[raydan]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Arizona officer fired after fatally shooting man in wheelchair

Only 9 shots... let me guess, that's the number of bullets his gun can hold.

[DrCaleb]

raydan raydan:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Arizona officer fired after fatally shooting man in wheelchair

Only 9 shots... let me guess, that's the number of bullets his gun can hold.

Got it, first try.

I bet that shoplifter in the wheelchair was a real threat.

[raydan]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

raydan raydan:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Arizona officer fired after fatally shooting man in wheelchair

Only 9 shots... let me guess, that's the number of bullets his gun can hold.

Got it, first try.

I bet that shoplifter in the wheelchair was a real threat.

I know I should have used fancy words like rounds and chamber, but I was too lazy to look it up and get it right.

[xerxes]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Arizona officer fired after fatally shooting man in wheelchair

Fired is a good start, but that was a straight up murder.

[rickc]

This video shows a couple of problems with the police today. One is how quick they are to go hands on. They think that they can go around assaulting and battering people for absolutely no reason. Cops should not be allowed to touch anyone unless that person has been verbally notified that they are under arrest, and then only if that person starts to resist arrest. I have seen thousands of videos where the cops just start beating the shit out of someone without telling the person that they are under arrest. If the person blocks one blow, they get charged with resisting or assault on an officer. Two is how they are always willing to take the word of another government employee (or business owner) over the word of their actual boss: every member of the public. I have seen thousands of videos where the cops show up claiming that someone is complaining about the person being somewhere that the person has a legal right to be, like a public sidewalk. "Move along or go to jail, they don't want you here!!!" "We are getting complaints" "Someone is offended!" Oh well, that is too fucking bad.

We have turned into a nation of Karens and pussies. People actually think that they have the right to NOT be offended. Any time someone sees something or someone that they disagree with, they call the cops. The cops waste time and money showing up for these bullshit calls. They immediately take the side of the caller. They start treating the person that they were called about as a criminal. Barking orders, going hands on, threatening arrest, actually arresting people. The country has turned into a police state because a bunch of candy ass pussies think that they have the fight to go through life never being offended by anything.

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Boston Police Bought Spy Tech With a Pot of Money Hidden From the Public


Boston Police Bought Spy Tech With a Pot of Money Hidden From the Public

Massachusetts police can seize and keep money from drug-related arrests. No one has publicly reported how that money gets spent. A WBUR/ProPublica investigation found that Boston police used over $600,000 of it on a controversial surveillance device.
by Shannon Dooling and Christine Willmsen, WBUR

Dec. 17, 5 a.m. EST

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

This story was produced in partnership with WBUR. WBUR’s investigations team is uncovering stories of abuse, fraud and wrongdoing across Boston, Massachusetts and New England. Get their latest reports in your inbox.

Across the country, some law enforcement agencies have deployed controversial surveillance technology to track cellphone location and use. Critics say it threatens constitutional rights, and members of Congress have moved to restrain its use.

Nonetheless, in 2019 the Boston Police Department bought the device known as a cell site simulator — and tapped a hidden pot of money that kept the purchase out of the public eye.
Get Our Top Investigations

A WBUR investigation with ProPublica found elected officials and the public were largely kept in the dark when Boston police spent $627,000 on this equipment by dipping into money seized in connection with alleged crimes.

Also known as a “stingray,” the cell site simulator purchased by Boston police acts like a commercial cellphone tower, tricking nearby phones into connecting to it. Once the phones connect to the cell site simulator’s decoy signal, the equipment secretly obtains location and other potentially identifying information. It can pinpoint someone’s location down to a particular room of a hotel or house.

While this briefcase-sized device can help locate a suspect or a missing person, it can also scoop up information from other phones in the vicinity, including yours.

The Boston police bought its simulator device using money that is typically taken during drug investigations through what’s called civil asset forfeiture.

An August investigation by WBUR and ProPublica found that even if no criminal charges are brought, law enforcement almost always keeps the money and has few limitations on how it’s spent. Some departments benefit from both state and federal civil asset forfeiture. The police chiefs in Massachusetts have discretion over the money, and the public has virtually no way of knowing how the funds are used.

https://www.propublica.org/article/bost ... ic#1203986

[xerxes]

14-year-old girl in dressing room of Burlington fatally shot by LAPD

$1:

In an incident the police chief called “devastating and tragic,” an LAPD officer fatally shot a teenage girl at a Burlington clothing store during a chaotic confrontation that also left a suspect dead and another person injured.

The teenager was at the store in North Hollywood trying on dresses for a quinceañera, an LAPD source confirmed.

Preliminary information released by the Los Angeles Police Department indicated that police rounds penetrated a wall, killing the 14-year-old girl in a dressing room. Authorities said that they found a metal cable next to the suspect whom police officers were confronting but that no gun was recovered.

The violence late Thursday morning, just two days before Christmas at a bustling shopping district, left many people stunned and sparked questions about what prompted police to open fire. The state attorney general immediately launched a probe of the shooting.

“It’s just absolutely heartbreaking, and I cannot find words to try to comfort a mother and a family, but I will ensure them and the public and our people that we will conduct a complete and thorough investigation,” LAPD Chief Michel Moore, who was out of town with family but briefed on the incident, said in an interview with The Times on Thursday evening.

Officers responded about 11:45 a.m. to reports of an assault with a deadly weapon at the store near Victory and Laurel Canyon boulevards, according to the Police Department.

At the store, authorities encountered a man they said was assaulting someone, and they opened fire, according to preliminary findings by the Police Department. It was not immediately clear what prompted officers to shoot.

