ANAHEIM, Calif. – The man whose shooting death sparked widespread protests in Anaheim, California and drew national attention to the issue of excessive force by the police was one of those sought in a crackdown on a violent gang that resulted in dozens of arrests on Friday, police said.
Manuel Díaz was a confirmed member of the East Side Anaheim gang, which was targeted in a series of raids that ended with 33 arrests, Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.
Another 20 to 25 suspects already were in custody, he said.
Díaz's photograph was among those of suspects that were provided at a news conference.
"He would have been arrested today," Dunn said.
Some 100 federal, state and local agents raided 54 locations in Anaheim and in Los Angeles County.
Some of the raids concentrated on a poor, mainly Latino neighborhood known as Anna Drive where there has been a recent rise in gang activity and where the unarmed Díaz was killed on July 21.
The next night, police shot and killed suspected gang member Joel Acevedo after he reportedly shot at an officer.
The killings prompted four days of violent demonstrations and a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit by Díaz's family.
I just think this community is being targeted by the police because we're speaking out.
- Ricardo Hurtado
The raids were not connected to the shootings but protests delayed them, Police Chief John Welter said.
"We didn't want to be seen as coming in now and arresting a bunch of community members and having people misunderstand or again spread rumors and false information about what we were doing," he said.
"We need to regain some of the trust that has been lost as a result of some of these actions in the street by protesters," Welter said.
After the raids, police distributed fliers in English and Spanish that explained the yearlong investigation, which was dubbed Operation Halo because the city is home to the Angels baseball team.
Some residents shook officers' hands, Welter said.
But others on Anna Drive told the Orange County Register that they felt the sweep was a retaliation against angry residents.
"I just think this community is being targeted by the police because we're speaking out," said Ricardo Hurtado, 21.
"This is all a cover-up," he said. "It's all show. They never expected this community to blow up like this."
The gang is suspected of drug dealing and murder and those facing federal or state drug and weapons charges could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of weapons charges and up to 40 years for drug charges, authorities said.
Televised reports showed a line of men, some shirtless, sitting on the curb with their hands bound behind their backs.
During the yearlong investigation, authorities seized 11 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 40 guns, including assault-style rifles, sawed-off shotguns and a pistol believed used in a killing, authorities said.
The investigation was prompted by the 2011 stabbing death of a 12-year-old member of a graffiti tagging crew that is considered a "feeder" for the street gang, Dunn said.
Prosecutors say Juan Martinez was walking home from school when he was stabbed during a fight with a member of a rival tagging crew. Bryan Ocampo is charged with murder.
Violent crime in Anaheim, home of Disneyland, jumped 10 percent last year and the number of murders nearly doubled, according to FBI crime statistics.
Based on reporting by The Associated Press.
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NYPD Favors Whites Over Blacks, Believe Majority Of New Yorkers
The Huffington Post | By Inae Oh Posted: 08/21/2012 10:01 am Updated: 08/21/2012 2:04 pm
NY News, NYPD, Video, New York Poll, Stop And Frisk, Bloomberg Stop And Frisk, Power & Politics, New York Police Race Issues, Nypd Favors Whites, Nypd Race Issue, Nypd Racial Favoritism, Nypd Racial Profiling, Nypd Stop And Frisk, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Racial Profiling, Ray Kelly Stop And Frisk, Slideexpand, Stop And Frisk Protests, Stop-And-Frisk-Class-Action, New York News Nypd Race Problem
A new poll conducted by The New York Times reveals 64 percent of New Yorkers believe the NYPD favors whites over blacks.
An even more overwhelming 80 percent of blacks said the NYPD practices racial favoritism. And 48 percent of white New Yorkers polled agreed.
The disturbing results further critics' notions the department may indeed have a "race problem" and brings further scrutiny of the NYPD's controversial use of stop-and-frisks.
The Times poll found 45 percent of New Yorkers thought stop-and-frisks were "excessive." 57 percent of New Yorkers, however, still approved of Mayor Bloomberg's crime tactics. Even more, 61 percent, approved of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's.
Both Bloomberg and Kelly are known for their staunch support of the NYPD stop-and-frisks, despite protests calling for the end of the practice.
Another recent poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University, found New Yorkers split on stop-and-frisk policies along racial lines.
The study found 57 percent of whites supporting the practice, which permits the NYPD to search anyone they believe is suspicious, while only 25 percent of blacks approved.
