BLM

[poppy]

Independent Report Criticizes Aurora Police in Elijah McClain’s Death (Published 2021)

A panel commissioned by the City Council of Aurora, Colo., found “serious concerns” with an internal police investigation into the 2019 death of Mr. McClain.

www.nytimes.com

Independent Report Criticizes Aurora Police in Elijah McClain’s Death​

A panel commissioned by the City Council of Aurora, Colo., found “serious concerns” with an internal police investigation into the 2019 death of Mr. McClain.

...The report’s authors criticized Fire Department paramedics as slow to help the man, Elijah McClain, before injecting him with an improper dose of ketamine, a tranquilizer. Mr. McClain went into cardiac arrest on the way to a hospital. He died a few days later.

The panel also said that an investigation by local police detectives “raised serious concerns” for failing both to rigorously question the officers involved and to examine the circumstances of Mr. McClain’s death. In November 2019, three months after Mr. McClain’s death, the Adams County district attorney announced that criminal charges would not be filed, saying there was not enough evidence that the officers had broken the law when they used force on Mr. McClain....

 

[barnswallow]

I'm adding this opinion piece from WaPo dated 2.23.21. I got to the end and suddenly wondered, "Well. Now, what???" Is the investigation's report the end of the matter?

[Hold up... I didn't see that poppy had a link about this in her post... by chance my cursor passed over it after I'd written this... I'll post anyway, just cuz]

Opinion: The death of Elijah McClain was a scandal of incuriosity
oh. the wording of that title is a little weird, don't you think? I mean, his death? No, the lack of an investigation was the scandal of incuriosity:

The disturbing story of McClain’s death was nearly swept under the rug. But during last summer’s protests following the death of George Floyd, Aurora citizens tugged it into the light. Under pressure, the city council commissioned an independent panel of three experts to perform the investigation that should have been done months earlier.

"Audio from the devices caught something else: the sound of McClain sobbing, gasping apologies, pleading for mercy and vomiting as the officers applied various pressure holds and briefly pinched off his carotid artery."

Is blocking the carotid artery an accepted/taught police technique? Maybe I'm jumping too far, saying that. I am assuming that Chauvin, with the whole weight of his body pressing his knee onto George Floyd's neck, had the same physiological effect as the action of these officers in Aurora, Colorado, blocking blood supply to the brain along with preventing breath.

 

[poppy]

^^ Ugh, yes. It's all basically choke holds, which are supposed to be illegal. Then they gave Elijah all that ketamine, way too much for his body weight. The cops insisted that be done. They murdered that kid for absolutely no reason over a phone tip that he looked suspicious. Makes me sick.

 

[poppy]

Breonna Taylor settlement is among largest payouts linked to a police shooting | CNN

The $12 million settlement with Breonna Taylor's family is a historic move for Louisville, Kentucky, but across America it's the latest financial repercussion in a police misconduct case.

www.cnn.com

Maybe the money will send a message to these goons, or at least their superiors. Breonna Taylor's settlement of 12 million and George Floyd's 27 million are more than in the past. It's so awful.

 

[barnswallow]

Upsetting video footage. I hope we can enter a new era now and engage in police reforms. The idea of having different levels of emergency response sounds hopeful. I think that's one of the proposals on the table. Yet, there's an intractable issue of white supremacists in the police force. How to change hearts and minds?

The thing that gets me in this case is that Daniel Prude's own family called to ask for help and announced that this was a mental health issue. To see this man, hand cuffed and naked in the street, in the dark and rain, and the officers standing around idly for a while as he lies there, is to see someone treated as inhuman.

CBS News report, 3.13.21:
Rochester mayor and former police chief kept details of Daniel Prude death secret, report says

This from CBS also, from an earlier report on Daniel Prude's death, 9.3.20.
Black man dies after police cover his head with hood and press his face into the ground while he is naked and handcuffed

At about 3:15 a.m., body camera footage shows officers approaching Prude, who was kneeling naked in the street. Prude complied when officers asked him to lay on his stomach, and police handcuffed him as he lay on the ground... Prude then repeatedly yelled at officers to give him their guns, and at one point rolled onto his back. One officer can be heard mocking Prude, asking, "You don't got AIDS, do you? You got HIV?" ... Minutes later, Prude sat up. The officers then can be seen putting a "spit sock"— a barrier intended to protect officers from body fluids — over his head...
Prude continued yelling at the officers, and about a minute later, three officers pulled him to the ground as one pushed his head into the road...
"You're trying to kill me!" Prude yelled, before making a series of unintelligible sounds and appearing to cry as the officer continued to hold down his head for the next three minutes.

