OPD Thugs in the spotlight yet again

Yesterday, news broke that Oakland Police shot the cousin of Oscar Grant this weekend. 24 year-old Tony Jones was shot in the back by Oakland Police early Sunday morning. The cops claim he had a gun, but no charges have been filed yet against Jones four days after the incident.

For several hours, attorney Waukeen McCoy says he was denied the right to meet with his client at the hospital, going so far as to take a picture of the Oakland officer he says refused entry after Jones requested to see his attorney.
"We believe what happened is that the Oakland Police Department is hiding the fact that they shot him in his back while he was retreating from them," said McCoy.
-ABC7/KGO

If that wasn’t bad enough, yesterday’s hot-off-the-presses issue of the East Bay Express contained another story that claims to have identified the Oakland Police Officer who both shot Iraq War Veteran Scott Olsen during an Occupy Oakland Protest back in October, and then threw a grenade at the group of people who came to Olsen’s aid.

An extensive review of video footage and Oakland Police Department records by this reporter indicates that Robert Roche, an acting sergeant in the Oakland Police Department and member of OPD's "Tango Teams," threw the flash-bang at Olsen and his rescuers. It's also not the first time that Roche's actions have come under scrutiny. Police records show that Roche had previously killed three people in the line of duty.

In one clip of footage shot on October 25 by KTVU, the camera zooms in on a helmeted, gas-mask wearing officer in OPD insignia pointing a shotgun at the crowd. Olsen's inert body is also visible in front of the barriers. Another video clip shows the same officer training his shotgun on the crowd, lowering the firearm as a crowd gathers around Olsen, and stepping back behind a line of San Francisco sheriff's deputies on the barricade line. A grenade is then tossed at Olsen's body as rescuers arrive.
According to former San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey and Sergeant Kara Apple, a Palo Alto Police spokeswoman, officers from neither agency were equipped with less-than-lethal shotguns or flash-bang grenades that night. A list of OPD crowd-control munitions published by Al Jazeera last year includes the Remington .357 shotgun and two types of CS or pepper spray-loaded blast grenades.
Two stripes and a star, OPD's insignia for acting sergeants, are visible on the officer's left sleeve. In both clips, the officer is holding his shotgun with his right hand on the trigger, his helmet visor is up and the numbers "35" are visible on his helmet. According to an OPD roster of the three-digit helmet numbers assigned to individual officers and the personnel detail for October 25, Officer Robert Roche is the only one with a helmet number beginning with "35" who was assigned to a Tango Team that night. Roche's helmet number that night was "357," according to OPD records.
Three attorneys who reviewed the two clips mentioned above concur that the shotgun-wielding officer is the same in both clips.
-East Bay Express

Police Chief Howard Jordan claimed that no Oakland Officers had grenade launchers nor grenades that night.
That was clearly yet another lie from these habitual liars..

Oakland and Alameda County cops trained by Middle Eastern occupation forces to violently repress Occupy Oakland

A month before riot police violently raided the Occupy Oakland camp using chemical weapons, rubber bullets and flash grenades – a raid which led to a protest where riot police critically injured Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen when they shot him in the face with a tear gas grenade launcher gun – the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department trained alongside a military unit from Bahrain and an Israeli Border Police unit.

The occasion was Urban Shield 2011, an annual training competition which gathers heavily militarized police from the United States and across the globe to explore the latest in tactical responses and to promote collaboration. It’s a training that northern California police departments credited for their “effective teamwork” in dealing repressively with Occupy Oakland.
-AlterNet

The Iraeli goon squad, the Yamam, specializes in extra-judicial assassinations, while the Bahraini soldiers were from a unit that recently shot live rounds at unarmed, peaceful protestors in that country.
You can bet that this isn't just cops in Oakland, and police forces across the United States will only increasingly become more militarized and more brutal...they are learning from the most experienced assassins and thugs in the world.

Cops are banksta lapdogs...duh.

1033 Program

“It’s totally contrary to what we think is good policing”
-Joseph McNamara
Former Police Chief in Kansas City, Mo., and San Jose, CA

The 1033 program, passed by Congress in 1997, was created to provide law-enforcement agencies with tools to fight drugs and terrorism. Since then, more than 17,000 agencies have taken in $2.6 billion worth of free equipment, paying only the cost of delivery. This year alone, more than $500 million of military gear was given to U.S. police forces, and next year’s orders are up 400%.
The hand-me-downs are supposed to help law-enforcement fight terrorism and drugs, but amidst a 40-year low in violent crime, what are they really being used for?

