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Sometimes anecdote and a few comments speaks louder than news stories, to wit these words from Facebook friends:
"Ummmm
- The next american civil war seems like its coming to a head....Cops
are getting shot now...Stay away from large cities...if you can"
Things are melting down very quickly - EVERYWHERE.
Thanks Ryan, Bradley and Josh
Here is a collection of recent stories and videos illustrating the situation
Here is a collection of recent stories and videos illustrating the situation
Charles
Kondek, Killed On Duty, Remembered at Funeral
28
December, 2014
The
Florida police officer fatally shot by a fugitive while on duty was
mourned by family, friends and fellow officers at an emotional
funeral service Saturday. The community in Tarpon Springs, just west
of Tampa, lined the sidewalks as the procession for Officer Charles
Kondek traveled from Idlewild Baptist Church to Grace Memorial
Cemetery.
One
of Kondek's six children spoke lovingly of her father, a 17-year
veteran of the Tarpon Springs police force. "My mom lost her
best friend and the love of her life," his daughter said,
according to NBC affiliate WFLA. "We love you daddy and we will
always have you in our hearts."
Kondek,
45, was killed while responding to a complaint about noise coming
from the car of fugitive Marco Antonio Parilla Jr., who police say
admitted to shooting the officer and then fleeing the scene because
he didn't want to go back to prison. He also ran over Kondek's body
with his car, authorities said. Parilla, 23, who was wanted on a
parole violation, was charged Monday with first-degree murder and
denied bail.
Kondek's
colleagues remembered him for being helpful and supportive of his
fellow officers. "He was good-natured, loved to joke around, a
lot of laughter," Tarpon Springs Sgt. Michael Trill said through
tears, WFLA reported. While the funeral took place, Officer Kondek's
car was parked outside of the church, tied in a large black ribbon
and with his badge number — 285 — displayed prominently on the
front.
More
details released about Flagstaff officer killed in shooting
28
December, 2014
Family,
friends and community members in Flagstaff and Anthem will gather for
vigils to remember slain Flagstaff Officer Tyler Stewart tonight.
Tyler,
24, who had less than one year on the job, was shot several times by
rapid gunfire and killed Saturday afternoon by a 28-year-old man who
then turned the gun on himself, police said. Tyler is the son of
Department of Public Safety Sgt. Frank Stewart.
According
to police, Stewart was killed during an interview with a domestic
violence suspect.
Robert
William Smith, 28, of Prescott, had been involved in an earlier
domestic-violence call in Flagstaff with his girlfriend, spokeswoman
Sgt. Margaret Bentzen said. Stewart met with Smith and had a
conversation regarding earlier events.
Stewart,
who was outside his patrol car, had been asking Smith questions about
what had happened and asked to pat down Smith for any weapons,
Bentzen said. At this time, Smith reached for a gun he had in his
pocket and fired several shots at Stewart.
Bentzen
said Stewart had no time to return fire, as the shots were immediate
and rapidly fired. Stewart fell to the ground and Smith continued to
fire, she said.
Officers
were dispatched after several residents in the area reported Stewart
lying on the ground and when dispatchers could no longer get a verbal
reply from him, Bentzen said.
He
was rushed to Flagstaff Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Bentzen
said Smith had been arrested in 2009 involving domestic violence.
"This
is an enormous tragedy for our department and the family of our
officer," Flagstaff Police Chief Kevin Treadway said in a
statement. "We are a very close-knit organization, and know that
all members of the Flagstaff Police Department are grieving at this
time. With that being said, all of the men and women of the Flagstaff
Police Department extend our prayers and condolences to the family of
our Officer Tyler Stewart."
The
police department will sponsor a candlelight vigil at 5:30 p.m. today
at the Officer Down Memorial Statue, located in front of the
Flagstaff Police Department headquarters, 911 E. Sawmill Road. A
coinciding candlelight vigil will also be held at 5:30 p.m. at the
Anthem Community Park, located at 41703 N. Gavilan Peak Parkway.
Stewart
in 2008 graduated from Boulder Creek High School in Anthem.
Stewart's
family is expected to attend the Flagstaff vigil, Bentzen said.
Cards, flowers and candles left by well-wishers began piling up at
the memorial Saturday evening
Whereas, on the other side of the racial divide its all tolerance
Two
men who shot up Idaho Walmart with BB gun taken into custody by
police
28 December, 2014
Two
Idaho men were taken into custody without incident after shooting up
a Walmart with a BB gun and threatening to harm other customers, the
Coeur d’Alene Press reports.
The
arrest of the two men — who were not identified — stands in stark
contrast to an incident at a Ohio Walmart in August involving an
African-American man, John Crawford, that left him dead after police
shot him while he stood in an aisle casually holding a BB gun after
he had removed it from a shelf.
According
to Idaho police, the two intoxicated men walked into the Post Falls
Walmart and proceeded to remove BB guns from boxes, before loading
one and firing it four times while in the store.
In
a report to police, Walmart store security contacted them saying the
two men “started shooting the gun in the store and made comments
that they were going to shoot the store up.”