Paramedics arrived soon after and began speaking with officers, as Prude, who had been speaking loudly throughout the incident, went silent. When an officer asked, "You good, man?" Prude didn't respond, and the officer stopped holding his head against the ground.

Moments later, an officer said he was vomiting "just straight water," and another pointed out that his chest was no longer moving. The hood was eventually removed from his head, and Prude was given CPR and put on a gurney.

I finally just reacted to the 'spit sock'. What? Why not simply put an n95 mask on him? The very image of a 'spit sock' reminds me of nothing so much as an execution. Isn't that what they do to someone about to be executed?
One thing that gets me... these Black men, when they 'comply', are killed anyway. Who can blame those others who panic and run away? It's death if you do comply and death if you don't. So, for example, as happened with Rayshard Brooks, arrested while asleep in the drive-thru at a Wendy's, while inebriated. Later on,

But during the struggle that ensued, Brooks took the officer’s Taser. And Brooks started running away. And he fired the Taser back in the pursuing officer’s direction, missing him by a mile.

Taking Brooks’s life isn’t a reasonable response to this wild flight... Driving while intoxicated is not a capital crime. The officers had already ascertained that Brooks was not carrying a firearm of any kind. A Taser is not a lethal weapon, even if Brooks had been able to use it effectively... Instead, former officer Garrett Rolfe — he was fired almost immediately after the incident — withdrew his police handgun and shot Brooks twice in the back. “I got him,” Rolfe reportedly said in triumph. Brooks, who was 27, lay dying.

The above quote is from this WaPo article, 6.15.20, by Eugene Robinson: Opinion: It's not complicated: Rayshard Brooks should be alive

 

[barnswallow]

What got me going this morning is this opinion article by Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post (3.13.21).

Opinion: Only a fool would say 'woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy'

I looked at it because I couldn't fathom what 'woke supremacy' is and still don't, tbh. The article started off describing a public statement made by a group of gop senators, among them Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), a Black man, about the minimum wage. Scott mentions that 'woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy'.

In reporting on the event, Joy Reid on MSNBC apparently made a statement calling Scott a prop to confer a 'patina of diversity' on the group.

The article linked to above addresses this concept of 'woke supremacy' that Scott spouted and did a righteous take down.

“Woke supremacy” ranks up there with that tired crutch of the right known as “cancel culture.” The purpose of both phrases is to shield folks from criticism when they are called out for their actions or their deeply ignorant musings that peddle in racism, xenophobia or misogyny. It is also used to deny dignity to those of us who rise up and demand it in defiance of a dominant culture that depends on our silence. Or, in the case of Scott, complicity in maintaining that silence. “Woke supremacy” is not real. But white supremacy is very real.

Capehart goes on to say,

I defy Scott to ask the families of those murdered in that 2015 slaughter whether something as ridiculous as “woke supremacy” is as bad as white supremacy. I defy him to ask the families of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Jordan Davis, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland, Elijah McClain, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, Daniel Prude, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — to name a few — whether the pernicious power of white supremacy contributed to the loss of their loved one.

When I saw the list, I realized that some of these names are indelibly etched on my brain and others I can't remember. I made it a point to look up each. As Capehart says, "to name just a few."

 

[poppy]

Ahmad Aubrey, the unarmed jogger whose murder was filmed by the killers is another horrific one. It happened before George Floyd and was kind of lost in the media.

All I can say is at least here we are allowed to have this thread instead of trolls getting it taken down, or a crazy mod that doesn't like the topic.

 

[barnswallow]

Ahmad Aubrey, the unarmed jogger whose murder was filmed by the killers is another horrific one. It happened before George Floyd and was kind of lost in the media.

All I can say is at least here we are allowed to have this thread instead of trolls getting it taken down, or a crazy mod that doesn't like the topic.

Some of these cases have been tried in courts and justice has prevailed, for example, in the case trying the man responsilble for Jordan Davis' death. That is the case where a White man drove up to a gas station and aggressively accosted a group of Black teens playing hip hop on their car stereo at the same gas station, ending by shooting multiple bullets into the vehicle. That man was sentenced to life in prison with a 90 year additional sentence.

 

[barnswallow]

Some sounds on topic:

 

[poppy]

Will the reason for this thread ever end???

Andrew Brown Jr.

Live updates: Andrew Brown Jr. shooting investigation

The Pasquotank County district attorney will reveal the findings of an investigation into the deputy shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com

It was a warrant for a drug offense. That deserves a SWAT team and death?? (in a clearly residential quiet neighborhood) ??? Feck Off.

