Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Peace,

As many of us who have not been living under a rock for the past two decades may know there seems to be no end to unwarranted deadly force by police against people of color. Murders made more insidious by a justice system that rarely punishes such behavior. Often making it seem as though it was the victims fault. While rewarding officers with light duty and full pay for a period of time. With that being the trend our hearts are wrenched and our blood boils to no end. Threads of said topics are stuck and from time to time more are added before previous ones are released as per resolution. So with little to no resolution in each incident while more incidents occur as more people are murdered in cold blood its become necessary to catalogue links to all such topics in this thread. Otherwise they may fall to the wayside or be reposted. Please feel free to report threads you would like added to the list or send the request via private message.

Sincerely,

Lexx Diamond


G7hVFkoM_o.jpg


Philando Castile was shot 4 times by police while reaching for his requsted ID and died.

diamond12n-2-web.jpg
On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was fatally shot by Jeronimo Yanez, a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer, after being pulled over in Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul. Castile was driving a car with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter as passengers when he was pulled over by Yanez and another officer.[1][2] According to Reynolds, after being asked for his license and registration, Castile told the officer he was licensed to carry a weapon and had one in his pants pocket.[3] Reynolds said Castile was shot while reaching for his ID after telling Yanez he had a gun permit and was armed. The officer shot seven times at Castile.


Cops shoot and kill black man Alton Sterling at point blank range in Baton Rouge

_90302733_alton_sterling_fb.jpg
200px-Alton_Sterling_just_before_being_shot.jpg
On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot several times at close range while held down on the ground by two white Baton Rouge Police Department officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[1] Police were responding to a report that a man in a red shirt was selling CDs, and that he had used a gun to threaten someone outside a convenience store.[2] The shooting was recorded by multiple bystanders.


The shooting led to protests in Baton Rouge and a request for a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.


ANOTHER unarmed black man shot dead by Police 9/27/16 Alfred Olango?

2OnOUw0DW2ba61df89f0f4476ef6-3815386-This_undated_cellphone_photo_released_by_Dan_Gilleon_the_attorne-m-84_1475262293051.jpg
Alfred Olango, 38, was not acting like himself Tuesday afternoon when his sister called 911 for help. Olango was standing in the parking lot of a shopping center in El Cajon, a community approximately 30 miles east of downtown San Diego. By the police department’s account, officers approached him and demanded he remove a hand from his pocket. Olango was shot several times by Richard Gonsalves, a 21-year veteran of the police force and died later at a nearby hospital.


Unarmed Black man Terence Crutcher SHOT & KILLED. Look at this video of police murder. Never Forget

police_release_xdisturbingx_video_of_killing_terence_crutcher.png_1810791533.png
An unarmed black man walks on a Tulsa, Oklahoma, road with his hands in the air. Police officers follow closely behind him as he approaches his vehicle. He stands beside the car, then falls to the ground after he was fatally shot by white police officer Betty Shelby.

Now 40-year-old Terence Crutcher is dead. Crutcher's sister is demanding that prosecutors charge the officer who shot him. And the police videos of the incident are fueling criticism about the case.


Shot that killed black Maryland cop was "deliberately aimed at him" by another officer


UPPER MARLBORO, Md. - Prince George’s County police have identified the officer who did not recognize his colleague during a chaotic gunfight and fatally shot him after a suspect opened fire outside a police station in Landover, Maryland. The new information was revealed at a court hearing Wednesday.

Officer Taylor Krauss fired the fatal shot that wounded and killed fellow 28-year-old
Officer Jacai Colson, Prince George's County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said.

23-year-old Korryn Gaines was murdered by Baltimore County police, PIGS DELETED HER SOCIAL MEDIA ...

Baltimore-County-Police-shoot-and-kill-23-year-old-Korryn-Gaines-and-wound-her-5-year-old-son.jpg
Baltimore County police shot and killed 23-year-old Korryn Gaines in Randallstown, Maryland, on Sunday after a standoff with police.

The Baltimore County police officer who fatally shot Korryn Gaines last month is a 16-year veteran of the department who was also involved in a deadly shooting in 2007, the Police Department said Thursday.

Police officials identified him as Officer First Class Ruby of the Support Operations Division. The department does not release the first names of officers involved in shootings under an agreement between the county and the police union.

Gaines, 23, was killed inside her Randallstown apartment after an hours-long standoff with police. Her death has sparked protests and questions from civil-rights activists across the country.


Shooting of Keith Lamont Scott - Recorded by Wife

cs2y-aoukaa5sgg-e1474438146121.jpg

A 43-year-old black man was fatally shot by police Tuesday afternoon at an apartment complex in Charlotte, North Carolina, sparking protests from members of the community.

The man identified as Keith Lamont Scott. His family says he was disabled.

The officer who shot Scott was identified Tuesday night as Officer Brentley Vinson, WJZY-TV reports.


 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Props respect and thanks to @muckraker1002 for this post.

Black & Hispanic Men- MURDERED by the NEW YORK POLICE- "Dred Scott" Lives

DredScott.jpg

Dred Scott

The Supreme Court DRED SCOTT decision of 1857 viewed all blacks as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."


Although the "Dred Scott" decision was erased by the 13th and 14th amendments to the U.S. constitution, legalized white supremacy continued via "Jim Crow" laws until 1965. Todays 21st century police departments, with the consent of white legislators apply "Dred Scott" rules when policing Black & Brown communities







nytlogo379x64.gif



Fatal Police Encounters in New York City





Compiled by EBA HAMID and BENJAMIN MUELLER DEC. 3, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/nyregion/fatal-police-encounters-in-new-york-city.html


Some of the most notable deaths since 1990 involving New York Police Department officers. Most did not lead to criminal charges; even fewer resulted in convictions. Related Article









no-pic.png


Jose (Kiko) Garcia


July 3, 1992


During a struggle with police officers in the lobby of an apartment building, Mr. Garcia, a 23-year-old Dominican immigrant who the police said was carrying a revolver, was shot twice by Officer Michael O’Keefe.

What happened: Later that year, a grand jury cleared Officer O’Keefe, supporting the officer’s assertion that Mr. Garcia reached for a gun before he was shot.




no-pic.png


Ernest Sayon


April 29, 1994


Mr. Sayon, 22, was standing outside a Staten Island housing complex when police officers on an anti-drug patrol tried to arrest him. Mr. Sayon suffocated because of pressure on his back, chest and neck while he was handcuffed on the ground.

What happened: A grand jury declined to file criminal charges against any of the three police officers involved, apparently concluding that the officers had used reasonable force in subduing Mr. Sayon.




03metroheyward-articleLarge.jpg


Nicholas Heyward Jr.


Sept. 27, 1994


Nicholas, 13, was playing cops and robbers with friends in a Gowanus Houses building stairwell when Officer Brian George, mistaking the teenager’s toy rifle for a real gun, shot him to death.

What happened: The Brooklyn district attorney decided not to present the case to a grand jury, saying the real culprit was an authentic-looking toy gun.




03metrobaez-articleLarge.jpg


Anthony Baez


Dec. 22, 1994


Mr. Baez, 29, a security guard, was playing football outside his mother’s Bronx home when a stray toss landed on a police car. Mr. Baez died after an officer applied a chokehold while trying to arrest him.

What happened: Francis X. Livoti, who had been dismissed by the force for using an illegal chokehold, was convicted on federal civil rights charges and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, two years after he won acquittal in a state trial.




03metrodiallo-popup.jpg


Amadou Diallo


Feb. 4, 1999


Mr. Diallo, a 22-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was killed by four officers who fired 41 times in the vestibule of his apartment building in the Bronx. They said he seemed to have a gun, but he was unarmed.

What happened: In February 2000, after a tense and racially charged trial, all four officers, who were white, were acquitted of second-degree murder and other charges, fueling protests.

The city agreed to pay the family $3 million.




03metrodorismond-articleLarge.jpg


Patrick Dorismond


March 16, 2000


Mr. Dorismond, 26, an unarmed black security guard, was shot dead by an undercover narcotics detective in a brawl in front of a bar in Midtown Manhattan, after Mr. Dorismond became offended when the detective asked him if he had any crack cocaine.

What happened: By late July, a grand jury declined to file criminal charges against the detective, Anthony Vasquez, concluding that the shooting of Mr. Dorismond was not intentional.

The city agreed to pay $2.25 million to his family.




03metrozongo-articleLarge.jpg


Ousmane Zongo


May 23, 2003


Mr. Zongo, 43, an art restorer, was shot and killed by a police officer during a raid at a Chelsea warehouse that the police believed was the base of a CD counterfeiting operation.

What happened: In 2005, Officer Bryan A. Conroy was convicted at the second of two trials and sentenced to probation. The judge placed the blame for the killing primarily on the poor training and supervision by the Police Department.

The city agreed to pay the family $3 million.




03metrostansbury-popup.jpg


Timothy Stansbury Jr.


Jan. 24, 2004


Mr. Stansbury, 19, a high school student, was about to take a rooftop shortcut to a party when he was fatally shot by Officer Richard S. Neri Jr., who was patrolling the roof.

What happened: A grand jury decided not to indict Officer Neri. In December 2006, he was suspended without pay for 30 days, permanently stripped of his gun, and reassigned to a property clerk’s office.

The city agreed to pay the Stansbury family $2 million.




03metrobell-popup.jpg


Sean Bell


Nov. 25, 2006


Five detectives fired 50 times into a car occupied by Mr. Bell, 23, and two others after a confrontation outside a Queens club on Mr. Bell’s wedding day. He was killed.

What happened: After a heated seven-week nonjury trial in 2008, the judge found Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper not guilty of all charges, which included manslaughter and assault.

In 2012, Detective Isnora was fired, and Detectives Cooper and Oliver, along with a supervisor, were forced to resign.




03metrograham-popup.jpg


Ramarley Graham


Feb. 2, 2012


Mr. Graham, 18, was shot and killed by Richard Haste, a police officer, in the bathroom of his Bronx apartment after being pursued into his home by a team of officers from a plainclothes street narcotics unit. Mr. Graham was unarmed.

What happened: A grand jury voted to indict Officer Haste on charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter, but a judge dismissed the indictment a year later. Prosecutors sought a new indictment. In August 2013, a grand jury decided not to bring charges in the case.




03metrogarner-blog225.jpg


Eric Garner


July 17, 2014


Mr. Garner, 43, died after Officer Daniel Pantaleo restrained him using a chokehold, a maneuver that was banned by the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago. The officers were trying to arrest Mr. Garner, whose death was attributed in part to the chokehold, on charges of illegally selling cigarettes.

What happened: A grand jury, impaneled in September by the Staten Island district attorney, voted not to bring criminal charges against Officer Pantaleo.




03metrogurley-articleLarge.jpg


Akai Gurley


Nov. 20, 2014


Mr. Gurley, 28, was entering the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project with his girlfriend when Officer Peter Liang, standing 14 steps above him, shot Mr. Gurley in the chest. The police described the fatal shooting of Mr. Gurley, who was unarmed, as an accident.

What happened: The episode is the subject of investigations by the Police Department and the Brooklyn district attorney.










<hr noshade color="#333333" size="4"></hr>




nytlogo379x64.gif


The Perfect-Victim Pitfall
Michael Brown, and Now Eric Garner



blow.portrait.190.jpg

by Charles M. Blow | December 3, 2014 | http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/opinion/charles-blow-first-michael-brown-now-eric-garner.html



At some point between the moment a Missouri grand jury refused to indict a police officer who had shot and killed Michael Brown on a Ferguson street and the moment a New York grand jury refused to indict a police officer who choked and killed Eric Garner on a Staten Island sidewalk — on video, as he struggled to utter the words, “I can’t breathe!” — a counternarrative to this nation’s calls for change has taken shape.

This narrative paints the police as under siege and unfairly maligned while it admonishes — and, in some cases, excoriates — those demanding changes in the wake of the Ferguson shooting. (Those calling for change now include the president of the United States and the United States attorney general, I might add.)

The argument is that this is not a perfect case, because Brown — and, one would assume, now Garner — isn’t a perfect victim and the protesters haven’t all been perfectly civil, so therefore any movement to counter black oppression that flows from the case is inherently flawed. But this is ridiculous and reductive, because it fails to acknowledge that the whole system is imperfect and rife with flaws. We don’t need to identify angels and demons to understand that inequity is hell.

The Mike-or-Eric-as-faces-of-black-oppression arguments swing too wide, and they miss. So does the protesters-as-movement-killers argument.

The responses so far have only partly been specific to a particular case. Much of it is about something larger and more general: racial inequality and criminal justice. People want to be assured of equal application of justice and equal — and appropriate — use of police force, and to know that all lives are equally valued.

The data suggests that, in the nation as a whole, that isn’t so. Racial profiling is real. Disparate treatment of black and brown men by police officers is real. Grotesquely disproportionate numbers of killings of black men by the police are real.

No one denies that police officers have hard jobs, but they volunteer to enter that line of work. There is no draft. So these disparities cannot go unaddressed and uncorrected. To be held in high esteem you must also be held to a higher standard.

And no one denies that high-crime neighborhoods disproportionately overlap with minority neighborhoods. But the intersections don’t stop there. Concentrated poverty plays a consequential role. So does the school-to-prison pipeline. So do the scars of historical oppression. In fact, these and other factors intersect to such a degree that trying to separate any one — most often, the racial one — from the rest is bound to render a flimsy argument based on the fallacy of discrete factors.

