The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[jimmy olsen]

Don't mess with Texas 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/18/1422588/-Texas-police-caught-in-an-enormous-lie-about-their-murder-of-an-unarmed-mother-Yvette-Smith#

Texas police caught in an enormous lie about their murder of unarmed mother Yvette Smith

Yvette Smith
On February 16, 2014, Yvette Smith, a 47-year-old mother beloved by her family and community, was shot twice by an AR-15 assault rifle and killed on the spot by local police as she opened the front door of her home. A full 18 months later, as her case finally came before a jury, it's disturbingly clear that the police lied, repeatedly, in an attempt to cover up their murder of Smith.

First off, Smith called 911 for help because two men in her home were arguing over a financial dispute and she felt it was getting out of hand. She had nothing to do with the dispute and was an innocent bystander—a victim, even. When the police showed up, both men were already in the front yard and it appeared that the dispute was settled. This should've been case closed, but it wasn't.

When Smith opened the front door of her home, she was shot twice with a high-powered .223 caliber rifle in less than two seconds by Officer Daniel Willis of Bastrop County, Texas, outside of Austin.

The lies and the coverup began immediately. The entire department was involved.

Below, see the initial statement from Sheriff Terry Pickering, issued just hours after Smith died.

  Yvette Smith Shooting - First Police Statement by hsiehnation


As you may have seen, police not only claimed that Smith emerged from the home with a firearm, they stated that she ignored police commands. In essence, Smith came out of that house, according to police, ready to bring hellfire and damnation on police and they acted out in self-defense from an incredibly dangerous woman.

This is a lie. A complete fabrication. When Sheriff Terry Pickering issued the statement, he was fully and completely aware that Yvette Smith wasn't armed. No weapon was found on or near her. He knew this. The officers on the scene knew this, but Sheriff Pickering issued that statement anyway. It sounded better.

Knowing that the evidence and scores of eyewitnesses saw that she was unarmed, police later retracted the statement, but have given absolutely no answers or held anyone responsible for the earlier lie—which was the primary reason given for shooting Smith in the first place.

It may be hard to believe, but the lies get worse—much worse.

As you saw in the initial statement released by police, they claimed that Smith ignored their commands. On September 17, in open court, we learned that this was also an elaborate lie told to justify police misconduct.

Deputy Scott Gaskamp, who arrived at the scene just moments before the shooting, had told investigators and written reports stating that they had ordered Smith to show them her hands, to open the door and come out of the house, Gaskamp testified Thursday.
Recordings of the incident showed no commands were ever issued.

When pressed to explain this in court, Officer Gaskamp literally admitted that he made the whole damn thing up. He also stated that he couldn't remember telling this lie to the lead investigator, until they played him the recorded interview where he stated the lie over and over again.

Gaskamp told the court he never amended any of his reports or came forward to investigators to correct his errors. After reviewing the dashboard camera footage caught from his patrol vehicle and Willis' vehicle, he realized his written reports were wrong and that he had never told Smith to put her hands up or issued any other command.

"I did not say those words. It must have been a figment of my imagination," Gaskamp said.
Are you tracking this? Let me summarize it for you . . .

Yvette Smith called 911 for help.

She opened the front door of her home and was almost instantly shot twice by police with an AR-15 assault rifle.

The officers on the scene lied and said she was armed.

The supervising officer doubled down on the lie and spread it in a press release.

The officers then lied and said they made multiple commands that Smith ignored, but the dashcam footage shows that none of those commands were made. Not one of them.

The coverup continued . . .

A few weeks after the shooting, an investigation by BCSO revealed that several supervisors had modified Willis' field training records after the shooting in an effort to make sure the records were completed accurately. A lieutenant and a sergeant were demoted to patrol deputy and five additional supervisors also faced disciplinary action because of the record changes.

Lastly, and this may be the most disturbing fact of all, it was discovered that the officer who shot and killed Smith was found incompetent by another police department.