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers?” he asked.
“If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”
-Arthur Rizer
Lawyer who has served as both a military and civilian police officer

Mike Ruppert addresses cops

A Message to All Police Officers From Occupy Wall Street from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.

Mike brings it in this video. It's a lengthy one, but well worth the view.
He breaks down the warrior mentality, and challenges cops to be warriors, not cowards who abuse their authority in exchange for the crumbs that fall off the bankstas table.

"When the budget cuts come, you can bet that the first to be let go will be those showing any signs of honor, of compassion, of remorse...showing any signs of humanity, because the only ones that the infinite growth monetary paradigm can afford to pay will be the most ruthless, the most brutal, the sociopathic, the psychotic.

Does this look "peaceful"?

Pic above from http://twitpic.com/75mjjh/full

Early this morning, sometime around 5am, the rumored and expected police raid came in swiftly and violently. As protestors chanted "You are the 99%!" to the police, their cries were silenced with tear gas, flash bang grenades, batons, rubber bullets, several hundred cops in riot gear and gas masks....the cops trashed the camp and aggressively arrested 75 some people, perhaps more.
The camp now looks like a tornado swept through it....i.e. it now looks how the mainstream media has been presenting it all along.
Protestors who are returning to the camp to get their belongings are allegedly being arrested.
This is one of the saddest days in American history.

More pics here.


Here are two nice before-and-after shots of the camp.

Cops in Utah pepper spray haka dancers

Police in Roosevelt, Utah pepper sprayed a group of haka dancers at a high school football game.

The group in Roosevelt, a town of 8,000, had traveled about 125 miles east from the Salt Lake City area to watch a relative play his final game for Union, which lost to rival Uintah and finished the season without a victory.

The group reportedly was trying to boost Union's morale with the Haka as the players left the field.

Spectators, coaches and players told police that everything was fine and they should let the men perform, Jessica Rasmussen said, but officers asked them to make room and started using pepper spray.

Rasmussen said she and other bystanders also got spray in their eyes, ears and mouths.

Union fan Jason Kelly said the way police reacted was an embarrassment to the community of Roosevelt.

"I've never seen anything like it," Kelly said. "It was totally unprovoked."
-Associated Press

Jerry Amaro's family wins $1.7 million settlement

Today, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously to approve a $1.7 million settlement to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Jerry Amaro, who was beaten to death by as many as five Oakland police officers in 2000.

Amaro, 36, died on April 21, 2000, from pneumonia caused by multiple rib fractures and a collapsed lung. He had told his mother and several other people that he had been beaten by police officers who arrested him during a drug sting on March 23, 2000. The police report of the arrest made no mention of use of force.

Amaro was jailed for five days and repeatedly complained of pain in his ribs, which jail officials noted. On April 18, Amaro saw a doctor who took X-rays that revealed five rib fractures and a collapsed lung. The doctor recommended that Amaro seek emergency medical treatment to drain fluid from his lung. Amaro did not seek further treatment and died in his friend's basement three days later.

Attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin filed the federal wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Amaro's mother, Geraldine Montoya, in March 2009, shortly after the details of the internal police investigation were leaked to the press.

Investigators found that Amaro had been "severely injured" during his arrest, and at least five officers had used "some form of physical prowess" on Amaro without noting the reason for such force or mentioning the use of force at all.

The report also concluded that the reporting officer falsified his supervisor's signature on the police report and the commanding officer, Lt. Edward Poulson, inappropriately met with the arresting officers before the interviews with Internal Affairs investigators.

The investigation also found that the officers were "derelict" in not seeking medical attention for Amaro.
-Inside Bay Area

SFPD gets their canopies

Shortly before midnight last night, 50 SFPD officers marched into the Occupy SF encampment. The officers aggressively removed the camp's two canopies. Then, they trashed and seized the belongings and supplies of the camp. The 150 camp members and supporters attempted to block the streets to prevent the DPW trucks filled with their belongings from driving away.
A number of participants tried asking the SFPD to end this intimidation and asking the truck drivers to show their support. Instead they were met with swinging batons and were nearly run over as the first truck filled with supplies was leaving. Protesters who laid down in the street to block the police vans from leaving with those arrested were beaten with nightsticks and thrown to the curbs.
The results of the night were five arrests, one injury, one serious injury, and a vivid reminder of who's side the police stand on.
The SFPD tore-down and trashed many of the personal belongings of the camp. They need our support to rebuild. Go to occupysf.com for a list of items required.

Join today's General Assembly meeting at 6pm at Justin Hermann Plaza (Embarcadero BART Station) to show your solidarity.