Yet people continue to make such arguments, which can usually be distilled to some variation of this: Black dysfunction is mostly or even solely the result of black pathology. This argument is racist at its core because it rests too heavily on choice and too lightly on context. If you scratch it, what oozes out reeks of race-informed cultural decay or even genetic deficiency and predisposition, as if America is not the progenitor — the great-grandmother — of African-American violence.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

And yes, racist is the word that we must use. Racism doesn’t require the presence of malice, only the presence of bias and ignorance, willful or otherwise. It doesn’t even require more than one race. There are plenty of members of aggrieved groups who are part of the self-flagellation industrial complex. They make a name (and a profit) saying inflammatory things about their own groups, things that are full of sting but lack context, things that others will say only behind tightly shut doors. These are often people who’ve “made it” and look down their noses with be-more-like-me disdain at those who haven’t, as if success were merely a result of a collection of choices and not also of a confluence of circumstances.

Today, too many people are gun-shy about using the word racism, lest they themselves be called race-baiters. So we are witnessing an assault on the concept of racism, an attempt to erase legitimate discussion and grievance by degrading the language: Eliminate the word and you elude the charge.

By endlessly claiming that the word is overused as an attack, the overuse, through rhetorical sleight of hand, is amplified in the dismissal. The word is snatched from its serious scientific and sociological context and redefined simply as a weapon of argumentation, the hand grenade you toss under the table to blow things up and halt the conversation when things get too “honest” or “uncomfortable.”

But people will not fall for that chicanery. The language will survive. The concept will not be corrupted. Racism is a real thing, not because the “racial grievance industry” refuses to release it, but because society has failed to eradicate it.

Racism is interpersonal and structural; it is current and historical; it is explicit and implicit; it is articulated and silent.

Biases are pervasive, but can also be spectral: moving in and out of consideration with little or no notice, without leaving a trace, even without our own awareness. Sometimes the only way to see bias is in the aggregate, to stop staring so hard at a data point and step back so that you can see the data set. Only then can you detect the trails in the dust. Only then can the data do battle with denial.

I would love to live in a world where that wasn’t the case. Even more, I would love my children to inherit a world where that wasn’t the case, where the margin for error for them was the same as the margin for error for everyone else’s children, where I could rest assured that police treatment would be unbiased. But I don’t. Reality doesn’t bend under the weight of wishes. Truth doesn’t grow dim because we squint.

We must acknowledge — with eyes and minds wide open — the world as it is if we want to change it.

The activism that followed Ferguson and that is likely to be intensified by what happened in New York isn’t about making a martyr of “Big Mike” or “Big E” as much as it is about making the most of a moment, counternarratives notwithstanding.

In this most trying of moments, black men, supported by the people who understand their plight and feel their pain, are saying to the police culture of America, “We can’t breathe!”


<hr noshade color="#0000FF" size="8"></hr>

141204-rep-peter-king-no-indictment-necessary-in-eric-garner-homicide.jpg



11-30-strip-KOS.png


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/us/police-videos-race.html?_r=0

The Raw Videos That Have Sparked
Outrage Over Police Treatment of Blacks

By DAMIEN CAVE and ROCHELLE OLIVER UPDATED - OCTOBER 4, 2016

Raw video has thoroughly shaken American policing. Grainy images of questionable police behavior, spread through social media, have led to nationwide protests, federal investigations and changes in policy and attitudes on race.

“A lot of white people are truly shocked by what these videos depict; I know very few African-Americans who are surprised,” said Paul D. Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former prosecutor. “The videos are smoking-gun evidence,” he added, “both literally because they are very graphic, which generates outrage, and figuratively, because people believe their own eyes.”

These videos include graphic scenes of violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/us/police-videos-race.html?_r=0

__________________________________________________________________


Bronx Man Beaten & arrested by NYPD after asking female officer who searched him, why she searched him??
Her search of him came up with Nothing
http://abc7ny.com/news/exclusive-bronx-man-claims-police-brutality-caught-on-camera/296032/


<iframe width="476" height="267" src="http://abc7ny.com/video/embed/?pid=296032" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



DailyKosLogo.png


The Narrative Must Not Change While
Police Keep Killing Innocent Black Men


A_Man_Was_Lynched_By_Police_Today.jpg



READ
http://nyti.ms/29St4oY



north-miami-shooting-e1469062386416.jpg



Police shoot unarmed black therapist lying flat on his back with his arms in the air while he tried to calm his autistic patient and BEGGED cops not to open fire

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-revealed-object-believed-gun-toy-truck.html


Will Racist "white supremacist" indoctrinated cops ever
STOP SHOOTING BLACK MEN

and asking questions later????





11700849_930511617008257_8783335407646818893_n.jpg


cca401b9bb7d5a69740a5e3bf61a8009.jpg


image.jpg


tumblr_nc9w30eJ7j1r55d2io1_1280.jpg



Remove_Your_Melanin_Ill_Shoot.jpg




I_CAN_BREATHE_RACIST_COPS.jpg
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
http://www.bgol.us/forum/index.php?...g-through-an-edisode-on-facebook-live.941262/


Rodney Hess' family speaks out about fatal shooting by Crockett County deputies
Yolanda Jones , USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee Published 12:43 p.m. CT March 17, 2017 | Updated 2 hours ago
CLOSE
icon_close.png

636253534933706916-Rodney-Hess.JPG

RODNEY HESS SHOOTING IN ALAMO, CROCKETT COUNTYRodney Hess on Facebook Live during shooting in Alamo, Crockett County | 1:14
A video of the fatal shooting of Rodney Hess in Alamo, Crockett County.

1 of 3
CLOSE
icon_close.png

636252945731376131-js-0317-OfficerInvovled-0002.jpg

RODNEY HESS SHOOTING IN ALAMO, CROCKETT COUNTYRodney Hess on Facebook Live leading up to shooting in Alamo, Crockett | 17:01
Here is a video of the fatal Rodney Hess shooting in Alamo, Crockett County. Facebook

2 of 3
CLOSE
icon_close.png

44862796001_5362657536001_5362639726001-vs.jpg

RODNEY HESS SHOOTING IN ALAMO, CROCKETT COUNTYVIDEO: TBI briefs media on officer-involved shooting in Alamo | 5:52
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Public Information Officer Josh DeVine briefs the media on the officer-involved shooting along Highway 88 near Highway 412 in Alamo, Tenn., on Thursday, March 16, 2017. C.B. SCHMELTER/The Jackson Sun

3 of 3
Next Video
  • 636253534933706916-Rodney-Hess.JPG

    Rodney Hess on Facebook Live during shooting in Alamo, Crockett County
  • 636252945731376131-js-0317-OfficerInvovled-0002.jpg

    Rodney Hess on Facebook Live leading up to shooting in Alamo, Crockett
  • 44862796001_5362656655001_5362639726001-th.jpg

    VIDEO: TBI briefs media on officer-involved shooting in Alamo
636253534933706916-Rodney-Hess.JPG

(Photo: Johnisha Provost)

12 CONNECTTWEETLINKEDIN 1 COMMENTEMAILMORE
The fiancee of Rodney Hess, the man shot and killed by a Crockett County Sheriff's deputy, wants people to know that Hess was a great father and loved life, and now his family wants answers about how he died.

"He was not on a suicide mission," Johnisha Provost said Friday from her Texas home where she lived with Rodney Hess. "He was not trying to harm anybody. He was asking them for help and they shot him down."

Hess, 36, was shot and killed Thursday afternoon in Alamo, Tenn. when authorities said he blocked traffic on the Highway 412 East ramp by parking his car sideways.

Police: Man killed in shooting tried to hit officers

Authorities said Hess became "erratic" and when he attempted to use his vehicle to hit officers, a deputy shot him. Hess was taken to the Regional Medical Center in Memphis where he died.

The shooting unfolded on Facebook Live as Hess recorded the encounter with police.

"I found out as it was happening," Provost said. "I was at work and my aunt called me and was like, 'Rodney is in trouble.' He was on Facebook and I logged on and I watched it."

Provost said Hess suffered from bipolar disorder and she could tell from looking at the videos that he was disoriented and lost.

"He couldn't get his mind together. That's why he asked for a higher command," she said. "I always told him, 'Babe, if you are ever in a situation where you need help, ask the person in charge for the higher command to help you,' and that's what he kept saying."

She said Hess was in Tennessee visiting his mother, who lives in the Memphis area. She said he moved to Memphis when he was a teenager and graduated from Kirby High School.

"He had been in Memphis for two days after leaving New Orleans," she said. "He was on his way back home to me and his daughter when they killed him."

Through tears, Provost said Friday she wants justice for the man she shared her life with for the last three years.

"I want people to know he was not a threat. He was a great person. A great dad. A great provider. He just suffered from mental illness and people need to be aware of how to deal with mental illness," Provost said. "They could have just shot his tires out or they could have handled it differently. They didn't have to kill him."


http://www.commercialappeal.com/sto...l-shooting-crockett-county-deputies/99303320/
 

MASTERBAKER

༺ S❤️PER❤️ ᗰOD ༻
Super Moderator
NYPD cops fatally shoot deranged knife-wielding man inside Brooklyn apartment building after Taser shocks had no effect
BY EDGAR SANDOVAL GRAHAM RAYMAN STEPHEN REX BROWN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Tuesday, August 1, 2017, 12:43 AM
edp1n-2-web.jpg

The confrontation occurred on New York Ave. near Foster Ave. around 12:22 p.m., according to sources.
(TODD MAISEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Follow
NYPD NEWS

✔@NYPDnews

There has been a police involved shooting in Brooklyn within the confines of the @NYPD67Pct. More info to follow when available.

1:11 PM - Jul 31, 2017
Twitter Ads info and privacy
article-edp-0801.jpg


The cop who pulled the trigger was not injured, but was taken to Kings County Hospital for ringing in his ears, sources said.

A small crowd gathered outside the building chanting, “We want justice!”

One distraught woman yelled, “They shot my friend!”

Mayor de Blasio had been briefed on the incident, City Hall said.
article-edp-0731.jpg

The killing was reminiscent of the fatal police shooting of Mohamed Bah in Harlem in 2012. Bah had barricaded himself inside his apartment and was shot by cops after he charged them with a knife, the NYPD said. Bah’s mother had also called 911.

Sgt. Hugh Barry shot and killed 66-year-old Deborah Danner in October. Police said Danner was armed with a bat when she charged at cops. Barry was charged with murder in May. Unlike Monday’s incident, Barry kept his Taser holstered.

In January, the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD reported over 5,000 officers had received crisis intervention training but that the department needed to improve how to dispatch them where their skills are needed. “Today is a sad and stark reminder that there is much more to be done,” said Steve Coe, CEO of Community Access, which helps people with mental health issues.
 

MASTERBAKER

༺ S❤️PER❤️ ᗰOD ༻
Super Moderator
In one of three body-cam videos released this evening, Patrick Harmon, standing next to his bicycle along State Street, can be seen complying after he’s asked to remove his backpack. Seconds later, as he’s about to be handcuffed, he attempts to flee and one of the three police officers on the scene opens fire | http://ow.ly/wcG030fEqaA

WARNING: Extremely graphic content.





Patrick Harmon Body Cam Video Released
Earlier, DA’s office called deadly shooting ‘legally justified'

Posted By Enrique Limón on October 4, 2017, 7:07 PM

  • SLCPD body-cam capture

“I got ’em,” says SLCPD officer Clinton Fox, who shot and killed 50-year-old Patrick Harmon during what Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown later referred to as “a routine stop.”


In one of three body-cam videos released today, Harmon, standing next to his bicycle can be seen complying after he’s asked to remove his backpack. Seconds later, as he’s about to be handcuffed, he attempts to flee and Fox, one of the three police officers on scene, opens fire.


After being shot three times, Harmon is then tasered and administered first-aid. He was pronounced dead later that night at an area hospital.



In the footage, following a run to his patrol car to grab a pair of gloves, the shooting officer asks, “Do we need a tourniquet on anything?” about a minute-and-a-half after the incident.


A letter disseminated Wednesday afternoon by District Attorney Sim Gill’s office said that “After conducting an Officer Involved Critical Incident (OICI) review, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office has determined that the August 13, 2017 Use of Deadly Force by a Salt Lake City Police Department officer in [sic] was legally justified.”


Gill’s 18-page report goes on to say that Harmon was stopped after he was seen riding his bike with no rear tail light across all six State Street lanes and a median. It also says Harmon had active felony warrants and that as he ran he turned toward police officers with a knife and said “I’ll cut you.”


In an email to members of the press late Wednesday evening, SLCPD representatives said Gill’s decision prompted them to release the footage.


“This is about accountability and transparency,” Black Lives Matter organizer Lex Scott told a crowd gathered to demand the footage be released outside the Public Safety Building just four days ago.


At the rally, Harmon’s sister, Antionette—who drove 1,300 miles along with eight other family members to attend—recalled Patrick Harmon, four years her junior as “goofy” and remembered him as “a protector”—someone who defended his only sister whenever needed.
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Lying_Whore_America.jpg

1ashotd0707161.JPG

Philando Castile and his Mother Valerie Castile


gdlhsths0iqnoj5ri4vz.jpg
by Michael Harriot | https://www.theroot.com/this-lying-murdering-whore-called-america-1796184773

Today—almost a year after a man who took an oath to protect and serve sent a bullet into the skull of another human being at point-blank range who was absolutely no threat to anyone on earth—12 jurors, a judge and and the entire American justice system stood on the grave of Philando Castile, took an extended piss, wiped their bloody hands in the soil and said, “Fuck that guy.”