Before working for Bastrop County Sheriff's Office, Willis, 29, was employed by Travis County. A Travis County 2012 evaluation of Willis stated that Willis needed more development in handling explosive situations and in the utilization of common sense.

Yes, you read that correctly: The damn evaluation said the police officer who killed Yvette Smith struggled with "common sense," but was hired by a neighboring department anyway.
While Officer Willis has been charged in Smith's death, it is increasingly clear that the entire Bastrop County Sheriff's Office conspired to protect one another and cover up this crime. All of them should be immediately fired and a statewide investigation needs to be launched into the corrupt actions that we can clearly see in the murder of Yvette Smith.

[jimmy olsen]

Brazen fucks

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/23/police-investigator-cops-beat-me-up.html

Police Investigator: Cops Beat Me Up

The dash cam went dark as soon as officers saw his ID. Then an officer allegedly taunted him, "What are you going to tell me next? You can't breathe?"

CHICAGO — A man who investigates the Chicago Police Department for a living was beaten by officers once they discovered what he did, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

George Roberts is a supervisor at the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency responsible for investigating claims of police misconduct and officer-involved shootings. On New Year's Day 2015, Roberts was pulled over after he left a bar. One of six officers who stopped Roberts found his IPRA identification badge.

Immediately afterwards, the police dash cam recording the traffic stop cuts to black; Roberts alleges in his federal lawsuit against the police this is because another officer intentionally turned off the camera. Roberts's attorney claims police paperwork did not even note any footage existed. In fact, police only admitted to its existence when Roberts's criminal counsel discovered it during his trial for driving under the influence.





With no footage to contest their account of the incident, police told the media that Roberts was drunk and swerving his vehicle and that he refused to answer questions or to take a field-sobriety test. They arrested him for minor traffic violations and DUI. Police said he fell asleep in the back of the squad car and he soiled himself.

Roberts was acquitted on the DUI charge in a bench trial and he says police are lying about what really happened after the dash cam went dark—that he was thrown to the ground before he was handcuffed and put in the back of a squad car.

Roberts's wrists were too large for the single pair of handcuffs police slapped on him, his lawyer says. When Roberts, at 6-foot-3 and 315 pounds, complained that even the slightest movement caused the cuffs to cut into his wrists, Officer "R. Adams" allegedly taunted him with Eric Garner's last words.


"What are you going to tell me next, you can't breathe?"

Roberts, who is black, claims he was pulled out of the car and thrown to the ground again—a collision so violent that it made him lose control of his bowels. From there Roberts was taken to the lock-up, where he stayed overnight in his soiled clothes.

The only visit from an officer that night was borne not of concern but jubilation, according to Roberts. A white-shirt officer, which denotes high rank, peered in on Roberts as he sat defeated on the cell floor, then pointed and laughed.


IPRA is used to getting beat up by Chicago's cops.

Lorenzo Davis, who along with Roberts was one of just two black supervisors at IPRA, is also suing the city. Davis says he was fired after refusing to whitewash investigations of three fatal shootings carried out by Chicago police officers. While Davis remains unsure whether police targeted Roberts, he is sure that telling the truth about cops gets punished.




"What are you going to tell me next, you can't breathe?"

"Some people seem to think that someone saw him and recognized him, saw him in a bar and saw him drinking," Davis says of Roberts. "That was a theory initially—that this would be a way to get back at someone who worked at IPRA."

The only time IPRA had the balls to suggest terminating a cop was after the state's attorney already charged him in a homicide, which hadn't happened to any other cops in IPRA's lifetime.

In 2012, Detective Dante Servin fired his unregistered handgun from his car, killing Rekia Boyd. (Servin has maintained he saw a man with a gun near Boyd, but investigators revealed the man was holding only a cellphone.) Servin was charged with involuntary manslaughter but was acquitted by a Cook County judge in April on the novel basis that Servin should've been charged with first-degree murder.

