The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Eddie Teach]

I think he's saying a good show can hold the climax for several seasons, like Sting. 

[jimmy olsen]

Christ

Two deputies killed.

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/harford-county-deputies-involved-in-shooting/37921210

"(The shooter) just took out his gun and shot him in the head right after the officer asked him, 'How's your day?'" witness Sophia Faulkner said.

[CountDeMoney]

Dispatch's role in this will come out later, but it sounds like the first deputy fucked up.  You don't sit down next the guy on that kind of call.  But that's 30 years and working courthouse security for you.

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-rally-nyc-around-us-over-officers-conviction-210615652.html

Thousands rally in NYC, around US over officer's conviction

About 10,000 supporters of a former police officer convicted of fatally shooting an unarmed man in a darkened stairwell rallied in New York in one of several demonstrations held across the country Saturday to protest his conviction.

Peter Liang, who has said the shooting was an accident, was convicted of manslaughter this month in the death of Akai Gurley, who was fatally shot in 2014 inside a New York City public housing building.

Many of Liang's supporters say he is being scapegoated because of anger over other police shootings in New York and across the country and that he has been treated unfairly because he is Asian-American.

The protest in Brooklyn was one of more than 30 held around the U.S., organizers said. About 2,000 people marched in Philadelphia, and hundreds gathered at smaller rallies from Phoenix to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The events were organized by the "Coalition of Justice for Liang," a national group formed to support the officer.

"No scapegoat! No scapegoat!" protesters in New York shouted as the crowd descended on Cadman Plaza, just outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. They carried signs declaring Liang's prosecution "selective justice."

The 28-year-old Liang, who was fired immediately after a jury convicted him, faces up to 15 years in prison.

He testified that he fired his gun after being frightened by a noise. Prosecutors argued that Liang's actions were reckless and he shouldn't have had his gun out or the finger on the trigger. They also said he did nothing to help Gurley as he lay dying on the floor.

"We're here today to let people know that Chinese-Americans count as well," said protester Don Lee, a candidate for New York's state Assembly from lower Manhattan.

Lee added, "It is a tragedy that Akai Gurley was shot and killed. ... But this tragedy's been compounded by another tragedy, that Peter Liang, in an accident, is going to go to jail for up to 15 years."

A few dozen people held a counter-protest in New York on Saturday, held across the street from the larger protest as officers with plastic handcuffs and batons stood between them.

Soraya Soi Free participated in the counter-protest. She argued that Liang was clearly not a scapegoat because he was tried by a jury of his peers, and she did not approve of the protest supporting him.

"This protest is definitely an insult to Akai Gurley's family," she said.

Liang was convicted Feb. 11 on manslaughter and official-misconduct charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 14.

Liang's attorney, Robert Brown, attended the Brooklyn rally and said the community's support was "very uplifting" to Liang.

Brown said he is making motions to have the verdict set aside.

The shooting happened during a year of nationwide debate over police killings of black men. Activists have looked to Liang's trial as a counterweight to cases in which grand juries have declined to indict officers, including the cases of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. Like Gurley, Brown and Garner were black and unarmed. Liang is Chinese-American.

Besides the protests in New York, Philadelphia and Michigan, organizers said rallies took place in dozens of other cities in the U.S. Saturday including Los Angeles and San Francisco.

[Valmy]

We live in a weird time when shooting an unarmed person to death because you 'heard a noise' and being convicted of manslaughter is seen as a great injustice.

Again what kind of training are these police officer's receiving? I think they, and the public, are being horribly served.

[garbon]

Yeah, the only thing here where race played a part (from my point of view) is that because he was Asian American, these protests are happening.

[Eddie Teach]

I think, in a vacuum, this is the kind of case where the police department and district attorney would try to sweep it under the rug. The officer wasn't acting maliciously and it easily could be seen as inadequate training.

[garbon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/nyregion/officer-peter-liang-in-emotional-testimony-describes-the-night-of-a-fatal-shooting.html?_r=0

Officer Liang testified that after he and his partner, Shaun Landau, arrived on the eighth floor of the Pink Houses on Nov. 20, 2014, he opened the door to the stairwell, which was pitch black, and he heard a noise.

Officer Liang said he flinched.