The man was taken into custody and died at the scene, said Officer Drake Madison, a spokesperson for the department.

During a search for additional suspects or victims, an officer found the slain girl, LAPD officials said in a Twitter post.

“One of the officer’s rounds penetrated a wall that was behind the suspect, beyond that wall was a dressing room. Officers search the dressing room and found a 14 year old female victim who was struck by gunfire,” the tweet from the LAPD’s media relations office read.

Another woman was injured and taken to a trauma center, said Nicholas Prange, a spokesperson with the Fire Department. Her condition wasn’t immediately known.

Moore said police were still pulling video of the encounter, including from multiple closed-circuit cameras in the store, but that it appeared the girl was in a dressing room with her mother when she was struck.

“We have a young girl who was in a dressing room behind a wall that my understanding was in the path of where the officer fired,” Moore said. “This is a devastating and tragic circumstance, and it occurred during the actions of one of our officers.”

The Times could not reach witnesses inside the Burlington when the shooting occurred. Police have not identified the suspect or the victims.

William Briggs, president of the civilian Police Commission, which reviews all police shootings and decides whether the involved officers were justified in opening fire or should face administrative sanction or punishment, also called the shooting tragic and promised it would be thoroughly investigated.

“I’m being kept apprised and I’m being assured this is getting the highest attention in terms of investigation,” Briggs said. “That’s what they’re going through now.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the state Department of Justice would investigate the shooting under rules set by a law — Assembly Bill 1506 — that took effect July 1 requiring his office to independently investigate all fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians.

“Preliminary investigation indicates that one of the deaths fell within the scope of AB 1506,” according to a statement by Bonta’s office.

After the investigation is complete, findings will be turned over to the department’s special prosecutions section for independent review, according to the statement.

Moore said it did not appear that the officer who fired “would have known that there was anyone behind there or that he was looking at anyone other than the suspect and a wall,” but he said every aspect of what occurred and why would be analyzed by LAPD investigators.

“There’s not a police officer in America who would ever want this type of circumstance to occur,” Moore stressed.

Moore said Deputy Chief Dominic Choi, who is acting chief in Moore’s absence, was on scene and had been provided a walk-through of the incident.

At a news conference, Choi said the area behind the suspect “just looks like a straight wall.”

Investigators continued processing the scene and hadn’t found a firearm as of the afternoon, he said. A “very heavy” metal cable lock was found near the suspect.

Choi said it wasn’t yet clear whether the lock prompted officers to shoot.

To provide full transparency, Moore said he has directed that the department compile and release by Monday body-worn and closed-circuit video of the incident, as well as radio calls and other available information. He said the store has “an extensive amount” of cameras installed.

The full investigation of the shooting, however, will take longer, he said.

“We’re asking for the public and the news media as well to allow us to conduct a full investigation,” Moore said. “The facts will be the facts, and we’ll have them known.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-23/2-shot-at-burlington-store-in-north-hollywood-suspect-detained

Shooting innocent bystanders is pretty on brand for the LAPD.

[Scape]

[rickc]

No one is getting shot, tazed, or beaten in this video and that is a good thing. However we do have a cop that is so fucking stupid that he is pulling over a school bus outside of his jurisdiction (unnecessarily terrifying school kids), for something that is not against the law. Any one this stupid is a danger to society. They have no business possessing firearms in any capacity, or having the ability to detain citizens for any reason whatsoever.

[Scape]

[rickc]

[rickc]

[DrCaleb]

$1:

A force unto itself: How the police department in a tiny Alabama town overtickets its citizens



Brookside, Ala., may only have 10 kilometres of roads, one store and a volunteer fire department, but its police force has an armoured truck; two police dogs; nine unmarked vehicles, seven of which have tinted windows all around; and an astonishing eagerness for ticketing its 1,253 residents and even unsuspecting passers-by on the highway.
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When Police Chief Mike Jones took over in 2018, he was the only full-time person on the force. He quickly added nine full-time officers and several part-timers. He recently asked for six more to come on full time. The town now has one officer per 144 residents, compared with a U.S. average of one per 588. Spending on police has risen to $524,000 from $79,000 — a 560 per cent increase.

The officers wear no insignias on their grey uniforms and are not required to divulge their names on tickets or other materials. They go by “Agent KV” or “Agent AP,” according to their initials.

Alabama Media Group columnist John Archibald spoke to many townspeople and even outsiders who had fallen into the department’s web.

The demographic makeup of Brookside, just northwest of Birmingham, is is 71 per cent white, 21 per cent Black and most of the rest Hispanic. It’s a poor town, with less than 10 per cent having a college background, and a median household income well below the state average of $70,000.
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In 2018, before Jones arrived, fines and forfeitures made up 14 per cent of city revenue. By 2020 — at 4.4 arrests per household — it had risen to 49 per cent, as police issued $487 in fines and forfeitures for every man, woman and child living in Brookside. Some fines are so out of reach for people they’ve had to be put on payment plans.

It’s a system called policing for profit.

“Brookside is a poster child” for the practice, Carla Crowder, director of the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, told Archibald, but added that “we are not safer because of it.”

Indeed, rather than decreasing the crime rate, the system has inadvertently — or slyly — increased it.

When faced with what could be multiple fines or the cost of retrieving their impounded cars, some townspeople have been unable to pay and so have resorted to petty crimes to source the needed funds. And that in itself has created an additional source of income for the town’s coffers.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/a-f ... -citizenry

[Scape]

[xerxes]

Two years after George Floyd and the Minneapolis police have learned absolutely nothing.

I know defund the police is a bad slogan, but is it truly necessary to fund a police force that guns down innocent people in their own beds?