Sunday 7 December 2014

Contunuing protests in the US agaisnt police brutality

NYPD Uses Military-Grade Sonic Weapon on Eric Garner Protesters

Long range acoustic devices (LRADs) have been previously implemented by police at protests throughout the world.

Protesters walk on 34th Street during a march for chokehold death victim Eric Garner in New York December 5, 2014. (Reuters / Andrew Kelly)

5 November, 2014

Last night at about 1am, at the intersection of 57 East and Madison Avenue in Manhattan—a populated area about four blocks from Columbus Circle—the NYPD used a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) to disperse about 100 protesters who were on the streets.

Footage captured by YouTube user James C shows the weapon in use beginning at the 1:58 mark. Protesters scattered in response to the sound, and either a live officer over a PA system or an automated voice intermittently told protesters between sound blasts that they could not interfere with “vehicular traffic” without risking arrest. The LRAD is deployed multiple times throughout the 5:00 minute video clip.


Shay Horse, an independent photojournalist who was on the scene, posted on the internet that “The NYPD began using it after glass bottles were thrown at them when they made several violent arrests when a march tried to cross Madison Ave.”

One person who was present at the scene, Moth Dust, a photographer, said people became aggravated after the LRAD was used and began throwing trash and rocks in the direction of police. She said she was affected by the sound waves.
I thought I was fine until I realized I was getting dizzy and migraine was spreading to all over my face,” she said.
LRADs were used in the first days of unrest in Ferguson Missouri, and have been used by police at protests throughout the world. They were developed by the US military after an insurgent attack on the US.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000, and were used by the NYPD against Occupy Wall Street protesters.
"The LRAD can reach decibel levels as high as 162. For comparison, a normal conversation is usually 60 decibels, while a lawn mower can reach to 90 decibels. A level of 130 decibels is typically considered the average pain threshold for most humans.”
Furthermore, Informed Health Online notes that a jet engine registers at about 140 decibels. Anything at or above this range, IHO explains, “is called acoustic trauma. Depending on how long the ears are exposed to the sound and how intense it is, it may damage the eardrum, the middle ear and/or the inner ear. Damage like this is usually temporary, but some hearing loss may remain.”
The head investor and media relations for the LRAD Corporation in San Diego, California, told Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty that the weapon is so precise that those “standing behind or next to” the device can hardly hear it. However, the YouTube footage shows dozens of people scurrying away from the sound blasts, which can be heard clearly on film.
No coverage of the LRAD use was reported in the mainstream media. Earlier in the night, around11 PM , CNN correspondent Brooke Baldwin praised the behavior of protesters and the NYPD's response to the protests, remarking on live television, “This is exactly how it's supposed to be.”
Noel Leader, a former 20 year sergeant of the NYPD and co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, was incredulous about the possibility that an LRAD had been used.
"I haven't heard anything about that,” he told AlterNet. “I'd be surprised if that was the case, because most of the protesters have been nonviolent and peaceful, even though they have been disruptive.
In total, police arrested 219 people at the protests last night, according to Capital New York


Govt created a monster’: 1000s protest police violence across US for 3rd night


6 November, 2014

Thousands of people in New York and other US cities protested for a third night against the use of lethal force by police against minorities, as prosecutors pledged to consider charges against an officer in the killing of an unarmed black man last month.

The killing of 28-year-old Akai Gurley, who was gunned down in November by a police officer in a darkened public housing stairwell in Brooklyn, is the latest in an avalanche of deadly police actions across the country which many deem racially-biased.

View image on Twitter
Tweeps who took this photo in NYC we need to give credit cause it is epic

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said Friday he will convene a grand jury to consider possible charges against Peter Liang, who shot Gurley. Police there have said Liang may have accidentally discharged his gun. At a news conference Friday, the president of the advocacy group BK Nation, Kevin Powell, called the shooting the latest in a "series of modern-day lynchings."

We don't need the celebrities. We don't need the politicians. We just need the people. One law for all of us.