"I heard something on my left side; it was a quick sound and it just startled me," he said. "And the gun just went off after I tensed up."

He said he had no idea anyone had been hurt. Immediately after the shot was fired, he returned to the hallway, where he and his partner debated who would call their supervisor to report that a shot had been fired, as officers are required to do. Neither did.

It was only after Officer Liang went into the stairwell to look for the bullet, he testified, that he heard someone crying, went down the stairs and realized that a man had been shot.

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Throughout the trial, the prosecution has drubbed Officer Liang for having his gun unholstered when he opened the stairwell door that night, characterizing him as reckless for doing so in a place full of families going about their lives.

But in his testimony, Officer Liang said he believed it was warranted. He and his partner were headed to the roof of the building when the gun, which he said he pointed downward for safety, went off. "There are bullet holes in the roof, there is evidence of drugs, there is drug dealing, people get assaulted and raped in these areas," he said. In the unlighted stairwell, it felt necessary.

Under direct questioning and under cross-examination, Officer Liang seemed to blame a lack of Police Academy training in CPR for why he did not help Mr. Gurley, as is required of officers. At the academy, from which he graduated in 2013 with top scores, CPR training was only cursory, Officer Liang said.

The statements echoed the testimony of Officer Landau, his partner and academy classmate, who received immunity for his grand jury testimony. Last week on the stand, Officer Landau described being fed answers during the CPR test at the academy and practicing compressions for just two minutes on a dummy.

Also last week, Mr. Gurley's girlfriend, Melissa Butler, described how Officer Liang continued past her as she tried to revive Mr. Gurley, kneeling over him "in a puddle of blood and urine," she said. Ms. Butler was coached in CPR by a 911 operator who had been called by a neighbor.

"I thought," Officer Liang said on Monday, "she was more qualified than me."

The prosecution has argued that in the moments after the shooting, the officer neglected his duties and focused instead on whether his mistake would cost him his job.

Officer Liang said he did try to help. "I said, 'Oh my god, someone is hit!'" he said. "I went over the radio, 'Pink Post One, male shot, call a bus," he added, referring to the slang term for an ambulance.

Transcripts from radio calls that night that have been introduced into evidence do not show he called for an ambulance. His defense has argued that police radio reception is spotty, particularly in stairwells.

Officer Liang described struggling in the subsequent moments. He collapsed in a hallway after other officers arrived on the scene. A lieutenant relieved him of his gun, as is police protocol following a weapons discharge.

"I got to the hallway of that floor," he said. "Everything just sunk in. I was thinking about everything that happened. I just couldn't believe someone was hit. I just broke down."

[CountDeMoney]

We live in a weird time when shooting an unarmed person to death because you 'heard a noise' and being convicted of manslaughter is seen as a great injustice.

Again what kind of training are these police officer's receiving? I think they, and the public, are being horribly served.

"Heard a noise".  Bad enough you're that twitchy, you have no business being in that uniform...but two officers with less than two years' experience--probationary officers--patrolling together?  Are you fucking kidding me.  FTOs and sergeants would have run up one side of your ass and down the other for drawing your weapon in the kind situation this NYPD officer did. 

But that was 20 years ago, and those guys are gone or dead; today's sergeants are Iraq War vets that treat each tour like it's a goddamned sweep and clear in Operation Resolve. 

Maybe after enough cops go to jail, they'll finally begin figure it out.   But I doubt it.   



Anyway, reading about the story in the NYT I saw this link-- 
http://www.buzzfeed.com/joelanderson/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-black-cop-in-baltimore#.dhn5XBnE9

So many names from the way-back machine.  They don't make them like Lenny Hamm anymore.  That generation of African-American police leadership that came up in the 1970s was nothing short of exceptional. 

[Razgovory]

They really should stop picking ex-military for police. I know both police and the army have guns and silly costumes, but beyond that their missions are quite different.

[The Brain]

Anyway, reading about the story in the NYT I saw this link-- 
http://www.buzzfeed.com/joelanderson/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-black-cop-in-baltimore#.dhn5XBnE9

So many names from the way-back machine.  They don't make them like Lenny Hamm anymore.  That generation of African-American police leadership that came up in the 1970s was nothing short of exceptional.

