Baltimore Fox News affiliate edits video to make it appear that peaceful protesters are encouraging the murder of police officers.

Courtesy of Gawker:

Last night, Baltimore's WBFF aired a video of protesters chanting "kill a cop"– evidence, it claimed, of murderously violent rhetoric on the part of anti-brutality protesters in Washington, D.C. The only problem? The protesters weren't chanting "kill a cop" at all, and there's video evidence to prove it. 

The current national pastime appears to be constructing elaborate ways of laying responsibility for recent police shootings at the feet of anti-police-brutality protesters. This, of course, is bullshit. Faced with the daunting task of shifting blame for broad and escalating distrust of police away from the murderous bastards themselves and onto mostly non-violent activists, our insanely cynical news media has been forced to dig deep into their bag of tricks.

Here is how WBFF broadcast the footage:  

We can't stop! 

We won't stop! 

So kill a cop!

Sounds bad right?

However THIS is the unedited footage of the same chant:  

We can't stop! 

We won't stop! 

'til killer cops are in cell blocks! 

The woman pictured leading the chants is Tawanda Jones, sister of the 12 year old boy that was gunned down by Baltimore police while playing with a toy gun. Who responded with this on Facebook.

Right now there is a very aggressive attempt by conservatives to blame those NYPD deaths on protesters, and this is simply one example.

I think the very least the FCC should do is to heavily fine these people, but if they were really doing their jobs they would take the entire Fox News cable network off the air entirely.

Man kills two New York police officers execution style. Online postings indicate possible retaliation for deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Courtesy of Fox News:  

The gunman who ambushed and murdered two NYPD officers as they sat in their squad car Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn vowed to kill police in a number of social media posts that vowed retaliation for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, authorities said. 

Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, wrote on his Instagram account: "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let's take 2 of theirs," hours before the killings, two city officials with direct knowledge of the case confirmed for The Associated Press. He used the hashtags Shootthepolice RIPErivGardner (sic) RIPMikeBrown. The post also included an image of a silver handgun and the message, "This may be my final post. The post had more than 200 likes but also had many others admonishing his statements. 

Police said Brinsley, who was black, approached the passenger window of a marked police car at approximately 2:45 p.m. local time and opened fire, striking Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in the head. The officers -- one Hispanic, one Asian -- were on special patrol doing crime reduction work in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. 

"They were, quite simply, assassinated -- targeted for their uniform," said Police Commissioner Bill Bratton during a news conference at Woodhull Medical Center, where the officers were pronounced dead Saturday evening. 

As you can see I linked to the Fox News report on this because I knew they would put the connection to Michael Brown and Eric Garner front and center. And that is going to be the focus from conservative outlets going forward.

It is quite appropriate to report on those connections of course, but we all know that Fox and their Right Wing counterparts are going to make sure to focus on the shooters ethnicity and the online postings to suggest that the peaceful protests that have been taking place in New York and other places around the country are partly responsible for this shooting.

After all that is what they do.

And this gunman, who did a terrible and inexcusable thing, provided them with an early Christmas gift that they can now exploit in order to suggest that cops are dealing with animals on the streets and it is understandable that occasionally they utilize too much force in response to the constant fear that they could be murdered at any moment.

Rage inducing video of the day. Girlfriend of man shot to death in an Ohio Wal-Mart threatened with jail for not admitting that she knew he had a gun before entering the store. He did not.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Police aggressively questioned the tearful girlfriend of a young black man they had just shot dead as he held a BB gun in an Ohio supermarket – accusing her of lying, threatening her with jail, and suggesting that she was high on drugs. 

Tasha Thomas was reduced to swearing on the lives of her relatives that John Crawford III had not been carrying a firearm when they entered the Walmart in Beavercreek, near Dayton, to buy crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars on the evening of 5 August. 

