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americaforward: Don’t edit the Voting Rights Act - remember Bloody Sunday On March 7th, 1965, state troopers attacked and beat 525 peaceful protesters marching for voter registration in Selma, Alabama. The horrific display of police brutality known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ spurred the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ensured and protected the right to vote for millions of minorities in America. To remove any part of the Act, to take away any of the rights included in it, would be disrespectful to those who lost their lives fighting for it. 
americaforward: Don’t edit the Voting Rights Act - remember Bloody Sunday On March 7th, 1965, state troopers attacked and beat 525 peaceful protesters marching for voter registration in Selma, Alabama. The horrific display of police brutality known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ spurred the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ensured and protected the right to vote for millions of minorities in America. To remove any part of the Act, to take away any of the rights included in it, would be disrespectful to those who lost their lives fighting for it. 
americaforward: Don’t edit the Voting Rights Act - remember Bloody Sunday On March 7th, 1965, state troopers attacked and beat 525 peaceful protesters marching for voter registration in Selma, Alabama. The horrific display of police brutality known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ spurred the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ensured and protected the right to vote for millions of minorities in America. To remove any part of the Act, to take away any of the rights included in it, would be disrespectful to those who lost their lives fighting for it. 

americaforward:

Don’t edit the Voting Rights Act - remember Bloody Sunday

On March 7th, 1965, state troopers attacked and beat 525 peaceful protesters marching for voter registration in Selma, Alabama. The horrific display of police brutality known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ spurred the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ensured and protected the right to vote for millions of minorities in America. To remove any part of the Act, to take away any of the rights included in it, would be disrespectful to those who lost their lives fighting for it. 

socialismartnature: 13 cops, 2 unarmed Black people, 137 bullets: racism, US Empire style. #FuckThePolice === Killed in a hail of 137 bullets TWO CLEVELAND residents were gunned down by police in a hail of 137 bullets after a high-speed chase through the city. Anti-police violence activists said the barrage of gunfire was like a scene out of the movie Bonnie and Clyde.  … While Timothy and Malissa’s families are in a state of shock, the community is demanding answers about yet another police murder of two unarmed Blacks. Recordings of police radio transmissions reveal that officers were ordered to abandon the chase five minutes before they emptied their weapons at the two victims. In response to a dispatcher’s question as to whether officers heard the order, one cop responded: “Yeah, but this is in our patch here, so that’s why we’re just gonna try to see what’s going on.” It has also come to light that four of the cops involved have a history of violent confrontations. While all 13 police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, Jeffrey Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, nevertheless claimed, “Our officers did a great job.” The sense of outrage and pain is palpable in the community, but people are determined to fight back and make a stand against police brutality and racism.
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socialismartnature:

13 cops, 2 unarmed Black people, 137 bullets: racism, US Empire style. #FuckThePolice

===

Killed in a hail of 137 bullets

TWO CLEVELAND residents were gunned down by police in a hail of 137 bullets after a high-speed chase through the city. Anti-police violence activists said the barrage of gunfire was like a scene out of the movie Bonnie and Clyde.

 … While Timothy and Malissa’s families are in a state of shock, the community is demanding answers about yet another police murder of two unarmed Blacks.

Recordings of police radio transmissions reveal that officers were ordered to abandon the chase five minutes before they emptied their weapons at the two victims. In response to a dispatcher’s question as to whether officers heard the order, one cop responded: “Yeah, but this is in our patch here, so that’s why we’re just gonna try to see what’s going on.”

It has also come to light that four of the cops involved have a history of violent confrontations.

While all 13 police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, Jeffrey Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, nevertheless claimed, “Our officers did a great job.”