This week's outbreak of angry but mostly peaceful protests began Wednesday when a New York grand jury refused to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of a 43-year-old black father of six, Eric Garner, who was being arrested on suspicion of selling cigarettes illegally.

I hope the protests don't end anytime soon. This whole thing needs to evolve into Civil Rights Movement 2:
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The people awakened will never be muted by those that seek to deny a voice that cant be silenced

A video of his confrontation with police on Staten Island in July featured Pantaleo's arm across Garner's neck as he is subdued by four officers. Then Garner, who had no weapon, was knocked face down to the pavement as he repeatedly said, "I can't breathe." The grand jury sat for nine weeks and eventually decided to take no action against Officer Pantaleo.


Last month a Missouri grand jury also chose not to indict Darren Wilson, a white policeman, for the killing of an 18-year-old unarmed black man Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in August, provoking several nights of unrest. The grand jury in Ferguson heard over 70 hours of testimony deciding whether to indict, USA Today reported.  

Activists on Friday concluded a protest march to the Missouri governor's mansion. More than 100 protesters shouted, "Hands up, don't shoot," and other slogans as they rallied in the rotunda of the state capitol in Jefferson City.

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: 400+ people on the move turning on 9th toward Broadway. pic.twitter.com/7sL0SZ8n35 via @AlanWangABC7
 View image on Twitter
Powell and Market in SF right now.

On Thursday in Phoenix, Arizona, another unarmed black man was shot dead by a white police officer during a scuffle, leading to protests in that city.

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university of arizona student led protest. cc: @UofA


"The government has created a monster and the monster is now loose," Soraya Soi Free, 45, a nurse from the Bronx who has been protesting in New York, told Reuters.

The decisions by grand juries in Ferguson and New York not to indict white police officers have angered ordinary Americans and human rights experts alike. 

"I am concerned by the grand juries' decisions and the apparent conflicting evidence that exists relating to both incidents," UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, said in a statement. 
"The decisions leave many with legitimate concerns relating to a pattern of impunity when the victims of excessive use of force come from African-American or other minority communities."

View image on Twitter
New Orleans Protesters Shut Down City Streetcars By Laying On Tracks

On Friday over a hundred demonstrators stormed into an Apple Store in New York to stage a brief "die-in," sprawling on the floor as shoppers and employees watched. They shortly left the store without incident.


Watching these peaceful demonstrations makes me proud to be an American. https://vine.co/v/Ov3PwldqI1r 
Similar mini-demonstrations were staged at Macy's flagship department store in Herald Square and at Grand Central Terminal. Police calmly stood by, letting the protesters briefly occupy the locations.

Meanwhile, up to 100 people gathered near the site of Garner's death for a candlelight vigil on Staten Island. A group of marchers who pressed on through the rain were confronted by police on Manhattan's lower East Side before midnight. Several protesters were arrested, Reuters reported.


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4 ARRESTS TOTAL NOW
Protests also unfolded in Chicago, Boston and Washington, DC, with demonstrators chanting "Black lives matter," and "I can't breathe."


NYPD cop who killed unarmed Brooklyn man texted union instead of calling help


:
Reuters/Eduardo Munoz


6 November, 2014

The New York Police Department officer who recently shot and killed an unarmed African American man in Brooklyn did not immediately call for help or report the incident, choosing instead to text a police union representative as the victim died.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced a grand jury will consider charges against the officer responsible for the November shooting.

According to a report by the New York Daily News, these details were revealed by unnamed law enforcement sources, and paint a clearer picture of what happened the night 28-year-old Akai Gurley was killed by rookie police officer Peter Liang in the stairwell of an apartment complex.

View image on Twitter
I have nothing to say: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/exclusive-texted-union-rep-akai-gurley-lay-dying-article-1.2034219?cid=bitly 

The report states that Liang, as well as his partner Shaun Landau, did not respond to calls from their commanding officer or the emergency operator, both of whom were trying to reach them for more than six and a half minutes after a neighbor called 911 to report a shooting. Since neither Liang nor Landau reported the incident immediately, police found out about the incident through the neighbor’s call.