Please spare me the self-assured comments about how you knew what the verdict would be, or the narcissistic passive-aggressive question of “What did you think would happen?” If I were forced to wager my life’s savings on the verdict, I, too, would have bet that Jeronimo Yanez would never be convicted of Castile’s murder. But if you informed me on Monday that you planned to kick me in the gut on Friday, I could prepare myself for it all week, but that doesn’t mean it still wouldn’t hurt.

America is a bitch.

America has always been lovely from the outside, with her spacious skies and amber waves of grain. We see white people enjoying freedom, liberty and equality and wonder if America could ever love us like that. But America is a cruel mistress who cuddles up to us and murders black people in their sleep. She has never meant us any good. Only harm. Only pain. America is a liar. America is a murderer. America is a bitch.

Acquittal is different from a hung or deadlocked jury; it means Yanez is “not guilty.” It means that even if a black man complies with every letter of the law, it is still OK for a law-enforcement officer to kill him.

It means that even if a black man is legally carrying a gun but never pulls it out, he can still be killed for carrying a gun.

Which means—even though the Constitution guarantees every American the right—a black man cannot carry a gun.

Which means that a black man’s constitutional rights can be arbitrarily taken away from him.

Which means that a black man has no constitutional rights.

America is bullshit.

All of it. Every stripe on the flag is bullshit. Every star that spangles the banner is bullshit. Do not ever wonder why a second-string signal caller would “disrespect” it when it has never protected us.

Ever.

It is impossible for justice to coexist with inequality. Justice is a constant—either it is or it isn’t. It is unflagging. The fact that it is applied to black lives arbitrarily and sparingly is proof that it doesn’t exist for us. We live under the delusion that there is something we can do to prevent our brains from being splattered onto a random sidewalk, but that is bullshit, too.

If you stand still, like Eric Garner, America will kill you.

If you drive away, like Sam Dubose, America will kill you.

If you walk away slowly, like Terence Crutcher, America will killl you.

If you run away, like Walter Scott, America will kill you.

If you fight back, like Trayvon Martin, America will kill you.

If you get on your hands and knees like Kenneth Walker, America will kill you.

And like Brendan Hester and Philando Castile, even if you comply with every word that you are told; even if you pose no threat; even if there is absolutely no reason for her to be afraid, America will pump bullets into a black body and never miss a minute of sleep in her comfortable bed at home, because America is an evil bitch.

Do not be mad at Yanez. He is a police officer, and we already know what they do. This is the fault of America. Yanez admitted that Castile didn’t pull out a gun. He conceded that Castile didn’t do anything dangerous. America is the one that let him go. Her laws. Her courts. Her criminal-justice system that fucks black men for half a joint but allows white killers their freedom, unmarred by their guilt.

Because America is bullshit.

The truth is, it’s all bullshit. Whatever you tell your son or daughter to do when the police stops him or her is bullshit. The idea that it means anything to “know your rights” is bullshit. It’s bullshit for anyone to suggest that a black man should ever trust a police officer in this country. It’s bullshit for anyone without white skin to ever believe that he or she enjoys the full and equal protection of the law. It’s bullshit to believe that America gives a fuck about you and won’t put a gun to your head and pull the trigger for no reason at all. And even though it is not a new revelation, it still hurts my gut.

I imagine that Philando Castile loved America. I bet that he thought she was fair. I bet he thought that telling a police officer that he was carrying a gun was the right thing to do, right up until the bullet entered his skull. In that instant, he probably wondered how this could be—how he could love something so much and do everything right by her, only to have her stand over him and watch the blood trickle down his cheek, the same way she had stolen the breath from countless black bodies before.

I bet America celebrated a little bit. I bet she even smiled as Philando Castile descended into the infinite darkness, still loving her, confused and wet with pieces of his own brain fluid.

Imagine getting fucked like that.


Message by muckraker10021
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
http://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/unarmed-stephen-clark-shot-to-death-in-own-backyard-by-pigs.994984/


Unarmed man killed by police who fired 20 rounds at him

  • By JOSIAH BATES
Mar 21, 2018, 8:25 PM ET
shooting-victim-01-kxtv-jrl-180321_hpMain_12x5_992.jpg
PlayKXTV
WATCH Unarmed man killed by police who fired 20 rounds at him


Stephon Clark was in his grandmother’s backyard, trying to get into the house Sunday night when two Sacramento police officers loosed a fusillade of 20 bullets, killing him, Clark's family told ABC News.

Police were responding to reports of a black male breaking into a car and hiding in a backyard in the 7500 block of 29th Street, officials said.

When officers arrived, they saw Clark and he advanced toward them, holding an object in his hand, according to police. Initially, police reported that Clark, 22, was armed with a gun, then with a "toolbar," but all that was found on him was a cellphone.

On Wednesday, police released video from the officers' body cameras as well as night-vision, thermal-imaging video from a Sacramento Sheriff’s Department helicopter. The chopper video shows Clark running from a neighbor's yard and leaping a fence into his grandmother's property. The deputies in the helicopter can be heard saying the suspect had broken a window on the house next door and was checking out another car in the driveway.

In that video, Sacramento police can be seen approaching Clark in the driveway before the view is obscured by the building's roof. The video picks up with officers running into the backyard and jumping back behind the corner of the building for cover.

The police body-cam videos show the police running down the driveway after Clark and taking cover at the rear edge of the building. They can be heard yelling several times for Clark to stop and show them his hands before the 20-shot barrage.

"Show me your hands! Gun, gun, gun!" one of the officers can be heard shouting just before shots rang out.

The chopper video shows Clark moving toward the officers before the shooting, but it was unclear whether his arms were extended.

Clark, whose nickname was “Zo” based on his middle name Alonzo, was a father of a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old, according to his brother, Stevante Clark.

“He was a people person. He always reminded me of an old teenager. He could talk about religion, politics. He was very intellectual,” Stevante Clark told ABC News. “He would stay at home with the kids. I was very proud of him.”



shooting-victim-02-jrl-kxtv-jrl-180321_hpEmbed_23x13_992.jpg
KXTV
Sequita Thompson, the grandmother to Stephen Clark, during an interview in which she describes how her grandson was shot 20 times by Sacramento Police officers, in the backyard of her home.


Stevante Clark said his grandparents heard the shots in the backyard, but believed them to be firecrackers. It wasn’t until officers were around their house that they looked out the window and saw Stephon Clark lying on the ground, Stevante Clark said.



Sacramento police release video in fatal cop shooting of 50-year-old Joseph Mann


“She yelled at them and called them murderers,” Stevante Clark said. “The cops didn’t provide us with any information about the alleged break-ins.”

Authorities are still investigating exactly what happened, a spokesperson for the police department told ABC News.

According to a press release earlier this week, police canvassed the area and found three vehicles with damages that they believed were caused by the suspect. There was also a nearby residence that had a sliding glass door shattered.

According to Stevante Clark, he and Stephon Clark would regularly enter their grandparents’ house through the backyard because the front doorbell didn’t work.

"It easily could have been me," Stevante Clark said.

Both officers involved in the shooting are on paid administrative leave.



shooting-victim-01-kxtv-jrl-180321_hpMain_4x3_992.jpg
KXTV
An undated family photograph of Stephon Clark who was holding his cellphone when he was fatally shot Sunday night by two Sacramento police officers who fired at him 20 times, the department said Tuesday.


According to the spokesperson, Stephon Clark had prior felonies but would not go into detail about them.

This shooting comes less than two years after the killing of Joseph Mann, another unarmed Sacramento man who was shot by police in the summer of 2016.

His death led to a number of police reforms, including the requirement that all patrol officers wear body cameras and receive training in de-escalation.

Berry Accius, a community activist in Sacramento, was at the forefront of pushing for changes in the department after Mann was killed. He’s ready to do the same again after Stephon Clark’s death.

“There is no way for them to justify this. How do you shoot a person 20 times outside their grandparents’ house?” Accius told ABC News.

Accius thinks this shooting will be a test for the police department.

“Here is the moment of truth. This is now going to tell us if accountability, transparency and justice will be served,” Accius said. "If they are saying that this is a new culture of police then show us.”

The family is in the process of getting an attorney and Stevante has started a GoFundMe to raise funds to bury Stephon Clark next to their older brother, who died in 2006.

“I’m focused on his kids now,” Stevante Clark said. “I don’t want them to want for anything.”
 
Last edited:

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
I don't have his date of birth yet but when I do I'll update this post.

Stephen Clark and his brother.

180321162302-sacramento-police-shooting-stephon-clark-exlarge-169.jpg

180321162302-sacramento-police-shooting-stephon-clark-exlarge-169.jpg


Protests block NBA arena over police shooting 01:19
(CNN)Stevante Clark says his 22-year-old brother was a devoted father who had recently changed his life, and he wasn't a thief.

Now his brother is the latest name on a list of black men killed by police: Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and Walter Scott, among others.
"I know there could have been another way," Clark told CNN Sacramento affiliate KOVR. "He didn't have to die."
Stephon Clark was shot and killed Sunday night in his grandmother's Sacramento backyard by officers who believed he was pointing a gun at them, according to police. No weapon was found, only a cell phone.
Officers fired 20 shots, hitting Clark multiple times, police told KOVR.
180323143839-02-stephon-clark-family-large-169.jpg

Stephon Clark with his two sons.
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Rest in peace Danny Ray Thomas.
http://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/a-...an-—-days-after-stephon-clark’s-death.995349/




A deputy in Houston shot and killed an unarmed black man — days after Stephon Clark’s death




by Alex Horton March 24 at 1:01 PM Email the author
EPH4FQBZ742Q7OQQDLNICNPPSE.jpg

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaks during a June 2017 news conference. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle/AP)
The woman that recorded the last moments of Danny Ray Thomas’s life thought it would end differently.

“He about to get Tased,” a woman says in the video, laughing. A police SUV’s lights flash near an apparent altercation involving Thomas and another man on a Houston street.

Thomas is in white, his pants around his ankles. He heads to the right of the camera frame, and the Harris County sheriff’s deputy comes into view. His gun is drawn. The deputy backpedals. A passing truck obscures the picture for a moment.

Then, the gunshot comes, a single round that pierces Thomas’s chest.

The woman behind the camera is not laughing any longer. Her video is a chaotic, tumbling stream of images as she tries to regain composure. “Why he shot him? Why he shot that man?” she shrieks. The woman eventually reframes the scene, with the deputy crouching over Thomas. He was pronounced dead at Houston Northwest Medical Center, authorities said.

#BREAKING Video obtained by the @HoustonChron shows the death of Danny Ray Thomas after he was shot by a Harris County deputy Thursday. No weapon was recovered at the scene, officials said. #hounews #breakingnews

Watch the full video: https://t.co/wqh4BKPRZo pic.twitter.com/jdoj0gc3hv

— Robert Downen (@RobDownenChron) March 24, 2018
Authorities indicated Thomas, a 34-year-old black man, had “some object” in his hand, but Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jason Spencer told the Houston Chronicle “we have not recovered a weapon at this point.” It’s not clear from the video if Thomas has anything in his hands.

He does not appear to raise his arms in a manner that would appear threatening before the passing truck blocks the camera’s view. About three seconds pass between the truck obscuring the frame and the gunshot ringing out.

Marketa Thomas, the victim’s sister, told reporters Thursday that they both struggled with mental illness and relied on each together, saying there is “no justification” for the deputy involved.

“Knowing that he was okay when I woke up every day made me fine,” she told reporters at the scene, according to a Chronicle video. “And knowing that my brother is no longer here — you think I’m going to be fine? I’m not going to be fine. That’s my brother.”

Thomas spoke through tears. “That’s my flesh and my blood. … He had my back through everything. And he promised me he wouldn’t leave me, and he didn’t leave me. Somebody took him from me.”

[ ‘Our city is hurting’: Protesters swarm downtown Sacramento following deadly police shooting ]

Family members said Thomas has been hit hard by the deaths of his two children, who were allegedly drowned in a home bathtub by their mother, Sheborah Thomas in 2016, when they were 5 and 7 years old. She is awaiting trial for capital murder, the Chronicle reported.

Tensions flared at a nearby gas station where media and members of the public gathered, including apparent witnesses who said Thomas appeared compliant. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez met the crowd face to face after the incident.

“But he threw his hands up,” a woman asked, in a moment captured by CBS affiliate KHOU. “But what if he threw his hands up?”

Gonzalez rebuffed the assertion. “We don’t know that. That’s why we’re out here to investigate. We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Gonzalez told the crowd of mostly black citizens.

Thursday’s killing occurred in the jurisdiction of the Houston Police Department, which will take the lead in the investigation. The sheriff’s office and Harris County District Attorney will also conduct probes.

Authorities released a brief summary of the incident on Friday.

“According to witnesses, Thomas was walking in the middle of the intersection of Imperial Valley and Greens Rd. with his pants around his ankles, talking to himself and hitting vehicles as they passed by,” the Houston Police Department said in a statement. Thomas struck a white vehicle, and a physical altercation ensued. A passing deputy stopped to disrupt the disturbance, the police said.

“The deputy gave Thomas verbal commands to stop, which he ignored and continued to advance toward the deputy. Fearing for his safety, the deputy discharged his duty weapon, striking Thomas once in the chest,” the department stated.