The NYPD stopped and interrogated people 684,330 times in 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal, a 14 percent increase over 2010. 92 percent of those stopped were males, and 87 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic, a glaring disparity considering blacks and Hispanics make up only 59 percent of the city's population.
Earlier this summer, Bloomberg spoke at a black church in Brownsville where he defended stop-and-frisks as a necessary means to prevent crime. He also noted that, compared to ten years ago, 30 percent fewer New Yorkers have been incarcerated.
In 2009 a staggering 93 out of 100 Brownsville residents were stopped by the NYPD.
Yet even with the disproportionate numbers-- for example, more young black men are being stopped than there are young black men in the entire city-- Kelly has continued to defend the program. "Who will speak out about the elephant in the corner, which is the inordinate level of violence that exists in many of these communities?" he once said.
In May, stop-and-frisk critics earned a major victory when a judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit claiming the practice is racially biased. The judge found "overwhelming evidence" that the program has led to countless unlawful stops of innocent New Yorkers.
The class-action status prompted the police commissioner to send a letter to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn detailing changes to the program and reassuring the public that the NYPD strictly prohibits racial profiling.
The " concerned citizens " insisting they live in a war zone might want to choose their words carefully because realestate agents need to now disclose this "fact" to potential home buyers or be subject to disciplinary action. Isnt that right mikecristine?
Victims of Police Violence Take to the Streets for Justice
By Peter Rugh August 24, 2012
“Normally, I don’t like to wear sunglasses when I talk to people,” said Harold Davis, in a pair of dark rims. “But I won’t let my enemy see my tears.” It was a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn August 4, at the corner of Church Avenue and 38th Street. Here, Harold’s 23-year-old niece, Shantel, was fatally shot by Phillip Atkins, a New York City narcotics officer with a history of brutality. Every Saturday since Shantel was killed, members of her family, clergy and a group of committed activists have gathered at the location of her death, marching from there to the nearby 67th Precinct. The Davis family is channeling the pain of their loss into a struggle for justice.
Like Shantel, Officer Atkins is of African-American descent, but Harold and many of those who consistently gather in East Flatbush see her killing as part of a racist system of which her killer was but a servant. However the racial composition of the NYPD has changed over the years, they maintain, those who bear the brunt of the force’s violence remain black and brown.
“On this spot,” declares Harold, whose height allows him to speak over the heads of those in the crowd, “Shantel cried out what our ancestors for 300-years-plus been crying out: ‘Don’t shoot me, don’t kill me!’”
On the afternoon of June 14, Atkins and his partner began following Shantel. She was driving a gray Toyota Camry that they allege was stolen, a claim disputed by members of the deceased’s family. After a brief pursuit, Shantel crashed the vehicle into a parked minivan. The Camry’s airbag opened on impact, trapping Shantel inside. Gun drawn, Atkins attempted to manhandle Shantel out of the car as she pleaded for her life with her hands in the air. Atkins eventually dragged her out, but not before putting a bullet in her chest. A witness snapped a BlackBerry photograph of Shantel’s last moments that has since gone viral online, indicative of a city growing notorious for police repression. It shows Shantel lying face-down against the pavement, blood streaming from her body.
At the time of her death, Shantel was facing charges of attempted murder and kidnapping, but she never received a trial before a jury of her peers. Instead, critics charge that she was executed in broad daylight in the street. “If an individual commits a crime, that’s what you have a legal system for,” said Brooklyn social worker Iyeisha Witherspoon, who has been part of the weekly vigil to support the family. “[When] execution becomes the way we do policing, every time a crime is committed you become a person that is liable for the death penalty as a person of color.”
“A human rights crisis”
Shantel’s killing comes amid heightened racial tensions in New York and across the United States. The death of teenager Trayvon Martin at the hands of self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is just the most famous recent case of an allegedly racially-motivated killing. According to a report from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), this year a black person has died on average every 40 hours at the hands of a police officer or — though to a lesser extent — a security guard or vigilante. In 1892, when lynchings reached their peak in the United States, a black person was strung up on average every 54 hours.
“There is a human rights crisis that’s facing the black community,” said Nadia Alexis, an organizer with MXGM, at the site where Shantel Davis was shot. “We have police officers and we have vigilantes, like Zimmerman, that are going out and killing us.”