“You lie to me and you might be on your way to jail,” detective Rodney Curd told Thomas, as she wept and repeatedly offered to take a lie-detector test. After more than an hour and a half of questioning and statement-taking, Curd finally told Thomas that Crawford, 22, had died. “As a result of his actions, he is gone,” said the detective, as she slumped in her chair and cried. 

For the record John Crawford III was NOT armed when he entered that Wal-Mart. 

He only had a BB gun in his possession when he was shot.

This poor woman was on the phone with him when the police opened fire on him.
A 94-minute police video recording, released to the Guardian by the office of Mike DeWine, the Ohio attorney general, in response to a public records request, shows Thomas, 26, being interviewed by Curd after she was driven from Walmart to the Beavercreek police department. Curd later told investigators he had not yet been told Crawford only had a BB gun that had been on sale at the store. 

Curd promptly asked Thomas whether she and Crawford had criminal records. Already tearful and breathless, Thomas explained that she may have had some traffic offences and had been arrested for petty theft as a juvenile. 

The detective then became increasingly aggressive and banged on the table between them with his hand. “Tell me where he got the gun from,” Curd repeated. Thomas insisted Crawford had been carrying only a white plastic grocery bag when they arrived at Walmart to buy the ingredients to make s’mores at a family cook-out. 

Asked one of several times whether Crawford owned a gun, Thomas said: “Not that I know.” 

Curd told her: “Don’t tell me ‘not that you know’, because that’s the first thing I realise somebody’s not telling me the truth”. 

He later repeated: “You need to tell me the truth” and “You need to be truthful.” 

I have to question the fact that his officer claims that he did not know the murdered man only had a BB gun on him. Either he is lying to save face, or else he should never have been in that room interrogating this poor woman with no knowledge of what actually took place.

To me it appears that Detective Curd is trying to get her to say hEr boyfriend was armed in order to provide an excuse for officers to have executed him in that fashion.

When she fails to do so his anger is apparent.

Personally I am disgusted by this.

Samuel L. Jackson issues a challenge to his fellow celebrities to sing out against "racist police."

Courtesy of The Free Thought Project:  

In a bold move, heavyweight actor Samuel L. Jackson has issued a call to action, similar to that of the ice bucket challenge, but for police. 

Saturday, on his facebook page, Jackson offers to “all [the] celebrities that poured ice water on [their] head, a chance to do something else.” 

Jackson challenges celebrities to sing the “We ain’t gonna stop, till people are free” song. 

The song starts off with a reference to Eric Garner’s last words. 

I can hear my neighbor cryin’ ‘I can’t breathe’ 

Now I’m in the struggle and I can’t leave. 

Callin’ out the violence of the racist police. 

We ain’t gonna stop, till people are free. 

We ain’t gonna stop, till people are free. 

Jackson then ends the 47 second challenge asking celebrities to “come on, sing it out.” 

I don;t know if the police can ignore this.

After all that IS Nick Fury. 

According to Fox News the American public need to be trained to respect the police. Yeah, that's the problem.

Courtesy of We Are Anonymous:

 Fox “News” host, Jeanine Pirro, closed out her segment of Justice with Judge Jeanine with an ‘Instapoll‘ asking their notoriously ignorant, neoconservative audience about police violence directed at the minority community. While the results of the poll from Fox viewers is not surprising, the utter stupidity of Fox and their out of touch viewers is rarely broadcasted in this raw of a form.

You know occasionally I watch a little of Pirro's show just to remind myself how histrionic these people can be.

She is an incredibly abrasive woman, who may actually hate the President even more intensely than Sarah Palin.

It is no surprise that her viewers are just as arrogantly out of touch as she is.

Right Wing lessons learned these last couple of weeks.

In case image does not expand click here.

Oh well, now it all makes sense.

Seattle refuses to prosecute cop who punched handcuffed woman in the face breaking her eye socket. Federal prosecutors to review the incident.

Courtesy of the Seattle Times:  

Federal prosecutors say they will review an incident in which a Seattle police officer punched and seriously injured a handcuffed, intoxicated woman, after King County prosecutors said Friday they won’t charge the officer. 

Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for acting U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes, said her office will look at the June 22 incident involving Officer Adley Shepherd for a possible federal criminal civil-rights violation. 

The decision comes after King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced that his office would not seek a state felony charge against Shepherd, 38, a nine-year department veteran, for punching Miyekko Durden-Bosley in the back of his police cruiser.

This case is a little different than what we have all seen lately on the news.

For one the woman lived, and two the cop that injured her is black not white. 

However even though race may not the issue this time around the unnecessary use of force most certainly is an issue.

Just take a look at the video of the arrest. (Punch is at the 2:50 mark.)

It is clear from the tape that the woman, was intoxicated and being quite disruptive.

However it is also clear that the police officer struck her in anger and NOT because he was trying to subdue her or in fear of personal injury. She had her hands locked behind her back for fuck's sake.

And once again there is video to prove that something terribly wrong happened, and STILL the Seattle prosecutor did not do his job.

That has to make ALL of us wonder just how many miscarriages of justice are happening every day where there is no video and nobody ever even knows they happen?

Yes cops need to be outfitted with cameras. That is step one.

But then when prosecutors see on those tapes that the police did something like this, they need to respond appropriately.  THAT is step two.

South Carolina bucks national trend, indicts three cops in last four months.

Courtesy of TPM:  

As communities around the nation protest decisions not to charge officers who have injured or killed suspects, South Carolina prosecutors have obtained indictments against three white officers for on-duty shootings of unarmed black men in the past four months. 

It might seem unusual that officers would face charges in a law-and-order state like South Carolina. But a former prosecutor with some high-profile cases under his belt said officials are acutely aware that people think there is a good ol' boy network in the state and are extra careful to give cases involving police officers the highest level of scrutiny. 

"As prosecutors, you are well aware of that stereotype and so you go that extra mile to make sure justice is done," said state Rep. Tommy Pope, who served 13 years as a chief prosecutor and perhaps is best known for his prosecution of Susan Smith, who was convicted of drowning her two sons in a lake. 

It took nearly four years for a grand jury to hand down a murder indictment in the latest South Carolina shooting. A white former police chief and at the time the only officer in the small town of Eutawville (YOO'-tah-vihl) was charged Wednesday in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man after an argument, a case that instantly drew comparisons to the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting and the chokehold death in New York.

Wow who thought that South Carolina would break from the pack?

Or rather not so much breaking from the pack, but seeing the writing on the walls.

It is always hard to see the silver lining when such incredible miscarriages of justice occur, but if we start to see an increase cops being indicted for using excess force or deadly force, especially when dealing with black people, then perhaps the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown will not have been in vain.

I Can't Breathe.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Some in Congress have already expressed their solidarity with Garner and other victims of police brutality. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), the sponsor of legislation to curb police militarization, made a moving tribute to Garner, speaking about police militarization and including the phrase, “I can’t breathe” between each statement—the phrase Garner said as his life was choked away, and which has since become a rallying cry for protesters.

Here it is in its entirety:

“Black men and boys killed by police. 

 I can’t breathe. 

Impunity for the killers—no justice, no peace. 

I can’t breathe. 

Militarized police met peaceful protesters on their knees. 

I can’t breathe. 

Weapons of war—a show of force on our streets. 

I can’t breathe. 

Disenfranchised youth driven to violence as speech. 

I can’t breathe. 

Cynical media makes this great TV. 

I can’t breathe. 

This cowardly Congress afraid of losing our seats. 

 I can’t breathe. 

Half-hearted reform when there’s more that we need. 

I can’t breathe. 

Just thinking about the despair that it breeds. 

 I can’t breathe. 

 Black lives matter. Hear my pleas. 

 I can’t breathe."

Okay that gave me chills.

Jon Stewart on Rand Paul's contention that the death of Eric Garner was partly due to taxes, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Speaking of Comedy Central pundits, this month is the Colbert Report's last month on the air.

It's finally episode will air on December 18th.