[ The Post’s 2018 database of officer-involved killings ]

“Obviously they’re someone’s loved one. These situations are always difficult and so the main thing we can do is to make sure that we get the facts and that we’re thorough and transparent,” Gonzalez told reporters at the scene Thursday.

The shooting serves as a “a reminder of how things could escalate in these situations,” Gonzalez added. “Our deputies work in a very difficult environment where they have to make split-second decisions to protect their lives as well.”

Houston officer Kim Jones at the department’s crime center told The Washington Post on Saturday there was no information on whether the deputy was carrying a Taser or other less-than-lethal weapons. The sheriff’s office did not immediately answer an inquiry requesting information on the typical configuration of less-than-lethal weapons for deputies on patrol.

The Houston killing occurred just days after two Sacramento police officers shot and killed Stephon Clark in his own backyard after a foot pursuit on Sunday night. The police believed Clark raised a gun at them. Only a white iPhone was found near his body. He died at the scene after the officers shot 20 rounds at him.

That incident sparked waves of protests in the following days, with chants of “Phones up, don’t shoot” — a reference to the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. He was also unarmed when he was killed by police.

An analysis by The Post found 987 people were killed by police last year — 68 of them unarmed. Of those unarmed victims, 30 were white, 20 were black and 13 were Hispanic, showing an overrepresentation of African Americans compared to their percentage of the U.S. population. Five of the remaining fatalities were of unknown or other race.

At least 230 people have been killed by police this year, according to The Post’s database on fatal force.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ed-black-man-days-after-stephon-clarks-death/

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/WATCH-Video-shows-unarmed-man-with-pants-down-12778068.php?utm_campaign=whatsapp-mobile&utm_source=CMS Sharing Button&utm_medium=social

WATCH: Unarmed man with pants down fatally shot by Harris County deputy
ByRobert Downen

March 23, 2018
  • 16

WATCH: Video shows man with pants down shot, killed by Harris County Sheriff's Deputy
A video has surfaced showing an unarmed man with his pants down shot and killed in the middle of the street by a Harris County Sheriff's Deputy.
A video has surfaced showing an unarmed man with his pants down shot and killed in the middle of the street by a Harris County Sheriff's Deputy.

Media: Houston Chronicle, Kaaryn Young
Video obtained by the Houston Chronicle captures the killing of anapparently unarmed man who was shotby a Harris County Sheriff's Office deputy in the Greater Greenspoint area Thursday.

The Houston Police Department confirmed Friday that Danny Ray Thomas, 34, died after the deputy -- who has not been named -- fired one shot at him around 1 p.m. in the 17600 block of Imperial Valley Road.

MOST POPULAR
Sheriff's Office spokesman Jason Spencer said Thursday that no weapon was recovered at the scene.

Witnesses said Thomas was "walking in the middle of the intersection of Imperial Valley and Greens Road with his pants around his ankles, talking to himself and hitting vehicles as they passed by," according to a press release Friday from HPD, which is leading the investigation because the shooting occurred within city limits.

TRANSLATOR
To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

"Thomas then struck a white vehicle, and the driver exited and engaged in a physical altercation with the suspect," Houston Police said. The deputy saw the altercation and stopped his car.

HPD said Thomas ignored verbal commands from the deputy and "continued to advance" toward him.

"Fearing for his safety, the deputy discharged his duty weapon, striking Thomas once in the chest, " Houston Police said.

You can read read the Chronicle's previous report on Thomas' deathhere.

Robert Downencovers crime for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him onTwitteror email him atrobert.downen@chron.com.
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
NYPD officer fires 5 shots, killing black man holding object that looked like shower head in Brooklyn

John Annese Rocco Paracascandola Janon Fisher
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Wednesday, April 4, 2018, 7:42 PM

An NYPD officer shot a man to death on a Brooklyn street Wednesday afternoon, after they saw him with a metal object that looked like a shower head in his hand, police sources said.

Officers responded to a call about 4:30 p.m. that there was an emotionally disturbed black man believed to be in his mid-30s waving a gun at the corner of Utica Ave. and Empire Blvd., law enforcement sources said.

Witnesses told cops that he had “something in his jacket,” sources said.

The officer fired approximately five shots, striking the victim multiple times about 4:45 p.m. at the corner of Utica Ave. and Montgomery St. in Crown Heights, sources said.

“I heard all these shots, I thought it was firecrackers at first. I turned around and you just see the cops standing over the guy,” witness Chris J. said. “It was at least five shots. First it was one, then it was nonstop after that.”

article-copshoot3-0404.jpg

NYPD officers investigate the scene of a fatal shooting on Utica Ave. and Montgomery Ave. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on April 4, 2018.
(Ken Murray /New York Daily News)
The witness said a plainclothes officer handcuffed the victim lying motionless on the sidewalk.

“Blood was everywhere,” Chris said. “They put him on his back and they tried to compress his chest but he was gone.”

Chris said he saw no weapon at the scene.

There was at least two plainclothes cops tending to the victim.

man-shot-killed-cops-brooklyn.jpg

The victim was shot multiple times about 4:45 p.m. in Crown Heights.
(Theodore Parisienne)
Andre Wilson, 38, said he’s known the victim for 20 years, describing him as a quirky neighborhood character.

“All he did was just walk around the neighborhood,” he said. “He speaks to himself, usually he has an orange bible or a rosary in his hand. He never had a problem with anyone.”

Wilson said he was shocked that it would come to this.

“The officers from the neighborhood, they know him. He has no issue with violence. Everybody just knows he’s just mentally challenged. This shouldn’t have happened at all.”

article-copshoot5-0404.jpg

Angry Brooklyn residents are seen arguing with NYPD officers after a black man was shot and killed at Utica Ave. and Empire Blvd.
(Ken Murray/New York Daily News)
One bullet shattered a window at Chucky Fresh Market at 414 Utica Ave.

“There were gunshots, and I just ducked,” said a clerk who declined to identify himself. “A minute later, cops were everywhere.”

After the shooting, an angry crowd formed at the edge of the police tape shouting at police and pointing out the officer they believed to be responsible.

“The whole community came outside,” he added. "People were going crazy. It was a nightmare out there.”

The victim is known in the neighborhood for being emotionally disturbed. “He’s a little touched in the head,” Chris said. “But he’s not crazy enough to go around hitting people.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...-killing-black-man-brooklyn-article-1.3914960
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Diante Yarber: Police kill black father with barrage of bullets in Walmart parking lot
The killing of the 26-year-old, who is believed to have been unarmed, is being called a brutal case of excessive police force

Sam Levin in San Francisco

@SamTLevin
Email
Tue 17 Apr 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Tue 17 Apr 2018 14.41 EDT





Diante Yarber was driving his cousin and friends to a local Walmart when he was shot and killed by police on 5 April. Photograph: Courtesy Brittany Chandler
California police fired what sounded like more than 30 bullets at a packed car in a shopping store parking lot, killing a black father of three and injuring a young woman in the latest US law enforcement shooting to spark backlash.

Police in Barstow, two hours outside of Los Angeles, killed 26-year-old Diante Yarber, who was believed to be unarmed and was driving his cousin and friends to a local Walmart on the morning of 5 April. Police have alleged that Yarber was “wanted for questioning” in a stolen vehicle case and that he “accelerated” the car towards officers when they tried to stop him, but his family and their attorney argued that the young father posed no threat and should not have been treated as a suspect in the first place.

Sign up to receive the top US stories every morning
“The police took him away for no reason,” said Brittany Chandler, the mother of Yarber’s 19-month-old daughter, Leilani. “The police should be held accountable for this … They are sick people for them to be able to shoot someone down in broad daylight.”

The shooting happened weeks after police in northern California killed Stephon Clark, an unarmed father who was standing in his family’s back yard. Though Yarber’s killing has not prompted massive rallies, both shootings have shone a harsh light on the way police continue to aggressively use lethal force in black communities, even in a liberal state where the Black Lives Matter movement has long protested against police violence and racism.

The San Bernardino county sheriff’s department said officers were responding to a “call of a suspicious vehicle” and attempting a “traffic stop” when Yarber, the driver, “suddenly reversed the vehicle” and hit a patrol car and then allegedly accelerated. Blurry footage from a witness captured the sounds of dozens of rounds fired in rapid succession, with one or more officers firing at the car, not far from bystanders and shoppers in the lot.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest
A photo of Diante Yarber provided by the mother of his 19-month-old daughter. Photograph: Courtesy Brittany Chandler
Lee Merritt, an attorney for the family, said Yarber, who was known by the nickname “Butchie”, was not armed and that the car posed no danger to officers when they began spraying him with bullets.

“They saw a car full of black people sitting in front of a Walmart, and they decided that was suspicious,” said Merritt. “They just began pouring bullets … It’s irresponsible. It’s dangerous. It’s mind-boggling, the use of force.”

A police spokeswoman said “involved officers” were on “paid administrative leave”, but declined to disclose the number of bullets shot and officers who fired. Police labeled the incident an “assault” on an officer, but Dale Galipo, an attorney representing the 23-year-old woman hit in the car, said the investigation so far has revealed Yarber was unarmed and that officers were not in the path of the vehicle, which means they should never have discharged their weapons, let alone fire a barrage of bullets.

Galipo said his client was struck by at least two shots and suffered “serious injuries”, adding, “She’s still in a state of shock.”

'They executed him': police killing of Stephon Clark leaves family shattered
Read more
Yarber was also driving his cousin’s car at the time, which was never reported stolen, said Aleta Yarber, Diante’s aunt, who said she has since retrieved the car and that it did not appear it had rammed into police vehicles. Police did not respond to inquiries about the claims that Yarber was a car theft suspect.

Aleta’s son was in the car at the time of the shooting, but the bullets missed him. In the weeks since, “He has not been able to say much of anything,” she said. “It was very traumatizing.”

Merritt said he believed Yarber was trying to shield others in the car from bullets when he was hit, adding that the 23-year-old woman in the back was initially placed in a police car and treated like a suspect before officers got her medical attention.

Ruby Hawkins, Yarber’s sister, said local police often harassed her brother and that the officers should face criminal charges for killing him. “They are the biggest criminals. They are bullies with badges … I don’t know how you can fear for your life with a person that is moving away from you.”

540.jpg

Diante with Brittany Chandler and their daughter Leilani. Photograph: Courtesy Brittany Chandler
Hawkins, 40, said her brother had a job working at a warehouse and that she saw him the night before he was killed. “You see this all the time, but you never in a million years think you’ll be the one crying about a loved one killed at the hands of police.”

Training and policy dictates that police should not fire at moving vehicles, said Galipo, noting that these kinds of killings are avoidable and particularly dangerous. Last year, undercover police in Hayward, California, attempted to shoot a driver they were trying to arrest and instead killed a 16-year-old girl sitting in the passenger seat.

“It still doesn’t even feel real. I wish I could just wake up and it would be a dream,” said Chandler, adding it was difficult to imagine her daughter growing up without Yarber. Police probably targeted him because he was black, added Chandler, who is white: “They would’ve never drawn their guns on me.”

Samantha Robledo, who has a seven-year-old daughter with Yarber, said she felt like police were trying to manufacture reasons to attack his character and justify the killing.

“He would always make you smile, no matter what,” she added. “You couldn’t be angry around him. He was so loving and friendly, and that’s what we’re going to miss the most.”

Robledo said she has tried her best to help their daughter cope since his death. When they talk about her father now, the girl, Naliyah, says, “He’s my angel now.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...rber-police-fatal-shooting-barstow-california

https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/u...fied-barrage-of-police-gunfire-lawyer.998500/
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member

Pittsburgh area teen killed after running from car suspected in a shooting, police say



180621002837-antwon-rose-02-exlarge-169.jpg
Antwon Rose was shot by an East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania officer on Tuesday

Hours after being sworn in on the local force Tuesday, a suburban Pittsburgh officer fatally shot a 17-year-old who ran when police stopped a vehicle suspected in a shooting, according to authorities and a local mayor.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office and a family attorney identified the victim as Antwon Rose II, of Rankin. Rose, who is African-American, died at a hospital. He had been a passenger in the car suspected of being involved in a shooting earlier Tuesday in a nearby community, Allegheny County Police said Wednesday.
Protesters on Wednesday converged on East Pittsburgh, the borough southeast of Pittsburgh where the shooting occurred.
Sometime before 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, an unidentified person in a vehicle fired nine .40-caliber rounds at a 22-year-old in North Braddock borough, Allegheny County Police said. The victim, who returned fire, was struck and taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released.
Witnesses, including one who flagged down a police officer, described the vehicle in the shooting. Thirteen minutes later, an East Pittsburgh officer saw a vehicle they say matched the witnesses' description, a silver Chevy Cruze. The officer followed the car and stopped it around 8:40 p.m., according to authorities.

The officer ordered the driver out of the car and onto the ground, Allegheny County police said. Rose and an unidentified passenger "bolted" from the vehicle, and the East Pittsburgh officer fired at them, striking Rose, Allegheny County Police said.

Allegheny County Police Department

On June 19, 2018, at 8:27 p.m., County 9-1-1 received multiple calls reporting shots fired near the intersection of Jones and Baldridge Avenues in North Braddock Borough. Arriving officers found a 22-year-old man wounded by gunfire in the 800 block of Kirkpatrick; he was transported to a local hospital where he was treated for an abdominal wound and later released. Investigation revealed that the shooter fired nine .40 caliber rounds at the victim from a passing vehicle; the victim also returned fire at the vehicle.