Instead, Liang reportedly decided to text a union representative during that time. His text messages allegedly reveal that the officers did not even know the precise address of the building they were in.

That’s showing negligence,” an anonymous police source told the Daily News, referring to texting decision. “The guy is dying and you still haven’t called it in?”

Akai Gurley, in a photograph that was posted to his profile on ExploreTalent, a casting website for actors and models.Akai Gurley, in a photograph that was posted to his profile on ExploreTalent, a casting website for actors and models.

In a statement to Buzzfeed, however, the police union denied the report:

The Daily News story about the officer texting a union delegate does not appear to be true. We have over 400 delegates but the ones that serve the area he was working in did not receive any texts from him.”

Notably, the officer was not even supposed to be inside of the Pink Houses project when the shooting occurred, the Daily News reported. Deputy Inspector Miguel Iglesias had ordered them to maintain a street presence and only go as far as the lobby if they were to enter the buildings, sources told the newspaper. Despite this, the officers were allegedly performing inspections of the stairways.

With the news coming in the wake of grand juries deciding not to indict officers for the deaths of Staten Island man Eric Garner – who died via chokehold by police – and teenager Michael Brown from Missouri, criticism of the NYPD is sure to grow.

Gurley, who was accompanied by his girlfriend Melissa Butler, was shot once by Liang after the couple entered the staircase. The officers allegedly gave no warning before shooting Gurley in the chest, causing Butler to run to a neighbor on the fourth floor to make a 911 call.

They didn’t present themselves or nothing and shot him,” Butler said to DNAinfo New York. “As soon as he came in, the police opened the [door to the] eighth-floor staircase. They didn’t identify themselves at all. They just shot.”

Butler also claims the police did not call the ambulance or come down the staircase to help.


Brooklyn D.A. will convene a grand jury in Akai Gurley case: http://capi.tl/1u0yjTh 

A grand jury will now take up the case and consider charges against Liang, though no timetable for a decision has been set.

I pledge to conduct a full and fair investigation and to give the grand jury all of the information necessary to do its job,” District Attorney Thompson said in a statement.

The NYPD is also conducting an investigation into the killing. Commissioner Bill Bratton previously called Gurley innocent.

"What happened last night was a very unfortunate tragedy,'' he said last month. “The deceased is totally innocent. He just happened to be in the hallway. He was not engaged in any criminal activity.''



From Jenna Orkin , via Facebook


As a friend and I were sitting in a coffee shop this evening, a crowd of protesters passed outside, chanting their outrage on the Eric Garner and Michael Brown verdicts. It took a moment to make out the words of the spondaic chant but then all at once, the meaning hit with the force of three punches: "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"

Mike Ruppert once said that the Rodney King protests and the official response, or lack thereof, were a trial run for more widespread riots when the sh*t hit the fan. Are the events of the past few weeks a still more refined rehearsal? Between Garner, Brown and twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, it would seem that on the contrary, we're being goaded towards all hell breaking loose..

Philip Agee echoes Mike's view:

"Can anyone doubt that the events of Los Angeles will recur? Those struggling in the 1990s for change would do well to remember the repression visited on progressive movements following both World Wars and during the Vietnam War. The government has no more Red Menace to whip up hysteria, but the 'war on drugs' seems to be quite adequate for justifying law enforcement practices that have political applications as well. The hunt for aliens and their deportation, and the use of ...sophisticated methods of repression following the Los Angeles uprising, reveal what has been quietly continuing below the surface for years. We should be on notice that in the current political climate, with clamor for change everywhere, the guardians of traditional power will not give up without a fight. They will find their 'threats' and 'enemies' in Black youths, undocumented immigrants, environmentalists, feminists, gays and lesbians, and go on to more 'mainstream' opponents in attempts, including domestic covert operations, to divide and discredit the larger movement for reform."
 -- CovertAction Quarterly, Tracking Covert Actions into the Future by Philip Agee

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