So Colbert is really pulling out all of the stops and will broadcast from Washington D.C. on Monday. His guest will be a certain President of the United States, which I think indicates the kinds of people who are fans of the show.

These two shows have often served as an oasis of sanity during incredibly divisive times, and I for one will be incredibly sad to see one of them coming to an end.

For the most tone deaf response to the Grand Jury decision on the choking death of Eric Garner where else would you go except Fox News?

Courtesy of Think Progress: 

Moments after the decision was announced, Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson expressed her deep concern about the outcome. Not concern that the police killed Garner, who was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes, without facing legal repercussions. But concern that anger over the decision could impact a “the tree lighting ceremony” scheduled for that evening at Rockefeller Center.

Sadly for Carlson her worst fears were realized.

The mayor’s appearance tonight at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting has been canceled.
— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) December 3, 2014

Yeah it really sucks when the unnecessary death of a black man, and a miscarriage of justice, screws up people's holiday plans.

And coming in a close second in tone deafness is potential 2016 presidential candidate Rand Paul, who blamed the whole thing on taxes. That's right taxes: 

Well you know I think it’s hard not to watch that video of him saying ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ and not be horrified by it. But I think there’s something bigger than the individual circumstances. Obviously, the individual circumstances are important. But I think it is also important to know that some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes so that driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive. But then some politician also had to direct the police to say, ‘hey we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette.’ And for someone to die over breaking that law, there really is no excuse for it. But I do blame the politicians. We put our police in a difficult situation with bad laws.

Well so much for Rand Paul's attempt to court the African American vote.

The Grand Jury's decision in the Eric Garner case was so terrible that it drained the funny right out of Jon Stewart.

You know we rely on Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, to find the humor in situations that seem to defy laughter.

However during last night's show Stewart's reaction was really the ONLY reaction that we could have expected him, or anybody, to have in response to this incomprehensible news.

Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Victor White III, Eric Garner,  after awhile it is simply too much to take anymore.

Finally white America has discovered something about itself that minorities have known all along. And they don't like it.

A rather accurate representation of justice in America.

NYPD cop who choked 400 pound African American man to death does not get indicted by Grand Jury. Anybody else noticing a pattern?

Courtesy of New York Daily News:

Eric Garner’s widow reacted with shock and dismay Wednesday after a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict the NYPD officer who killed her husband with a chokehold. 

“Oh my God, are you serious?” Esaw Garner, her voice rising in shock and anger, told The Daily News. “I’m very disappointed. You can see in the video that he (the cop) was dead wrong!” 

Garner was referring to the shocking cellphone video first published on NYDailyNews.com that showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo placing Garner in a chokehold — a move banned by the NYPD — and wrestling him to the ground. 

“The grand jury kept interviewing witnesses but you didn't need witnesses,” the anguished widow said. “You can be a witness for yourself. Oh my God, this s--- is crazy.” 

Esaw Garner said she is now placing her hopes for justice with the U.S. Department of Justice. (A few minutes ago Attorney General Eric Holder said that there would definitely be an investigation.)


That man did nothing to put those police officers in danger and yet they felt it necessary to swarm him and take him down to the ground. Everybody knows that a man that size is going to have trouble breathing while on his stomach, ESPECIALLY with a bunch of cops on his back.

And this man was not robbing anybody or pushing around some convenience store owner, according to witnesses he was breaking up a fight. (Though police also say he was selling illegal cigarettes.)

Please somebody tell me again how we have to accept that the Grand Jury decision must be trusted and that we have no right to second guess them.

President Obama's comments on Ferguson today and his plans for helping to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Courtesy of the USA Today:  

The government will try to reduce the "simmering distrust" between police and minority communities, President Obama said Monday, in part by issuing new rules for military-style equipment and seeking more cameras to be worn by law enforcement officers. 

"This is not a problem simply of Ferguson, Missouri," Obama said after a day of meetings with local government and law enforcement officials from across the country. "This is a problem that is national." 