Not only will Servin not do time in prison, he may not even lose his job. That decision rests with the Chicago Police Board, made up of nine private citizens appointed by the mayor. Protesters faced off with the board last week to demand Servin be canned. At an earlier meeting, Boyd's brother even brought a bag of his sister's bloody hair to make his point. Last week, he was joined by more than 200 protesters outside Chicago police headquarters.

"What they're trying to do now is to—IPRA as well as the state's attorney's office—is to find one or two high-profile cases to come out against, and get all the press they can and get the heat off them," Davis said. "It's so political they might go ahead and fire him."

That's it: politics, not facts. Even when cops are caught on tape threatening and manhandling people—and then trying to steal the evidence—IPRA slaps them on the wrists. Just this week, video surfaced of two plainclothes officers roughing up an Chinese-American woman in a salon that was the target of a raid.

"You're not fucking American. I'll put you in a UPS box and send you back to wherever the fuck you came from," Officer Gerald Di Pasquale tells Jessica Klyzek, which was captured on surveillance video. Klyzek told him that she's a citizen.

"No you're not! You're here on borrowed time," Pasquale tells Klyzek. "So mind your fucking business before I shut this whole fucking place down. And I'll take this place and whoever owns it will fucking kill you because they don't care about you, OK? I'll take this building. You'll be dead and your whole family will be dead."

After realizing they were being recorded, the officers talk about how they could obtain the footage, not realizing it was stored off site.

For implying an innocent woman would die, allowing another officer to punch her in the face, then talking about hiding the evidence, IPRA recommended a 25-day suspension for Di Pasquale and an eight-day suspension for the officer who punched Klyzek.

Klyzek, Roberts, and Davis have all demanded that juries hear their cases, which would put Chicago, its police, and its police watchdogs all on trial.

[Syt]

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/13268/lawsuit_suit_claims_authorities_let_man_serving_time_for_ticket_die_in_macomb_jail#.VgTxksvtlBd

Lawsuit Claims Authorities Let Man, Serving Time for Ticket, Die in Macomb Jail

A federal lawsuit filed in March alleges that David Stojcevski, 32, of Roseville, who was serving time for failing to pay a traffic ticket, died in the Macomb County Jail last year after serving 17 days as result of neglect on the part of guards and medical staff, WDIV reports.

Stojcevski was charged with obstruction of justice as part of careless driving charge. When he failed to pay the $772 fine last year, the judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail.

Kevin Dietz of WDIV reports that the man lost 50 pounds in 17 days and was in a high-observation unit and the cell was under 24-hour surveillance.  A videotape shows his body twitching, as he goes into drug withdrawal, lying on the floor naked, and nothing was done. Prisoners in that unit can't wear clothes for their own protection.

The family lawsuit states that Stojcevski had been seeing a doctor to beat addiction and had been prescribed methadone, xanax and another medication. Without these drugs, the body can go into severe withdrawal, Dietz reports.

Dietz reports that a nurse evaluated him and recommended he be placed in a medical drug detox unit. Instead, he was put in a jail cell. Six days later, he was acting erratic and moved to a mental health cell and put under suicide watch where his activities were under video surveillance

Near the end, before he died, he was visibly thinner and no longer had the strength to call for help, Dietz reports. In his final two days of life, Dietz reports, Stojcevski never got off the cold cement floor in his cell and was gasping for  his final breaths. 

Dietz says in his report:

It is a hard thing to watch a man die, especially when it could have been prevented.

WDIV's medical expert, Dr. Frank McGeorge, who has been classified as an expert in custody death cases, tells Dietz that there is no reason for an incarcerated person who was watched for this period of time to die in custody.

"He should have had medical attention," McGeorge says.

"People do not die from withdrawal all the time," McGeorge says. "They die from withdrawal when there is neglect associated with it."

The Macomb County Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, declined comment because of the pending litigation, Dietz reports.

