In February 2019, a citizen called Seattle police after seeing a 74-year-old neighbor’s door ajar and “clutter” inside. The police conducted what they usually call a “welfare check,” as follows: 10 officers invaded his home with drawn guns, roughed him up, and handcuffe[...]
Posts Tagged ‘Police Abuse’
September 15th, 2021 - 12:36 pm § in Law and Courts
Who would guess America’s worst police department is racially biased?
For some time now, I’ve nominated Aurora, Colorado, as the U.S. city having the worst police. Many factors contribute to awful policing, such as systemic racism, excessive force and gratuitous violence against (often innocent) citizens, frequent civil rights and constitutional rights violation[...]
September 15th, 2021 - 12:54 am § in Law and Courts
How bad police squander tax dollars
“The city of Philadelphia will pay $2 million to a Black woman who was pulled from a car, beaten by officers and had her toddler used for social media fodder by the police union,” NBC News reported on Tuesday, September 14, 2021. (Read story here.) “Nursing aide Rickia Young was he[...]
July 28th, 2021 - 12:14 pm § in Law and Courts
Aurora PD again
Aurora, Colorado, has America’s arguably worst police department. Its cops are infamous. Their own chief calls them “despicable.” So it’s not really a surprise they’re in the news again. Last Friday, July 23, 2021, two Aurora officers responding to a trespassing complai[...]
June 27th, 2021 - 12:54 pm § in Law and Courts
What’s really wrong with police unions
“They condition their members to see themselves as soldiers at war with the public they are meant to serve, and above the laws they are meant to enforce.” That’s the subheading of an article by Adam Serwer, an award-winning black journalist (bio here), published in The Atlantic on [...]
May 17th, 2021 - 7:34 pm § in Donald Trump, Politics
Loren Culp’s police dog is a crook
Loren Culp ran for Washington governor and lost by a huge margin. Previous to that, he was police chief in the tiny town of Republic, Washington. His campaign ads milked that lofty status for all it was worth: Culp posed in police uniform with Karma, the town’s police dog. Ted Nugent (photo be[...]
May 16th, 2021 - 2:39 pm § in Law and Courts
This police misconduct cost taxpayers $86.3 million
Not counting 64 years’ of incarceration costs.[1] Two black half-brothers, Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, 19 and 15 at the time (photo, left), were railroaded to North Carolina’s death row for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl named Sabrina Buie (photo, right) by sheriff’[...]
May 16th, 2021 - 1:21 pm § in Law and Courts
Ex-deputy accused of planting drugs during traffic stops
He was a bad cop, but a Florida sheriff hired him anyway, after another sheriff fired him, and it didn’t go well for that sheriff, either. Zachary Wester, 28, began his police career in Liberty County, pop. 8,354, in 2015. He lasted less than a year, and his boss warned the sheriff of neighbor[...]
May 1st, 2021 - 1:30 pm § in Law and Courts, Racism
How Chauvin was convicted of murder, and thoughts on police reform
Minnesota is the only state where Derek Chauvin could have been convicted of “murder,” under the legal definition of the term. That’s the state in which he chose to live, work as a cop, and kill George Floyd. (Gong!) The Hill explains (here), “Many homicides – during robber[...]
April 10th, 2021 - 3:42 pm § in Law and Courts, Racism
Speed trap cops assault black Army officer
Windsor, Virginia (left), is one of that state’s most notorious speed-trap predator towns. The other is nearby Waverly. Both are on U.S. Highway 460 between Richmond and Norfolk (details here). (Traveler warning: Take the interstate instead, and stay the hell away from those towns.) Back in De[...]