Tag: police

Injustice at Every Turn — Part VIII: Police and Incarceration



Scarlet Letter

Injustice at Every Turn (pdf) is a 122-page report of data gathered in 2008 by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality concerning quality of life issues for transgender people living in this country.

Most people interact with police officers during the ordinary course of their lives. Transgender and gender non-conforming people may have higher levels of interaction with police. They are more likely to interact with police because they are more likely to be victims of violent crime, because they are more likely to be on the street due to homelessness and/or being unwelcome at home, because their circumstances often force them to work in the underground economy, and even because many face harassment and arrest simply because they are out in public while being transgender. Some transgender women report that police profile them as sex workers and arrest them for solicitation without cause; this is referred to as “Walking While Transgender.”

Previous “turns” have covered the basic data about who transpeople living in America are in Who we are — by the numbers, Part I: Education, Part II: Employment, Part III: Health Care, Part IV: Family, Part V: Housing. Part VI: Public Accommodation and Part VII: Identity Documents.  This is the last in the series.

Sen. Mike Enzi’s ‘Pack of Lies’ vs. 9/11 Victims

The best people America has to offer have been getting sick and dying from their heroic efforts at the World Trad Center. As you can see from this recent Daily News front page, Mike Enzi is not the only Republican to tell the 9/11 first responders and heroes to drop dead.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act that provides $3.2 billion for long-term health care for rescue and construction workers at Ground Zero, plus another $4.2 billion in compensation for others who were exposed to airborne toxins will be out of time once the Republicans control the House.

These heroes who answered the call for help on September 11, 2001 and the horrible weeks that followed have been pushing hard for justice before it is too late. After a barrage of local media coverage, multiple visits to Washington from Ground Zero worker, victim’s family members pleading with the Senate and a huge bipartisan effort from tri-state politicians, one Republican has signed on. The rest have voices disagreement with Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand’s method of financing healthcare for heroes. The cloture count is now at 59 and their big day in the Senate is tomorrow.  

Now that there is some hope for a bill named after an NYPD detective who died at age 34 of a respiratory disease attributed to participation in the rescue and recovery operations at the World Trade Center, Mike Enzi is working hard to stop the bill from going forward. His reasoning is that the nation has already given enough.

{RePost; New Title} Sunday Morning Propagandists!!

Original Subject Title: More Domestic Criminal Terror! and Silence Following?

One wonders, not really very hard, why we readily call others, who have done nothing, ‘terrorist’, just because of where they might be from or their religious beliefs, and we get never ending opinion talk and pure propaganda {lies} about as a whole group and not the extremist using, yet something like this happens and it gets very little news play. You have to search it out rather then hear anyone report on or seriously talk about. A most certainly ‘domestic criminal terrorist’ act seemingly hell bent on taking out as many police or innocent people as possible, all because, apparently, he’s a white guy in Texas. Will he become the new hero of certain groups within our society, much like the Austin Pilot Did or others that seek to be the next McVeighs as Individuals or in Groups!!

Cop Infiltration FAIL!

Actually, make that EPIC FAIL!

Many of us have seen the rather frightening reports on tear gas and noise generators the cops employed to stop protests during the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. If that didn’t stop the demonstrations, these bozos sure weren’t likely to…

Rant: No, A Beer Won’t Fix Anything.

In advance, I ask your pardon for a rant I am unable or unwilling to suppress.  Today’s White House Beer Summit On Race Relations And Police Practices has enraged me.  Police Sergeant Crowley of the Cambridge PD didn’t deserve an invitation for beer at the White House, he needed an appointment for a deposition in a federal civil rights case in which he and his superiors were the named defendants.  But according to the Trad MediaTM, all of Crowly’s vengefulness, his making an illegal arrest, his making a stupid, unjustifiable illegal arrest, his serving up a racist/classist illegal arrest of a person in his own home is now behind us.  We’re past all of the ugliness of his conduct.  It has now been chilled (unless you have to live with brutality and oppression on a daily basis) with some beer.  And pretzels.  This I hasten to point out might solve Police Sgt. Crowley’s immediate problem, including departmental discipline and federal civil rights action for damages, but it doesn’t solve my problem.  Or the country’s.  And I don’t think it solves Prof. Gates’s problem.  It certainly doesn’t solve the US’s police problem. Not one bit.