Witnesses described the vehicle involved in the shooting, and the description was broadcast via police radio to responding officers and officers from surrounding municipalities. The vehicle description was updated by a witness who flagged down a police officer. An East Pittsburgh Police officer observed the suspect vehicle, a silver Chevy Cruze, travelling on North Avenue in East Pittsburgh. The officer followed the car onto Grandview Avenue and stopped the suspect vehicle at that location at 8:40 p.m. The driver of the vehicle was ordered out by the officer and directed to the ground. Two other occupants of the vehicle then bolted from the vehicle on foot. The East Pittsburgh officer fired his weapon, striking one of the fleeing suspects several times. The gunshot victim, a 17-year-old male, was transported to McKeesport hospital where he was pronounced deceased at 9:19 p.m. The occupant who was detained was later released. Two firearms were later recovered from the suspect vehicle. The third occupant who fled remains at large.

In accordance with police best practices in the aftermath of officer-involved shootings, Allegheny County Police Department (ACPD) Homicide detectives were requested to assume the role of independent investigating agency. The East Pittsburgh officer has been placed on administrative leave. ACPD Homicide will work closely with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office as this investigation progresses, providing his staff with investigative findings for review.
Anyone with information related to this crime, or to the shooting in North Braddock that precipitated this event, is asked to call the Allegheny County Police Homicide Unit at 412-473-1300, or its Tip Line at 1-833-ALL-TIPS (1-833-255-8477). Callers can remain anonymous. The department can also be reached via its social media outlets.


A witness to the shooting captured it on video that was posted on Facebook.
In the video, one police SUV is seen stopped in the middle of the street as another police car pulls up behind it. Two people are seen running from the Chevy Cruze, and within seconds what appears to be three shots ring out. The two people appear to drop to the ground.
The woman who recorded the video is heard saying: "Why are they shooting at him?"
"All they did was run and they're shooting at them," the woman said.
The driver of the vehicle was later released, Allegheny County Police said. Authorities are still searching for the other passenger.

Rose was unarmed, Allegheny County Police Superintendent Coleman McDonough told reporters. Two firearms were recovered from the floor of the vehicle, McDonough said.
McDonough said he was "very confident" the car the officer stopped was the one involved in the shooting, pointing to "ballistic damage to the rear window."
Based on witness statements, McDonough said, he believes Rose was given verbal commands, but he didn't know what the specific command was.


CONTINUED:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/us/east-pittsburgh-police-fatal-shooting-antwon-rose/index.html







A 17-year-old boy in East Pittsburgh is dead after being shot three times in the back by an officer who had been sworn into the police department just hours earlier.

Antwon Rose was killed Tuesday night while fleeing from a car that had been pulled over in connection with an earlier shooting in North Braddock, Pennsylvania, according to WTAE TV.

A post on the Allegheny County Police Department’s Facebook page described what happened:

An East Pittsburgh police officer saw a vehicle matching the description on Grandview Avenue which also had ballistics damage to the rear window. The officer stopped the vehicle near Grandview and Howard Street in East Pittsburgh.

The officer took the driver into custody. While he was putting the driver into handcuffs, two other occupants ran from the car.

One individual ― a 17-year-old male ― was shot by police. He was transported to McKeesport Hospital where he was declared deceased.

Rose was not armed, Allegheny County police Superintendent Coleman McDonough said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

5b2ada041a0000c704ce230d.png

KDKA TV
Antwon Rose was shot and killed by a police officer in East Pittsburgh.


A bystander posted a 17-second video of the incident on Facebook. It shows two people running away from two police cars. After three gunshots, both of those people dive or fall to the ground.

Although the officer involved in the shooting was placed on leave by the East Pittsburgh Police Department, he has not been publicly named, McDonough told the Post-Gazette.

On Wednesday, East Pittsburgh Mayor Louis Payne told local station WPXI TV that the officer had been sworn into the department only a few hours before the shooting. However, he isn’t a rookie, having been an officer with other area police departments for the past seven years.

McDonough declined to say whether the officer is white, telling the Post-Gazette that he didn’t see what that had to do with the shooting.

People who live near where Rose was killed are outraged.

“Why did they have to shoot him when he is running away?” Selena Brooklin said to the Post-Gazette. “What is the justification for that? There is no justification. There is no answer. You shot a man in the back while he was running away.”

The 20-year-old driver of the vehicle that Rose allegedly fled was taken into custody. He was later released because officers did not feel they had cause to charge him in the North Braddock shooting, according to USA Today.

The North Braddock incident had happened less than 15 minutes earlier. Shots were fired from a car and a 22-year-old man was hit in the abdomen. The man, who was treated at a hospital and later released, told police that he fired back and struck the car.

Although McDonough said he was confident the car carrying Rose was involved in the North Braddock incident, more investigation was needed to determine whether Rose had fired a weapon in the earlier shooting, according to USA Today.

Rose’s death is being mourned by students and faculty at Woodland Hills High School. “He was an excellent student,” school superintendent Al Johnson told The New York Times, adding that Rose was taking Advanced Placement classes.

With Rose’s death, Johnson said the school has lost four students to gun violence over the past academic year.

Kim Ransom, who employed Rose at the Pittsburgh Gymnastics Club for about a year, told the Times that the teenager would be missed.

“Everybody loved him here. He was very mature,” Ransom said.

“I feel like it’s important for people to know that he was Antwon,” she said. “He’s not a statistic, he’s Antwon.”

https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/t...duty-way-to-fucking-go-dipshit.1006533/unread
 
Last edited:

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
Police Killing of Antwon Rose, 17, in East Pittsburgh Prompts Protests
Image
merlin_139933614_10fd6aec-1914-4ddb-b6b6-be581e59feef-articleLarge.jpg

Antwon, 17, in a family photograph.
By Matt Stevens, Melissa Gomez and Christina Caron

  • June 21, 2018


The fatal shooting this week by an East Pittsburgh, Pa., police officer of an unarmed teenager who was attempting to flee prompted more protests on Thursday and calls for answers from law enforcement officials.

The teenager, Antwon Rose II, 17, was a passenger in a car that had been pulled over because it matched the description of a vehicle that had fled an earlier shooting in which a 22-year-old man was wounded, the Allegheny County Police Department said in a statement.

A video that recorded the fatal shooting on Tuesday night and was posted on Facebook shows two people running from police vehicles as three shots are fired. One of the people, later identified as Antwon, appears to fall to the ground.

The authorities confirmed on Thursday that Antwon was struck three times but did not specify where.

“Why are they shooting?” the woman recording the video says. “All they did was run and they’re shooting at them!”

The Allegheny County Police Department, which is investigating the encounter, said that two firearms were found on the floor of the car. When asked if the 17-year-old was found with a weapon on him, Coleman McDonough, the department’s superintendent, said he was not.

On Thursday, Mike Manko, a spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, confirmed reports that Antwon, while unarmed, had an empty clip of a handgun in his pants pocket at the time he was shot.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Wednesday quoted Mayor Louis Payne of East Pittsburgh — a borough in Allegheny County — as saying that the officer who shot Antwon was hired in mid-May and had been formally sworn in hours before the shooting. Mr. Payne told Action News 4 on Thursday that he believed the shooting was the first time in at least 20 years that an East Pittsburgh officer had opened fire.

In a statements on Thursday, the authorities identified the East Pittsburgh officer who fired as Michael H. Rosfeld.

Attempts to reach Officer Rosfeld, 30, by phone were unsuccessful. The law firm of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin confirmed that it was representing the officer, but a lawyer for the firm did not immediately return requests for comment Thursday night.

Officials said Officer Rosfeld had worked for the Oakmont Borough Police Department, which is about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, as a part-time patrol officer from 2011 to 2013. Jason Domaratz, the police chief in Harmar Township, said Officer Rosfeld joined the Harmar Township Police Department, just across the Allegheny River, in February 2012 as a part-time patrol officer. Officer Rosfeld stayed there for less than a year before he accepted a full-time position with the University of Pittsburgh’s Police Department, Chief Domaratz said.

Chief Domaratz said it was common for officers to apply to both the Harmar Township and Oakmont Borough departments because of their proximity to each another and to change jobs frequently while they try to secure a full-time position with benefits.

Image
merlin_140010447_accfea76-2ccf-403b-b017-e21b00b7fa21-articleLarge.jpg

Demonstrators shouting “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” blocked Interstate 376 near Pittsburgh on Thursday night to protest the fatal shooting this week of 17-year-old Antwon Rose II by an East Pittsburgh, Pa., police officer.CreditAndrew Goldstein/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via Associated Press
“I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary,” Chief Domaratz said on Thursday, adding that the officer did not get in trouble while he was part of his department and never fired his weapon.

Joseph Miksch, a University of Pittsburgh spokesman, said Officer Rosfeld was employed as a full-time police officer at the university from October 2012 to Jan. 18 of this year. Citing confidential personnel records, he said he could not comment on the officer’s performance or say why he left the department.

In a statement on Wednesday night, S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Antwon’s family, said: “We know very little about the circumstances surrounding his death at this early stage. We must emphasize that rumors of him being involved in a separate shooting are unsubstantiated. We know that he was not armed at the time he was shot down, that he posed no immediate threat to anyone, and that, significantly, the driver of the vehicle he occupied was released from police custody.”

On Wednesday evening, dozens of people gathered outside the East Pittsburgh Police Department to protest the black teenager’s death. “No justice, no peace!” they chanted. Some carried signs that said, “Justice4Antwon” and “#BlackLivesMatter.” Then on Thursday, hundreds of people rallied outside of the Allegheny County Courthouse; later Thursday evening, protesters poured onto Interstate 376, blocking it.

Those who knew Antwon described him as bright, lively and funny. He was a senior at Woodland Hills High School who was expected to graduate at the end of the year, the superintendent, Al Johnson, said in an interview on Wednesday.

“He was an excellent student,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that Antwon was taking Advanced Placement classes.

Kim Ransom, the owner of the Pittsburgh Gymnastics Club, where Antwon worked for about a year, recalled the sweltering day in 2015 that he interviewed to work at the club as an instructor.

“He brought his typed-up résumé and he was wearing a full three-piece suit with his shiny shoes and he was sweating profusely,” she said.

“I just thought it was very cute. I think he was 14 at the time,” she continued. “Someone in his life must have been guiding him in the right direction.”

He got the job and began coaching children in an after-school program and other classes.

“Everybody loved him here,” she said. “He was very mature.”

The traffic stop on Tuesday that led to the deadly shooting occurred after multiple 911 calls earlier in the night reported a shooting in North Braddock, Pa., that had wounded a 22-year-old man in the abdomen, the police said. He was treated at a trauma center and later released.

Investigators said a gunman in a passing vehicle had fired nine .40-caliber rounds at the 22-year-old, who returned fire.

The 911 callers described a vehicle they saw fleeing the scene, the police said, and Officer Rosfeld saw a similar vehicle — a silver Chevrolet Cruze that appeared to have ballistics damage to its rear window.

Image
The scene of the shooting on Tuesday night. The authorities said two weapons were found in the car the teenager was riding in, but none were found on him.CreditCBS Pittsburgh, via YouTube
“I’m very confident that that was the vehicle involved in the shooting,” Superintendent McDonough said.

Officer Rosfeld stopped the car at 8:40 p.m. and took the driver into custody, the authorities said.

“While he was putting the driver into handcuffs, two other occupants ran from the car,” the Allegheny County police said. Officer Rosfeld started shooting, striking the 17-year-old, department officials said.

The 17-year-old was taken to U.P.M.C. McKeesport hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:19 p.m., Superintendent McDonough said.

The driver of the car was later released after being interviewed.

“At the time we did not feel that charging was called for,” Superintendent McDonough said.

The police are still searching for the second person who ran from the officers. Superintendent McDonough asked that he turn himself in “so that he can give a comprehensive description of what occurred this evening,” the police statement said.

Officer Rosfeld has been placed on administrative leave, officials added.

In statement on Thursday, officials from the borough of East Pittsburgh said they were “profoundly saddened by the death of Antwon Rose” and offered sympathy and condolences to his family.

“We have confidence in the Allegheny County Police and District Attorney’s Office and we will be transparent with any and all information that they need during the investigation,” the statement said.

Gisele Barreto Fetterman, whose husband is the mayor of Braddock, Pa., said on Facebook that Antwon had volunteered at the Free Store, an organization she created that gives away surplus and donated items to those in need. When he was 14, she wrote, “and only a few weeks into summer vacation,” he asked about volunteering at the Free Store, and he “was scheduled to return this summer.”

On Wednesday, Ms. Fetterman recalled Antwon’s politeness when he would stop by to help on Saturday mornings. “He would always call me Ms. G or Ma’am,” she said.

Raemon Prunty, 18, a childhood friend of Antwon’s who also volunteered at the Free Store, said he last spoke with him three days ago.

Mr. Prunty said that as an African-American, he, too, would have acted as Antwon did.

“If I was in Antwon’s shoes,” he said, “I would have ran.”

“It’s out of fear,” Mr. Prunty said.
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member

CRIME AT1 HR AGOFACEBOOK




    • EMAIL
author-default-image.png

Written by

Don't miss a story. Like us on Facebook.

LIKE DALLAS NEWS' FACEBOOK PAGE



Updated at 10:30 a.m. with comments from Jean's university and employer.

A Dallas officer fatally shot a 26-year-old man Thursday night when she entered his apartment near downtown, mistaking it for her own, police say.

The officer was not hurt in the 10 p.m. shooting at the South Side Flats at 1210 S. Lamar St., blocks from Dallas police headquarters in the Cedars.