The sense of outrage and pain is palpable in the community, but people are determined to fight back and make a stand against police brutality and racism.

thepeoplesrecord: Jamel Mims on facing two years in prison for protesting Stop & FriskOctober 23, 2012 New York City teacher Jamel Mims faces up to two years in prison for nonviolently protesting the most controversial racial profiling policy in America today. Last year, he was one of the key members of a civil disobedience campaign to stop Stop-and-Frisk that boasted the iconic academic Cornel West as one of its leading advocates. Today, he stands on trial along with 12 other campaigners. As discussed in last week’s State of the Left, the NYPD policy involves 1,800 instances of stopping and frisking citizens every day; in the last decade, 87% of people who are stopped are black or Latino; and about 9 of 10 are innocent of any wrongdoing. There is not even a hint of exaggeration in saying that certain sections of New York City are turned into police states for minority youth. Enter Jamel Mims: On Tuesday October 23, I will be on trial along with Carl Dix, who, with Cornel West, initiated the 2011 campaign of nonviolent protest to stop Stop-and-Frisk. We are facing up to two years in jail for non-violent protest at the NYPD 103rd precinct in Jamaica, Queens last year. The stakes are undoubtedly high: this is the second stop-and-frisk protest mass trial resulting from the culminating action of the civil disobedience campaign that sparked citywide resistance to the policy.  The Queens District Attorney added a serious misdemeanor charge on us last month, and re-wrote our charges last week so that we’re charged with ‘acting in concert’ rather than as individuals. The action last November  was the third such protest at New York City precincts with the most stop-and-frisks, this one taking place in the borough of Queens. We held a community rally and march through Jamaica, Queens, which ended at the 103rd Precinct.  As our march arrived at the precinct, it was completely barricaded on all sides – on lock-down in anticipation of the protest.  An officer slides open one of the metal grates and motions us inward so that we may protest at the precinct doors.  After minutes of chanting and singing outside of the precinct steps, 20 of us were arrested, quite quickly, but held for hours late into the next day.  For less than ten minutes of protesting stop-and-frisk outside of the doors 103rd precinct, which houses the NYPD officers who put fifty shots into Sean Bell, 12 co-defendants and I now find ourselves facing two years of jail time. If anyone think this is just an empty threat, and they won’t convict or send us to jail, let me reiterate—the DA has twice bumped up the charges in the last month, and has made it very clear that the prosecutorial apparatus intends to place us behind bars. A year ago, those who had no first-hand experience of the humiliation of being illegally searched barely knew the practice occurred.  Those who got stopped and frisked thought there was nothing one could do about it. Now, the stop-and-frisk policy and the horrors it inflicts are going viral in mainstream society. Copwatch and videos of NYPD stops garner thousands of views, and nearly every day there are articles or opinion pieces about stop-and-frisk.  Potential mayoral candidates have even had to confront this, as politicians line up to claim their opposition to the policy, or express their desire to reform or modify it in the ongoing pursuit of public opinion. In this watershed moment, when stop-and-frisk is opening a window into the daily plight of thousands, the very people who put their bodies on the line to put this issue into the spotlight and openly call out for its abolition are vigorously prosecuted and threatened with incarceration.  I refuse to accept this.  It’s unthinkable that the Queens District Attorney, who couldn’t make a case against the cops who murdered Sean Bell, is now throwing the book at nonviolent civil disobedience protesters.  In this light, the intended effect of this prosecution is insidiously transparent: to send a chilling effect through the movement against mass incarceration, and dampen the spirit of resistance it has ignited.  To put it quite simply: don’t speak up, and certainly don’t fight back. Well, I’m speaking up.  And not just as someone who is passionate about the issue.  I speak as a target of police abuse, as a Fulbright Scholar whose scholarship was almost denied after being assaulted by Boston police while trying to leave a party. I speak to you as an artist and teacher whose work in New York City public schools has me witness the humiliation and degradation of the youth by the NYPD on a daily basis.  I speak to you as a committed opponent of the New Jim Crow, a system of mass incarceration that has 2.4 million mostly black and Latino men warehoused in prisons across the nation, with stop-and-frisk as a major pipeline into that system. Most of all, I speak to you as someone who has cast their lot with those at the bottom of society: with those thousands of youth who are brutalized, targeted, harassed, and shuffled off behind bars — and is now facing years in prison for standing with them. We fully intend to stop this railroading by bringing the political battle into the courtroom and putting Stop and Frisk on trial.  If we are allowed to be convicted and jailed without a massive fight, then the battle against stop-and-frisk and the spirit of resistance it has engendered will be seriously dampened. On the other hand, if people stand with us in this legal battle–if we meet and defeat their attempts to silence and punish us–then the movement will gain further initiative and pull many more people into the struggle against mass incarceration. SourcePhoto 1, 2 The United States police state imprisons all dissidents, from police brutality activists to government whistleblowers. 