Neighborhoods in all five New York boroughs have been organizing against the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policy, which statistics show has targeted hundreds of thousands of black and latino men for searches and pat-downs without evidence of wrongdoing. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 350,000 people — the vast majority of them people of color — were stopped and frisked in 2011 for “furtive movements,” as well as 31,000 for “wearing clothes commonly used in a crime.” Three days after Phillip Atkins put a bullet in Shantel Davis, some 20,000 people marched to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s residence demanding an end to the policy that many see as part of a wider system of mass incarceration akin to Jim Crow that targets and criminalizes black skin, sometimes with deadly results.
Earlier this year, a police officer shot and killed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother after busting down the door to the family’s home in the Bronx. Officer Richard Haste claims he thought his life was in danger when he fired his weapon, despite the fact that Graham, who had been a target of a stop and frisk shortly before his death, was unarmed.
As with Shantel’s family, the Grahams have been organizing weekly protests to hold the NYPD accountable. Pressure brought by family members and supporters has paid off in the Graham case. The week of Shantel’s death, Haste was indicted on manslaughter charges. Indicating the deep divide that exists between the blue uniform and the black community, police officers clapped in support of Haste when he appeared before the judge. They could have been taking a clue from their boss, Commissioner Ray Kelly, who has consistently defended policies critics decry as racist, including Stop and Frisk and widespread spying on Muslims. Meanwhile, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn has held on to his job after Gothamist recently published photographs of him wearing blackface and simulating prison rape behind bars.
Like the Grahams — who have occasionally joined the Davis family in the streets of Flatbush — Shantel’s survivors hope to see an indictment issued by the DA’s office, which has been lethargic in its response.
“Who tomorrow?”
Marching for Shantel, her niece Sierra led the way to the 67th Precinct. The bullhorn she clutched with both hands magnified her 10-year-old voice. “What do we want?” she hollered.
“Justice!” the marchers responded, loudly and firmly.
Protesters blocked traffic, but no horns could be heard. “Fight Back Against Police Brutality! Shantel Davis Today, Who Tomorrow?” read the banner up front. People emerged from the doorways of apartment buildings and shops to watch the procession. Some joined. One woman in a blue Associated Market vest tagged along for a bit, until one of her co-workers caught up and reminded her that she was on the clock.
This was Shantel’s neighborhood. Those who knew her spoke of a woman who would walk your dog for you or help you clean your house, and who once aided in the care of a neighbor who had suffered a stroke. Not exactly someone who fits the New York Post‘s description — coupled with a grimacing headshot — of a “witchy woman” and “career criminal.”
Shantel’s killer also has a reputation around East Flatbush. Locals call him “Bad Boy” Atkins. A pattern of abuse, illegal searches and false charges emerges upon examination of his 12-year career. Six federal civil rights lawsuits have been brought against him. One victim was awarded $50,000 from the city after Atkins struck him over the head with a walkie-talkie. In another suit, a woman said Atkins strip-searched her after she was arrested for marijuana possession.The city has paid out $130,000 in settlements regarding Atkins.
“People come in here complaining about him all the time,” said a local bodega clerk who identified herself as Rose “Smith” for fear of police retribution. “One guy told me he put a gun to his head. I don’t understand how they gave him a badge. He’s supposed to protect us.” Smith’s concern for her safety when criticizing the NYPD is not unfounded. Veteran Harlem activist Joseph “Jazz” Hayden, known for videotaping Stop and Frisk activity in his neighborhood, is facing third-degree weapons charges after police uncovered a pen knife and mini replica baseball bat during an apparently arbitrary search of his car. During the search, one of the officers, whom Hayden had previously filmed, told Hayden that they “knew him.”
Silence, driven by repression, has handed the NYPD near impunity to harass, strip-search, spy on, brutalize and kill, but tectonic shifts appear to be occurring behind the scenes in the city’s police apparatus, as marginalized communities gather together to shake things up. In June, Bloomberg announced the city would scale back on the number of stop and frisks, and data released at the beginning of August shows the numbers of those patted down have fallen 34 percent as compared to the same time last year. The voice of the street appears to be breaking through to the higher echelons of society.
In the Davis case, the family had a meeting at the Brooklyn DA’s office on August 16 and were told that Shantel’s death was under investigation. District Attorney Charles Hynes even apologized to the family at the meeting. Two months after Shantel was killed, he is the first representative of the justice system to do so.
Afterwards, Harold Davis seemed pleased. Though he does not want to disclose where he lives for fear that “dirty cops” will follow him home, he has been driving two and a half hours into Brooklyn and back multiple times a week to help with efforts to mobilize East Flatbush for Shantel. Without community pressure, Harold believes, his niece would be just another statistic, another of the forgotten slain. But activists have helped keep her memory alive in struggle.