Police officials say she had arrived at the complex after working a full shift and was still in full uniform when she entered the victim's apartment, thinking it was her home.

The victim was identified as Botham Shem Jean, a native of the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia. A graduate of Harding University in Arkansas, he's worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers, according to his LinkedIn.

1536329890-jean.JPG

Botham Jean, 26, was shot and killed inside his apartment at the South Side Flats near downtown Dallas.
(Facebook)
Authorities did not explain how the situation escalated to the shooting, declining to comment on whether the officer mistook Jean for an intruder.

"I won't go into that information right now," said Sgt. Warren Mitchell, a Dallas police spokesman. "We have not interviewed her. ... We still have a lot to do in this investigation."

Mitchell said that after the officer reported Jean was wounded, other police officers who responded administered first aid to him. He was taken to Baylor University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The officer, who has not been publicly identified, was placed on leave while the shooting is investigated with the Dallas district attorney's office.

According to the St. Lucia Times, Jean was the son of Alison Jean, who has served as permanent secretary for the island's Department of Education, Innovation & Gender Relations as well as the Ministry of Infrastructure, Port Services & Transport.


Permanent secretaries supervise government departments, under direct management from the nation's ministers.

Jean's uncle paid tribute to the man Friday morning on Facebook.

"My heart goes with you my boy ... never thought this day would come, wanted to be there for you always my boy ... how can this nasty world take you away from me," Earl Jean wrote.

My heart goes with you my boy...never thought this day would come ,wanted to be there for you always my boy ...how can...

Posted by Earl Jean on Friday, September 7, 2018

"[He was] a powerful singer," Tracy Moore, a preacher who knew Jean from a Church of Christ Caribbean lecture series told The Christian Chronicle. "Always a spirit of joy that flowed from him.

"He was a great guy who loved to smile, very positive leader for the young men that we had here," fellow Harding student Romas Roberson said. "Everyone loved his voice!"

Harding University officials were mourning the beloved former worship leader at morning chapel services, a university employee said.

"We're all deeply grieved," spokeswoman Jana Rucker said. "He was just one of those people who really stood out, with his voice and his leadership."

"This is a terrible tragedy," PricewaterhouseCoopers wrote in a statement. "Botham Jean was a member of the PwC family in our Dallas office and we are simply heartbroken to hear of his death."

It was unclear how the officer got into the wrong apartment, where residents said they can access their units with a regular key or through a keypad code.

Police did not indicate that anyone else had witnessed the shooting, but two women who live on the second floor near where the shooting happened said they heard a lot of noise late Thursday.

"It was, like, police talk: 'Open up! Open up!'" 20-year-old Caitlin Simpson said.

Yazmine Hernandez, 20, was studying with Simpson when they heard the commotion.

"We heard cops yelling," she said, "but otherwise had no idea what was going on."

Other residents of the South Side Flats struggled to understand how the shooting happened.

"How can you make a mistake like that, getting into someone else's apartment?" said 80-year-old Raquel, who has lived in the complex for less than a year. "Don't they train police?"

The woman, who says she never gives out her last name, said she'd think twice when calling the police after this experience.

"Now if something happens to me," she said, "I'm going to be too scared to call police because I'm afraid it will end in a tragedy."

1536328996-southside.jpg

The South Side Flats are just up the street from Dallas police headquarters
(Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer)
Tomiya Melvin lives in a nearby apartment complex and found out about the shooting while she was walking her dog in the morning.

"It's terrible. I hope it's just a tragic accident and nothing more than that," said Melvin, who moved to Dallas from Chicago in June. "This area appealed to me because it always seemed so safe, and so far it has been.

"But I won't be leaving my door unlocked anymore; that's for sure."

Did you miss these stories?








https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/d...-apartment-kills-man-who-lives-there.1016911/
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/c...nds-as-he-followed-every-instruction.1047879/




Family of man killed in confrontation with Torrance police files claim against city



1219_NWS_TDB-L-MITCH-16x9-1.jpg

Sherlyn Haynes, center, mother of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, holds a sign Tuesday during a news conference. Mitchell’s family has filed a claim against the city over the police shooting death of Mitchell. (Photo by Nathaniel Percy/SCNG)
By Nathaniel Percy | npercy@scng.com | Daily Breeze
PUBLISHED: December 18, 2018 at 8:42 pm | UPDATED: December 19, 2018 at 9:54 pm
Demanding answers they say they haven’t received from police, the family of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, shot dead by Torrance police Dec. 9, has filed a wrongful death claim against the city.

The claim was filed Monday and announced in front of Torrance City Hall Tuesday night, Dec. 18. Claims typically precede the filing of lawsuits against local governments.

Mitchell’s mother, Sherlyn Haynes, along with the family’s attorney, Peter Carr, and other family and supporters said during a news conference they haven’t even received a phone call from the Torrance Police Department with information as to what led to the death of her 23-year-old son.

  • 1219_NWS_TDB-L-MITCHELL-12191.jpg
  • 1214_NWS_TDB-L-BRF-OISFOLO.011.jpg
  • 1210_NWS_TDB-Z-OIS-12108.jpg
of
Torrance police were on patrol Sunday, Dec. 9, when they were flagged down by a man on Western Avenue and 220th Street. The man said he reported his car stolen two days prior and he had just seen it in the area of Western Avenue and Carson Street, Sgt. Ronald Harris said.

Police found the vehicle in a Ralph’s grocery store parking lot in the 1700 block of Carson Street. As they approached the vehicle, they were met by Mitchell who had a rifle, Harris said. That’s when Mitchell was shot.

The car was later confirmed by investigators as stolen and an air rifle was found inside the vehicle, Harris said in a release, Dec. 13. Police released a photo of the weapon.

Harris on Tuesday said the department would have no immediate comment on assertions by Mitchell’s family.

The family said Tuesday that Mitchell was sleeping in the car.

“Why did you murder my son, my only child, while he was sleeping in the car?” Haynes asked while speaking to reporters. “We demand answers for what you have done.”

She described her son as a caring, outgoing, compassionate man who loved his family, particularly his mother and his cousins.

Family members and supporters carried signs Tuesday night that read “In loving memory of Christopher” and “Justice for Christopher, forever in our hearts.”

The family demanded answers, including the names of the officers involved and the release of body cam or dashboard footage that may have captured the shooting.

“No one has reached out to the family,” Carr told reporters. “We see comments made to the media and pictures of alleged weapons. We filed a claim (Monday) seeking answers.”

Carr, Haynes and supporters also spoke to the Torrance City Council after the news conference.

Mayor Patrick J. Furey responded to Haynes and assured her the matter was being investigated and the results of that investigation would be made public.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he responded to Haynes after her comments during the City Council meeting.

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/12...ith-torrance-police-files-claim-against-city/
 

Lexx Diamond

Art Lover ❤️ Sex Addict®™
Staff member
https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/unarmed-young-brother-dj-henry-killed-by-cop.1048371/


DEFENDING DJ: WAS THE FATAL SHOOTING OF A PACE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL PLAYER JUSTIFIED?

"48 Hours" goes inside a family's mission to restore their student-athlete son's reputation seven years after he was fatally shot by a police officer



  • 2018Dec 01
  • CORRESPONDENTJames Brown
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • REDDIT
  • FLIPBOARD
Produced by Alvin Patrick and Sarah Prior

In the early morning hours of Oct. 17, 2010, Danroy "DJ" Henry, a Pace University football player, was shot dead by Pleasantville, N.Y., police officer Aaron Hess. That event triggered a seven-year journey for DJ's family as they searched for answers.

"We're not anti-police," Danroy Henry, Sr., DJ's father, tells CBS News special correspondent James Brown. "We're just trying to understand what the facts tell us. Was it a justified shooting or was it not justified? Because if it wasn't – it was murder."

"People believed fervently that they knew what happened," says Brian Sokoloff, who represents Hess. "And whenever you hear of a case like this, you can't believe first impressions."

DJ was out celebrating with his teammates at a bar after a homecoming game when other patrons got into a fight. Police say that DJ was parked in a fire lane in front of the bar and when he was asked to move, he allegedly sped towards Officer Hess, propelling him on the hood and forcing him to shoot DJ.

When it was over, DJ was dying in the street, and he and his friends were in handcuffs.

Hess maintained he shot into the car because he feared for his life and had no other option. DJ's friends and witnesses denied he was driving fast and said he wasn't trying to hit the officer.

DANNY. ALWAYS.
Dan and Angella Henry had no idea it would be the last game they would watch their son, DJ, play.

Danroy "Dan" Henry Sr.:I think I made all the games. And homecoming we were all there … we had driven up and we were there to see the game.

DJ Henry was a junior playing football for Pace University.

Dan Henry: DJ …He was my shadow. He and I were together all the time.

Kyle Henry | DJ's brother: My family's -- really close. Really close. Always been really close.

henry-family-football.jpg

From left, Dan, Amber, Kyle, DJ and Angella Henry ANGELLA HENRY
Angella Henry: We are like our own little universe, the five of us.

Amber Henry|DJ's sister: Dad called him DJ. Mom would call him Danny.

Angella Henry: Danny. Always.

Dan Henry: He was the surrogate dad to his siblings … they looked up to him.

Amber Henry: I struggled with math as a high school student … He'd be the first one to sit down and be like, "OK, well, let's figure it out."

Angella Henry: He ... was [pauses, emotional]. Oh, my gosh. A joy. … A pied piper in the neighborhood. All of the kids loved him …The biggest smile you've ever seen. And a very gentle spirit.

Angella Henry: We had driven up there the same day, watched the game, hung out, and then drove back home.

DEVASTATING NEWS
It was in the early morning of October 17, 2010.

Dan Henry: It was early. It was after the midnight hour.

The serenity of Dan and Angella Henry's home in Easton, Massachusetts, was shattered with the unfathomable news that their eldest son DJ had been shot to death.

Dan Henry: I think they heard me scream that he died and came back down.

Angella Henry: I just remember laying on the floor crying and Kyle came over and stood over me and he just grabbed my shoulders and he said, "Mom … look at me, it's gonna be OK."

dj-henry-hero.jpg

DJ HenryKEVIN DAY
Kyle Henry: We just rushed outta the house. I don't even remember if we locked anything up. I didn't even have shoes on.

The drive from Easton to the Westchester County Medical Center in New York was over three hours.

Dan Henry: We didn't want him there by himself, and so we prayed all the way.

James Brown: What was it like when you got to the hospital?

Angella Henry: As soon as we saw him, we all just screamed and cried. ... Dan grabbed him and just held him and talked to him. ... prayed with him ... told him that we loved him.

Kyle Henry: ... to see your brother, the person you grew up with ... My whole life has been with him. ... then you see this person lifeless ... it was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in my life.

Angella Henry: He had scrapes and scratches and cuts that he didn't have ... I just couldn't believe it.

The Henrys' daughter Amber got to the hospital later.

Amber Henry: So my mom came out of the doors. ... She said ... "I need to come take you to say goodbye." …It was definitely a moment I knew, I knew right there that my life was gonna change.

The life the Henrys built was an American dream. Dan, an Ivy League graduate, enjoyed a successful career as a human resources executive.

His wife Angella made the choice to stay home with their three children.

Angella HenryWe knew right away that we wanted to work as hard as we could to provide for our children a stable home and two parents.

Amber, a recent college graduate, is the youngest.

Amber Henry: We are so full of love. We just want the best for each and every one of us.

Kyle, an independent music artist, is in the middle.

Kyle Henry: We've always had each other's backs. Always been very strong in each other's lives.

Danny, a handsome student-athlete, was the oldest.

Angella Henry: When he played sports there was inevitably another Dan or Danny and so Dan started calling him DJ.

DJ embraced his family so much that it inspired him to get a tattoo.

Angella Henry:His first tattoo was "family first."

Dan Henry: I looked down and saw what he did and said, "Oh that was -- that was well played!"

Dan Henry: … he's an amazing kid. …he wasn't perfect, but man, was he a good guy. …with immense promise.

So what happened? How did the Henrys end up in a hospital crying over their 20-year old son's body?

Dan Henry called the police investigator in charge and was floored by what he was told.

Dan Henry: He said DJ was trying to run over two police officers and that they had to shoot him to stop him.

The Henrys were dumbfounded. They knew DJ was out celebrating with friends after homecoming, but they could not imagine their son running down police with his car.

Dan Henry: ... something had to have happened if that happened. What caused him to do something that's so outside of his character? And Brandon affirmed for us that he didn't.

Brandon Cox, DJ's best friend, was also at the hospital.

Angella Henry: Brandon came in and sat down next to Danny's bed ... and just said, "He didn't deserve this."

From what the Henrys could piece together, DJ, Brandon and another friend were in DJ's car waiting outside of a bar and police asked them to move out of a fire lane.

Dan Henry: Brandon … said they weren't doing anything and that out of the clear blue, some guys flashes across with a gun, and starts shooting. And then before he knows it, he's on the car and he's shooting at them.

Brandon was sitting next to DJ in the car. He was shot in the arm but escaped serious injury.

Angella Henry: And we said, "Brandon, we need to know everything" ... And Brandon said, "No, we were driving. We were leaving." And he just kept saying, "He didn't deserve this."

The family wanted answers, and that morning headed to the Mount Pleasant Police station just hours after saying goodbye to DJ.

Dan Henry: …we wanted to look them in the eyes and just say, "You need to know a little bit about our son."

