Posts Tagged ‘police state USSA’

The_forgotten_man

Stingrays Go Mainstream

We’ve long worried about the government’s use of IMSI catchers or cell site simulators. Commonly known as a “Stingray” after a specific device manufactured by the Harris Corporation, IMSI catchers masquerade as a legitimate cell phone tower, tricking phones nearby to connect to the device in order to track a phone’s location in real time. We’re not just worried about how invasive these devices can be but also that the government has been less than forthright with judges about how and when they use IMSI catchers. This year the public learned just how desperately law enforcement wanted to keep details about Stingrays secret thanks to a flurry of public records act requests by news organizations across the country. The results are shocking. The public learned that Harris requires police departments sign a non-disclosure agreement promising not to reference Stingrays. Federal agencies like the US Department of Justice and the US Marshals Service have instructed local cities and police to keep details of Stingray surveillance secret, with the Marshals physically intervening in one instance to prevent information from becoming public. There have been repeated instances of police agencies across the country hiding their use of IMSI catchers from the judges entrusted to provide police oversight:

  • In Sarasota, Florida internal police emails revealed officers concealed their use of Stingrays from judges, having one officer withdraw a warrant affidavit that mentioned the use of an IMSI catcher, and describing a policy of referring to Stingrays as a “source” in official documents.
  • Judges in Tacoma, Washington signed more than 170 orders unknowingly authorizing Stingray use from 2009 to 2014 because police officers did not disclose the orders would be used to operate an IMSI catcher. Judges first learned they were approving IMSI catchers from local newspaper reporting.
  • In a robbery case in Baltimore, Maryland, prosecutors abandoned their use of Stingray evidence after a judge threatened to hold a police officer in contempt for refusing to testify about the device.
  • It’s not just local police. The Wall Street Journal reported on a secret US Marshals surveillance program that attaches IMSI catchers called “DRTboxes” to airplanes to track suspects, gathering data about scores of innocent people in the process. The report prompted a letter from US senators to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security demanding more information.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/2014-review-stingrays-go-mainstream

– The Washington Times – Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The federal government shipped nearly 4,000 more assault rifles to local law enforcement agencies in the three months following the Ferguson riots, marking a huge surge in the amount of lethal firearms being doled out to police and sheriff’s offices.

The Ferguson riots drew attention and criticism to the massive firepower state and local police are now able to bring to bear on their citizens, and earned scrutiny for the Pentagon project, known as the 1033 program, that helps arm many of those agencies by making surplus military equipment available to them.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An unarmed 25-year-old black man slain by Los Angeles police officers in August suffered three gunshot wounds, including one to his back, a long-awaited autopsy report showed on Monday.

Police have said two officers shot and killed Ezell Ford, described by a family lawyer as mentally challenged, after he struggled with one of them and tried to grab the officer’s gun during an Aug. 11 scuffle in a poor neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The autopsy conducted by medical examiners for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office showed that Ford suffered gunshot wounds to the arm, back and right flank. The wounds to his back and flank were fatal, it said.

Toxicology tests showed Ford had marijuana in his system at the time of his death.

http://news.yahoo.com/unarmed-black-man-slain-l-police-hit-3-215431751.html

Because everyone deserves to be executed on the spot  by police death squads,we don’t needs judges and juries any more,right?

Places such as a courtroom,which is the proper venue to introduce the man’s state of mental health into evidence for a jury to consider.

Nah,the stormtroopers are all powerful,mere citizens must bow down to their superior force.

And people wonder why cops are gettin shot?!

  • There is evidence of widespread knowledge of and participation by several federal agencies in the controversial Fast and Furious gunwalking case that let traffickers put thousands of weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
  • Agencies participating in Fast and Furious included the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch (ICE), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Phoenix Police Department.
  • A January 2011 “Key Messages: Tasking Points” memo (p. 14) generated by the Public Affairs Division at ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. stated:

“The Fast and Furious investigation is just one of a number of firearms trafficking cases perfected by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Strike Force, a multi-agency team of investigators from ATF, DEA, ICE, IRS, and the Phoenix Police Department.”

http://sharylattkisson.com/belatedly-released-and-revealing-fast-furious-docs/

Police have stepped up security at two Brooklyn stationhouses after a report of a threat that they are being targeted by a notorious Baltimore gang, police sources said.