Still, Harold sees a long road ahead. “The police are using the streets as a feast. Its time for the mayor and his crony Commissioner Kelly to get out of office. Enough is enough already.” Harold said the weekly protests would continue and urged supporters to “come out and speak out.”
Following their meeting with the DA, the family held a press conference. Local news reporters strained to hear the words of Shantel’s grandmother, Louise. The elderly, kyphotic woman fought back tears as helping hands led her to a bouquet of microphones. In a voice with the strain of a scream but as low as a whisper, she told the cameras, “I loved my baby and I miss my baby. I want justice for my child.” Justice for Shantel is a demand that, as of yet, remains to be satisfied.
After snowballing through the neighborhood, the Justice for Shantel march on August 4, arrived at the 67th Precinct. Two police officers stood on the steps leading into the station, arms folded, looking down at the crowd below. But no one was intimidated. “What the NYPD has done,” says Harold Davis, “has made us a family. It has brought us together in ways we weren’t before.”
This article was originally published on wagingnonviolence.org.
transitive verb 1 a : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable b (1) : to show to have had a sufficient legal reason (2) : to qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property 2 a archaic : to administer justice to b archaic : absolve c : to judge, regard, or treat as righteous and worthy of salvation 3 a : to space (as lines of text) so that the lines come out even at the margin b : to make even by justifying intransitive verb 1 a : to show a sufficient lawful reason for an act done b : to qualify as bail or surety 2 : to justify lines of text — jus·ti·fi·er noun See justify defined for English-language learners » See justify defined for kids » Examples of JUSTIFY
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Police Shootings Echo Nationwide Posted: 07/30/2012 9:58 am
Aurora Gets the Attention, But Guns Are Going Off Everywhere
Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com
Welcome to the abattoir -- a nation where a man can walk into a store and buy an assault rifle, a shotgun, a couple of Glocks; where in the comfort of his darkened living room, windows blocked from the sunlight, he can rig a series of bombs unperturbed and buy thousands of rounds of ammo on the Internet; where a movie theater can turn into a killing floor at the midnight hour.
We know about all of this. We know because the weekend of July 20th became all-Aurora-all-the-time, a round-the-clock engorgement of TV news reports, replete with massacre theme music, an endless loop of victims, their loved ones, eyewitness accounts, cell-phone video, police briefings, informal memorials, and “healing,” all washed down with a presidential visit and hour upon hour of anchor and “expert” speculation. We know this because within a few days a Google search for “Aurora movie shootings” produced over 200 million hits referencing the massacre that left 70-plus casualties, including 12 fatalities.
We know a lot less about Anaheim and the killing of Manuel Angel Diaz, shot in the back and in the head by that city’s police just a few short hours after the awful Aurora murders.
But to the people living near La Palma Avenue and North Anna Drive, the shooting of Manuel Diaz was all too familiar: it was the sixth, seventh, or eighth police shooting in Anaheim, California, since the beginning of 2012. (No one seems quite sure of the exact count, though the Orange County District Attorney’s office claims six shootings, five fatalities.)
Diaz, 25, and as far as police are concerned, a “documented gang member,” was unarmed. He was apparently running when he was shot in the back and left to lie on the ground bleeding to death as police moved witnesses away from the scene. “He’s alive, man, call a cop!” a man shouted at the police. “Why would you guys shoot him in the head?” a woman demanded.
“Get back,” officers repeatedly said, pushing mothers and youngsters away from the scene, which they surrounded with yellow crime-scene tape.
Neighborhood residents gathered on lawns along the street, upset at what had happened near their homes, upset at what has been occurring repeatedly in Anaheim. Then, police, seeking to disperse the crowd, began firing what appeared to be rubber bullets and bean bag rounds directly at those women and children, among others. Screaming chaos ensued. A police dog was unleashed and lunged for a toddler in a stroller. A mother and father, seeking to protect their child, were themselves attacked by the dog.
We know this because a local CBS affiliate, KCAL, broadcast footage of the attack. We know it because cell phone video, which police at the scene sought to buy, according to KCAL, showed it in all its stark and sudden brutality. We know it also because neighbors immediately began to organize. On Sunday they demonstrated at police headquarters, demanding answers. “No justice, no peace,” they chanted.
Who Is Being Killed and in What Numbers?
