Police Behaving Badly 2.3.15

17-year-old Kristiana Coignard (pictured above) walked into the Longview Police Station at approximately 6:30 pm on January 22, 2015.  She didn’t leave the station alive:

Kristiana Coignard, a 17-year-old girl who until recently had been a high school student in Longview, Texas, walked into the Longview Police Station at about 6:30 p.m. on Thursday evening. She picked up the courtesy phone for after-hours visitors and asked to speak to an officer. Moments later, she was dead — shot “multiple times” by police.

But why? Three officers have been placed on paid leave by the Longview Police Department in connection with the shooting that killed Kristiana before her life had a chance to begin. What led them to open fire on the lone teenage girl remains unclear.

According to police, when the officers went out to the lobby in the police station located at 302 West Cotton Street, in the East Texas city of about 80,000, Coignard “came at” the officers with some sort of weapon.

Neither Longview police nor the Texas Rangers, who are now in charge of investigating the fatal shooting, would say what the alleged weapon actually was. But Longview Mayor Jay Dean described the slain teen as “a female wielding a knife.”

“When police arrived to assist her, that’s when she confronted them,” said police spokesperson Kristie Brian, quoted in the Longview News-Journal newspaper. “She did brandish a weapon. I don’t know what kind it was. She came at the officers and was shot.”

Multiple police officers couldn’t subdue a supposedly armed teenager?  Lethal force was deployed against this girl, despite the fact that they don’t know what kind of weapon she supposedly had.  I can’t even…

* * * *

In what will surely become yet another case of “fearing for our lives”,  police officers in Denver recently shot and killed a 16-year-old girl

Several dozen people with candles and protest signs gathered near the alley where Denver police officers fatally shot a 16-year-old girl on Monday, recalling her bright smile and demanding answers about the deadly encounter.

Police shot the teenager early Monday morning after they say she struck and injured an officer with a stolen car. Authorities did not release the girl’s name, but friends identified her as Jessica Hernandez.

“We’re angry about it. It’s another life taken by another cop,” said 19-year-old Cynthia Valdez, a close friend and schoolmate of the girl. “She was trying to find her talent. She wanted to find out what she wanted to be. … Who knows what she could have been?”

Few details were immediately released after the shooting in an alley in the older, middle-class residential neighborhood. The four other people in the car were not injured by the gunfire, and all were being questioned as part of the investigation, police said. It was not clear whether any had been arrested.

Police Chief Robert White said an officer was called to check on a suspicious vehicle and a colleague arrived after it was determined the car had been reported stolen.

In a statement, police said the two officers then “approached the vehicle on foot when the driver drove the car into one of the officers.”

White said both officers then opened fire. The officer hit by the car was taken to a hospital with a leg injury.

A leg injury. That tells us nothing.  Was it a broken leg? Did he have a contusion? Was it just a scrape? Did he get impaled? Exactly what type of injury justifies killing a teenager? And no, I don’t give a rat’s ass about a stolen car. A young girl had her life ended by a police officer. That’s the tragedy here.

* * * *

Seattle police officer arrested a 70-year-old black man without justification

According to former state Rep. Dawn Mason (D), officials “tried to convince me nothing was wrong” when Officer Cynthia Whitlach arrested William Wingate for allegedly threatening her with his golf club.

The Stranger posted dashboard camera footage on Wednesday of Wingate’s arrest after recently acquiring it through a public records request. The video shows Whitlach stopping her patrol car in front of Wingate, then ordering him to let go of the club, which he uses as a makeshift cane.

Wingate, a retired veteran and local bus driver, can be heard saying in the video that he has used the club to help him get around for 20 years.

“You just swung that golf club at me,” Whitlach tells him at one point.

“No I did not,” he replies.

Whitlach then claims that it happened “right back there,” adding that “it was on audio and video tape.”

However, both the department and city council member Bruce Harrell said there is no proof to back up Whitlach’s allegation.