Police have stepped up security at two Brooklyn stationhouses after a report they are being targeted by a notorious Baltimore gang, police sources and the Sergeants Benevolent Association said Tuesday night.

A police source said that Emergency Service Unit cops were sent to the 79th and 81st precinct stationhouses in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville after an informant reported the threat, but it had not yet been validated.

An NYPD spokesman would not confirm the threat or if security was heightened at either station.

But a Daily News reporter witnessed two ESU trucks parked in front of the 79th precinct and four SWAT members standing in the building’s lobby with rifles in hand.

At the 81st precinct, two SWAT members guarded the lobby along with three officers, with a couple more SWAT officers around the corner.

“My wife, she’s actually at home crying right now. It’s tough,” said one of the SWAT members.

http://newsnyork.com/police-step-up-security-at-two-brooklyn-stationhouses-after-reports-of-being-targeted-by-baltimore-gang/

Here’s an idea for police everywhere-stop acting like stormtroopers,stop treating citizens as the enemy,stop seizing peoples legally owned property in the failed war on drugs,stop seizing legally earned cash and property from citizens during traffic stops,stop having drug sniffing dogs falsely “alert”on cars so you can search them,stop violently taking citizens to the ground,tazing and pepper spraying them for not “obeying” your “commands”,remember-shiny badges do NOT grant special rights!

BERKELEY, Mo. (AP) — Violent protests broke out in suburban St. Louis after another black 18-year-old was fatally shot by a white police officer.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the officer was questioning the 18-year-old and another man about a theft late Tuesday at a convenience store in Berkeley when the young man pulled a 9mm handgun on him. The officer stumbled backward but fired three shots, one of which struck the victim, Belmar said

Berkeley is just a few miles from Ferguson, Missouri, where a white police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, on Aug. 9. Brown’s death sparked weeks of sometimes violent demonstrations and a grand jury’s decision to not charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting has spurred a nationwide movement to protest police brutality.

Belmar declined to name the 18-year-old killed in Berkeley, but a woman at the scene told reporters she was his mother and identified him as Antonio Martin. Belmar said he was 18 years old and black.

The 34-year-old white police officer, a six-year veteran of the Berkeley Police Department, is on administrative leave pending an investigation, Belmar said.

“He will carry the weight of this for the rest of his life, certainly for the rest of his career,” Belmar said. “So there are no winners here.”

Police released surveillance video from the parking lot outside the store. The nearly two-minute clip shows two young men leaving the store at about the time a police car rolls up. The officer gets out and speaks with them. About a minute-and-a-half later, the video appears to show one of the men raising his arm, though what he is holding is difficult to see because they were several feet from the camera. Belmar said it was a 9mm handgun.

The other man ran away, and police are searching for him.

It was the third fatal shooting of a black suspect by a white police officer in the St. Louis area since Brown was killed. Kajaime Powell, 25, was killed Aug. 9 after approaching St. Louis officers with a knife. Vonderrit Myers Jr., 18, was fatally shot Oct. 8 after allegedly shooting at a St. Louis officer.

Each shooting has been met by protests, and a crowd quickly gathered late Tuesday and early Wednesday in Berkeley. The demonstration involving up to 300 people turned violent.

More than 50 police officers, some in riot gear, responded. Video showed some wrestling with protesters. Belmar said officers used pepper spray but not tear gas. Four people were arrested on charges of assaulting officers.

Belmar said three explosive devices, possibly fireworks, were tossed near gas pumps. Some protesters threw rocks and bricks. One officer was hit by a brick and treated for facial cuts. Another was treated for a leg injury sustained as he tried to get away from one of the explosives.

The protest spilled to a neighboring convenience store where a man in a hoodie set a fire inside the store. The fire was quickly put out, but the glass door was shattered.

Orlando Brown, 36, of nearby St. Charles was among the protesters.

“I understand police officers have a job and have an obligation to go home to their families at the end of the night,” he said. “But do you have to treat every situation with lethal force? … It’s not a racial issue, or black or white. It’s wrong or right.”

Brown said he was pepper-sprayed during the protest and that his friend was arrested for failing to disperse.

Toni Martin, Antonio Martin’s mother, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that her son was with his girlfriend at the time of the shooting. The video did not appear to show a female with the two young men.

Belmar said the 18-year-old had a considerable criminal record in the less than two years since he turned 17, with three assault charges, armed robbery, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.

