police-related interests.
The general problem of police brutality, though, is the same culture of power that has plagued military and quasi-military organizations for as long as they have existed. As this story implies, there's probably no rise in brutality, just in our ability to prove its existence by recording individual occurrences.
The police are playing right into the 1% hands [as well as vacuous minions like Governor Walker] - pay the blue to come down hard on OWS and other citizen groups. This will turn public sentiment against police, so later--- when 1% goes for round 2 to kneecap union rights and further guts public services at state level--- public will recall mostly the shameful, vicious brutality of those who 'protect and serve'.
It's just not going to happen until enough people complain and the "system" changes to protect us from the lawless police.
Now, all that being said, its my feeling that most police are not going to molest anyone's' cell phone, and that the few who will, could be isolated and removed from the ranks of the honest police.
Jack Lohman
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net
atmosphere of "homeland security" ... a certain precursor to fascist muzzling of dissent. Shades of Himmler, to be sure.
Having spent over 25 years in the US Navy, I saw a lot of the Bullies who back in the 50's and 60's when the MAA"s were am assigned duty and not a Rate, begging for that duty as it opened up the door to corruption and bullying. Sure there were those who were honest and straight but then there were those who were nothing more than scumbags... I cannot tell you about today as I retired out in the 70's but all things considered I would be willing to bet not much has changed.
And the 1 percent are trying a new tactic: In a local newspaper, there was a story this week about some National Guard going to Afganistan: their commanding officer told them, "You are the 1 percent." So, the fact that the people who serve in the military are only a small percentage of Americans (mostly poor, not the rich), the rich are trying to get these military to identify with them. And a lot of these military are Republican, for some reason. We need to reach out to them, and let them know that they are entirely a different kind of 1 percent, and that the protesters are not elite who are getting the education the military can't afford.
Without TRANSPARENCY, and ACCOUNTABILITY, there can be NO Democracy.
Police are supposedly representing the rights of the people, but the reality is they are not. When we saw NYPD off-duty cops being paid by Wall Street to bust protesters because even in "off-duty" status they can arrest, that should have opened eyes. But, did it?
Saddest part of it all is that the police are part of the 99%! So why do they abuse their own people?
For several reasons:
First they are mean-spirited, and we could collectively write a Doctoral Thesis on how that happens.
Second, they were raised by a father to be Republicans - with all of the negativity that entails - and have not found their own intellect enough to start questioning what they have been taught.
Third, because they have been listening to Rupert Murdoch (Rush Limbaugh, etc.) owned AM Radio and FOX News.
And last - I'll bet you can add a bunch of other bad reasons for their sociopathic behavior.
Like steroid use, which lets them look tougher, but also produces a "bad attitude" in the users.
For the past decade people have been talking about it but now they see what having no rights, due process or law on the the side of the people really means. And now our for porfit prison hope to capture as many as they can as corporations are writing all our laws.
Perhaps we will finally see what a horrible state our nation is in. They have created a very repressive police state where abuses will continue to increase as the top, the corporations and military are protected. Its a real horror show folks. They have chewed up our Democracy and spit it out. We should all fight this state of affairs because it will sooner or later touch all of us. It is now us fighting for our rights and ability to surivie. We are in a serious crisis and god help us if the TP and GOP take over everything!
Paul Harris
Author, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina"
Any ideas?
So funny: John Lewis shows up in all his glowing splendor to tell this horde of
young, new wave thinkers all about his special version of the wondrous old
days. "Just like the 60's" he exclaims.
Well not exactly: I mean, the air lacks the sweet marijuana bouquet I remember, and no signs of free love or LSD.
No, it is not the "Peace and Love" 60's; however, it looks like, to me, this young bunch is in position to succeed where we failed.
Poor, rejected Congressman Lewis may have heard "who has time for that old fart" and decided retreat would be the better part of valor. Thus he left the
Field-of-Battle, in his extra shiny Chariot, for the comfort of telling his tale to a media slavering for any tidbit on the event. Of course, the media welcomes him with open arms; making him feel ever so good and ever so richer.