According
to one Walmart loss prevention employee, the men approached him and
asked if he wanted to join them.
The
two men exited the store before police arrived, but officers and
sheriff’s deputies were able to set up a perimeter and take them
into custody without incident.
According
to police, the two men were charged with aggravated assault,
discharging a firearm in city limits, and malicious damage to
property.
The
shooting of John Crawford at the Ohio Walmart drew national
attention, when surveillance video showed Crawford facing away from
officers, talking on his cell phone, and leaning on the BB gun like a
cane when officer came around a display and shot him on sight.
Police
had been called to the store by a panicky Walmart customer, Robert
Ritchie, who claimed that Crawford had been “threatening”
customers with the children’s gun. Ritchie later changed his
story, saying, “At no point did he shoulder the rifle and point it
at somebody,” although he continued to insist Crawford was “waving
it around,” despite video not backing up his assertion.
An
Ohio grand jury refused to hand down an indictment of the police
officers involved in Crawford’s death.
Special
Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier, appointed by Ohio Attorney General Mike
DeWine called Crawford’s death a tragedy for his family and the
officers who, he said, will live the rest of their lives knowing
“they took the life of someone who didn’t need to die.”
The
discrepancy in how the different men were treated by police was noted
on Twitter by RightWingWatch Fan:
NYPD double murder drives rift between protesters, politicians and police
23
December, 2014
Anti-police
brutality protesters are vowing to continue demonstrating, despite
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio urging them to refrain and be
‘respectful’ of police officers. Two city police department
officers were killed execution style on Saturday, and multiple groups
are blaming the weeks of protests for the tragedy. RT’s Alexey
Yarosjevsky is in New York with more details
8 white cops, 1 black homeless man, 46 bullets
29
October, 2014
NYPD Was Sued Average Of 10 Times A Day In 2013, Inspiring ‘ClaimStat’ Online App To Track Claims
24
December, 2014
Data
released by NYC’s Comptroller office is showing some disturbing
trends in claims and payouts against the NYPD. According to the City
of NY Office of the Comptroller Claims Report for FY 2012, the city
paid $186.3 million in tort claims involving the NYPD in 2011, $152
million in 2012, $137 million in 2013 with an average of 10 lawsuits
per day according to RT, with $674 million allotted for 2015 to cover
costs of more suits, which averages out to about $80 per NYC
resident.
To
help rein in costs, City Comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, newly
inaugurated in 2014, has shaken up the establishment a bit by
launching a real-time claim mapping application called ClaimStat, an
online app that provides some shocking transparency by using map
location and detail data of claims filed against some of the most
costly and worst offending departments under his financial control,
NYPD being at the top of the list.
Stringer
states ClaimStat can be used as an “early warning system” to help
identify where police behavior is costing the city in lawsuits and
settlements.
Stringer
was quoted telling MSNBC:
“We
do not need to accept the premise that claims and settlements have to
go up year after year. We don’t have to accept that violent
confrontations between police and the community are an inevitable
part of policing.”
After
all of the grand juries, trials, protests and complaints, seems they
don’t start really paying attention until it hits them where it
really hurts…the pocketbook.
In
RT’s description for the video above, it states, “According to
data released from the NYC’s Comptroller office, the NYPD was sued
an average of ten times per day in 2013. What’s more, the claims
cost the city about $137 million. The comptroller has set aside a
whopping $674 million for 2015 to cover costs of more suits against
the city.” In a story from 2012, RT also shares a staggering
statistic, that between 2000 – 2010, NYC paid out almost $6 billion
dollars in settlements.
Those massive claims and unsustainable budget
numbers inspired Stringer to use data intelligence to pinpoint
problem areas which were costing the city precious reяources.
Cops Threaten a Blue Coup in
New York City
“The police union chief instructed his members to impose a martial law-type policing regime on the city.”
27
December, 2014
When
Police Benevolent Association chief Patrick Lynch said New York Mayor
Bill de Blasio has the blood of two dead cops on
his hands,
he was issuing a physical threat to both the person of the mayor and
the civil authority to which the police are subordinate and sworn to
protect. In a nation under the rule of law, such a statement by a
representative of an armed and enflamed constabulary –
35,000-strong, the equivalent of three light infantry divisions –
would trigger an immediate defensive response from the State, to
guard against mutiny. But, of course, no such thing happened.
When
Lynch’s PBA declared, in a prepared
statement,
that “we have, for the first time in a number of years, become a
‘wartime’ police department” and “will act accordingly,”
that constituted an instruction to union members to impose a martial
law-type policing regime on the city – with no authorization other
than the weapons they carry. Sounds very much like a coup.
On
Internet message boards, police union activists instructed the rank
and file to refuse to respond to incidents unless two units were
dispatched to the scene, and to double up even if given orders to the
contrary. Under this “wartime” footing, the police would simply
seize the power to deploy and assign themselves, as they liked –
and to hell with the chain of command and civilian authorities.