thepeoplesrecord: Jamel Mims on facing two years in prison for protesting Stop & FriskOctober 23, 2012 New York City teacher Jamel Mims faces up to two years in prison for nonviolently protesting the most controversial racial profiling policy in America today. Last year, he was one of the key members of a civil disobedience campaign to stop Stop-and-Frisk that boasted the iconic academic Cornel West as one of its leading advocates. Today, he stands on trial along with 12 other campaigners. As discussed in last week’s State of the Left, the NYPD policy involves 1,800 instances of stopping and frisking citizens every day; in the last decade, 87% of people who are stopped are black or Latino; and about 9 of 10 are innocent of any wrongdoing. There is not even a hint of exaggeration in saying that certain sections of New York City are turned into police states for minority youth. Enter Jamel Mims: On Tuesday October 23, I will be on trial along with Carl Dix, who, with Cornel West, initiated the 2011 campaign of nonviolent protest to stop Stop-and-Frisk. We are facing up to two years in jail for non-violent protest at the NYPD 103rd precinct in Jamaica, Queens last year. The stakes are undoubtedly high: this is the second stop-and-frisk protest mass trial resulting from the culminating action of the civil disobedience campaign that sparked citywide resistance to the policy.  The Queens District Attorney added a serious misdemeanor charge on us last month, and re-wrote our charges last week so that we’re charged with ‘acting in concert’ rather than as individuals. The action last November  was the third such protest at New York City precincts with the most stop-and-frisks, this one taking place in the borough of Queens. We held a community rally and march through Jamaica, Queens, which ended at the 103rd Precinct.  As our march arrived at the precinct, it was completely barricaded on all sides – on lock-down in anticipation of the protest.  An officer slides open one of the metal grates and motions us inward so that we may protest at the precinct doors.  After minutes of chanting and singing outside of the precinct steps, 20 of us were arrested, quite quickly, but held for hours late into the next day.  For less than ten minutes of protesting stop-and-frisk outside of the doors 103rd precinct, which houses the NYPD officers who put fifty shots into Sean Bell, 12 co-defendants and I now find ourselves facing two years of jail time. If anyone think this is just an empty threat, and they won’t convict or send us to jail, let me reiterate—the DA has twice bumped up the charges in the last month, and has made it very clear that the prosecutorial apparatus intends to place us behind bars. A year ago, those who had no first-hand experience of the humiliation of being illegally searched barely knew the practice occurred.  Those who got stopped and frisked thought there was nothing one could do about it. Now, the stop-and-frisk policy and the horrors it inflicts are going viral in mainstream society. Copwatch and videos of NYPD stops garner thousands of views, and nearly every day there are articles or opinion pieces about stop-and-frisk.  Potential mayoral candidates have even had to confront this, as politicians line up to claim their opposition to the policy, or express their desire to reform or modify it in the ongoing pursuit of public opinion. In this watershed moment, when stop-and-frisk is opening a window into the daily plight of thousands, the very people who put their bodies on the line to put this issue into the spotlight and openly call out for its abolition are vigorously prosecuted and threatened with incarceration.  I refuse to accept this.  It’s unthinkable that the Queens District Attorney, who couldn’t make a case against the cops who murdered Sean Bell, is now throwing the book at nonviolent civil disobedience protesters.  In this light, the intended effect of this prosecution is insidiously transparent: to send a chilling effect through the movement against mass incarceration, and dampen the spirit of resistance it has ignited.  To put it quite simply: don’t speak up, and certainly don’t fight back. Well, I’m speaking up.  And not just as someone who is passionate about the issue.  I speak as a target of police abuse, as a Fulbright Scholar whose scholarship was almost denied after being assaulted by Boston police while trying to leave a party. I speak to you as an artist and teacher whose work in New York City public schools has me witness the humiliation and degradation of the youth by the NYPD on a daily basis.  I speak to you as a committed opponent of the New Jim Crow, a system of mass incarceration that has 2.4 million mostly black and Latino men warehoused in prisons across the nation, with stop-and-frisk as a major pipeline into that system. Most of all, I speak to you as someone who has cast their lot with those at the bottom of society: with those thousands of youth who are brutalized, targeted, harassed, and shuffled off behind bars — and is now facing years in prison for standing with them. We fully intend to stop this railroading by bringing the political battle into the courtroom and putting Stop and Frisk on trial.  If we are allowed to be convicted and jailed without a massive fight, then the battle against stop-and-frisk and the spirit of resistance it has engendered will be seriously dampened. On the other hand, if people stand with us in this legal battle–if we meet and defeat their attempts to silence and punish us–then the movement will gain further initiative and pull many more people into the struggle against mass incarceration. SourcePhoto 1, 2 The United States police state imprisons all dissidents, from police brutality activists to government whistleblowers. 