 

[GemInEye]

Will the reason for this thread ever end???

Andrew Brown Jr.

Live updates: Andrew Brown Jr. shooting investigation

The Pasquotank County district attorney will reveal the findings of an investigation into the deputy shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com

It was a warrant for a drug offense. That deserves a SWAT team and death?? (in a clearly residential quiet neighborhood) ??? Feck Off.

It makes me sick.
If they are so innocent why don't they release the video?

 

[Bluesbaby]

Ahmad Aubrey, the unarmed jogger whose murder was filmed by the killers is another horrific one. It happened before George Floyd and was kind of lost in the media.

All I can say is at least here we are allowed to have this thread instead of trolls getting it taken down, or a crazy mod that doesn't like the topic.

I don't like the topic, but only because of the ongoing reasons that keep the topic necessary to say!! Whether I am crazy is another thread.

 

[poppy]

Here's a nice little story (sarcasm).

7 nooses halt construction at Connecticut Amazon warehouse

Amazon has temporarily shut down a new warehouse construction site in Connecticut after a seventh noose was found hanging over a beam.

apnews.com

Amazon shuts down construction site after 7th noose found in Connecticut.

 

[poppy]

From Louisiana 2 years ago, just coming to light. The video is more than disturbing, as usual. They told his mother he died going through the windshield of his car.

Body camera video shows deadly state trooper arrest of Ronald Greene

Video of a local black man tased, dragged, and beaten during a traffic stop in Union Parish is sparking outrage.

www.knoe.com

“Under no circumstances should Mr. Greene have been drug by his ankle shackles. That was malicious, sadistic, completely unnecessary and the officer who did it is going to be held accountable,” Use of Force Expert Scott said.

Greene’s family filed this wrongful death lawsuit seeking 5-million dollars to hold state police accountable. This document says members of LSP administration and seven troopers on the scene caused Greene’s death and then tried to hide it by concealing the video. And they initially said he died after crashing into a tree.

Ronald Greene

 

[barnswallow]

I hope there can be justice in these cases.

 

[barnswallow]

From Louisiana 2 years ago, just coming to light. The video is more than disturbing, as usual. They told his mother he died going through the windshield of his car.

Body camera video shows deadly state trooper arrest of Ronald Greene

Video of a local black man tased, dragged, and beaten during a traffic stop in Union Parish is sparking outrage.

www.knoe.com

“Under no circumstances should Mr. Greene have been drug by his ankle shackles. That was malicious, sadistic, completely unnecessary and the officer who did it is going to be held accountable,” Use of Force Expert Scott said.

Greene’s family filed this wrongful death lawsuit seeking 5-million dollars to hold state police accountable. This document says members of LSP administration and seven troopers on the scene caused Greene’s death and then tried to hide it by concealing the video. And they initially said he died after crashing into a tree.

Ronald Greene

That link you posted, poppy, it launches the video right away. It took me several days to watch it. I kept 'x'ing out as fast as I could. The savagery of the police.

 

[poppy]

That link you posted, poppy, it launches the video right away. It took me several days to watch it. I kept 'x'ing out as fast as I could. The savagery of the police.

Sorrry barnswallow, it's a local news outlet that came out as soon as the video was leaked. A lot of sites do that though. Some keep the audio on even if you stop the video too.

 

[maplenpg]

In the UK, BLM activist Sacha Johnson has been shot in the head. She's in critical condition.

Sasha Johnson: BLM activist in critical condition after gunshot to the head

Shooting in Southwark, London came after numerous death threats, says her Taking the Initiative party

www.theguardian.com

 

[barnswallow]

In the UK, BLM activist Sacha Johnson has been shot in the head. She's in critical condition.

Sasha Johnson: BLM activist in critical condition after gunshot to the head

Shooting in Southwark, London came after numerous death threats, says her Taking the Initiative party

www.theguardian.com

Twice, the article reports that the Taking the Initiative Party said she had received numerous death threats and twice, the article reports the Met police as saying, "There was nothing to suggest that it had been a targeted attack," asking people "to avoid speculating as to the motive or circumstances behind it."

 

[poppy]

In the UK, BLM activist Sacha Johnson has been shot in the head. She's in critical condition.

Sasha Johnson: BLM activist in critical condition after gunshot to the head

Shooting in Southwark, London came after numerous death threats, says her Taking the Initiative party

www.theguardian.com

Wow she is amazing. Terrible. I hope she makes it.

...Johnson is a prominent member of TTIP, which has been described as “Britain’s first Black-led political party”. She rose to prominence after last year’s BLM protests spread around the country, helping to organise marches and addressing crowds."