It’s About Police Exceptionalism

I think it’s time, once again, to talk about police abuse, the violation of citizens’ rights by police officers, and their being held to a different, lower standard of conduct than other citizens.  I think that’s the core of the Henry Louis Gates arrest. And I think the commentaries that focus on the illegal arrest of Dr. Gates just as examples of racism and/or classism to the exclusion of the societal role of out-of-control police are missing the boat.  Of course, the poor, people of color, immigrants, the disenfranchised, the powerless are the usual objects of police abuse.  But the primary, ugly problem that needs to be confronted is that the police are unrestrained and repeatedly commit illegal acts with impunity.

This old post from April, 2006 makes my point far better than yet another re-hashing of the illegal arrest of Dr. Gates in his own home by Cambridge Police.  And it even goes a long way toward explaining why the offending officer has been invited to a beer at the White House rather than a deposition in a federal civil rights case in which he is the named defendant.

I am now going to take my anger out for a walk.

“Lip?” What Ever Happened to “Rights?”

We’re all now well familiar with the bust of Professor Henry Louis Gates on the front porch of his own home after police in Cambridge decided to arrest him for giving them some “lip” about their overzealousness. Was it a racist incident? Actually, probably not, despite Obama’s defense at the presser yesterday.

But Obama was right to say that “any of us” would have been angry about their treatment. And yes, the police were stupid. Unfortunately, their stupidity is now enshrined as SOP for all police everywhere in a post-9-11 world. It has to do with rights, and what happens to people who assert their rights.

An article up on Yahoo points out that Sgt. Crowley is “disappointed that Obama defended his friend in public. Because his itty feewings were hurt by Gates’ saying something insulting about his mama. Bullshit! We pay police to be above and beyond such crap, they’re supposed to remain cool and calm in situations that would lead ordinary people they’re policing to a barfight (that the police were called upon to quell).

Overnight Caption Contest

larger here.

Murder Charge for Officer Arrested in Oakland BART Killing

(Originally posted (link), on DailyKos. It was an “in-process” story, so it has lots of updates. Please excuse the disjointedness, thanks!)

Maryland Police Spied On Activists, Claim It Was Legal

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

WaPO reports that Maryland police infiltrated and spied upon peace and death penalty abolition groups in 2005.  The information the cops gathered was apparently sent to other law enforcement agencies.  No crimes were alleged to have been committed by the activists.

That crushing sound you hear is the crumbling of the First Amendment:

Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.

Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department’s Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.

Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.

Then-state police superintendent Tim Hutchins acknowledged in an interview yesterday that the surveillance took place on his watch, adding that it was done legally. He said Ehrlich (R) was not aware of it. “You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state,” said Hutchins, now a federal defense contractor.

Did you read that?  The then state police superintendent says that the surveillance “was done legally.”  I feel so very assured and comforted by this conclusion about the law.  And protected.  Protected from what you might ask?  And from whom?  “To protect the general populace of the state” is a police goal that apparently does not include protecting the privacy and right of association of death penalty abolitionists and peace activists.  

Sean Bell, RIP

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Photobucket

A Memorial To Sean Bell

I’m shaking my head at the verdict Judge Cooperman (without a jury) rendered yesterday in the Sean Bell murder case. I’m saddened and troubled.  I think I understand the roots of his acquittal verdict, and I think there has been an enormous miscarriage of justice in this case. Unfortunately, this kind of injustice probably should have been expected because of the way the law acknowledges and fosters police exceptionalism. The defense lawyers for the detectives knew it, and sought to benefit from it, and the prosecutors knew it as well, and didn’t try to block it.

Please join me in Kew Gardens.

What This Country Has Brought On Itself!

An Update to my post from last night, I also expect a Video report following a local TV Stations nightly news from the area, with the family press conferance.

Body identified as former Marine Hall

(Last updated: March 12, 2008 11:14 AM)  

The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office has notified Eric Hall’s family this morning that the remains found in a culvert Sunday was the former Marine.

A detective from the agency notified the family at 10 a.m. and relayed the cause of death has not been determined.

Becky Hall, Eric’s mother, plans a press conference at noon.

The family scheduled a military memorial service at noon Thursday at the Faith Lutheran Church, 4005 Palm Drive, Punta Gorda.

I certainly hope this Country is out of it’s collective Denial, about Vietnam, and it’s Apathy as to this World we live in, much of it created by our past policies and now the present, for the Future is Here!

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