thepeoplesrecord:

Jamel Mims on facing two years in prison for protesting Stop & Frisk
October 23, 2012

New York City teacher Jamel Mims faces up to two years in prison for nonviolently protesting the most controversial racial profiling policy in America today. Last year, he was one of the key members of a civil disobedience campaign to stop Stop-and-Frisk that boasted the iconic academic Cornel West as one of its leading advocates. Today, he stands on trial along with 12 other campaigners.

As discussed in last week’s State of the Left, the NYPD policy involves 1,800 instances of stopping and frisking citizens every day; in the last decade, 87% of people who are stopped are black or Latino; and about 9 of 10 are innocent of any wrongdoing. There is not even a hint of exaggeration in saying that certain sections of New York City are turned into police states for minority youth.

Enter Jamel Mims:

On Tuesday October 23, I will be on trial along with Carl Dix, who, with Cornel West, initiated the 2011 campaign of nonviolent protest to stop Stop-and-Frisk. We are facing up to two years in jail for non-violent protest at the NYPD 103rd precinct in Jamaica, Queens last year.

The stakes are undoubtedly high: this is the second stop-and-frisk protest mass trial resulting from the culminating action of the civil disobedience campaign that sparked citywide resistance to the policy.  The Queens District Attorney added a serious misdemeanor charge on us last month, and re-wrote our charges last week so that we’re charged with ‘acting in concert’ rather than as individuals.

The action last November  was the third such protest at New York City precincts with the most stop-and-frisks, this one taking place in the borough of Queens. We held a community rally and march through Jamaica, Queens, which ended at the 103rd Precinct.  As our march arrived at the precinct, it was completely barricaded on all sides – on lock-down in anticipation of the protest.  An officer slides open one of the metal grates and motions us inward so that we may protest at the precinct doors.  After minutes of chanting and singing outside of the precinct steps, 20 of us were arrested, quite quickly, but held for hours late into the next day.  For less than ten minutes of protesting stop-and-frisk outside of the doors 103rd precinct, which houses the NYPD officers who put fifty shots into Sean Bell, 12 co-defendants and I now find ourselves facing two years of jail time.

If anyone think this is just an empty threat, and they won’t convict or send us to jail, let me reiterate—the DA has twice bumped up the charges in the last month, and has made it very clear that the prosecutorial apparatus intends to place us behind bars. A year ago, those who had no first-hand experience of the humiliation of being illegally searched barely knew the practice occurred.  Those who got stopped and frisked thought there was nothing one could do about it. Now, the stop-and-frisk policy and the horrors it inflicts are going viral in mainstream society. Copwatch and videos of NYPD stops garner thousands of views, and nearly every day there are articles or opinion pieces about stop-and-frisk.  Potential mayoral candidates have even had to confront this, as politicians line up to claim their opposition to the policy, or express their desire to reform or modify it in the ongoing pursuit of public opinion.

In this watershed moment, when stop-and-frisk is opening a window into the daily plight of thousands, the very people who put their bodies on the line to put this issue into the spotlight and openly call out for its abolition are vigorously prosecuted and threatened with incarceration.  I refuse to accept this.  It’s unthinkable that the Queens District Attorney, who couldn’t make a case against the cops who murdered Sean Bell, is now throwing the book at nonviolent civil disobedience protesters.  In this light, the intended effect of this prosecution is insidiously transparent: to send a chilling effect through the movement against mass incarceration, and dampen the spirit of resistance it has ignited.  To put it quite simply: don’t speak up, and certainly don’t fight back.