What the Henrys did not know is that the Police Chief Louis Alagno had already conducted a press conference implicating DJ:

CHIEF LOUIS ALAGNO | MOUNT PLEASANT PD [press conference]: At about 1:20 a.m. this morning, Mt. Pleasant police received a call of a disturbance.

POLICE RADIO CALL: Respond to Finnegans … fight in progress.

Alagno said several police officers responded to a fight at Finnegan's grill, a local bar about two miles from Pace University's campus.

Reportedly, unruly patrons had spilled into the parking lot.

POLICE RADIO CALL: It looks like … it's just a large gathering of the bar outside.

According to Alagno, when a policeman approached the car in the fire lane, the vehicle sped off and struck an officer:

CHIEF LOUIS ALAGNO [press conference]: For an unknown reason a vehicle that had been parked in a fire lane ... near Finnegan's Grill accelerated from the scene. A Village ofPleasantville officer attempted to stop that vehicle ... that vehicle struck that officer; he was propelled onto the hood.

POLICE RADIO CALL: I've got an officer down — hit by a vehicle.

Alagno said the car continued to accelerate and the officer on the hood of the car shot the driver. That driver was DJ Henry.

CHIEF LOUIS ALAGNO [press conference]: I'm truly saddened by the events that occurred this evening. My condolences go out to the family of the young man that died in this event.

angella-dan-henry.jpg

"We don't need some version of the story that protects one side or the other," says Dan Henry. "Our whole goal was to just get the truth," says Angella Henry.CBS NEWS
The Henrys didn't want condolences; they wanted to know how Chief Alagno could make a public statement about their son without talking to them first.

James Brown: And you asked the question that they would conduct a press conference without even having talked with you, his family, and the response was?

Dan Henry: …that's what the officers on the scene told me happened, basically. ... And we pressed and said, "Look, we want truth. What we want is truth."

That moment began a long, legal journey that would take the Henrys from a strip mall in New York all the way to the United States Department of Justice.

Dan Henry: We're not anti-police. ... We're just trying to understand what the facts tell us. Was it a justified shooting or was it not justified? Because if it wasn't — it was murder.

WHAT DJ'S FRIENDS SAW
WCBS RADIO [October 2010]: Police in Westchester in the community of Mount Pleasant fire at a speeding vehicle, killing the driver identified as a Pace University student.

Dan Henry: We were pushing hard against a very strong current in those early days because they'd beat us out there with a narrative.

And that narrative, as DJ's parents saw it, was that police were blaming DJ for his own death.

The day after DJ was killed, Chief Louis Alagno held a second press conference and gave more details:

CHIEF LOUIS ALAGNO [press conference]: The Pleasantville officer that was involved was police officer Aaron Hess. ... Police Officer Hess was the officer that ended up on the hood of the deceased's vehicle ... Officer Hess drew his pistol and fired it into the vehicle.

And he said DJ was accelerating toward a second officer, Ronald Beckley, who had also fired at his car.

CHIEF LOUIS ALAGNO [press conference]: Another officer, Mount Pleasant Officer Beckley, was also standing in the fire lane as this vehicle drove towards him. He also discharged his weapon at the vehicle.

Dan Henry: The effort clearly ... was to villainize our son. It was to make him seem like a criminal thug that needed to be stopped.

But DJ's friends say that is not how it happened.

desmond-hinds.jpg

"We weren't doing anything wrong. We were in the Wild, Wild West. That's what it felt like." says DJ Henry's Pace teammate and passenger Desmond Hinds.CBS NEWS
Desmond Hinds: We weren't doing anything wrong. We were in the Wild, Wild West. That's what it felt like.

DJ's teammate Desmond Hinds was in the car that night with DJ, Brandon, and two other friends who went to Finnegan's.

Desmond Hinds: As long as the football team was together, that's where we wanted to be, having fun.

After that fight broke out, the bartender called police, and soon six officers arrived on the scene. DJ and his passengers were not involved, and they headed to the doors.

Brandon Cox: It seemed a little bit early but the lights came on and bouncers were telling everybody to get out.

DJ's friend, Brandon Cox.

Brandon Cox: They said, "It's done, it's done, so we're leaving."

dj-henry-bar.jpg

DJ Henry, standing at right, is seen in security footage from inside the bar just minutes before he was fatally shot.SECURITY VIDEO
DJ can be seen in security footage, just minutes before he was shot. DJ, Brandon and Desmond waited outside in DJ's car for their two other friends. Brandon was in the front seat. As they were waiting, he remembers an officer tapping on the back window asking them to move.

Brandon Cox: He started to make a forward motion to move forward … That's when DJ ... starts to pull away. ... He just pulled off slowly.

Brandon Cox: Where we were parked there was like there was a curve in the roadway. ... As we come around that curve, I can see somebody running from in between those two cars with their gun raised.

Desmond Hinds: And I look and I see this stance [demonstrates as if holding a gun].Two hands on something. I didn't see the gun. Two hands.

James Brown:Pointed at?

Brandon Cox: Pointed at the vehicle.

Within seconds, that somebody — Officer Hess — was up on the hood, shooting.

brandon-cox.jpg

"The next thing I know, the car has come to a stop and DJ…goes, 'They shot me, they shot me,'" says friend and passenger Brandon Cox.CBS NEWS
Brandon Cox: I could feel something hit my arm. At that moment, I'm not sure what's going on, not sure what it is, and I'm just ducking down to just try to get out of harm's way.

Brandon and Desmond both say they never saw that second officer, Ronald Beckley, at all.

Desmond Hinds: I didn't hear anything. It was like everything was silent. But I just saw bullet holes after bullet holes. There was three or four total.

At least one bullet hit the seat next to Desmond. Brandon had that graze wound to the arm. And DJ was shot twice — through his lungs and his heart.

Brandon Cox: DJ goes, "They shot me, they shot me ..."

Desmond Hinds: And then he just made this moan, this moan that I will never forget.

DJ's car crashed into a parked cruiser and stalled to a stop a little further down the road. Twoofficers took DJ out, handcuffed him and laid him on the ground. Desmond remembers being pulled out by yet another officer.

Desmond Hinds: And he slammed me on the ground. …And I go, "Officer, we did absolutely nothing wrong." And he had a gun and he pointed it to the back of my head. He said, "Shut the f— up." And at that point, I thought I was going to die.

Daniel Parker was friends with Desmond and DJ from the football team.

Daniel Parker: I was asking everyone, I'm like, "What happened? What happened?" And no one said anything. Everyone was just staring.

Daniel came out of Finnegan's shortly after hearing a disturbance outside. Cellphone video shot by a fellow student captured that scene. Daniel spotted Desmond on the sidewalk, also in handcuffs.

Daniel Parker: I was like, "Desmond, are you OK?" And he was saying, "They shot DJ."

Dash cam video from a cruiser that pulled in after the shooting shows Officer Hess on the ground. Behind him is DJ, lying in the road.

Daniel Parker: I saw that no one was by him. And I was looking and I was like, "You gotta be kidding me, what's happening right now? Why is no one helping him?"

The first person to try and revive DJ was a woman at the scene — a civilian.

Daniel Parker: I saw her struggling to try to give him compressions and. ... I was like, "Hey, that's my teammate. Can I go help him?"

Daniel Parker: I said, "I'm CPR certified. Can I help him?" He was just like, "Get the f— back."

Daniel Parker: And his eyes was open and I saw blood in his mouth and that's the moment when I was like, "Y'all f------ killed him."

Daniel says after saying that he was also thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Ten long minutes had elapsed from that first call about the shooting before DJ was finally hooked up to a defibrillator.

In the days after losing their eldest son, Dan and Angella Henry had to confront more than just their grief. They were facing two very different versions of events: one from the police and another from DJ's friends.

Dan Henry: So we immediately had a conflict.

Dan Henry: Clearly we knew we needed counsel, but I needed a really good local attorney who would push hard to get at — truth.

The Henrys hired Michael Sussman, a legendary civil rights attorney from New York.

Michael Sussman: I remember in that first meeting Danroy looking at me and saying to me, "I don't wanna make this about race. … I don't want that to be the narrative. … I wanna understand the details of why it happened.

Officer Hess, his knee badly injured, was also taken to the hospital that night. And soon, he too, had a lawyer of his own.

Brian Sokoloff | Hess's attorney: He doesn't see himself as some kind of hero. ... Aaron Hess is a victim.

AARON HESS TELLS HIS STORY
In the months after DJ's death, as his family grieved, the Westchester District Attorney's Office began an investigation, standard procedure at the time. In January 2011, they convened a grand jury to see if Officer Hess should be charged with any crime. DJ's father, Danroy, was called to testify.

Dan Henry: The only question I was asked, two weeks before the grand jury wrapped up was did I know that DJ drank occasionally? That's it.

A month later, Mr. Henry got a call: Aaron Hess was not indicted — on any charge.

Dan Henry: The DA's office in Westchester County executed a sham.

James Brown: Pretty strong words.

Dan Henry: Yeah, that's what they did, and if I could think of a stronger word, I'd use it.

Michael Sussman: The gentleman was not charged with anything. Criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter, murder — anything! And there should have been a charge, and there should have been a criminal trial. ... The Henrys should have had, if you will, the satisfaction -- not that it's much satisfaction -- of believing that their son's life had that much value.

Hours after the grand jury decision, after Sussman's repeated urging, the U.S. Department of Justice began a separate investigation looking into a possible civil rights violation — a federal crime. Weeks later, Hess's union named him officer of the year. They said afterward the award was not meant to be public.

Angella Henry: They wanted to do that privately to boost Aaron Hess's morale.

James Brown: To boost the officer's morale?

Dan Henry: Because he had been through a lot. Becausehehad been through a lot.

While the Department of Justice was looking into the case, the Henrys filed wrongful death suits against Aaron Hess, the Village of Pleasantville, where Hess worked, and the town of Mount Pleasant, where DJ was shot.

In August 2012, nearly two years after DJ's death, Hess came to the U.S. District Courthouse in Westchester for a deposition in the wrongful death cases:

Hess deposition

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Were you the first officer on the scene?

AARON HESS: Yes.

With their attorney Michael Sussman asking questions, Dan and Angella Henry were there.

Dan Henry: It was really, really important to us to be in the room. ... We wanted to look in the eye of the guy that shot our son. We wanted to hear him tell us why, to see his face, to have him look us in the eye, to see Danny when he looked us in the eyes.

AARON HESS [deposition]: That night specifically was a bad night. I only reacted to what I thought, that I was going to be killed.

Angella Henry: Originally I was worried that I was gonna go in there and be just filled with anger but ... I saw him and I just, I didn't feel anything for him.

At the time DJ was killed in 2010, Aaron Hess was 33 years old, married and expecting twins. He had served four years in the Marines and had been a police officer since 2000 -- first in New York City and later for his hometown of Pleasantville, New York.

aaron-hess-depo.jpg

"That night specifically was a bad night. I only reacted to what I thought, that I was going to be killed," Officer Aaron Hess said in his deposition.
Brian Sokoloff represents Aaron Hess.

Brian Sokoloff: That was Aaron Hess. Well liked. ... Up until Oct. 17, 2010, he had never fired his weapon in the line of duty.

Hess arrived at Finnegan's shortly after the call went out about the fight. When that officer tapped on DJ's window, Hess says he was standing in the parking lot, about 30 feet away.

Brian Sokoloff: Aaron Hess, who's around the bend, observes three things happen simultaneously. A, he hears an engine rev. B, he hears an officer yell, "Stop that car," or, "Stop that vehicle." And he sees an officer get turned off balance.

James Brown: Turned off balance, suggesting that?

Brian Sokoloff: Suggesting that something was amiss

Hess says that's why he stepped across the road, to face DJ's car — as it drove toward him:

Hess deposition

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Could you determine its rate of speed?

AARON HESS: Fast.

Brian Sokoloff: He puts up his hand and yells, "Stop. Stop." The car doesn't stop. He draws his weapon.

Hess deposition

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Why didn't you move out of the way of the vehicle?

AARON HESS: Because I thought the vehicle was going to stop.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Why did you believe that?

AARON HESS: I believed it was going to stop because every other vehicle I've asked to stop in my career have stopped.

AARON HESS: As the vehicle was coming towards me, I lunged forward as it hit my legs. At that time as I was on the hood, the engine revved up again and seemingly, it seemed to me that was trying to get thrown off the vehicle. At that time is when I fired my weapon.

As he was shooting, Hess says, he could not see anyone inside the car:

Hess deposition

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Who did you aim at?

AARON HESS: The center mass of the driver.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: So you saw the driver?

AARON HESS: I saw a silhouette. I didn't physically see a driver.

It wasn't until they were both lying in the road, Hess says, that he first saw DJ:

Hess deposition

AARON HESS: The first time I observed the driver he was face down and handcuffed.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: So you didn't see him being cuffed?

AARON HESS: No.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Could you tell whether he was alive?

AARON HESS: No [becomes emotional].

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Could you see whether he was breathing?

AARON HESS: No.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Now what were you doing at that point?

AARON HESS: Lying on the ground as well[wipes his eyes].

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Was anyone tending to you at that point?

AARON HESS: [doesn't answer; cries]

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Do you want to take a break?

AARON HESS: Just give me a second [cries].

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Sure, take your time.

Brian Sokoloff: I'd like somebody to tell me what other alternative Aaron Hess had on the hood of a moving vehicle other than trying to save his own life or closing his eyes and saying his prayers.

Hess deposition

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: Did you hear any comments or remarks about his status on the scene?

