Judge dismisses case against cop who broke into home with no warrant & killed unarmed man

Police STEAL $160,000 from man during Traffic Stop

Omaha officers told: Don’t interfere with citizens’ right to record police activity

Police Beat Man To Death As He Begged For His Life, Detained Witnesses, Seized Videos

Blood stains are still visible on the sidewalk at the corner of Flower Street and Palm Drive, where a Bakersfield man struggled with as many as nine officers and later died this week.

David Sal Silva, 33 and the father of four young children, died early Wednesday morning after deputies say he fought with them and CHP officers who’d responded to a report of a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center….

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office says Silva resisted, a canine was deployed, more law enforcement arrived, batons were used and the man later had trouble breathing. He was taken to KMC, where he died. An autopsy was slated for Thursday, but no results have been released.

Some witnesses apparently took cellphone video of the incident but deputies moved quickly to seize the phones. The Sheriff’s Office, after releasing a statement Wednesday and naming its officers Thursday, declined all further comment. …

Cops Shoot Pregnant Woman in Face After She Calls 911 For Help

Denver Police nearly storm 27 Social Centre

On the night of Thursday, April 25th, as several dozen people were present inside the 27 Social Centre, heavily armed members of the Denver Police Department took up tactical positions outside of the Centre in preparations to raid the building.

People had gathered at 27 for a variety of activities, including a presentation on Tar Sands Resistance in Utah and several small group meetings being hosted at the space. Around 8pm, as the presentations and meetings were well underway, police were spotted congregating outside the rear of the building. …

In my latest op-ed, “NYPD Officers Beat The Crowds…And The Charges,” I criticized the failure of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to pursue criminal charges against NYPD Deputy Inspectors Anthony Bologna and Johnny Cardonna for their behavior during Occupy Wall Street protests.

But unwillingness to hold police to the same legal standards as private citizens is, of course, not just an American problem. As Paul Jay of The Real News Network reports, a similar pattern emerged after evidence of police abuse surfaced following the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto. In this report from July 2012, Jay rightly asserts that department discipline is not the same as being held legally accountable for abuse of authority. Jay concludes:

- Forcibly denying democratic rights is a crime. Those responsible should be charged.

- The right of journalists to report on police actions must be enshrined in police policy and guidelines. It’s simple: journalists should stay out of the way, and if they do, they cannot be ordered to leave the scene.

- Assault is a crime. It should be treated as such.

I highly recommend this report to C4SS readers.

NYPD Officers Beat the Crowds … and the Charges

… It is no secret that there is a vanguard of sorts in policing which celebrates the fascist tendencies of the occupation. The Denver, Colorado officers who wore shirts with the slogan “we get up early to beat the crowds” after the 2008 Democratic National Convention exemplify this attitude. These officers truly believe in keeping “those people” — the poor, “uppity” minorities, “hippies,” activists, “dopers” and leftists — “in line.” And they are fully dedicated to their unstated mission: Sweeping signs of dissent under the rug, lest we frighten America’s fragile, pants-wetting, bourgeois elements.

In spite of the abuse, US protesters rarely become violent toward the police. It remains to be seen whether non-violent tactics will suffice when officers like Anthony Bologna and his porcine “brother” John Pike elude legal responsibility, even when their actions are filmed.

Here’s a training update for US law enforcement: Your impunity will breed resistance.

With Police in Schools, More Children in Court

HOUSTON — As school districts across the country consider placing more police officers in schools, youth advocates and judges are raising alarm about what they have seen in the schools where officers are already stationed: a surge in criminal charges against children for misbehavior that many believe is better handled in the principal’s office.

Since the early 1990s, thousands of districts, often with federal subsidies, have paid local police agencies to provide armed “school resource officers” for high schools, middle schools and sometimes even elementary schools. Hundreds of additional districts, including those in Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, have created police forces of their own, employing thousands of sworn officers. …