Interesting even if I didn't make it all the way through.

[jimmy olsen]

Fucking tragic 

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/28/us/prince-william-county-officer-shooting/

(CNN)—A police department in a Washington suburb is mourning an officer who was killed during her first day on the job.

Ashley Guindon, 28, of the Prince William County Police Department was fatally shot Saturday in Woodbridge, Virginia, while answering a domestic call in which two other officers were wounded and the suspect's wife was killed, county police Chief Steve Hudson said at a news conference on Sunday. Guindon had taken the oath of office on Friday.

"The Prince William County Police Department is in deep mourning," Hudson said. "This is a sad day for everybody in this room, a sad day for law enforcement."

Ronald Williams Hamilton, 32, is accused of shooting the three police officers as they approached the front door of his house about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Hudson said. He surrendered to backup officers who arrived after the three officers were shot, Hudson said.

Hamilton's wife, Crystal Hamilton, 29, was found dead inside the house, Hudson said.

"The investigation revealed that the accused and his wife were involved in a verbal altercation which escalated physically," he said. "The wife was able to contact police; however, before officers could arrive, she was allegedly shot and killed by the accused."

The couple's 11-year-old son fled the residence before the shooting, the chief said. Family and friends are caring for the boy, he said.

Two guns, a .45-caliber pistol and a rifle, were found in the house, Hudson said.

Hamilton is an active duty Army staff sergeant assigned to the Joint Staff Support Center at the Pentagon, said Cindy Your of the Defense Information Systems Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Hamilton is charged with one count of capital murder of a police officer, one count of first-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding of a police officer and two counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

He is being held without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert said he "likely" to seek the death penalty but hasn't made a decision yet.

Wounded were Officer Jesse Hempen, 31, who had been with the department for more than eight years, and Officer David McKeown, 33, a 10-year veteran. They were taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital and "We're led to believe their recovery will be full," Hudson said.

A day before the shooting, the department tweeted a photo of Guindon after her swearing-in.

Hudson said Guindon interned with the Prince William County Police Department while she attended graduate school. She officially joined the police force in 2015 and finished training in June, but she took some time off for "personal reasons."

She decided to come back and was sworn in to the department on Friday.

"We were struck by her passion to do this job," the chief said. "She couldn't get it out of her blood. She clearly had a passion to serve others that went beyond herself."

Before Saturday, the department has had three officers killed in the line of duty since 1970, it said on its website.

Prince William Co PD
✔  ‎‎@PWCPoliceDept 

Welcome Officers Steven Kendall & Ashley Guindon who were sworn in today & begin their shifts this weekend.Be safe!

7:40 AM - 27 Feb 2016

[11B4V]

Not a shooting, but just ridiculous.
Vid is on the page.

FORT WORTH
An officer has been pulled from patrol while police conduct an internal investigation into a video that shows him pepper-spraying passing motorcyclists on a highway.

W. Figueroa, an officer with Fort Worth since 2009, was placed on administrative duties Monday afternoon.

Figueroa had pulled over a red pickup truck Sunday afternoon after it was allegedly blocking traffic and recording "motorcycles driving recklessly."

As a caravan of motorcyclists began to pass, an officer emerges from the patrol car with what appears to be a canister of pepper spray in his right hand.

A video shot by one of the bikers with his GoPro camera shows the officer spraying at passing motorcyclists.

Chase Stone, president of an East Texas motorcycle "team" known as the East Texas Heat, posted the video on his Facebook page, writing that he believed the officer's intention was to cause an accident.

"Law enforcement is here to protect and serve, not intentionally try to harm others," Stone wrote on his Facebook post in asking others to share the video. "***THIS WAS BEYOND DANGEROUS***."

Stone said an estimated 200 motorcyclists joined in a "Welcome Back Weather" ride to commemorate the beginning of biking season.

Jack Kinney, another member of the East Texas Heat, shot the video on his GoPro camera and said he had no idea what he had captured until late Sunday night, when he and Stone reviewed the footage.

"If there's one thing I've learned, film everything. You can delete it later if nothing is on your camera," Kinney said.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article65967552.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article65967552.html

[garbon]

[CountDeMoney]

But we have a black president, so it's no big deal.