To
hell, especially, with Mayor de Blasio, who now travels nowhere
except under the protective custody of police commissioner Bill
Bratton, a “cop’s cop” and architect of the “Broken Windows”
policing strategy that begat stop-and-frisk. Bratton translates de
Blasio’s words into cop-speak, and has forged a tense truce between
the uniformed legions and the man who won
95 percent of the Black vote on
the promise to put a leash on the gendarmes.
There
is no doubt the cops feel betrayed – a rage that has been building
in synch with the growth of a nationwide movement that challenges the
legitimacy of the Mass Black Incarceration State, of which they are
the frontline troops, the “heroes” in the war to criminalize and
contain an entire people. The chants and placards are an insult and
an indictment of THEM, and of their centrality to the racist project
that has been an organizing principle of the nation for more than two
generations. How is it that cops can be compelled to “protect and
serve” marchers whose purpose is anathema to the American policing
mission: to beat down, lock up, and extrajudicially execute
dissident, disorderly, uppity or merely inconvenient Black people?
The
cops understand the law, and that the law is conditional, based on
place, race and wealth, and that in the end there is only force, the
use of which is their sacred monopoly. It’s what gives them a
status that union paychecks cannot buy; what makes blue collar guys
and gals “somebody” in society. Most of all, they know who is
nobody: the beatable, friskable, disposable, killable folks who would
be prey on any other day, but have lately been allowed to repeatedly
parade down the most protected streets of the richest island in the
country, screaming defamations.
“The
cops’ rage has been building in synch with the growth of a
nationwide movement that challenges the legitimacy of the Mass Black
Incarceration State, of which they are the frontline troops.”
The
cops are understandably angry and confused. As primary enforcers of
the social order, they have an intimate knowledge of actual class and
race relationships in America. Their perspectives are molded by the
geographic and social boundaries they patrol; they are shaped and
informed by the inequalities of the system they protect on behalf of
the powerful people they serve. (Yes, they really do “serve and
protect” somebody.) The cop’s worldview is also firmly anchored
in the history of the United States. He may not be aware of his
profession’s antecedents in the slave patrols, or even that the
U.S. Supreme Court once ruled that Black people have no rights that
the white man is bound to respect, but cops are the reigning experts
on the borders that delineate rights and privileges in their
localities. They know that public housing residents have virtually no
rights that cops – as agents of the rulers – are bound to
respect. They know that whole sections of their cities, encompassing
most of the Black and brown populations, are designated as drug zones
where everyone is suspect and probable cause is a given, or as
high-crime zones where every shooting is pre-qualified as a good one.
These
are the Constitution-free zones, full of people who get and deserve
no protection by or from the police. The very existence of
Constitution-free zones means that the Bill of Rights is not the law
of the land, but a Potemkin façade, a con game, a chimera – and no
one knows this better than the cops, whose job is to ensure, as best
they can, that everyone stays within their designated space.
For
about a million Black people, the assigned “space” is prison. The
Mass Black Incarceration State is the edifice that defines the
American system of justice, setting it apart from the rest of the
world in size, racial selectivity, draconian sentencing and
institutionalized torture (80,000 inmates in solitary confinement on
any given day). The police are the drones that feed the infernal
prison machine, and keep Black America in a state of rightlessness.
As Shakespeare’s mercenary warrior Othello would put it: We “have
done the state some service, and they know it.”
“New
York City’s police force is especially prone to mutiny and
coup-plotting.”
The
cops threaten mutiny if the State does not stick up for the men and
women who do its dirty work. PBA honcho Patrick Lynch denounced
“those that incited violence on the street under the guise of
protests that tried to tear down what New York City police officers
did everyday. We tried to warn, ‘It must not go on. It cannot be
tolerated.’”
To
which the protesters answer: the police killings and the
criminalization of a whole people must not go on and cannot be
tolerated.
The
movement has come to a critical juncture, a moment that would have
arrived even if Ismaaiyl Brinsley had not made his own fatal
decision. It was always inevitable that the cops would at some point
demand that the State dispense with civil liberties pretenses and
allow them to crush the nascent movement. New York City’s police
force – by far the nation’s largest army of domestic occupation –
is especially prone to mutiny and coup-plotting. Thousands of cops,
many of them drunk, stormed
City Hall in 1992 to
express their utter contempt for Black mayor David Dinkins. But, the
current crisis is far different, because it is the movement’s show,
not the cops’. The people are exposing the most acute
contradictions of American life through direct confrontation with the
armed enforcers of the State.
The
cops are supposed to be upset. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
explained, “the purpose of direct action is to create a situation
so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to
negotiation.” The crisis is here, and will grow deeper, but freedom
is non-negotiable. The movement must win or be crushed.
Glen
Ford is a distinguished radio-show host and commentator. In 1977,
Ford co-launched, produced and hosted America’s Black Forum,
the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on
commercial television. In 1987, Ford launched Rap It Up, the first
nationally syndicated Hip Hop music show, broadcast on 65 radio
stations. Ford co-founded the Black Commentator in 2002 and in 2006
he launched the Black Agenda Report. Ford is also the author of The
Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada
Invasion.
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