The Half-Legal Cannabis Trap
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/09/los-angeles-legalization-cannabis-criminalization-467572
Tag: criminal justice
Houston Police Chief Houston Police Chief Tries To Blame Encryption for Failure To Uncover Far-Right Cops
Justice Department Finds Rampant Sexual Assaults and Constitutional Violations in Country’s Largest Women’s Prison
“The largest women’s prison in the country subjects incarcerated women to pervasive and frequent sexual assaults, violating their Eighth Amendment rights, the Justice Department concluded in a scathing and graphic report”
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“”Incidents of staff sexual abuse of prisoners at Lowell are varied and disturbing,” the report says. “Some staff abused prisoners through unwanted and coerced sexual contact, including sexual penetration, and groping. Prisoners were forced or coerced to perform fellatio on or touch the intimate body parts of staff. In other instances, staff demanded that prisoners undress in front of them, sometimes in exchange for basic necessities, such as toilet paper.””
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“For prison advocates and families of incarcerated women at Lowell, the report has been overdue for years.
“The families of women incarcerated at Lowell have literally been begging for years for someone—anyone—to listen to their allegations of rampant sexual abuse,” says Greg Newburn, Florida director of policy for the criminal justice advocacy group FAMM. “The conditions there are beyond horrifying, and yet for years their cries for help were ignored.”
Newborn says the report only underscores the need for independent oversight of prisons.
“Anyone who bothered paying attention knew this was happening, and nobody did anything about it,” he says. “How many women have to be sexually assaulted in prison before our leaders act?””
House passes police reform bill
“The bill would prohibit racial and religious profiling by law enforcement at every level while banning chokeholds at the federal level and no-knock warrants in federal drug cases. The federal policies would be tied to law enforcement funding for governments at the state and local levels.
The measure would also eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement, mandate data collection on police encounters and create a nationwide police misconduct registry to hold accountable problematic officers who are fired or leave an agency.”
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“the bill’s fate in the upper chamber is still uncertain, as Democrats would need at least 10 Republicans to send the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk.”
New York City Paid an NBA Star Millions After an NYPD Officer Broke His Leg. The Officer Paid Little Price.
“Five years ago, NBA guard Thabo Sefolosha was standing outside a nightclub when he was tackled by five New York Police Department officers, one of whom broke his leg with a baton.
Sefolosha sued, and the city paid its largest settlement for alleged police brutality in years, $4.5 million. After all, Sefolosha had to have surgery and couldn’t play basketball for a year. And a jury had acquitted Sefolosha of the charges against him for allegedly resisting arrest. The whole incident had been caught on tape.
But the payout — which didn’t cost the officers a dime — is where any accountability ended. The city had insisted during the case that the officers were blameless, and they ended up facing no significant punishment.
It’s left Sefolosha frustrated. “To get a settlement was a small victory. But big picture, it’s a small drop,” Sefolosha told ProPublica from his home in Vevey, Switzerland. “When are people going to be held accountable? You have to have repercussions. They’re going to do it over and over again.”
New York City has paid more than $1 billion over the past five years to settle lawsuits against the NYPD, according to data released by the city. ProPublica examined dozens of the biggest payouts in cases where civilians had also filed complaints with the city agency that reviews alleged police abuse. Again and again, the officers faced minimal or no discipline.
In one case, the city paid out $125,000 when officers allegedly fractured someone’s cheekbone with a flashlight. The officers were not disciplined. In another case, officers allegedly bashed in a man’s car window with a baton, then broke his ankle dragging him from the vehicle and charged him with resisting arrest. The charges were dropped and the city paid $460,000 to settle. The officers again faced no discipline.
In the 45 cases we examined, the harshest penalty any officer received was a loss of 15 vacation days — for punching a teenager and knocking him unconscious in an incident caught on tape that went viral. The city settled that case for $200,000.”
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“Over the past seven years, at least 800 officers have been named as defendants in five or more suits settled by the city.”
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“In a few cases reviewed by ProPublica, the city has defended officers who seem to have lied or engaged in what was clearly misconduct.”