AARON HESS: Yes.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: What did you hear?

AARON HESS: I heard someone say, he's dead.

Aaron Hess did not return to work after the shooting. He was on paid medical leave for two years, then retired with disability for his knee injury at the scene.

Then, a few weeks after Hess was first deposed, the Henrys found support from a very surprising source — that second officer whom Chief Alagno had said had also fired at DJ's car, Ronald Beckley.

Michael Sussman: He was willing to go against the script to try to stand up for what was true.

NEW FACTS REVEALED
The Henrys' lawyer Michael Sussman is determined to keep DJ Henry's memory alive in the driveway of his home.

James Brown: Why do you keep this car?

jb-sussman.jpg

"Something really significant happened in this car," the Henrys' attorney, Michael Sussman, tells James Brown. "I needed it to be here so perhaps a day like today would come when we could tell the story of what really happened here." CBS NEWS
Michael Sussman: The car is a tangible representation of what happened. ... and when you see the bullet holes and you see the situation with the axle of the car here and the wheel, you have a very clear, constant reminder of what happened. And I think that's very important to the truth-telling process.

That truth, says Sussman, would come out during the wrongful death suits — in the testimony of one brave police officer.

James Brown: Officer Ron Beckley. Who is he?

Michael Sussman: He's an American hero.

Ronald Beckley directly refuted the official version put out by his own department.

Michael Sussman: In fact, the police chief's version was that DJ Henry was threatening Beckley, which Beckley disavowed and said, "This is not what happened."

According to sworn testimony in those wrongful death suits, Mount Pleasant police officer Ronald Beckley arrived on the scene that night and fired his weapon — for the first time in his 30-year career — at Aaron Hess.

Michael Sussman: He sees a person, as he described it, in dark clothing, jumping on a vehicle, and he takes out his weapon, and he fires a shot because he sees the person jumping on the vehicle as the aggressor, and believes that that person is shooting and endangering other people, and he has to try to stop him.


20PHOTOS
Evidence photos from the police shooting of Danroy "DJ" Henry Jr.

Beckley did not realize that Hess was a fellow officer. Within hours of the incident, Beckley reported his account to his superiors. But the official version from Chief Louis Alagno misrepresented Beckley's version, leaving the impression that Beckley was shooting at DJ Henry:

CHIEF LOUIS ALAGNO: [second press conference]: Another officer, Mt. Pleasant officer Beckley, was also standing in the fire lane as the vehicle drove towards him. He also discharged his weapon at the vehicle.

Michael Sussman: He was willing to go against the script to try to stand up for what was true.

Angella Henry: When Ronald Beckley did that, it was an answer to prayer.

Aaron Hess' lawyer Brian Sokoloff says Beckley is no hero and that he broke department rules.

Brian Sokoloff: ... officers are forbidden from firing at a moving vehicle. ... Instead of saying he was firing at the moving vehicle, which is what he hit, he then says, "I was firing at Aaron Hess."

Michael Sussman: Mr. Beckley didn't lie. Mr. Beckley showed tremendous courage both at the scene and afterwards because ... the blue code of silence does exist. ... And Beckley knew in a certain sense that his career was over.

ronald-beckley.jpg

Officer Ronald Beckley directly refuted the official version put out by his own department.CBS NEWS
Ronald Beckley retired three months after DJ Henry's death. He was denied a full disability pension.

Michael Sussman: The person who apologized to the Henrys, the person who cried with the Henrys was Officer Ronald Beckley, who said to them in my presence, "I wish I could've stopped this." And broke down.

And then there is the question of how fast DJ Henry was driving. Michael Sussman gave "48 Hours" video of a test conducted by Westchester County police. In it, DJ's car is shown accelerating to where Aaron Hess was standing. But DJ's friends made it clear that he was driving slowly.

Desmond Hinds: I would say maybe 15. Ten to 15 miles-per-hour.

James Brown: Nothing reckless?

Desmond Hinds: Nothing reckless.

James Brown: Nothing dangerous?

Desmond Hinds: No.

James Brown: Not endangering anybody? You saw no pedestrians at all?

Brandon Cox: Nope. There were no pedestrians in the way, there was nothing blocking our path.

Michael Sussman: Initially what was told to me by the D.A.'s Office … was that there were a group of civilians who were crossing the path in the parking lot … and that the thought was he had to stop this car from running over those civilians. ... And when we started pulling it apart, no one could ever identify these civilians, where they were, how Hess knew anything about them. There was no justification. It made no sense.

James BrownDid he, Officer Hess not have the option, the alternative of getting out of the way?

Brian Sokoloff: No, not at the time that he felt his life was in danger.

James Brown: So ... No room to maneuver?

Brian Sokoloff: Not once he felt his life was in danger.

But Michael Sussman says the security video from the parking lot that night shows the brake lights of DJ Henry's car as he was nearing Aaron Hess. He was slowing down.

Michael Sussman: I don't have to rely on a million eyewitnesses. I have the video showing the slow down. I have the bullet holes.

Michael Sussman: DJ was every young man. DJ was not doing anything that was out of character, out of ordinary. He just wasn't.

But just after DJ's death, a toxicology report was leaked to the press that showed his blood alcohol level at .13. That means DJ would have been impaired that night. The Henrys' lawyer disputes that.

Michael Sussman: The bar owner, who we spoke to, and all the other people we spoke to about DJ in that bar, said he had nothing to drink in the bar.

Brandon Cox: I did not see him have one drink at Finnegan's.

James Brown: The entire evening that you were there?

Brandon Cox: The entire evening that I was there.

According to DJ'S friends, he did have one drink earlier in the evening back at the dorm.

Desmond Hinds: That night, I witnessed him having one drink.

James Brown: That's it?

Desmond Hines: That was it.

In a video from the bar that night, DJ does not appear to be impaired.

Michael Sussman: I didn't see him wobbly, I didn't see him behaving in any kind of aberrant or unusual way whatsoever.

Brian Sokoloff insists the toxicology report proves that DJ was breaking the law and had a reason for trying to leave the parking lot quickly.

Brian Sokoloff: He did have a fake ID. He was intoxicated ... We produced a report by an eminent toxicologist ... there's no other evidence on this, there's been no other report, no other expert contradicts this ...

Michael Sussman: For those who say DJ Henry was drunk, OK, let me make something very clear. No officer at that scene had any knowledge of DJ's drinking. ... So he wasn't acting like he was drunk if he was drunk, and we have no real reason to believe he was. ... It's that simple.

Brian Sokoloff:I want to make this clear, we are not looking to demonize Danroy Henry, who tragically lost his life that night.

Michael Sussman: DJ was devalued. It's the simplest way to put it. He was some kind of common criminal who was handcuffed, thrown to the gutter.

Through their pain, as the wrongful death suits dragged on, the Henrys were still waiting to see if the Justice Department would bring criminal charges in their son's case.

Dan Henry:We just wanted to know if he was justified in taking our son's life.

CLEARING DJ'S NAME
By 2015, it had been four years since the justice department began its investigation. The Henrys' hopes were with then U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Dan Henry: And he said look, I'm not afraid to prosecute these things, I'll take them on. You should know I'm not afraid to do it. …So we were hopeful.

But they were warned that it wouldn't be easy.

Michael Sussman: He said to us that the standard for prosecution was a high standard known as willfulness. There had to be a willful violation of civil rights.

Hess deposition

MICHAEL SUSSMAN: So you saw the driver?

AARON HESS: I saw the silhouette.

Proving willfulness would be hard because Aaron Hess said he could only see a silhouette when he made the choice to shoot DJ Henryfrom point-blank range.

Brian Sokoloff: Aaron Hess could not see into the car. ... He did not know the race, the gender, the age of anybody in the car.

James Brown: Do you think that the events of Oct. 17, 2010, would have unfolded differently if the occupants of the car were white?

Brian Sokoloff: Absolutely not.

The Henrys did not get the result they sought.

Dan Henry: They chose not to pursue federal civil rights charges. ... There were no charges.

The U.S. Attorney found that Aaron Hess had to make a split-second decision and the law allows latitude for an officer's judgment.

Despondent after exhausting all criminal options, in 2016, the Henrys decided to settle their wrongful death suit with the Village Of Pleasantville and Aaron Hess. The Village paid $6 million.

Dan Henry: It's in a trust. We won't touch it. It's blood money to us and —

James Brown: Blood money.

Angella Henry: They want you to put a dollar amount on your child's life. How can you do that? ... There is no appropriate amount.

djhenry-siblings.jpg

Dan Henry says DJ, left, was a surrogate father his younger siblings. "I'll often stare at his picture and just… I'll just talk to him," says Amber Henry. "I'll just sit there and just really try to absorb the fact that this is how I'm supposed to be living now."ANGELLA HENRY
In 2017, the Henrys also settled theirwrongful death suit with the town of Mount Pleasant for an undisclosed amount. But what they got was more valuable to them: a public apology.

Angella Henry: They wanted to apologize in private, but we felt that they mischaracterized our son in public so the apology should be made public. ... knowing that even in his death, they continued to bash his name and say such negative things is just adding salt to the wound.

The town released a statement, which read in part:

The town regrets any statement made on its behalf in the immediate aftermath of the incident … and … regrets the misimpression of DJ Henry these statements may have caused.

Amber Henry: If it were up to me, I wouldn't even want them to say anything. They've said enough. ... By what they've done, they've said enough.

But something big was achieved. Seven long years after the tragic death of their promising young son, the Henrys cleared Danroy Henry Jr.'s name.

Angella Henry:It was important because we knew who our son was and is.

James Brown: Do you consider that public apology an admission of guilt?

Dan Henry: Yes. That's how we took it. I think in the public apology, they say it's not, but that's how we took it.

But the fact remains that no criminal charges were brought in DJ Henry's case. Today Aaron Hess is employed in private security.

James Brown: When you do think about Officer Hess, what are your thoughts?

Angella Henry: I'm praying that at some moment in his life, he will fall to his knees and ask for forgiveness for what he did. And I pray that he never has to deal with it with his children.

Dan Henry: I try not to think about him. I try not to.

henry-family.jpg

"We are like our own little universe, the five of us," Angella Henry says of her family. Pictured from left: DJ, Kyle, Angella, Amber and Dan HenryANGELLA HENRY
Through their sorrow, the Henrys have found a way to honor their son's memory. In 2011, they started a charity called theDJ Henry Dream Fund.

Angella Henry: The foundation was … a way to honor our son's love of fitness and sports.

The fund sponsors children in need from New England to attend summer camps and programs. So far, it has given away over half a million dollars to deserving kids.

Dan Henry: What moves me the most is when kids that come and tell their stories say thank you to Danny. That's powerful.

DJ Henry's Life was powerful. Childhood friend Brandon Cox wears a wrist band.

Brandon Cox: It says, "This is to the memory of Danroy Henry." …No matter what I'm going to remember him. He's a part of me forever.

Today, the Henrys spend a lot of time on Martha's Vineyard. They came here as a family when DJ was alive; now they keep him alive in their hearts with a memorial bench that overlooks the ocean.

James Brown: What do you want people to remember about DJ, about Danny?

Dan Henry: I want them to remember his life, not his death. I want them to remember the giving, kind, nurturing, loving spirit that he is.

Kyle Henry: We should know that he would've done great things if he was here, destined for great things. Amazing person that this world lost.

Amber Henry: Danny would walk around the house and say ... "I have to travel. I don't have the time." You know, "I have to do this, I don't have the time." We'd look at him and say, "you have all the time, you have your whole life." ... In his mind I think he knew maybe he wasn't supposed to be here on this earth in a physical form for very long. That he was maybe supposed to help in a different way.

Angella Henry: I know that there's more. I just know at the end of the day, I'll get to be with him again.

Chief Luis Alagno retired in 2013.

In 2015 New York State law changed. Police shootings of unarmed civilians are now automatically investigated by a special prosecutor.

 

a1rimrocka

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Woman killed in own home when Fort Worth officer shoots her, police and witness say


XMZILXQ5JFA4ZIIYAU3ZISKBUA.jfif


A Fort Worth police officer shot and killed a woman inside a home early Saturday after a neighbor reported the front door was open, police said.

Atatiana Jefferson, 28, died about 2:30 a.m. in a home in the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office. Police originally said Jefferson lived at the home, but the medical examiner said she lived in Dallas.
Neighbor James Smith told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he was sorry he’d ever called police.
“I’m shaken. I’m mad. I’m upset. And I feel it’s partly my fault,” he told the newspaper. “If I had never dialed the police department, she’d still be alive.”

Two officers responded to the neighbor’s call within minutes and began searching outside the home.
Fort Worth police released body-camera footage that shows the officer who opened fire moving around the home, looking through a door and entering what appears to be the backyard with a flashlight.

At the 1:34 mark in the video, the officer in the yard spins toward one of the home’s windows and yells, “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” before shooting into the window, all in less than 3 seconds.
In a statement issued Saturday afternoon, Fort Worth police said the officer perceived a threat and fired. Officers found a firearm when they entered the bedroom, but it’s unclear whether Jefferson was holding the weapon when she was shot.

Officers began emergency medical treatment, but Jefferson died at the scene, the medical examiner’s office said.
Fort Worth Pastor Michael Bell of the Greater St. Stephen First Church on Saturday criticized police for their characterization of the shooting in their statement, WFAA (ABC 8) reporter Cleo Greene tweeted.

“She had lights on all over,” Bell said. “We’re tired of police lying.”

 
Top