Feds give Oakland $10 mil for more cops targeting youth

Oakland has won a $10.7 million grant from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, and will be able to hire 25 more cops.
The city intends to use the federal money to put more cops in middle schools and hookers.

The officers will be focused on a community-policing effort at four middle schools in high-crime neighborhoods, as well as working on the twin problems of human trafficking and the prostitution of teenage girls, police Chief Anthony Batts said.
-Inside Bay Area

Oakland still ridin'

US District Judge Thelton Henderson, who last year threatened OPD with a federal takeover, has ordered the city of Oakland to address its noncompliance with 5 provisions of the historic 2003 Riders settlement.

* The rehiring in March of Officer Hector Jimenez, who was fired after he shot and killed two unarmed suspects within seven months of each other in 2007 and 2008, including a man shot in the back. Jimenez and his attorney fought the firing, and an arbitrator sided with him against the city, forcing the department to return Jimenez to work under the rules of its contract with the police union. He is currently assigned to maintaining the fleet of police vehicles and keeping in-car computers up to date.

* July's "Operation Summer Tune-Up," a four-day crime prevention effort in which police issued 28 parole violations, made 17 arrests and recovered seven guns. Henderson is likely concerned about the connotations of the term "tune-up," widely used as a euphemism for the beating of suspects by police.

* The finding by the internal affairs division that accusations of illegal public strip searches of suspects by police were unfounded, despite a federal judge agreeing with the case made by at least two suspects to whom she awarded more than $100,000 each.

* A special report in August by the federal monitoring team, charged with tracking the OPD's progress in the reforms, which found that in 28 percent of the instances when Oakland officers draw their guns and point them at someone, the person has demonstrated no threat to anyone. In some cases, the monitors said, the person wasn't even a suspect in a crime.

* The process by which the department hires outsiders to stand on boards that evaluate police use-of-force incidents. The details of this issue remained unclear Wednesday.
-Inside Bay Area

I am Troy Davis

RAND: pot clubs deter crime

RAND of all places, has released a study that medical pot dispensaries actually deter crime.

A new study casts doubt on many law enforcement agencies' assertion that medical marijuana dispensaries contribute to local street crime.

In fact, minor crime rises markedly in surrounding neighborhoods when dispensaries close, at least over the short term, according to a study released Tuesday by the nonpartisan RAND Corp.

"Overall crime increased almost 60 percent in the blocks surrounding closed clinics in the 10 days following their closing," the study said.

Researchers studied crime before and after a large number of dispensaries were shut in Los Angeles and found that incidents, such as break-ins, rose near the closed dispensaries when compared to neighborhoods where dispensaries remained open.

The study suggested several theories for what might drive these results, including the loss of on-site security and surveillance, a reduction in foot traffic, a resurgence in outdoor drug activity and a change in police efforts.

Steph Sherer, executive director of Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said her organization has reached the same conclusions, but "law enforcement has largely ignored or refuted these findings" as various cities have closed dispensaries, put a moratorium on new ones or banned them altogether.

"Dispensary regulations bring greater oversight and less crime to local communities," she said.
-Inside Bay Area

Maybe that's why law enforcement wants to close them down.

Don't let the door hit ya...

OUSD Police Chief Pete Sarna has retired from police work as he is being investigated for a racist tirade he went on in front of two subordinates.

Sarna, who is white, attended the charity golf tournament at the Sequoyah County Club in Oakland on July 18 with two other sergeants from his department, one who is African-American and one who is white. The white sergeant, who filed the complaint, is represented by San Francisco attorney Joe O'Sullivan.

Because the men were drinking alcohol during the Sequoyah event, an officer was called to drive the trio to their homes.

According to O'Sullivan, on the drive to Orinda, where the African-American sergeant lives, Sarna called the African-American sergeant a racial slur "several times, told him that he had no right to live in (the area) because he's African-American, although he didn't use that word, told him he should be hung in the town square because he's African-American ... told him that he would be the last African-American he'd ever hire."

O'Sullivan said Sarna later approached the African-American officer and told him "that thing that happened never happened." The names of the officers involved in the incident were not released.
-Inside Bay Area

Good riddance asshole.

OUSD schools chief went on racist tirade in front of three subordinates

Oakland Unified School District Police Chief Pete Sarna has been placed on administrative leave while the district investigates a complaint that he repeatedly used a racial slur and threatened to kill a black subordinate while driving home from a nonschool sponsored charity event last month.
After a golf tournament, the 4 officers drove home together, and Sarna went off on a racist rant against one of the officers in the car, a black sergeant. Sarna told the subordinate that he should be lynched in the town square, and the meltdown was so horrendous that one of the two other officers filed the complaint.

