Our Boys In Blue

[nosimpleway]

This could have been avoided if that cop had had a gun

[mharr]

Police behavioural psychology reminds me very much of Allie Brosh's Dog Science.

[Mongrel]

Those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.

The texts, obtained by WW through a public records request, show that Portland Police Lt. Jeff Niiya had a friendly rapport with Gibson, frequently discussing Gibson's plans to demonstrate in Portland and even joking at times.

Gibson's events, occurring regularly in the Pacific Northwest since President Donald Trump's election, have alarmed and enraged Portlanders—even prompting the mayor to propose new rules restricting protests. That's because the rallies have attracted white supremacists and other extremists, and are often thinly veiled pretexts for Gibson's group, the Vancouver-Wash-based Patriot Prayer, to wage violent street fights with masked antifascists.

Niiya is the commanding officer for the Portland Police Bureau rapid response team that patrols protests. That makes him one of the primary officers collecting intelligence about protest groups in Portland. Portland police officers attempt to reach out to all groups the bureau knows plan to demonstrate in Portland.

Niiya and the Portland Police Bureau have good reason to collect intelligence from right-wing organizers. Yet some of Niiya's texts raise questions about whether Portland Police help Patriot Prayer supporters to evade arrest during events.

Several texts involve Gibson's longtime adjunct, Tusitala "Tiny" Toese, who often brawls with antifascist protesters, has allegedly assaulted people who were not protesting, and has been arrested multiple times in Portland.

On Dec. 8, 2017, Niiya asks Gibson if Toese had "his court stuff taken care of," referring to an active warrant for Toese's arrest. Niiya goes on to say officers ignored the warrant at a past protest and tells Gibson that he doesn't see a need to arrest Toese even if he has a warrant, unless Toese commits a new crime.

...

The texts also show that Niiya at times told Gibson where leftist protests were taking place, including unrelated protests as well as antifascist marches with people in black bloc intent on protesting Patriot Prayer. At least once, Niiya told Gibson that Portland police were not monitoring a protest hosted by the Queer Liberation Front in an attempt to dissuade Gibson's right-wing group from showing up.

The one bit of sunshine in this is the bit where the cop had to warn the nazis off going after the queer march since the cops wouldn't be there there to save their nazi asses from a righteous beating.

[mharr]

Suggested update for American Civil War wiki page: 'to 1865' should read 'to present'.

[Mongrel]

Suggested update for American Civil War wiki page: 'to 1865' should read 'to present'.

Nah, just change it to "Victor - Confederate States of America"

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]

God. Damn.



And in, I guess, actual news or something:

Florida mayor gets into shootout with deputies serving warrant for illegal medical practice.

This is what happens when you promote Florida Man to Mike Haggar.

[Thad]

WWF’s Secret War: One Of The World’s Biggest Charities Funds Guards Who Have Tortured And Killed People
The World Wide Fund for Nature funds vicious paramilitary forces to fight poaching. A BuzzFeed News investigation reveals the hidden human cost.

Not a fun read.

Obviously poaching is bad. But you know what else is bad? Torturing and murdering people.

Guess this is one to cross off my list of charities to donate to.

[Brantly B.]

...

...

Oh WITHOUT PROOF.

Yeah sure that's bad.

[Thad]

I mean, I'm pretty opposed to torturing and murdering people even if they're convicted of a crime, but yes, the part about denying them due process is pretty serious too.

[mharr]

Fuuuhk. I understand that poaching exists in developing nations alongside organised crime, civil wars and dictatorships, that poachers shoot back and sometimes people are going to die, but if the WWF are going to whitewash everything and generally be just another bunch of colonial shitheads they need to wither and make way for ones that actually seek to improve the world.

If your org chart has a position that could reasonably be labeled 'Witchfinder General' you might not be the good guys.

[Mongrel]

The Verge: Ramsey Orta filmed the killing of Eric Garner. The video traveled far, but it wouldn't get justice for his dead friend. Instead, the NYPD would exact their revenge through targeted harassment and eventually imprisonment — Orta's punishment for daring to show the world police brutality.

“We’re not going anywhere until you eat,” a CO said and entered Orta’s cell. He hit Orta with his baton, hurled slurs, promised a citation for refusing orders. “How many days in SHU you want?”

Orta rattles his chair as he tells me this part of the story. “He tried to bend me up,” he says, then shows me how, miming his arms being twisted behind his back.

Some of the prisoners had eaten everything quickly, and now they had strange looks on their faces. Orta could see a man in a nearby cell. He opened his mouth and Orta leaned forward to hear what he had to say, but instead of words, blood flowed from the man’s parted lips. He was vomiting blood. Others were vomiting blood; some were on the floor of their cells, clawing at their own bodies.

Later, in depositions, the affected would say their stomachs were on fire. Some felt pain in their chests and worried they were having heart attacks. Others were so dizzy they couldn’t stand. They writhed on the floor of their cells. Some claimed the guards walked by, watching, laughing, flipping them all the bird. The stench of vomit and feces permeated the cell.

No one was taken to the infirmary. Orta had wrapped up his meatloaf in a napkin, hoping it could be tested for the poison he was certain was there. When he looked closely at the meatloaf, he saw the top was a speckled bluish-green.

