Arrested for Using Twitter, In America

Please Watch. I have a personal connection to some of the people involved in this, makes me pretty angry...

NYPD Gets Overly Aggressive (As Usual) Breaking Up Student Protest

The NYPD was called in to stop a student protest earlier today at the New School near Union Square. As usual they abuse their power, are overly aggressive, and physically assault and arrest people for no discernible reason (other than they were protesting?). Enjoy.

Cop Who Harrassed NFL Player May Be Obnoxious Jerk

The police officer who detained NFL player Ryan Moats and his wife while they tried to visit Moat's dieing mother in law seems to be way too into his relatively powerful position as a police officer.

By the way, in case you're not up on the Moats story: Moats rolled through a red light to get to the bed of his mother in law who was, at that moment, dieing of cancer. In the hospital parking lot the officer detained Moats despite being made aware of the impending death of Moat's mother in law. He has since apologized and Moats has accepted.

Back to the officer, Robert Powell, that is his tattoo you see, a tattoo of a police shield on his arm. Nice. Also, he had two social network pages that demonstrate his love for his abuse of power. (his Myspace page has been deleted) An excerpt from his xanga site:

I did have to fight a lady a little yesturday, lucky for her she didnt start until after the cuffs were on, cause then she would have more than just a little pain around the rists. But it was hard because her 7 year old daughter was near by and had to watch, and we didnt like that at all...I like to drive fast. I also got to work my first accident. One was a Mustang, and the other a Kia Rio. The girl in the Kia was cute, but a bit young. I even got to hold traffic back in the car as I got in position to start working. Thats about all, I should study the blue book so I can impress the trainer.

At least he apologized, I guess.

via deadspin

Cop Beats Teen Girl

You can see the girl kick her shoe at the cop, I guess that warranted a beating. Unbelievable. The video was released in conjunction with an assault case against the cop. This all happened in King County, Washington.

Cops are Such Little Boys

This time, for serious. In Chicago, a 14 year old somehow got a hold of a police uniform, walked into a police station and was sent out on patrol, in a car, with a partner. He completed a five hour shift before he was found out and arrested. What the what?

The AP describes the boy as "muscular" and 5' 3". He plead not guilty today to impersonating an officer. Apparently the kid is obsessed with the police.

The real story here is the security breach allowed by the police force this kid infiltrated, well, and the fact that he's obsessed with police, someone should give him a good talking to. At least he didn't taser or intimidate anyone.

Cop Tasers Emotionally Diturbed Man, Man Dies, Cop Gets Promotion

I guess this is what it takes to get ahead in the NYPD.

The officer who shocked a man perched on a fire escape, who then fell to his death on the sidewalk, was promoted to Detective a couple weeks after the incident. The incident took place last September in Bed-Stuy. The Lieutenant who actually ordered the tasering committed suicide a few days after the incident.

Here's a link to Gothamist's detailed account from September

Transit Cop Charged with Murder

The Oakland Transit Cop who pulled out a gun and shot and killed an unarmed man who was laying on the ground, handcuffed was arrested and charged with 2nd Degree Murder today. If you haven't seen the video(s), well, you can find a few of them (including some slowed down and enhanced) but you may want to just steer clear. Apparently, the cops were trying to break up some sort of fight on a train. There are theories that the cop may have been reaching for his taser and accidentally pulled his gun and fired it.

Pretty extreme mistake if you ask me.

Understandably, there were a couple days of riots in Oakland and depending on the outcome of this case Oakland should be bracing for more.

NYPD Hates Change and Hope

The NYPD was dispatched to Williamsburg in Brooklyn on election night and SURPRISE they got violent. Crowds gathered all over NYC on Tuesday night, Brooklyn, in particular was ecstatic. Apparently, there were no other problems any where else. Check out the videos of these overzealous assholes.



and this one of one guy getting arrested and another guy getting abused...



more videos and info (including pro-McCain conversation down at the police station) here

Also, on happier note, here's a link to a bunch of Brooklyn Obama celebrations.

