cops gone wild

If you think that bad cops won't shock you and beat you just because you're not black, nope. Race is a factor but it's not the only factor -- the most important one is "I'm a cop, you're not."

FBI probes traffic stop that left Missouri teen in critical condition (Yahoo News)

The FBI said in a statement that it is investigating whether police officer Tim Runnels overstepped his authority and violated the civil rights of Bryce Masters when he pulled over the 17-year-old and used a stun gun on him on Sunday in Independence, Missouri, a Kansas City suburb.

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Witnesses told the Kansas City Star that Masters was unable to roll down his window because it was broken and that after handcuffing Masters outside the car, Runnels dropped him on the pavement, causing him to injure his head.

From the "most dangerous street gang" department:

WATCH: NYPD officers take turns beating Bronx man after search turns up nothing

A Bronx man has accused a half-dozen NYPD officers of taking turns beating and kicking him after he asked an officer why he had been searched when she was responding to a noise complaint, according to ABC7.

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“I turned around and put my hands up,” Hernandez explained, saying the officers told him they were investigating a noise complaint.

When the search turned up nothing, Hernandez asked why he had been searched. At that point the female officer grabbed his armed and slapped a handcuff on him.

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Moments after refusing to comply to an order to put both his hands behind his back, a half-dozen uniformed officers appeared and dog-piled on Hernandez, punching and kicking and dragging him onto the sidewalk.

Cellphone video backs up his account of the assault.

“They was taking turns on me. One kicks me, he steps back. Another one comes to punch me and he steps back,” Hernandez said. “And another one comes and grabs my arm and hits me like 10 times with the baton. Another one comes and pepper sprayed me, they were taking turns like a gang.”

From the "unaccountable cops are bad cops" department:

No charges for LASD deputy who fatally struck cyclist while typing on computer

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to press charges against a sheriff’s deputy who was apparently distracted by his mobile digital computer when he fatally struck cyclist Milton Olin Jr. in Calabasas in December, officials announced Wednesday.

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“Wood entered the bicycle lane as a result of inattention caused by typing into his (Mobile Digital Computer),” according to the declination letter prepared by the Justice System Integrity Division of the District Attorney’s Office and released Wednesday. “He was responding to a deputy who was inquiring whether the fire investigation had been completed. Since Wood was acting within the course and scope of his duties when he began to type his response, under Vehicle Code section 23123.5, he acted lawfully.”

Rarity of rarities, a thug cop being prosecuted for his crimes. Though not for the actual assault and kidnapping of the illegal arrest, but just for the falsified paperwork. Will he actually be convicted? My money's on a plea deal and a slap on the wrist.

Officer Is Indicted on Charges of Lying About Photographer’s Arrest

The officer, Michael Ackermann, 30, claimed that the photographer interfered with an arrest last year of a teenage girl by repeatedly discharging his camera’s flash in Officer Ackermann’s face. But the officer’s account unraveled after the office of Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx district attorney, examined photographic evidence and determined that the photographer, Robert Stolarik, did not use a flash and did not have one on his camera at the time.

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When an officer told Mr. Stolarik to stop taking pictures of a girl being arrested, he identified himself as a Times journalist and continued taking pictures. Another officer grabbed his camera and slammed it into his face, Mr. Stolarik said at the time. As he asked for their badge numbers, the officers took his cameras and pulled him to the ground.

We've mentioned how dirty the Ferguson PD had proved itself to be before the recent troubles. Turns out Darren Wilson's first job as a cop was in a PD so filthy it was disbanded. That doesn't prove anything about what happened the night he shot Michael Brown, but does reflect on his credibility and competence.

Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities (Washington Post)

FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it. Everyone in the Jennings police department was fired. New officers were brought in to create a credible department from scratch.

That was three years ago. One of the officers who worked in that department, and lost his job along with everyone else, was a young man named Darren Wilson.

For those of you keeping score at home: nutjob armed supporters of actual criminal Cliven Bundy got cops to leave. Peaceful unarmed supporters of cop-murder victim Michael Brown are arrested, assaulted, and fired upon. Maybe it's time to bring back the approach of the Black Panthers and the Deacons for Defense.