This is daily life in less suburban, less white America. On Sunday, when the first of growing daily protests took place, Anaheim police shot and killed another man running away, Joel Mathew Acevedo, 21. Acevedo was armed and opened fired, police maintained -- yet another suspected gang member.
It is not hyperbole to say this is virtually a daily routine in America. It’s considered so humdrum, so much background noise, that it is rarely reported beyond local newscasts and metro briefs. In the days bracketing the Aurora massacre, San Francisco police shot and killed mentally ill Pralith Pralourng; Tampa police shot and killed Javon Neal, 16; an off-duty cop shot Pierre Davis, 20, of Chicago; Miami-Dade police shot and killed an unidentified “stalking suspect”; an off-duty FBI agent shot an unnamed man in Queens; Kansas City police shot and killed 58-year-old Danny L. Walsh; Lynn police and a Massachusetts state trooper shot and killed Brandon Payne, 23, a father of three; Henderson police shot and killed Andy Puente Soto, 42, out in the desert wastes near Las Vegas.
These are some of the anonymous dead. Their names are occasionally afloat on seas of Internet data or in local news reports. Many are young, even very young; many are people of color; many are wanted by the police for one thing or another; some are crazy; some are armed; some, like Manuel Diaz, are not.
In the end, though, we know remarkably little about these victims of police action. The FBI, which annually tracks every two-bit break-in, car theft, and felony, keeps no comprehensive records of incidents involving police use of deadly force, nor are there comprehensive national records that track what police officers do with their guns. Because of that we have no sense of whether such killings are waxing or waning, whether different cities present different threats, whether increased use of private security guards poses a greater or lesser danger to the public, whether neighborhood watch groups are a blessing or a bane to their neighborhoods. The Trayvon Martins of the world, who could perhaps speak to that last point, are mute.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report does include a more limited category of “Justifiable Homicide by Weapon, Law Enforcement,” defined as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.” That figure has hovered around 400 annually for the last several years. (In 2010, it was 387, down from 414 in 2009; in 2006, it was 386.)
Would Manuel Diaz fall into that category? Was he a felon? Can running fit the bill for “justifiable homicide”? The FBI does list all police officers killed while on duty, whether they are gunned down deliberately by violent suspects or hit accidentally by a car. (In 2010, the FBI reported, 56 officers died “feloniously,” while 72 were killed “accidentally.”) But the Manuel Diazes of America are not included in the FBI data sets.
Ramarley Graham, 18, followed and shot by New York City police last February, is of little interest to FBI statisticians. But the Graham killing, which has resulted in manslaughter charges against a member of the NYPD, stirred numerous protests in that city. Luther Brown Jr., killed by Stockton, California, police in April, and James Rivera, killed by Stockton police two years ago, stirred community protest as well. Would their names make the FBI list of “justifiable homicide”? Who makes that judgment and on what basis?
The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics has been compiling data on deaths of suspects following arrests, but the information covers just 40 states and only includes arrest fatalities. From January 2003 through December 2009, bureau statistics show 4,813 deaths occurred during “an arrest or restraint process.” Of those, 61% (2,931) were classified as homicides by law enforcement personnel, 11% (541) as suicides, 11% (525) as due to intoxication, 6% (272) as accidental injuries, and 5% (244) were attributed to natural causes. About 42% of the dead were white, 32% were black, and 20% were Hispanic.
Total gun deaths nationwide in 2010? 11,493, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Who Is At Risk?
The lack of authoritative and comprehensive national data on police shootings and the reluctance of local law enforcement departments to release information on the use of deadly force has sent researchers onto the Internet searching for stories and anecdotal evidence. Newspapers looking into the issue must painstakingly gather information and documents from multiple agencies and courts to determine who is being killed and why. One major recent independent effort by the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2011 -- undertaken in the wake of community protests over two police shootings in 2010 -- confirmed anecdotal evidence drawn from virtually all major metropolitan areas. If you are a young man, a person of color, and live in a poor urban area, you are far more likely to become a victim of police gunfire than if you are none of those things.
The newspaper, which analyzed court cases, police data, and other documents, determined that there had been 378 victims of police gunfire in the Las Vegas area since January 1990; 142 of the shootings were fatal. And deaths from police gunfire, the paper found, had risen from two in 1990 to 31 in 2010.
Over the entire period of the study, the paper found that “blacks, less than 10 percent of Clark County's population, account for about 30 percent of Las Vegas police shooting subjects. Moreover, 18 percent of blacks shot at by police were unarmed.”