Charges Dropped Against Arrested Reporters

The reporters arrested outside the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul have had all charges against them dropped. Democracy Now host Amy Goodman along with two other Democracy Now employees were arrested while trying to cover the protests outside the convention. Goodman was actually inquiring about the status of her arrested colleagues when she was handcuffed and hauled off.

The Mayor of Minneapolis said,

"...the police did their duty in protecting public safety. In this decision, we are serving the public's interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press."

I guess by protecting public safety he means arresting and intimidating and preemptively raiding peaceful protesters.

I guess be maintaining the integrity of our democracy he means suppressing the right of assembly and the right to free speech.

I guess by maintaining the integrity of our system of justice he means using the system of justice to suppress peoples Constitutional right by arresting them randomly and then dropping the charges days later.

And as far as maintaining the integrity of the freedom of the press...this is a story about how members of the press were arrested and taken to jail...i.e., removing the integrity of the freedom of the press, literally.

ACLU Wants Investigation of RNC Press Suppression

In addition to the coordinated premptive arrests and home invasions carrid out by local police, along with the over-aggressive and violent crack down on protesters, it turns out the local police in St. Paul/Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention suppressed the activities of accredited journalists covering the protests.

The ACLU has renewed it's call for an investigation into the treatment of the press by local authorities. Among the members of the press arrested was Democracy Now host and reporter Amy Goodman who was attempting to secure the release of fellow Democracy Now reporters after their arrest. Here is the video of her arrest.

Hello Police State!

A number of raids have been carried out over the last couple of days on various houses, sometimes referred to as "hippie houses" by neighbors, in St. Paul/Minneapolis ahead of the the Republican National Convention. Some raids seemed to have been authorized by warrants and items such as personal journals and computers were confiscated. A few people were arrested for "conspiracy to commit riot". Some raids were done without warrants, check out this this video of an interview with a Democracy Now producer from the local Minneapolic group theuptake. Also, the group, theuptake, stream their videos live which should be very interesting in the coming days during protests in the streets outside the convention. They also have a number of videos from the last couple of days involving police intimidation.

By the way, Democracy Now is going to be essential viewing/reading/listening over the next week. Another great resource is I-Witness Video.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has been on the scene and published this video from outside a house that is under a raid. The video contains an interview with a National Lawyer's Guild member who gives a good lay of the land of the RNC police state.



This is intimidation.

Glenn Greenwald's running reporting is here and its extensive. It is full of links to various videos and accounts of other raids.

COP LOVE FREE STARBUCKS!

Check out this sweet one from Chicago. A plain clothes police officer in Chicago had been popping in to her local Starbucks looking to get a little sweet sugary handout. Apparently, she got a little resistance now and then and decided she could be more persuasive if she flashed her badge and her GUN(!!!) to the employees. This seems to have all gone down between 2001 and 2005 (not really sure why it's just making the news now). The officer claims she never demanded free coffee and snacks and definitely never flashed her gun. However, she was suspended for over a year and ordered into counseling after being found guilty of theft by a police board.

More Drug War Idiocy

This story is more than a week old now but its pretty unbelievable and telling about the war on drugs. The mayor of a small town in Maryland had a package addressed to him containing a large amount of marijuana. The package was intercepted by authorities and was delivered to the mayor's house by an undercover agent. The package was left on the doorstep while the agents waited. The package was eventually brought into the house by the mayor. The house was then stormed by police, weapons drawned. The mayor's two yellow labs were shot and killed, one was apparently running away from the officers after seeing the other one shot.

Well, guess what? The dust has no settled and the Mayor did nothing wrong! It turns out it is a fairly common technique used by drug dealers to send a package full of drugs to an innocent person and then intercept the package somewhere along the delivery route.

So, there's your drug war. Terrorizing people and killing their dogs. All for a little (ok a lot) weed.

Also, yellow labs are no threat to anyone. Unless you have a little snack in your pocket and you have trouble standing or walking, then they might knock your ass over.