[jimmy olsen]

You can't handle the truth!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/freddie-gray-case-attorneys-will-try-to-exclude-officer-statements-from-trials/2015/10/12/409aff9e-7101-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html

BALTIMORE — A judge ruled Tuesday that the statements of at least two officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray can be included as evidence at trial, a victory for prosecutors who can use accounts to show jurors how Gray was treated by police.

Judge Barry G. Williams on Tuesday also barred attorneys from discussing the case with anyone except their clients and legal team. The judge planned to issue a written gag order in the case after the hearing, according to a spokeswoman for the Maryland Judiciary.

"Do not discuss my ruling and do not discuss this case," Williams ordered attorneys at the close of the proceedings that stretched over five hours.

The pretrial hearing marked the first time all six officers charged in Gray's April arrest and death appeared together in court and comes as the first trial in the case approaches next month.

Defense attorneys for five of the six officers filed motions this summer requesting that Williams ban the statements their clients made to investigators in the days after Gray, 25, suffered a severe spine injury in police custody. They argued the officers did not speak to investigators voluntarily or were not properly informed of their rights before detectives interviewed them — a violation of the Fifth Amendment right against forced self-incrimination. Only Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who drove the van that transported Gray and faces the most serious charge of second-degree murder, did not provide a statement to police.

The officer statements have not been made public.

Tuesday's proceedings focused on statements of Sgt. Alicia White and Officer William Porter, as attorneys for three of the other officers withdrew their requests with the option of filing them again later.

Ivan Bates, the attorney for White, said that on April 12, his client was treated as a witness in the arrest of Gray. He said that when she was again interviewed on April 17, she was told that it was "no more than a follow-up" and didn't realize that she was a suspect. White spoke with investigators in both instances because she thought her job would have been in jeopardy, according to her attorneys.

But Deputy State's Attorney Janice Bledsoe said it was "incredulous" that a Baltimore police sergeant wouldn't be aware of her rights and wouldn't know that she could walk away from an interview with detectives. White also signed a paper in an interview room clearly stating that she understood her rights and waived them freely, Bledsoe argued.

"It's clear Sergeant White waived all of her rights," Bledsoe said.

Gary Proctor, Porter's attorney, also argued his client felt as if he had to speak to investigators.


The detective who interviewed Porter told the officer, "I need you to tell me what happened out there," Proctor said. " 'I need you' is akin to an order."

Prosecutors played video of White and Porter being read their rights and signing waivers before each was interviewed by investigators.

In both cases, Williams ruled that the statements should be allowed. Both officers spoke voluntarily, were informed of their rights to remain silent and had an attorney present, Williams noted. The judge found neither was coerced or threatened.

The accounts of the officers are key to prosecutors' cases. They had previously requested that certain officers be tried first as a way of using the testimony of some defendants against others in later trials.

Tuesday's hearing was mostly technical but offered a preview of the proceedings to come, highlighting Williams's no-nonsense style from the bench. At one point he yelled "quiet!" during an outburst among attorneys as a witness was on the stand. And Williams warned Proctor that he could hold him in contempt of court, saying he didn't need "snarkiness" during the questioning of a witness. Proctor had asked a detective who was testifying whether she was familiar with Merriam-Webster after telling her he looked up the definition of "need" in the dictionary.

Along with Goodson, White and Porter, prosecutors charged three other Baltimore police officers in the case: Edward M. Nero, Garrett E. Miller and Lt. Brian W. Rice. Nero and Miller face second-degree assault and related charges, while Porter, Rice and White have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and other counts.

Prosecutors said Gray suffered a severe spinal injury while he was unrestrained in the back of a police van on April 12; he died a week later. Gray's death became another symbol of nationwide frustration over fatal interactions between police and black men, and his funeral led to riots and days of demonstrations

Porter is scheduled to go to trial first, on Nov. 30, with the remaining trials planned from January to March of next year.