Well, I’m speaking up.  And not just as someone who is passionate about the issue.  I speak as a target of police abuse, as a Fulbright Scholar whose scholarship was almost denied after being assaulted by Boston police while trying to leave a party. I speak to you as an artist and teacher whose work in New York City public schools has me witness the humiliation and degradation of the youth by the NYPD on a daily basis.  I speak to you as a committed opponent of the New Jim Crow, a system of mass incarceration that has 2.4 million mostly black and Latino men warehoused in prisons across the nation, with stop-and-frisk as a major pipeline into that system.

Most of all, I speak to you as someone who has cast their lot with those at the bottom of society: with those thousands of youth who are brutalized, targeted, harassed, and shuffled off behind bars — and is now facing years in prison for standing with them.

We fully intend to stop this railroading by bringing the political battle into the courtroom and putting Stop and Frisk on trial.  If we are allowed to be convicted and jailed without a massive fight, then the battle against stop-and-frisk and the spirit of resistance it has engendered will be seriously dampened. On the other hand, if people stand with us in this legal battle–if we meet and defeat their attempts to silence and punish us–then the movement will gain further initiative and pull many more people into the struggle against mass incarceration.

Source
Photo 1, 2

The United States police state imprisons all dissidents, from police brutality activists to government whistleblowers. 

thepeoplesrecord: NYPD beat homeless man in synagogue outreach centerOctober 17, 2012 The NYPD beat up a homeless man in Brooklyn last week as he resisted arrest for sleeping in a synagogue outreach center, where he had permission to stay. Surveillance video obtained by local news siteCrownHeights.info shows two officers brutally beating a shoeless and shirtless man, Ehud Halevi, who insisted he had permission to be in the center for troubled youth, ALIYA (Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults). Although sources confirmed with CrownHeights.info that Halevi had been sleeping in the space for a month with permission, one security guard, unaware of the arrangement, called the police. The guard later told the New York Daily News that he regretted making the call. According to Gothamist, “[Halevi] was also pepper sprayed during the arrest, [and] was charged with assaulting a police officer, trespassing, resisting arrest and harassment. He’s currently out on bail and faces up to five years in prison for assaulting an officer.” The NYPD have yet to issue comment. Watch the graphic video here. Source
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thepeoplesrecord:

NYPD beat homeless man in synagogue outreach center
October 17, 2012

The NYPD beat up a homeless man in Brooklyn last week as he resisted arrest for sleeping in a synagogue outreach center, where he had permission to stay. Surveillance video obtained by local news siteCrownHeights.info shows two officers brutally beating a shoeless and shirtless man, Ehud Halevi, who insisted he had permission to be in the center for troubled youth, ALIYA (Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults).

Although sources confirmed with CrownHeights.info that Halevi had been sleeping in the space for a month with permission, one security guard, unaware of the arrangement, called the police. The guard later told the New York Daily News that he regretted making the call.

According to Gothamist, “[Halevi] was also pepper sprayed during the arrest, [and] was charged with assaulting a police officer, trespassing, resisting arrest and harassment. He’s currently out on bail and faces up to five years in prison for assaulting an officer.” The NYPD have yet to issue comment.

Watch the graphic video here.

Source

aboriginalpressnews: Via — trustmeimafeminist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGDCZ2l14vM (WARNING: This is very graphic material not suitable for sensitive people not accustomed to witnessing the inhumanity of police brutality and neglect) Medical examiner revises suspect’s death ruling to homicide - [jsonline.com] — The Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office has revised its ruling on the death of Derek Williams, who died in Milwaukee police custody in July 2011, from natural to homicide, according to the district attorney’s office. The decision came after the Journal Sentinel alerted an assistant medical examiner to newly released records - including a video of a suffocating Williams pleading for help from the back of a squad car - and also made him aware of a national expert who said Williams, 22, did not die naturally of sickle cell crisis. In making his initial determination of natural death more than a year ago, Assistant Medical Examiner Christopher Poulos did not review all of the police reports or a squad video recently obtained by the newspaper. The video shows a handcuffed Williams, his eyes rolled back, gasping for breath and begging for help in the back seat of a Milwaukee police car as officers ignore his pleas. The police reports include key details about Williams’ arrest that the medical examiner didn’t know. As a result of the new ruling, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm is reopening his investigation into whether criminal charges are warranted against any of the officers involved.
Zoom

aboriginalpressnews:

Via — trustmeimafeminist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGDCZ2l14vM

(WARNING: This is very graphic material not suitable for sensitive people not accustomed to witnessing the inhumanity of police brutality and neglect)

Medical examiner revises suspect’s death ruling to homicide - [jsonline.com] — The Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office has revised its ruling on the death of Derek Williams, who died in Milwaukee police custody in July 2011, from natural to homicide, according to the district attorney’s office. The decision came after the Journal Sentinel alerted an assistant medical examiner to newly released records - including a video of a suffocating Williams pleading for help from the back of a squad car - and also made him aware of a national expert who said Williams, 22, did not die naturally of sickle cell crisis. In making his initial determination of natural death more than a year ago, Assistant Medical Examiner Christopher Poulos did not review all of the police reports or a squad video recently obtained by the newspaper. The video shows a handcuffed Williams, his eyes rolled back, gasping for breath and begging for help in the back seat of a Milwaukee police car as officers ignore his pleas. The police reports include key details about Williams’ arrest that the medical examiner didn’t know. As a result of the new ruling, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm is reopening his investigation into whether criminal charges are warranted against any of the officers involved.

(Source: aintiaw0man)

Death of Milwaukee Man Killed in Police Custody is Declared a Homicide

wisconsinforward:

The Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office has revised its ruling on the death of Derek Williams, who died in Milwaukee police custody in July 2011, from natural to homicide, according to the district attorney’s office.

The decision came after the Journal Sentinel alerted an assistant medical examiner to newly released records - including a video of a suffocating Williams pleading for help from the back of a squad car - and also made him aware of a national expert who said Williams, 22, did not die naturally of sickle cell crisis.

In response to a death in police custody being ruled a homicide, Milwaukee’s police chief, Ed Flynn, responded that he “did not expect any officers to be criminally charged.”

He also pledged to form a “review board” to review cases involving people who have been assaulted, murdered, or otherwise victimized by Milwaukee police.  However:

The review board’s membership will not include anyone outside the Police Department. All members will be selected by Flynn, and an assistant chief will oversee it. Board reports and recommendations will be presented to Flynn and [Fire and Police Commission Executive Director, Michael] Tobin, and whether to implement them will be solely up to Flynn.

Read the whole investigative report here.

Who to contact:

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett: (414) 286-2200; mayor@milwaukee.gov

Fire and Police Commission Executive Director Michael Tobin: (414) 286-5000; fpc@milwaukee.gov

Milwaukee police Chief Edward Flynn: (414) 933-4444.  If twitter is your thing, use @milwaukeepolice 

Milwaukee Common Council: (414) 286-2221; or visit Milwaukee.gov/CommonCouncil for a list of city aldermen and their email addresses.

Protest NYPD Comm Ray “Killer” Kelly! 9-27

*****Please forward widely and post on Facebook****

Join the Justice for Shantel Davis Committee for Justice and Beyond and Stop Stop and Frisk to: 

Protest Ray Kelly!

The Women’s City Club is kicking off their speakers series, “The Most Powerful People in New York” with NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. We must make sure everywhere Ray Kelly goes, he is reminded of the names and stories of the innocent Black and Latino men and women gunned down by the NYPD. He should be reminded of the injustice of close to 700,000 being stopped and frisked just this year, 80% of which are Black and Latino. He should be reminded that the most “powerful people in New York” should be the PEOPLE, not the 1% and their police force.

Join us outside in protest. Everyone who attends this speaker series should know about the crimes Ray Kelly oversees and justifies.

WHEN: Thursday, September 27 at 5:30PM
WHERE: Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church (7 West 55th Street on corner of 5th Avenue) [transit at bottom]

Justice for Shantel Davis! Justice for all those killed, tortured and harassed by the NYPD!