A joint study carried out by the Chicago Reporter and the online news site Colorlines in 2007 determined that “about 9,500 people nationally were killed by police during the years 1980 to 2005 -- an average of nearly one fatal shooting per day.” African-Americans “were overrepresented among police shooting victims in every city” investigated (the nation’s 10 largest).
African-Americans would not be surprised by this finding; nor would it come as a surprise to Hispanics to learn that they are increasingly at risk of police gunfire. Bureau of Justice statistics show that 949 Hispanics suffered arrest-related deaths from 2003 to 2009 (out of the total of 4,813 such deaths noted above). The numbers have bounced around over the years, but are trending up from 109 in 2003 to 130 in 2009.
Certainly, the Latino community of Anaheim is familiar with this territory. Orange County and Anaheim authorities have promised investigations of the two recent police shootings. The FBI is reviewing the shootings and the U.S. Attorney’s office has agreed to conduct an investigation at the request of Anaheim’s civilian authorities. Those authorities -- the mayor and five-member city council -- are all Anglo, while Hispanics constitute about 52% of that city's 336,000 residents. There is no civilian complaint review board in place to conduct any probe of police actions, no independent group gathering information over time. The family of Manuel Diaz has filed a federal civil rights suit in the case and called for community calm as protestors become increasingly restive.
“There is a racial and economic component to this shooting,” said Dana Douglas, a Diaz family attorney.“Police don’t roust white kids in affluent neighborhoods who are just having a conversation. And those kids have no reason to fear police. But young men with brown skin in poor neighborhoods do. They are targeted by police.”
Post-9/11 Money Is No Help
The last decade, of course, has seen an enormous flow of federal counterterrorism money to local police and law enforcement agencies. Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has allocated $30 to $40 billion to local police for all manner of training programs and equipment upgrades. Other federal funding has also been freely dispensed.
Yet for all the beefing up of post-9/11 visual surveillance, communications, and Internet-monitoring capabilities, for all the easing of laws governing searches and wiretaps, law enforcement authorities failed to pick up on the multiple weapons purchases, the massive Internet ammo buys, and the numerous package deliveries to the dark apartment in the building on Paris Street where preparations for the Aurora massacre took place for months.
Orange County, where Manuel Diaz lived, now has a fleet of seven armored vehicles. SWAT officers turn out in 30 to 40 pounds of gear, including ballistic helmets, safety goggles, radio headsets with microphones, bulletproof vests, flash bangs, smoke canisters, and loads of ammunition. The Anaheim police and other area departments are networked by countywide Wi-Fi. They run their own intelligence collection and dissemination center. They are linked to surveillance helicopters.
The feds have also anted up for extensive police training for Anaheim officers. In fact, Anaheim and Orange County have received about $100 million from the federal government since 2002 to bring operations up to twenty-first century speed in the age of terror. Yet for all that money, training, and equipment, police still managed to shoot and kill a running unarmed man in the back, just as NYPD officers shot unarmed Liberian-born Amadou Diallo after chasing him up his Bronx apartment building steps in February of 1999.
Diallo was infamously shot 41 times after pulling his wallet from his pocket, apparently to show identification. Police thought it was a gun.The shooting precipitated national protests and acquittals in a subsequent trial of the police officers involved. The year Diallo was killed was also the year of the Columbine massacre, 20 miles from Aurora. It seems like only last week.
Since that time the nation as a whole has become poorer and less white, while police departments everywhere are building up their capabilities and firepower with 9/11-related funding. Gun ownership of almost any sort has been cemented into our American world as a constitutional right and a partial ban on purchases of assault weapons lapsed in 2004, thanks to congressional inaction. This combination of trends should make everyone uneasy.
Stephan Salisbury is cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a TomDispatch regular. His most recent book is Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland.
[Note: Bureau of Justice Statistics data on the demographics of arrest-related deaths can be found by clicking here.]
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook, and check out the latest TD book, Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.
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The concern isn't "excessive force", as determined by an internal affairs investigation or a court, the concern should be what is considered "legal" use of force by police. In ever increasing acceptance of "non lethal" but VERY PAINFUL and violent actions of law enforcement is what people need to worry about.
Why in the name of God do they let you work with children?
Please- no fake outrage. If someone breaks into my house, i hope to God they dont make any fast moves. People expect the cop to have the wisdom of Budda but if your getting carjacked you want Dirty Harry.
Logged