[MadImmortalMan]

Lady cuts herself, calls 911, police arrive and shoot her child.



http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/19/whitehall-officer-involved-shooting.html

A Columbus police officer accidentally wounded a 4-year-old girl in Whitehall on Friday when he fired at a charging dog, police said.

A neighbor and the girl's uncle identified her as Ava Ellis, who was taken to Nationwide Children's Hospital, where police said she was in stable condition.

The officer was at a house in the 4100 block of Chandler Drive investigating a hit-and-run case about 3:10 p.m., Columbus police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.

As the officer was walking from the home to his patrol car, a woman a few houses away called out to him, saying her sister and the girl's mother, Andrea Ellis, had cut herself.

The officer was at the doorway when a dog charged at him, Alex-Bouzounis said.

The officer fired once, missing the animal but striking the girl in the right leg. It was unclear whether the girl was hit directly or by a ricochet. The officer has not been identified.

Andrea Ellis was taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center for treatment of the cut.

Gary Parsley II said the officer was following up with him about Parsley's being struck by a car a couple weeks ago. When the girl's aunt called out to the officer, the officer walked over and Parsley returned to his house, when he heard a shot.

Neighbors say the officer walked back to his patrol car after the shooting.

"He seemed a little disoriented, like he was really bothered," said Norman Jones, who called the police after hearing the shot. Columbus and Whitehall police arrived at the scene shortly afterward.

Neighbors say Ellis came out of the house saying her daughter had been shot.

The officer was not injured.

Neighbor Carrie Britton said the family has two dogs and that they were on shock collars and couldn't get out of the house.

Two dogs were being held in the back of the house after the shooting, according to police.

Police and neighbors gave conflicting information about how many other children were in the house at the time of the shooting, but nobody beside the girl was wounded by a bullet.

The life-threatening beast doggie was apparently unsuccessful in its attempt to slay the officer.

[garbon]

No words.

[Valmy]

Really? A trained police officer's instinct when entering a house with a barking dog is to shoot it dead?

[11B4V]

Really? A trained police officer's instinct when entering a house with a barking dog is to shoot it dead?

A tazer or OC Spray is just as effective. Too many officers wrongfully go straight to lethal force then attempt to articulate a ustification after the fact. They need to fire those folks.

[Valmy]

Really? A trained police officer's instinct when entering a house with a barking dog is to shoot it dead?

A tazer or OC Spray is just as effective. Too many officers wrongfully go straight to lethal force then attempt to articulate a ustification after the fact. They need to fire those folks.

Or heck just use your stick to fend it off. It is a dog not a ninja.

[Admiral Yi]

Or alternatively one could restrain a dog when asking a stranger to come into your house.

[Berkut]

Or alternatively one could restrain a dog when asking a stranger to come into your house.

I am sure most people do exactly that.

However, when their is an ongoing crisis such that the police are asked to intervene, it seems somewhat possible, even likely, that details like restraining the family pets might get overlooked.

I don't think it is beyond reason to expect police officers to not react to that (or other relatively low threat occurrences) by pulling out a deadly weapon and opening up inside a home.

[Valmy]

Or alternatively one could restrain a dog when asking a stranger to come into your house.

Or alternatively a police officer should be trained on how to deal with ordinary daily occurrences that happen during police work without resorting to deadly force. One of the two options...hmmm...which one seems more reasonable.

[Razgovory]

Or alternatively one could restrain a dog when asking a stranger to come into your house.

We had case were the police shot a dog in a cage.

[Admiral Yi]

We had case were the police shot a dog in a cage.

We had case where police raped all the women and stole everything in the house.  So what?

It's not my impression that getting charged by a dog when responding to a request for help is a daily occurence.  Maybe you guys know better than me.

[Berkut]

It's not my impression that getting charged by a dog when responding to a request for help is a daily occurence.  Maybe you guys know better than me.

My position that the police should not pull out guns are start blasting away inside a house when a dog reacts to them being there is not dependent on how often that occurs.