The chief said some protesters questioned why the officer couldn’t use pepper spray or a stun gun.

“Frankly, that’s unreasonable,” Belmar said. “When we had somebody pointing a gun at a police officer, there’s not a lot of time.”

Berkeley has body cameras and dashboard cameras. The officer wasn’t wearing his body camera, Belmar said. The dashboard camera activates when the red lights are on, and they were not on at the convenience store.

Belmar said the body of the young man remained on the scene for about two hours. After Brown died in August, the fact that his body remained on the street for more than four hours drew widespread criticism. Belmar said two hours is fairly typical as police gather evidence, and he said interference from protesters may have prolonged the situation in Berkeley.

http://news.yahoo.com/police-officer-missouri-shot-killed-man-pulled-gun-084531706.html

“Pre-Crime” is a concept that was focus of the movie Minority Report. Now, a new software allowing for predictive policing may be coming to a police department near you. “Beware”, made by telecommunications company Intrado, searches billions of records to find and predict potential crimes.

What is most alarming is that this software will not only scour record’s databases for info on suspects but will pull info from social network pages and look for words that could be deemed as “offensive”. With that information a suspect is assessed a threat level.

http://benswann.com/pre-crime-software-can-tell-police-who-will-commit-a-crime-based-in-part-on-social-media-posts/

(Reuters) – Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attempts to soothe a city dismayed by the slaying of two officers were further rebuffed on Tuesday as protesters defied his call to suspend what have become regular demonstrations over excessive police force.

De Blasio led a moment of silence at City Hall in the afternoon three days after the attack on the officers before asking his staff to hug those nearby “as a symbol of our belief that we will move forward together.”

Hours later, about 200 protesters began marching through the drizzle and traffic in the center of Manhattan, enraged by the mayor’s demand that they suspend their rallies until after the funerals of police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

The shooting of the officers in their patrol car shocked a city that has seen largely peaceful demonstrations after decisions by grand juries in New York and Missouri not to indict white police officers in the killings of unarmed black men.

The killings have also intensified friction between City Hall, the police department and reformers who voted for de Blasio, a liberal Democrat, last year.

Protests against the use of excessive force by police have been held across the United States, reigniting a bitter debate about how American police forces treat non-white citizens that has drawn in President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder.

Since Saturday, de Blasio’s attempts at unity in New York have been rebuffed by both sides, police unions and protesters.

After saying de Blasio, who has reservedly sympathized with the protesters, had “blood on his hands” for the officers’ death, police unions disputed on Tuesday the claims by City Hall that they had agreed to a request to suspend their rhetoric.

“I never had a conversation about silence,” Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said in a telephone interview.

Answer Coalition, organizers of the march on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, called the mayor’s demand to suspend protests an attempt to “chill” their speech.

http://news.yahoo.com/ny-protesters-reject-plea-hiatus-despite-police-slayings-000327155.html

Another data point supporting the argument that too many police agencies just aren’t adequately equipped to deal with the mentally ill.

It started when a friend concerned for [Chad] Chadwick’s emotional well-being called Missouri City police to Chad’s Sienna apartment where he’d been distraught, drinking and unknown to anyone, had gone to sleep in the bathtub.

A SWAT team was summoned.

“They told a judge I had hostages. They lied to a judge and told him I had hostages in my apartment and they needed to enter,” said Chadwick.

Chadwick did own a single shotgun, but had threatened no one, not even himself. Chadwick’s firearm possession apparently prompted SWAT to kick in his door, launch a stun grenade into the bathroom and storm in, according to Chadwick, without announcing their identity.

“While I had my hands up naked in the shower they shot me with a 40 millimeter non-lethal round,” said Chadwick.

A second stun grenade soon followed.

“I turned away, the explosion went off, I opened my eyes the lights are out and here comes a shield with four or five guys behind it. They pinned me against the wall and proceeded to beat the crap out of me,” said Chadwick.

That’s when officers shot the unarmed Chadwick in the back of the head with a Taser at point blank range.

“They claimed I drew down with a shampoo bottle and a body wash bottle,” said Chadwick . . .

“They grabbed me by my the one hand that was out of the shower and grabbed me by my testicles slammed me on my face on the floor and proceeded to beat me more.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/12/18/your-police-raid-outrage-of-the-day/