To find out more information about the event go to:
https://www.z2systems.com/np/clients/wccny/event.jsp?event=731
To endorse this protest, email: justiceforshantel@gmail.com



DIRECTIONS FOR Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church at E.55th Street & 5th Avenue
Transit:  E train or weekday M to 5 Av. (east exit, nearest Queens, to 53rd St. & 5th Av.); N, R or weekday Q to 5 Av. (east exit, nearest Queens, to 60th St. & 5th Av.); F to 57 St. (at 6th); D or weekday B to 7 Av. (at 53rd); weekend Q terminates at 57 St.-7 Av.; #4, 5, 6 to 59 St. (at Lex); #6 to 51 St. (at Lex); A, C to 59 St.-Columbus Cir.; M57 cross town bus via 57th & West End; M31 cross town via 57th & York; buses via 5th Av. or 6th Av. or Madison Av.
MAP: http://ow.ly/dRsFW; bus map: http://ow.ly/6SK4u



21-year vigil ends for comatose Memphis man beaten in the head with nightsticks, hog-tied by Shelby County TN Deputies

beatyourselfup:

Friday was moving day for Pat Brunson-Ware after almost 21 years holding vigil and hoping against all odds that her son, Bert, would suddenly awake from a coma.

Brunson-Ware removed Teddy bears, photographs and a framed print with the message “Today Is A New Day” from shelves in her son’s room. Bert would have been 43 on Aug. 16, but just after 9 p.m. Thursday, his mother said, “The Lord spoke to him, and he just left me.”

Bert had been gravely ill since July 15, fighting an infection and having difficulty breathing. When he opened his eyes Thursday, it was the first time in a week. “He looked like had done a turnaround,” his mother said. But it was more like his last look at a world just beyond his reach since 1991.

An attorney told Pat Brunson-Ware early on that her son’s condition was a “fate worse than death.”

Bert Brunson was 22 in 1991 and had earned football and track trophies at Hamilton High School. He was working as a skycap at Memphis International Airport when he was stopped on suspicion of driving under the influence by Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies.

Two deputies said they stopped to let Brunson use the rest room at a service station. There the officers said Brunson tried to grab one of their guns and escape. Two other deputies soon arrived. Brunson was struck in the head with nightsticks, hog-tied and placed on his stomach in the back seat of a cruiser.

Face down on the seat, his oxygen supply was cut off, leaving him in what his mother called a persistent vegetative state. Brunson’s stepfather, Lionel Ware, said doctors told them there was little chance his son would ever emerge from the coma. “A neurologist told us if he didn’t wake up in four years he never would.”

Bert’s mother, a U.S. Postal Service trainer, sued, accusing the officers of using unnecessary and unconstitutional force. The officers remained on duty with pay, but the county agreed before trial to settle the federal lawsuit, paying Brunson-Ware $3.5 million and agreeing to pay the cost of her son’s nursing-home care for the rest of his life. It was the biggest payout from a law enforcement agency at the time and came with assurances that hog-tying was never to be used again by law enforcement officers in Shelby County.

Lionel Ware said each deputy involved in the case has faced tragedy since 1991. One was caught stealing parts from a warehouse and lost his pension. One kicked in the door of a suspect and was shot multiple times in the face. The son of one deputy was killed in a car accident. And one, Chris Jones, was convicted of second-degree murder for the 2008 shooting of a karaoke bar deejay and is serving a 23-year prison sentence.

Brunson-Ware estimated that her son’s frequent visits to hospital emergency rooms, nursing care, a nursing home and other miscellaneous expenses for more than 20 years probably would add up to more than $10 million.

“It served the purpose God intended,” she said of her son’s the long ordeal. “God made him and decided when he would leave. He blessed a lot of people the way he fought his good fight.”

For her, the vigil has not ended. Her mother, who has Alzheimer’s, was hospitalized last year with kidney failure requiring dialysis. She occupies a room at Americare Health and Rehabilitation Center, four doors from Bert Brunson’s room.

Services for Bert Brunson will be at noon Aug. 12 at Christ Missionary Baptist Church on South Parkway, with burial in Elmwood Cemetery.

For Brunson-Ware, closure is a distant possibility, she said. “I cry fresh tears every day.”

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