"In the early hours of February 4, 1999, an unarmed 23-year-old Guinean student named Amadou Diallo (born September 2, 1975) was fired upon with 41 rounds and shot a total of 19 times by four New York City Police Department plainclothes officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss."
"Although Congress instructed the Attorney General in 1994 to compile and publish annual statistics on police use of excessive force, this was never carried out, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not collect these data."
John Pike ("Pepper Spray Cop," "Pepper Spraying Cop" or "Casually Pepper Spraying Everything Cop") was a lieutenant in the UC Davis Police Department. He gained notoriety for pepper spraying peaceful, sitting protesters during the UC Davis protest on Friday November 18.
Police don't prevent mass shootings, though they do maintain a society where they regularly happen and then use them to try to justify their own existence.
See also my article "SWAT Team Fife" that focuses on the Columbine response: https://americancynic.net/log/2018/6/7/swat_team_fife/
Local protests began in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota before quickly spreading nationwide and in over 2,000 cities and towns in over 60 countries in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Protests continued throughout June, July, and August, with polls at the time estimating that between 15 million and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations in the United States, making the protests the largest in United States history.
The Marshall Project's collection of links related to police abolition
Kottke posts some good stuff under his 'policing' tag
To be clear, building toward a world without prisons is different than believing in a world without harm. As one contributor to the prisoner-run publication In the Belly writes, abolitionists are “not promising a world without harm. People hurt each other, and that won’t change. But why do we all just accept that the appropriate response to harm is more harm, administered by the state?”
"For those recently learning about abolition and looking for a 101 guide to defunding and abolishing the police"
The Colorado Coalfield War was a major labor uprising in the southern and central Colorado Front Range between September 1913 and April 1914
"Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe"
This looks like an interesting reading list. It is based mostly on Kristian Williams' Our Enemies in Blue which I've read before. No mention of the newer The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale.
A couple of weeks after I visited the Eagan Parkrun.
An episode of Trouble on cops.
See also: https://americancynic.net/log/2018/6/7/swat_team_fife/
"He was accused of providing the men with food, water, clean clothes, and a place to sleep over three days. A month later, a grand jury indicted him on two counts of harboring and one count of conspiracy. If convicted and sentenced to consecutive terms, Warren could serve up to 20 years in prison."
Governments and right-wing propaganda intentionally confuse the categories of helping and trafficking migrants. This article is especially relevant right now in light of the Scot Warren and Pia Klemp cases making the news.
Throw all daleks in fountains!
The Danziger Bridge shootings were police shootings that took place on September 4, 2005, at the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana. Six days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, members of the New Orleans Police Department who were allegedly responding to a call of an officer under fire shot and killed, two civilians: 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison. Four other civilians were wounded. All of the victims were African-American. None were armed or had committed any crime. Madison, a mentally disabled man, was shot in the back.
New Orleans police fabricated a cover-up story for their crime, falsely reporting that seven police officers responded to a police dispatch reporting an officer down, and that at least four suspects were firing weapons at the officers upon their arrival.
Good report on abusive Denver-area cops.
This is a good account of the 1981 Brixton riots (but leads to a page linking to a large 90MB PDF).
The time Maciej Cegłowski was assailed and almost robbed in Warsaw [2004].
An investigation into the practices of private security at Denver's Union Station and 16th Street Mall after four guards beat a homeless man in the bathroom and then tried to cover it up.
An audio version read by the journalist is available: https://soundcloud.com/user-11498782/on-guard
"The migrants the AP talked to described being rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into open trucks headed southward for six to eight hours to what is known as Point Zero, then dropped in the desert and pointed in the direction of Niger. They are told to walk, sometimes at gunpoint."
The 2007 Boston Mooninite panic occurred on Wednesday, January 31, 2007, after the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices.
"VICE News identified seven cross-border shootings since the agency was founded in 2003 — cases in which Mexican citizens who were in Mexico were killed by CBP officers who were in the U.S. Three of the victims were teenagers. (We identified at least two other cross-border shooting victims who survived. We found no similar incidents along the border with Canada.)"
She was held for two weeks in the Tacoma ICE detention center because she jogged a little bit too far a long a beach.
Indecline defaces a billboard.
Boulder police keep citing homeless people for charging their phones, but District Attorney Michael Dougherty refuses to prosecute the cases.
That time a girl in Quebec was arrested and convicted for posting a picture of someone else's graffiti to Instagram.
Churches, as already-existing social centers, represent one of the better chances of actually providing an alternative source of crisis counseling, protection, and aid which could displace the police in many of the roles they are the worst at.
Donovan Ayres doing some bang-up police work for the racist faction of the California Highway Patrol.
"Michael German, a former FBI agent, said the Sacramento case was part of a pattern of police in the US siding with far-right groups and targeting their critics. 'They have been trained to look into these counter-protesters as if they are the primary threat.'"
"Emory Ellis, who lived on the streets in Boston, ventured into a Burger King in November 2015 to buy breakfast.
"He left the restaurant under arrest, wrongfully accused of trying to pay for his meal with a fake $10 bill. He spent more than three months in jail."
"the border zone is home to 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population, and around 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population"
Scott Warren was arrested after he helped migrants – but he’s a humanitarian aid worker trying to save lives in a place where so many find death.
Scott is the ninth No More Deaths volunteer to be arrested for giving water to thirsty migrants.
An example of the FBI, in collaboration with a judicial system unable or unwilling to protect individuals' constitutional rights, taking it upon themselves to punish an activist.
"Publishers Dog Section Press say they funded the project from the proceeds of suing the police for unlawful arrest and assault. So, in a way, the police are paying for people to publish mean things about them. "
"The park rangers took Jackson’s sleeping bag, blankets, and his tent, yet left all of his other property on the ground. Jackson and his comrades believe the park rangers only took the survival gear to force them into shelters or force them to move farther out of sight and out of mind."
Sizeable protests have been taking place in St. Louis almost every day since Officer Jason Stockley was acquitted in the shooting of Lamar Smith. Rebelutionary Z has been streaming most actions live on his stream: http://rebz.tv/
I've been watching these protests on the http://reb.tv livestream.
"[Drew Burbridge] was separated from his wife, Jennifer, who alleged that she was taunted by officers who asked her if she 'liked' watching her husband being beaten and told her 'Come back tomorrow and we can do this again.'"
Keith McHenry was the first volunteer arrested for sharing free food on August 15, 1988. Eight more volunteers were arrested that same day for sharing lunch at the Haight and Stanyan near the entrance to Golden Gate Park. The San Francisco Police made nearly 1,000 arrests of people volunteering to share vegan meals with Food Not Bombs from 1988 to 1997.
In the section “Rules of Conduct”, of the Denver Police Crowd Control Manual outlines the role of “Shadow Teams,” groups of undercover and/or plainclothes officers who infiltrate demonstrations to observe participants, gather intelligence, monitor “persons of interest”, and help target specific protesters for arrest.
"Releasing the Denver Police Crowd Control Manual is part of our ongoing investigation into the policing of social movements. Using open records requests and other methods, we are currently compiling reports documenting the Denver Police Department."
On Wednesday, April 5, 2017, after a day and a half of testimony, the jury for Denver’s first camping ban trial found the three co-defendants guilty. Jerry Burton and Randy Russell were each given a 6-month probation and ordered to complete 30 hours of community service, while Terese Howard has a 1-year probation and has to complete 60 hours of community service.