Sarna was a lieutenant in the Oakland Police Department when he was tapped by then Attorney General Jerry Brown in December 2007 to become deputy director of the state Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement, where he commanded a 1,300-strong force. But Sarna resigned in August 2007 after he crashed his state vehicle in Walnut Creek and was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Sarna's father, Peter Sarna, Sr., was a former captain in the Oakland Police department.
-Inside Bay Area

As the saying goes, "the bad apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

OUSD police are already under fire for the assassination of Raheim Brown, who was shot 5 times (twice in the head) because his car smelled like marijuana and he was trying to hotwire it during a high school dance.

Tamisha Stewart, the only civilian witness to the killing, who was in a car with Brown outside Skyline High, spoke for the first time publicly about the event. The screwdriver Brown was accused of using as a weapon, according to Stewart, was being used in an attempt to hotwire the car, and it “never left the ignition.”

While hotwiring a car might be cause for police attention, it is not cause for five bullets, including two to the head. Stewart added, “There was nothing that Raheim did that he deserved to die.” According to statements at the press conference, after Brown was killed, Stewart was beaten badly and jailed for almost a week.
-SF Bay View

OPD wishes somebody would

A recent study by Robert Washaw has found that Oakland police officers drew their guns and pointed them at individuals who did not present a threat 28 percent of the time.
Warshaw is the federal monitor assigned to oversee the Oakland Police Department in the wake of the Riders federal corruption case. He looked at reports of 80 incidents in which 215 officers had drawn their guns between Jan. 1 and March this year.

Officers are escalating their use of force with no information that supports their belief a person is armed, using a tactic that could quickly prove deadly while bypassing less dangerous methods, such as drawing a stun gun or using a hands-on technique.

"In a few instances," Warshaw wrote, "it seemed that the only offense that a subject 'committed' was running from the police. While it is reasonable to assume that someone may be running because (he or she) is wanted or guilty of an offense, running is not, in and of itself, against the law; and it does not serve as justification for pointing a firearm."
-Inside Bay Area

And right on cue, Oakland Police shot an unarmed homeless man last night in el Fruitvale.

They be trippin

Bay area cops are off the hook right now.
They've been seeing revolutions on television.
They're seeing youtube footage of passive cops in other countries getting pelted with stones by angry mobs.
In this country, they've been hearing about flash mobs, and copper thefts, and they know that hella stuff is fallin off of trucks these days.
They're working longer shifts.
They're worried about their jobs.
They're worried about their pensions.
They're worried about the Federal government.
They know that thousands of prisoners are committing mass suicide to protest the inhumane conditions that they have kept them in.
They're on steroids.

Ever since the night of the Mehserle verdict, they've been wanting to get in some serious stick time...or worse.

They assassinated a guy in Hayward who had the most high-profile civil case against them on Friday. On Saturday, they killed a 2nd guy in SF in as many weeks, and they didn't just kill him, they made a spectacle of it. They wanted everyone to watch that boy die, hopelessly fighting to live...and even after he stopped fighting too. It was an old-fashioned lynching.
It didn't matter that they had shot him in the back as he ran for his life, because they got it like that. And they want us all to know.

Oscar Grant's best friend murdered

"Why do African American youth end up dead during pending federal lawsuits that allege excessive police force?"
-SF Bay View

Two and a half years after his best friend was murdered right in front of his eyes, and with a $5 million federal lawsuit (related to police misconduct on that same fateful New Year's morning in 2009) pending, 25 year-old Johntue Caldwell was shot dead in his car at a gas station in broad daylight on Friday.
Not surprisingly, the assassin has neither been located nor identified.
In all honesty, only the cops are suspected.
Johntue leaves behind two young sons.

Cops shake down/shut down girls' lemonade stand

Police in Georgia shut down a lemonade stand run by teenage girls who were trying to raise money for a trip to a water park.
Apparently the cops demanded that the girls pony up a $50 per day permit fee.

The girls are now doing chores and yard work to make money.
-Huffington Post

Chilean students send cops runnin with tails between their legs

Best video EVER.
Riot cops try their best to act tough in the face of an angry mob of students, but as you can clearly see, they are outnumbered and clearly too stupid to figure it out in a timely manner. This is a slow motion train wreck at its slowest and trainwreckiest. Talk about slunking out...wanna get away?

This is way more real than a disagreement in a Whole Foods Parking Lot.
Thanks Collapsenet.