Ferguson Disgrace: Police Fire on Unarmed Crowds, Attack News Trucks (Jezebel)

On Saturday, police in Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed an 18-year-old unarmed man named Michael Brown. Since then, protests have taken place throughout the town, which has a population of around 21,000. For those wondering what was going in Ferguson on Wednesday it might have been hard getting information. Many of the major networks were not airing live coverage of anything. Add to that journalists who were actually trying to report on the scene were being rounded up, blocked from the town or just outright arrested.

Via the I Am Mike Brown livestream KARG Argus Radio, viewers watched as police fired rubber bullets into crowds of unarmed citizens. We watched as police advanced on a group of peaceful demonstrators. I Am Mike Brown livestream reported police were demanding that they turn off their cameras. "Because they don't want witnesses," the reporter said. This definitely echoes the experience of Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly, who was arrested earlier in the day after a SWAT team invaded the McDonald's he was working out of. When he took a photo, an officer demanded to see his ID. Last I checked, taking a photo was not something that required an ID in this coutry

From the militarization of police department: the FAA has declared a no-fly zone over Ferguson, Missouri, site for the past several days of protests over the murder of Michael Brown by a local police officer. Air superiority must be maintained.

4/2599 NOTAM Details

Issue Date : August 12, 2014 at 1318 UTC
Location : FERGUSON, Missouri near ST LOUIS VORTAC (STL)
Beginning Date and Time : August 12, 2014 at 1315 UTC
Ending Date and Time : August 18, 2014 at 2000 UTC
Reason for NOTAM : TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES

Eric Garner was killed by a New York City police officer last Thursday, choked to death in an assault by several cops. The crime of which he was accused? Selling untaxed loose cigarettes. Witnesses say he had just broken up a fight, but rather than pursue and investigate that act of violence they harassed, assaulted, and murdered Garner.

Two officers and four EMTs and paramedics have been suspended over the incident, pending investigation.

About 500 Americans are killed by police each year. Some of those, of course, are legitimate cases of defense, but "police privilege", the perceived "right" of cops to harass, beat, taze, pepper-spray, and shoot civilians who don't properly knuckle-under, is becoming more and more of a threat to our lives and liberty.

Staten Island man dies after NYPD cop puts him in chokehold — SEE THE VIDEO (NY Daily News)

A 400-pound asthmatic Staten Island dad died Thursday after a cop put him in a chokehold and other officers appeared to slam his head against the sidewalk, video of the incident shows.

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But Esaw Garner and other family members said it was a trumped up claim.

“They’re covering their asses, he was breaking up a fight. They harassed and harassed my husband until they killed him,” she said. Garner’s family said he didn’t have any cigarettes on him or in his car at the time of his death.

The surveillance state is out of control, and it's time to put some of these people in jail. (Including Holder and Obama if they knew about this.)

Emails Show Feds Asking Florida Cops to Deceive Judges | Threat Level | WIRED:"

Police in Florida have, at the request of the U.S. Marshals Service, been deliberately deceiving judges and defendants about their use of a controversial surveillance tool to track suspects, according to newly obtained emails.

At the request of the Marshals Service, the officers using so-called stingrays have been routinely telling judges, in applications for warrants, that they obtained knowledge of a suspect’s location from a “confidential source” rather than disclosing that the information was gleaned using a stingray.

The militarization of policing must end.

Georgia police threw a stun grenade in a 19-month-old's crib (Vox)

A SWAT team raiding a home in Habersham County, Georgia at around 3 am Thursday, May 29th, threw a stun grenade into the crib of an 19-month-old toddler, Bounkham Phonesavanh, critically injuring him. His mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told the Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV that the grenade exploded on Bounkham's pillow, right next to his face. "He's in the burn unit. We go up to see him and his whole face is ripped open. He has a big cut on his chest," she continued....

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We don't know all the facts of the case yet, but they fit with a growing trend of police using SWAT teams and military tactics for cases that never would have warranted that treatment before. Eastern Kentucky University's Peter Kraska estimated that there were about 3,000 SWAT raids a year in the early 1980s, 30,000 by 1996, and 40,000 by 2001.

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...A SWAT team raided a DJ in Atlanta on suspicion of copyright violations. A Gibson Guitar factory in Tennessee was raided with a SWAT team on suspicion that they weren't the wood they imported for their guitars wasn't treated properly. Plenty of innocent people, from 80-year-old Isaac Singletary to 11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda to 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston, have been killed in SWAT raids. "In drug raids," Balko writes, "killing the dogs in the targeted house is almost perfunctory."