Court documents filed six days later alleged that the prisoners had suffered and continued to suffer from “nausea, vomiting, pain, dizziness, aches, headaches, stomach/intestinal pains, dehydration, diarrhea, nosebleeds, throwing up blood, diarrhea with blood, and/or an overwhelming sense of illness.” The symptoms were consistent with human consumption of rat poison, and when the tainted meatloaf was finally tested, the results found that the blue-green pellets visible in the meatloaf were brodifacoum, the active ingredient in rodenticide.

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

Claims of Racism and Brutality Dog Los Angeles County Sheriff "Deputy Gangs"

A review by The Appeal of nearly three dozen federal civil rights lawsuits involving deputies who have been previously named in brutality lawsuits with Aldama suggest that these alleged incidents of violence are not isolated. Plaintiffs in these lawsuits claim that LASD deputies regularly target people with mental illnesses and disabilities for violence, beat Los Angeles residents and prisoners alike, and punish those who file abuse complaints. Critics of the department say such violence is being driven, in part, by the department’s white supremacist gang culture that encourages excessive force, particularly against minorities.

It is a law enforcement culture that, ironically, apparently mirrors the very people they target for arrest in anti-gang operations: Deputies in these gangs sport tattoos signifying the number of people they have killed, flash gang signs, and tag buildings with graffiti to mark their territory. In June 2016, a tattoo artist secretly traveled to Aldama’s home to give him a tattoo with a skull, rifle, flames, and military-style helmet emblazoned with the letters “C P T” for Compton, his department’s station house, Aldama later admitted under oath. He said 10 to 20 of his colleagues had the same tattoo. Critics cited the tattoo as proof that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has not escaped its long-standing history of white supremacist gang culture.

In a deposition in May, Lockett’s attorney, John Sweeney, asked Aldama, “Do you have any ill feelings towards African Americans in general?” Aldama asked Sweeney to repeat the question several times, before answering, “I do, sir.” He later claimed have misunderstood the question and denied having ill feelings toward Black people.

Before joining the Compton station, Aldama worked as a guard in the 3000 module of the county’s Men’s Central Jail, which was home to a notoriously violent deputy gang known as the 3000 Boys. According to a 2012 federal lawsuit, Aldama was allegedly part of an assault on a prisoner and the subsequent coverup. The lawsuit said Aldama pinned the man to the ground while other deputies beat, tased, and pepper-sprayed him, leaving him with chemical burns and abrasions on his back.

Two months after Aldama got the tattoo, he and Orrego were on patrol, half a mile west of Lockett’s home, when they encountered Donta Taylor, a 31-year-old Black man, walking along the street. It’s unclear exactly what happened next. The deputies later claimed that Taylor drew a pistol and ran after they asked him if he was on probation or parole, but no gun was ever found and no witnesses corroborated the deputies’ claims. What is undisputed is that minutes later, Aldama and Orrego killed Taylor, shooting him six times after a brief foot chase. A review of the fatal shooting by Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey in 2017 concluded that “there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Aldama and Orrego did not act in self-defense and the defense of others when they fired their service weapons at others.”

...

The history of violent LASD deputy gangs extends stretches back nearly five decades. According to a 1999 article in the Los Angeles Times, the first gang, the “Little Devils,” was founded in 1971 in the East Los Angeles deputy station. Over the next two decades, the popularity of the gangs surged, especially among white deputies working in predominantly Black or Latinx neighborhoods.

Reports of systematic violence by these groups first came to light in 1990, when federal lawsuits alleged that two gangs with the LASD—the Wayside Whites and the Lynwood Vikings—were carrying out racist attacks on people in department custody. The Wayside Whites, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed by a former inmate at a jail called Wayside Honor Rancho (now the Pitchess Detention Center), formed a “Ku Klux Klan-type organization” that carried out attacks on Black prisoners. After a six-month investigation, the department declared the allegations “unfounded” but agreed to pay a $40,000 settlement to the prisoners.

The same year, a class-action lawsuit by more than 100 residents of Lynwood, a predominantly Black and Latinx city south of Los Angeles, alleged that the Lynwood Vikings used excessive force, including “interrogation with stun guns, beating victims into unconsciousness, holding a gun in a victim’s mouth and pulling the trigger on an empty chamber, pushing a victim’s head through a squad car window,” conducted illegal searches and seizures, and racially discriminated against residents.

In 1991, a federal judge ruled in the residents’ favor, describing the Lynwood Vikings as “a neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang” that engaged in “terrorist-type tactics” with the knowledge and tacit support of departmental leadership. After appealing the judge’s ruling, the department ultimately settled the case in 1996 for $7.5 million and agreed to establish a database to hold deputies accountable. The settlement also required the department to spend $1.5 million to improve use of force trainings for deputies.

"Claims"

[mharr]

How do you fix something like that without firing everyone and starting again with a blank slate, because a few proper use of force powerpoints aren't gonna cut it. Imagine being a well intentioned, mostly not racist rookie signing on with that mob.

[Yoji]

Police popping the hoods on their cars to block dashboard cameras? Pardon my French, but that's just fucking weak.

[patito]

I don't like cops either but

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/police-pop-hoods/

[Cait]

"We asked cops and they said to trust them and they weren't actually doing that" has been a running undercurrent of a lot of things in this thread, so... is there a thing that's like The Boy Who Cried Wolf but the exact opposite?

[Blossom]

Seriously. The Snopes debunking on this is entirely "We contacted the department asking if there was a policy allowing this, and they said no. The engine melts in the summer if they don't do that." That's nothing. That's absolutely bullshit. That's self-evidently bullshit.