City of Chicago Emergency Management Surveillance Vehicle
This cannot keep happening. Something drastic has to be done to dial back our over-militarized police forces. Disclaimer: of course not all police are brutal thugs, but if you have a package of blueberries, and several are rotten, what do you do? Discard the whole box or carefully pick out each and every bad one?
The Chicago police vice squad burst through the door of the Noble Square neighborhood massage parlor last summer and grappled with the shrieking manager as a security camera rolled.
Footage of the incident released Monday showed that Jianqing Klyzek was on her knees and cuffed behind her back within seconds. As Klyzek continued to scream, an officer standing behind the petite woman slapped her in the head while another threatened to hit her with a Taser “10 f—ing times.” Then another officer got in her face and began to rant.
“You’re not a f—— American,” the officer yelled at Klyzek, according to the video. “I’ll put you in a UPS box and send you back to wherever the f— you came from!”
The disturbing surveillance footage is at the center of a federal lawsuit filed last week accusing the Chicago Police Department and 10 officers of brutality and a hate crime. Police officers can be seen on the video searching for the surveillance tape, but they were unsuccessful because it was recorded off-site, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged that police unjustly charged Klyzek with battery for allegedly biting and scratching officers as they tried to subdue her. The case was thrown out by a Cook County judge at a preliminary hearing, but the police then pursued a felony indictment in which one of the officers lied to a Cook County grand jury, according to the suit.
Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, said prosecutors dropped the felony charge in January after Klyzek’s attorney gave them a copy of the security video. Prosecutors didn’t know of its existence at the time of the grand jury investigation, she said.
Klyzek’s attorney, Torreya Hamilton, told reporters Monday that she believed the officers involved should be fired for treating Klyzek like “she was less than human.”
“I can’t see how they have any business wearing the uniform,” Hamilton said at a news conference at her law offices in the Loop. “She’s 5-foot-2 and weighs 110 pounds. She was handcuffed and sitting on the ground and was struck from behind…This was not reasonable force.”
(click here to continue reading Lawyer: Video caught cop beating handcuffed woman – chicagotribune.com.)
Not that it matters in the slightest, but Ms. Klzek is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
A lot of this is Daley’s legacy, but Rahm has been in office long enough that he cannot avoid responsibility for abuses in the Chicago Police Department. Same with Eric Holder…
Police Line – Do Not Cross
Being a police officer may be a challenging job, but if you cannot handle living in a country with civil liberties, perhaps you should move to Somalia, or in Bundyville, Utah.
A man has died two weeks after police used a Taser on him as he was arrested in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood.
Dominique Franklin Jr., 23, who had lived in the 21000 block of Olivia Avenue in Sauk Village, was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital at 4:49 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
(click here to continue reading Man dies after Chicago police use Taser during arrest – chicagotribune.com.)
This is a national problem, we keep stepping closer to being a full-on police state…
Salinas, CA police killed a man earlier today, claiming to the local media that they were in fear for their lives after he had waved a pair of garden shearers in their direction, indicating he was going to shred them to pieces.
But then a witness posted a video online, contradicting those claims, showing the man trying to walk away from the cops as they move in on him barking orders with their guns drawn.
(click here to continue reading California Cops Kill Man Claiming Self-Defense; Citizen Video Indicates Otherwise (Updated with Longer Video) | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC.)
None Shall Pass
or for another random example:
After beating a man into a a coma last week, Florida deputies turned their attention to a citizen who had video recorded the beating, placing him in handcuffs and confiscating his phone, forcing him to sign a waiver that would give them the right to copy the footage.
Shaun Mahoney tried his best to maintain possession of his phone, but eventually complied after several hours in handcuffs when St. Lucie County deputies told him if he did not sign the waiver, they would take his phone anyway, but maintain possession of it for an unlimited amount of time.
That was a lie, of course, as they had no right to seize his phone in the first place.
But that is a lie they know they can get away with considering cops are never disciplined for unlawfully seizing phones as “evidence,” even though the U.S. Department of Justice made it clear there are very strict guidelines in doing this.
The deputies lied about a number of other things as well, including claiming that 29-year-old Tavares Docher was violently resisting them, leaving them no choice but to continually beat him.
But the video shows them punching him repeatedly while restraining his arms behind his back, yelling at him to “stop resisting,” even though it was clear he was not resisting.
In fact, Mahoney started recording after stepping out of a CVS Pharmacy and seeing one deputy planting his foot on the side of Docher’s face, squishing it into the asphalt, which is why he is lying in a pool of blood.
(click here to continue reading Florida Deputies Seize Phone from Man after he Records them Beating Suspect into Coma | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC.)
Police and Bus wreakage
Warrants, huh? What are they good for?
Cook County probation officers have for years quietly teamed up with law enforcement to go into probationers’ homes without warrants, looking for guns, drugs and information and leading to questionable and illegal searches, the Tribune has found.
Operating with little oversight, in some cases their actions have triggered accusations that drugs were planted, money was stolen and probationers were threatened with jail if they refused to become informants for Chicago police or the FBI.
The impact has been lasting for some: a promotion missed, a job lost, a dying brother unvisited, months spent in jail.
…
Although police and probation officers cooperate in other cities, legal experts said such arrangements should have detailed policies to avoid illegal searches that could allow criminals to go free when evidence is thrown out, expose police and others to lawsuits and lead to civil rights violations.
The Cook County Circuit Court’s probation department, however, has not developed rules and regulations for cooperating with law enforcement agencies, has no policies defining “reasonable suspicion” and has only vague guidelines on how officers should carry out their searches. Officers said probationers have had their homes tossed for as little as missing one curfew.
“The fundamental point that is at stake here is an essential guarantee of privacy,” said David Rudovsky, a Pennsylvania civil rights and criminal defense lawyer who specializes in illegal searches and seizures.
“Without that, you really have a police state.”
Chief Judge Timothy Evans, who oversees the probation department, has been repeatedly warned since at least 2005 about potential problems during searches, according to interviews and documents.
The concerns stemmed from the activities of the gun-carrying probation units supervised by Deputy Chief Philippe Loizon, a veteran probation officer who has built alliances with police and the FBI, at times over his bosses’ objections.
(click here to continue reading Warrantless searches draw criticism – chicagotribune.com.)