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“Byrne dismissed the idea that settlements can be useful in identifying problematic officers. “My belief is the settlement means nothing,” he said. Settlements often happen when the city decides lawsuits are not worth fighting and “not because the officer did anything wrong.”
But at times, the Law Department’s ferocious approach to defending the NYPD has drawn criticism from judges handling the cases. In one case, a federal judge in Manhattan admonished the NYPD for not having turned over evidence in a case where a man died after being tackled by police outside Yankee Stadium.
The city’s lawyers had long claimed that there were no recorded radio calls from the incident. When the judge insisted the head of the NYPD’s legal bureau sign an affidavit attesting to that, the calls suddenly turned up.”
Antifa Exists. Let’s Prosecute, not Exaggerate.
Antifa Exists. Let’s prosecute, not Exaggerate. SOURCES.
AMERICAN ANTIFA The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism Stanislav Vysotsky. 2 3 2021. Routledge. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342245835_American_Antifa_The_Tactics_Culture_and_Practice_of_Militant_Antifascism Stanislav Vysotsky, Fascism And Anti fascism In The Trump Era Daniel Folkman. 3 30 2018. 10th Annual Wisconsin Grassroots Festival. In the Streets with Antifa
Video Shows Chicago Police Humiliating Naked Woman During Wrong-Door Raid
“CBS 2’s investigation shows that the raid on Young’s home was completely avoidable if Chicago police had done the bare minimum to vet the information on the search warrant. The warrant was based on a tip from a confidential informant, who had provided the wrong address for a man suspected of having an illegal gun. The suspect lived next door to Young.
Young’s case is just the latest in a long string of lawsuits filed against the Chicago Police Department for terrorizing innocent families during wrong-door raids that were based on sloppy, unverified search warrants.”
Southern California sheriffs are refusing to enforce stay-at-home orders
“These sheriffs’ refusal to enforce the stay-at-home orders is part of a long tradition of sheriffs picking and choosing when and how to require their constituents to follow the law. From defying gun control orders to selective enforcement of traffic violations, our system has granted wide latitude to law enforcement.”
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“The nature of policing requires some level of discretion when it comes to enforcement. Traffic violations are so common that police have to decide which ones are worth ticketing and stopping (these decisions are rife with racial bias). However, outright refusal to uphold a law goes beyond that day-to-day discretion as sheriffs appoint themselves lawmakers and law enforcers in the same breath.”
Phoenix Will Pay $3 Million Settlement After Police Shot a Man During a Noise Complaint. The Officers Are Still Employed.
“The Phoenix City Council on Wednesday unanimously agreed to pay $3 million to the family of Ryan Whitaker, who was shot and killed several months ago by police investigating a noise complaint and who did not receive immediate medical assistance after the incident.
Taxpayers will be footing the bill. Taxpayers are also footing the bill for the salaries of the cops—Officer Jeff Cooke, who pulled the trigger, and Officer John Ferragamo, who too was on the call—as they are both still employed by the Phoenix Police Department (PPD).”
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“Whitaker answered the door with a firearm at his waist, which he legally owned, and can be seen in the body cam footage immediately getting on his knees in surrender. Cooke then shot him twice in the back.”
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“The PPD has developed somewhat of a sordid track record of late. The city shelled out $475,000 to Dravon Ames and his family after police brandished their weapons and threatened to shoot him and his pregnant fiancée when their 4-year-old daughter shoplifted a Barbie from a Family Dollar store in May 2019. “I’m gonna put a fucking cap right in your fucking head!” a cop can be heard saying in video footage captured via a bystander. That same officer, Chris Meyer, is seen kicking Ames after he had been handcuffed, and the family’s suit alleges the officer punched Ames “very hard in the back for no reason.” Meyer has since been terminated.
And in August of this year, Ramon Lopez died after a group of cops pinned him down on hot asphalt for several minutes, streaking his back with what appear to be burns. He was reported for loitering in a parking lot, “sticking his tongue out,” and “looking at people’s cars.”
All three instances provide a gruesome window into excessive force. But they also put forward an important lesson on the potential effects of overcriminalization—particularly in Whitaker’s and Lopez’s cases—where armed agents of the state are routinely relied upon not only to address violent crimes, but to investigate minor inconveniences.”