As an oldster, I stay out of the way and simply pass along my handouts.
If asked, I say: No matter how chummy "99%" you get with police and military,
when the order to fully control you comes, their "us against them" mentality
will prevail beyond anything you want to believe.
The Washington "think-tank" people have seen you coming for a long time and they plan to control the old fashion way: With complete and totally unadulterated force.
They will attack with vicious ferocity. Expect beatings, lots of mace, tasers, shock bombs, dogs, live ammunition, and on and on.
Believe me, they will do this. I can only tell you what Dr. King taught us. No violence. When they attack: role into a fetal position and find that special place in your mind where you know you have the power to endure.
Screams and moaning excites your attackers even beyond the frenzy they are already in. Do your best to hold back.
Understand, these, so called "professionals" attacking you are only trained to attack all out.
They will be hyped up with massive doses of their own adrenalin and will make edgy snap judgments that can kill you. Here, you have no choice. You are not capable of out-violencing them. You must follow the ways of Dr. King and do as I say.
Please, live to fight another day.
Other than that, all I can tell you is: Most of what we did failed. You are on your own to craft new thinking.
True, the non-violent tactic gave us a lot of mileage; however, only because the adversary was fairly civilized.
I mean, had we been under Roman rule, the Roman's would have simply killed any naysayer along with his family, friends and neighbors non-violent or not.
Sadly, today, our Great Nation is reverting more and more to that power mad Roman mentality; simply look at how we murder people with drones. Drones have no more humanity than Roman legions sent to kill an adversary and everyone else nearby.
Sooo..., my new-found "new wave" thinker friends, you better be thinking a lot faster if, this time, we really are going to outrun greed and power.
Firstly, one sentence in the article reads: "The shocking story has added to a growing sense that there are serious problems of indiscipline and law-breaking in US police forces." To that I can only shake my head and say that if this sense of serious problems is only growing now, then someone's been sleep walking for fifty years.
Secondly, someone above said something about never voting republican. Until the average American sucker wakes up and realizes that none of his/her problems have anything to do with domestic partisan politics, he/she is abgefuckt.
It's the system, junior. And even if it wasn't always the system (it was), the last 30 years has seen a total and successful coup d'état in US and any pretense even of these ideals we think we think we believe in are shattered for good. Anyone who is still engaging with any sense of seriousness in the US political charade has had their cheese slide off their bread.
Think criminal gangs and gang chieftains and then understand who the police work for and at the very least, you won't be surprised any more.
While there are still some cops that the public at large would not fire, they have become a minority. As I discuss in detail on one of my facebook articles, psychopaths naturally migrate to jobs where they can practice their insanity. They have become, more often than not, prostitutes for the jurisdiction that hired them.
Cops don't need to use phony radar guns in Oregon to steal from a motorist. They just completely fabricate a charge then commit perjury in court. The conspiring judge will make sure there were no witnesses in the vehicle before their complicity in the theft. It doesn't even matter that a charge completely violates the laws of physics.
It's also those running the show--governors , mayors who are advocating violence toward the protesters.
Stop it please. The point here is not about aberrant behaviour or outrageous people. Cops will all wish to hang on to their jobs, regardless of how distasteful things may be. A lot of NY cops were appalled by the behaviour of the baton wielding 'white shirt' cops in NY recently, but they didn't do anything to stop their superiors, did they? Yet had the mob fought back, they would have diligently struggled to arrest anyone in sight.
Most of the people who fought for the German war machine were nice fellows also. It's kind of not the point, if you know what I mean. I haven't seen a lot of NY cops joining the OWS movement, have you?
And, albeit that a handful may be bad, the majority of the rest will group around their own to protect them. That makes them accomplices. Remember Serpico's story.
When women learn and teach Menstrual Extraction (safely removes the fertilized egg and can be done at home in a self-help group of trusted friends), women can ignore anti choice laws. Then the bearing of children (or not) will once again be in the hands of women.
sisterzeus.com and read A Woman's Book of Choices to TAKE back your body from those who relegate women to the status of farmed animals-who also are forced to bear young against their will.
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