The president announced a new task force to study best police practices, as well as tighter controls on federal money that local law enforcement agencies use to buy military-style equipment. 

The goal, Obama said, is "to make sure that we're not building a militarized culture inside our local law enforcement." The Obama administration also unveiled a three-year, $263 million plan to assist community policing, including a $75 million plan for 50,000 new body cameras to be worn by officers. 

The president said that community policing can help make officers and their communities "partners" in battling crime and promoting safety. "We can build confidence and we can build trust, but it's not going to happen overnight," Obama said.

Dealing with the militarization of the police and putting more body cameras on more police officers will surely have a dramatic effect. But of course there are still the systemic problems of underlying racism, a lack of respect for the communities that they serve, and a John Wayne mentality that needs to be addressed as well among many police officers in this country.

For most communities in this country there is simply no need to provide armored vehicles and military style body armor and weapons to our police. And once they have them, it will obviously make them feel like soldiers at war instead of peace keepers at home.

I think even with the President taking these steps and expressing his frustration at the events that took place in Ferguson, that too many people still see the color of his skin and simply categorize this as a "black" problem that the majority of Americans simply do not need to worry about, or take steps to deal with.

Ultimately this needs to stop being seen as a "black" problem, and needs to be seen as an "American" problem.

Only then will there be serious, and long term attempt to protect ALL Americans from brutality at the hands of the people we hire to keep us safe.

All of the inconsistencies in the Michael Brown shooting witnesses in one graphic.

In case it will not enlarge, click here.

Mother Jones did some more expansive reporting on these troubling inconsistencies, as well as reminding us that 16 of the witnesses agreed that when he was shot Michael Brown had his hands up.

And that may be the most important point of all.

Darren Wilson has resigned from the Ferguson Police Department. Gee, really?

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The white police officer who killed Michael Brown has resigned from the Ferguson Police Department, his attorney said Saturday, nearly four months after the fatal confrontation with the black 18-year-old that fueled protests in the St. Louis suburb and across the nation. 

Darren Wilson, 28, has been on administrative leave since the shooting on Aug. 9. His resignation was announced Saturday by one of his attorneys, Neil Bruntrager. The resignation is effective immediately, Bruntrager said.

Nothing at all surprising about this. After all how could this man ever be expected to walk the streets of Ferguson as a law enforcement official after this.

Or walk down the street at all actually.

And why should he keep such a low paying job, rife with the possibility of further interaction with people who so desperately need to be shot, when he can get paid simply to spin his tales on television?

Courtesy of Got News:

A NBC source with knowledge of the #DarrenWilson interview talks said that ABC offered to pay “mid-to-high” six figures for the interview. 

The source did not say an exact figure because NBC stopped bidding for it after ABC upped the ante.

Mid-to-high six figures, that sounds somewhat north of $500,000 doesn't it?

Quite a bump up from what police officers typically make, isn't it?

Well perhaps Wilson is looking for a more lucrative job providing analysis on some cable new outlet or something. Hmm, I wonder which cable news station would be so unscrupulous as to hire a man who just may have shot a young man to death in cold blood?

By the way Wilson characterized his decision to quit the Ferguson police force as "the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

Yes so much harder than gunning down an unarmed teenager in the streets. Right?

Cleveland police who shot 12 year old boy provided him no first aid. That was administered almost 4 minutes later by an FBI agent.

Courtesy of WEWS-TV:  

Cleveland officials said Thursday officers waited close to four minutes to administer first aid after Tamir Rice, 12, was shot. 

Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said a detective and FBI agent who were in the area responded to the call for help and began giving medical help to Rice three minutes and 49 seconds after he was shot by rookie Cleveland patrol officer Timothy Loehmann. 

NewsChannel 5 Investigators asked Cleveland officials why the two officers involved in the shooting did not immediately administer first aid. Dan Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson, said all of the officers' actions are under investigation. 

We also asked why officials did not show reporters the video of how the officers reacted after the shooting. Williams said the officers only released the video because the family requested the footage be made public. 

