Police Brutality

The news media may have slowed it’s reporting on the events out of Ferguson, but that doesn’t mean everything is 5 by 5.  It turns out that Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown (a young, unarmed African American male who had his funeral on Monday), may have fired 11 times:

The Federal Bureau of Investigations has obtained an audio recording that allegedly captures 18-year-old Michael Brown’s fatal shooting at the hends of Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson, CNN reported on Monday.

CNN mentioned that it has not independently verified the recording, which was given to the bureau by a Ferguson resident. In the audio, the unidentified man can be heard telling someone, “You’re so pretty” while 11 gunshots are heard in the distance — seven in one burst, then a pause, followed by four more shots.

“He was in his apartment, talking to a friend on a video chat,” the man’s attorney, Lopa Blumenthal, told CNN. “He heard loud noises and at the time, he didn’t ven realize the import of what he was hearing until afterwards, and it just happened to have captured 12 seconds of what transpired outside of his building.”

(Raw Story)

 


 

 

Officer Justin Cosma, of the Ferguson Police Department (one of the officers who arrested a journalist earlier this month) is being sued for tying up and choking a 12-year old boy:

According to the Post‘s Ashley Alman and Ryan J. Reilly, the lawsuit, filed in September 2012 in a Missouri federal court, accuses Officer Justin Cosma of choking the boy around the neck and throwing him to the ground during a June 2010 encounter.

At the time, Cosma was working as a deputy for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. The lawsuit states that he and his partner, identified as Richard Carter, approached the boy while he was checking his mail outside his home and asked if the boy, identified as “DB” in the suit, was playing on a nearby highway.

When DB replied “no,” the suit states, they threw him to the ground and “hog-tied” him, causing him to suffer “bruising, choke marks, scrapes and cuts across his body.” He later required treatment at a local hospital.

The suit stated that Carter and Cosma subsequently charged the boy with resisting arrest and assaulting a law enforcement officer, but local prosecutors did not pursue a case against him.

 

(Raw Story)

(for more on this story, see the Huffington Post)

 


 

 

Unarmed teen shot 16 times even as family begs police to stop

Family members of a teen who was shot at least 16 times by police in Ottawa, Kansas said this week that the 18-year-old was unarmed and suicidal when he was gunned down.

Brandy Smith told KCTV that police were there when her nephew, 18-year-old Joseph Jennings, had tried to kill himself with pills last week.

“Tonight is the night goodbye everyone!!!!! It was truly a good ride! And I’m sorry for who I might of hurted (sic) and people that I may of offended, But I love all my family and I hope you don’t hold this against me,” he reportedly wrote on Facebook before trying to overdose.

About 10 minutes later, Jennings swallowed 60 pills. And Smith said two officers took him to Ransom Memorial Hospital.

Jennings survived, and was released from the hospital two days later. But only three hours after that, he was on a “suicide mission” when he walked to Orscheln Farm and Home, according to his aunt.

Smith recalled that around six officers responded, and two of them had helped save Jennings’ life by taking him to the hospital after his overdose just days before.

“It was like six — six officers, and one cop yelled, ‘Bag him!’ And they bagged him,” she said. “And he kind of puffed up a little bit, and then they bagged him two more times, and then like 16 shots rang out, and they shot him. And he fell to the ground.”

Jennings was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital

 

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p style=”text-align:center;”>(Raw Story)

One would have to be delusional to not see that the police have become extremely brutal.  As a society we’ve put up with this.  Now we’re at the point where officers are injuring and killing people with impunity.  In many cases, they face no consequences (I doubt Darren Wilson will face any jail time for killing Michael Brown), and even get to keep their jobs.  It’s a fucking shame that this is going on in the ostensibly free, democratic country of the United States.

 

 

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Police Brutality
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