“The allegation that he swung at the police car wasn’t corroborated by any other facts and was not caught on any video,” Harrell told the Stranger. “What was caught on video was him minding his own business with the golf club at his side.”

Three minutes after encountering Whitlach, Wingate is arrested by another officer, Chris Coles. He was subsequently charged with harassment and obstruction. Mason said she became interested in the case after seeing footage of Wingate needing a footstool to be able to get into a paddywagon.

70-year-old William Wingate rides in a paddywagon after being arrested last July [YouTube] (via Raw Story)

* * * *

KY cop became angry after Super Bowl and ‘football-kicked’ his wife in the head: police

The Courier Journal reported that Louisville Metro Police Officer Jonathan Osborne’s wife, Sharon, told deputies that she had been driving her husband home from a Super Bowl party in Indiana when he “suddenly became very angry and punched her in the right side of the face.”

According to a probable cause affidavit, the assault caused Osborne’s wife to swerve and crash into a tractor outside of Ray’s Lawn and Garden Center. That’s when Louis Mossey and Victoria Wimp, who happened to be driving behind the couple, pulled over to provide assistance.

The document said that Osborne snapped at Victoria Wimp, telling her to shut up when she asked if the couple was hurt.

Louis Mossey recalled that Osborne was still beating his wife after the crash.

“He said Mrs. Osborne was on her hands and feet trying to retrieve some papers when Mr. Osborn kicked Mrs. Osborne in the head in what was described to me as a ‘football-style’ kick, causing Mrs. Osborne to fall backwards. Mr. Mossey then said Mr. Osborne moved over top of Mrs. Osborne and tried to choke her out,” Clark County Sheriff’s Deputy Barret Cook noted in the affidavit.

Mossey admitted to police that he struck Osborne to stop him from attacking his wife. Sharon Osborne later told deputies that Mossey had held her husband down until help arrived.

Sharon Osborne was treated for a possible broken arm and other injuries after being transported to Clark Memorial Hospital.

Officers described Osborne as “very intoxicated” and combative. They said that he tried to spit at officers and kick out the window of a patrol car.

Osborne was charged with aggravated battery, domestic battery, battery, resisting law enforcement, criminal recklessness and public intoxication. He was being held at the Clark County jail in lieu of $30,000 bond.

He should be fired immediately. This type of behavior should not be tolerated in civil society, and especially not from the people who are charged with ‘serving and protecting’ the public.

* * * *

Cops kill nearly 100 people in January 2015, while none of them are killed by suspects in that time

The Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks the deaths of police officers, is reporting zero officer deaths from gunfire in 2015.

Line of Duty Deaths: 13

Automobile accident: 5
Heart attack: 3
Struck by vehicle: 2
9/11 related illness: 1
Gunfire (Accidental): 1
Vehicle pursuit: 1

In contrast, Killed By Police has logged at least 91 people killed by police in the month of January alone.  At least 1,106 people were killed in 2014, a number which calls into question the integrity of the FBI’s previous estimate of around 400 per year.

Unlike the independent logging done by Killed By Police, the FBI collects their statistics only from reports voluntarily given to them by law enforcement agencies.  Only around 750 agencies, or 4 percent, out of 17,000 law enforcement entities across the United States offered this data to the FBI.

Those who prefer to turn a blind eye to police abuse often refer to police as heroes who “deserve to make it home to their families” or speak of the difficulties of a job where your life is perpetually at risk.

Police use these lines often, pushing the stereotype and narrative perpetuated by media of our police living in constant action movies where bad guys and villains are always on the prowl searching for ways to harm them.  Any conversation about police by their apologists could easily be a conversation about Batman rather than our revenue generators in blue.

Unfortunately for them, this narrative cannot hold up to simple facts.  Being a police officer is significantly less dangerous than many labor jobs, and is not even in the top 10 most dangerous positions in this country.

{advertisement}
Police Behaving Badly 2.3.15
{advertisement}