I actually did not know this detail yesterday when I first posted this story.

The debate yesterday was fairly lively, with some people taking the officer's side and others feeling that the speed with which the police shot this young man left them no chance to evaluate whether he actually presented a danger or not.

Whatever your position I have to wonder if realizing that the officers did nothing to save this young man for four minutes has any effect on your point of view?

Tragic shooting of twelve year old boy by Cleveland police.

Courtesy of CNN:  

A Cleveland police officer shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice about two seconds after the officer and a partner pulled up in a car to investigate reports that someone was brandishing a gun at a park, surveillance video that police released Wednesday shows. 

Tamir, who had what police said is an air gun that looked like a real firearm, died Sunday, a day after he was shot outside a recreation center. 

Police also released two audio recordings Wednesday -- a 911 call preceding the shooting and a tape of a dispatcher asking officers to go to the park. 

The shooting happened after a person called 911 to report that a black male -- "probably a juvenile" -- was pointing "a pistol" at people outside the recreation center. Twice the caller said the gun might be fake. 

The dispatcher radioed to officers about a black male who was "pointing a gun at people," but did not mention that caller's belief that he could be a minor and that the gun might not be a real firearm, one of the released recordings shows. 

I held off posting this until the day after Thanksgiving, since I did not want to ruin everybody's holiday.

However it is definitely something worth discussing as it is just one more example of a black person being shot by police officers.

I think his age might immediately bring up Trayvon Martin in a lot of people's minds, but personally my immediate connection was to the death of John Crawford III who was killed by police while holding a fake gun in Wal-Mart back in August. in this case like that one, police seemed to fire before taking the time to assess if the person actually presented a danger to them or to others.

Why the dispatcher did not relay the information of child's age or the caller's beleif that the gun was fake We will probably never know, but it seems clear that if they had done so this young man would still be alive.

All eyes on Ferguson.

The Ferguson Grand Jury has released their findings and the decision is.......no indictment!

Courtesy of USA Today: 

A white police officer will not face charges for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager in a case that set off violent protests and racial unrest throughout the nation, an attorney close to the case said Monday night. 

A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson, 28, for firing six shots in an August confrontation that killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, said Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the family. The decision had been long awaited and followed rioting that resembled war-zone news footage in this predominantly black suburb of St. Louis. 

"The jury was not inclined to indict on any charges,'' Crump said after being informed of the decision by authorities. Prosecutors scheduled an news conference to announce the decision.

I am surprised this leaked as I am still watching the official announcement on MSNBC. (Update: MSNBC has now also confirmed that there will be no indictment. And I heard that for myself as well.)

I am glad that I am not living in Ferguson tonight, I cannot imagine that this is going to go over very well with the community.

Update: Don't forget that this young man was shot in the top of his head. How that is considered a reasonable use of force is completely beyond me.

Update 2: The prosecuting attorney for St. Louis county, Bob McCulloch, quoted liberally from the autopsy report that the grand jury used in their deliberations. And of course the report indicated that Brown had been shot at close range in the thumb and that the following shots were delivered to the front of his body.

However the independent autopsy ordered by the family indicated quite the opposite: 

An independent autopsy report conducted on behalf of the family found that Brown had been shot at least eight times – six times from behind. Jerryl Christmas, one of the Brown family attorneys, said the results indicated there was no struggle.

This makes me wonder what Eric Holder's federal investigation might turn up.

Update 3: Well you knew this was coming:

Violent protests erupted in Ferguson, Mo., Monday night, shortly after a grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of teenager Michael Brown. 

Demonstrators taunted police, shattered windows and vandalized cars. At least one police car was set on fire. Local police attempted to disperse a crowd with volley after volley of smoke bombs, pepper spray and bean bags. The protests escalated despite efforts by Brown's family, local authorities, activists and President Obama to tamp down unrest and anger. 

I understand their frustration, bu I don't see how this helps.