Police So Mad at Blogger

Memphis police, and the city of Memphis, have brought suit in an attempt to gain the identity of an anonymous blogger who has been very critical of the police department and its director. The site seems to be run by a member of the police department or at lease by someone with close ties to members of the force. The intended audience for the blog is the Memphis police department rank and file. The blog, MPD Enforcer 2.0 exposes problems with the department, including sexual harassment of female officers, corruption within the department, and certain department policies.

$6.2 Million Dollar Jury Verdict Against Taser Maker

A jury in San Jose, CA awarded 6.2 million to the family of a man who was killed as a result of prolonged exposure to a stun-gun. The police officers involved were not held liable. The company was held liable for failing to warn local police that repeated exposure could result in heart failure. Use of the elusive power of common sense, however, might have resulted in the realization, by the police officers, that repeated electrical shocks to a person's body could result in serious harm...perhaps to internal organs...perhaps to the organ that is most directly responsible for keeping people alive.

The Photography Threat

From a gothamist.com post over the weekend comes word of another incident where a citizen was approached by law enforcement over their use of a small hand held device used to capture images for later reproduction, aka the camera. This particular story concerns a photo-blogger taking pictures of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The often stinky and always dirty canal provides a lot of opportunities for interesting photographs as it runs through an industrial area of Brooklyn, is crossed by a number of little used draw bridges, and is home to a few boats and occasional brave ducks. A number of popular NYC blogs make the canal and its surrounding neighborhoods their main topics.

Just for fun, here is a photo of the canal that somehow appeared in my very own camera a few months back:



The power of common sense has been talked about before on plasticblog but it can never be mentioned too much. How about instead of this patch-work effort to thwart terrorism through random and nominal restrictions on photography and liquid volumes, not to mention large scale military incursions into a nation that was not a threat, the government works on weening us off of oil and rethinks our foreign policy in the middle east?

St. Paul Orders 230 Tasers Just in Time For Republican Convention

The city of St. Paul, capital of Minnesota, has placed and order for a large number of tasers that are set to arrive just in time for the GOP Presidential nominating convention happening in the city later this year. I guess the positive here is that it is probably less likely protesters will got shot or beaten and the way things are going the real drama on the streets might be in Denver for the Democratic convention.

Disgusting Abuse of Power

Here's a little story out of Ohio about some Cops abusing their authority, only this time, no tasers are involved. The incident occured more than a year ago. A women named Hope Steffey was arrested and strip searched by a group of male and female police officers after Steffey's cousin called 911 to report that Steffey had been assaulted. When the police arrived and requested to see identification Steffey handed the officers her dead sister's ID by accident. Steffey kept the ID as a memento in her wallett. What happened between then and the strip search at the jail is unclear. What is clear is that the video of the incident is pretty disturbing. Check out the video and the full story here. Note: the video is disturbing but not graphic.

While the incident itelf occured over a year ago the story is just now hitting the news because of a lawsuit against the officers and the county as well as the unearthing of the video.

Taser Fest

Xmas is over. Tasers are still hot.

Unofficial plasticblog southern correspondent Jay has sent up another nugget on taser incidents. In April of 2006, in Clay County, Florida, a wheelchair bound and schizophrenic and African American women was tased to death. The woman, who's sister called 911, was threatening her sister with two knives and a hammer. The police tased the women 10 times for just under 3 minutes resulting in her death. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. The attorney for the women's family summed up the absurdity of the whole situation quite succinctly,

"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes."

It should be noted that the police around the country (and beyond) seem to have made it their mission to tase people in all walks of life, across gender and race, and involving people in all states of mental well being. Just off the top of my head there has been stories of tasings of college students, a pregnant woman, white males, a black female schizophrenic in a wheelchair, the mentally ill, and a polish man. All that's left is a baby on crutches, an old man flying a kite, and Canadians.

Police Brutality On the Rise Nationwide

Justice Department statistics show that there has been a rise in police brutality prosecutions in Federal courts. The statistics indicate a 25% increase over the last 6 years. The percentage of cases referred to prosecutors that are not advanced is over 95%.

The Federal District with the most prosecutions from January to October of 2007 is good ol' Brooklyn. Protect and Serve!