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by fruhmenschen » Wed Nov 02, 2011 1:03 pm
by fruhmenschen » Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:26 pm
by fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:49 pm
by fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:59 pm
by fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 03, 2011 1:05 pm
by fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 03, 2011 11:22 pm
by Bruce Dazzling » Fri Nov 04, 2011 12:48 pm
SWAT Team Kills Marine Veteran at Home
Courthouse News Service
November 3, 2011
By TIM HULL
TUCSON (CN) - A widow says a regional SWAT team killed her husband, a Marine veteran, in a botched raid not even aimed at him, riddling their house with 72 bullets while she and their 4-year-old son were in it.
Vanessa Guerena says police refused to allow paramedics to help her husband, 26-year-old Jose Guerena, after the SWAT team shot him repeatedly while serving a search warrant on May 5.
"No shots were ever fired at members of the Pima Regional SWAT Team from inside the Guerena home," the widow says in her Pima County Court complaint. She says her husband was "peacefully sleeping in his bed" after returning home from the night shift at a mine when the police killed him.
"After the shooting, the Pima Regional SWAT Team denied entry to anyone, including paramedics, into the Guerena home for over an hour."
The raid apparently was aimed at her husband's brother, who did not live with them.
Guerena says that the affidavit in support of the search warrant "misrepresented and failed to include complete and material information about Joseph Guerena."
The complaint states: "The Pima Regional SWAT Team was serving a warrant based on an alleged investigation into the activities of Jose Guerena's brother, Alejandro Guerena, who was not a resident of Jose Guerena's home. No evidence was found that Jose Guerena was engaging in criminal activity, that any criminal activity was occurring at Jose Guerena's home, or that any evidence of criminal activity would be found in the Guerena home."
Tucson media reported that the SWAT team shot Guerena more than 20 times.
Guerena says that when she pleaded with officers to allow paramedics to care for her wounded husband, "Rather than provide help, the Pima Regional SWAT team forcefully and violently drug [sic] Vanessa Guerena from her home. A frightened, crying, and traumatized Joel Guerena, age four, exited a short time later of his own volition wearing his Spider-Man pajamas.
"Over an hour after the shooting and after sending in two robots, members of the Pima Regional SWAT Team finally entered the Guerena home where Jose Guerena was pronounced dead a short time later."
In addition to shooting the blazes out of their home, Guerena says the SWAT team took "many personal items" from the home and their car, which are "entirely unrelated to any investigation," and have refused to return them.
"After the shooting, the shooters were not immediately separated and were allowed to discuss amongst themselves what occurred. The officers who interviewed the shooters a short time after the shooting often asked the shooters leading questions improperly suggesting what testimony they should give about what occurred during the shooting," the widow says.
She sued Pima County and five members of the Pima Regional SWAT Team, the towns of Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuraita, and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
Guerena seeks unspecified damages for negligence.
She is represented by Partick Broom with Haralson Miller of Tucson.
by fruhmenschen » Sat Nov 05, 2011 3:28 pm
by Alf » Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:30 am
08/02/2012 01:29 PM
Racist 'Scandal'
German Police Kept Jobs Despite KKK Involvement
By Florian Gathmann
Officials allowed two German police officers to keep their jobs even after it emerged that they had been members of a Klu Klux Klan spin-off group. The men were also colleagues of a policewoman believed to have been murdered by a neo-Nazi terrorist cell discovered last year. Whether there was any direct connection or not, politicians are demanding answers.
Two German police officers were members of the EWK, but were allowed to keep their jobs even after this was revealed. The case arose in connection with the investigation of the murderous neo-Nazi terrorist cell that alleged killed nine small business men of mainly Turkish origin and German policewoman Michèle Kiesewetter, shown here. It turns out the EWK members were her fellow officers, though no direct connection to the murder has been made.
A racism scandal is unfolding in Germany this week following the revelation that two police officers in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg had been members of a German spin-off group of the Klu Klux Klan. The two men are still serving in uniform -- one on the normal police force and the other as a squad commander for riot-control police. The state's Interior Ministry on Wednesday confirmed reports that the men had been involved with a group that called itself the European White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan (EWK).
The development has left many officials dumbfounded. How, they are asking, could public officers who swear an oath to protect the constitution have been members of a racist organization? Officials first uncovered the links during an ongoing investigation of the murderous National Socialist Underground (NSU) neo-Nazi terror cell. Between 2000 and 2007, the group allegedly murdered at least nine small businessmen of mainly Turkish descent, along with one policewoman, Michèle Kiesewetter. The two police officers with alleged Klu Klux Klan links also happened to be Kiesewetter's former colleagues.
If not for the neo-Nazi terror investigation, light might never have been cast on the fact that the Klan has been active in Germany. EWK operated in Baden-Württemberg between 2000 and 2002, with domestic intelligence counting some 20 members in the end, according to German daily Die Tageszeitung. But even more unbelievable than the group's existence is that German police officers were involved, and that very little action was taken once they were exposed. While they were both reportedly subject to disciplinary action, they were still allowed to keep their jobs.
Sebastian Edathy, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party who heads an investigative committee on the crimes of the NSU in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, is calling the situation a scandal. "Civil servants who are or were members of a decidedly anti-democratic, extremist organization must be removed from the police force," he said.
Hartfrid Wolff, a member of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party who is also a member of parliament's domestic affairs committee, expressed similar shock over the revelations. "I never would have imagined this," he said. Fellow domestic affairs committee member Wolfgang Wieland of the Green Party, spoke of "inexcusable behavior."
Police Officers Claimed Ignorance
Internally, authorities have been aware of the case since 2003, when they uncovered evidence of the officers' temporary membership during a search of the EWK leader's apartment in the city of Schwäbisch Hall. During the ensuing disciplinary proceedings, the two officers justified their participation by saying they only become aware of the true character of the organization after they had been members for a while. After learning the truth about the group, they claim, the men left it. One of the police officers reported that it only dawned on him after an aggressive neo-Nazi from eastern Germany with tattoos of Adolf Hitler appeared at a meeting.
Membership for one of the officers lasted half a year, while the other quit the EWK even sooner. The men appear to have convinced their superiors of their naïveté because they both kept their jobs.
But with the newly revealed connection to murdered policewoman Kiesewetter, their KKK past has come into question once again. One of the men had been Kiesewetter's immediate superior in the riot police, leading a group of about 10 officers.
'Connection Remains Uncertain'
But was there a connection between these two officers and Kiesewetter's murder? There has been ample speculation that her alleged murderers, the NSU, were in possession of insider information. However, investigators have not found any evidence of this, Die Tageszeitung reported.
"There isn't a single indication that other people or organizations besides the NSU could have been involved in the crime, in whatever form that might be," a spokesperson for the Federal Prosecutor's Office told the paper.
In the state capital of Stuttgart, however, the Klan-connected police officers are causing quite a stir. State Interior Minister Reinhold Gall wants a report on the matter as soon as possible and hasn't ruled out further measures in response. "Of course, we are anything but happy about this," a ministry spokesperson said.
Officials with the federal government in Berlin don't plan on letting the issue rest, either. Members of the parliamentary investigative committee on the NSU are finding plenty of information on the two former EWK members in their files, which compile much of the data that has been collected so far about the NSU murders, the terror cell and the people linked to their millieu. The parliamentarians have been able to read, for example, about one officer's description of his initiation rite, during which he had to cut his fingers with a razor blade before getting accepted into the group.
"Whether there was a connection between their Ku Klux Klan membership and the murder of police officer Michèle Kiesewetter remains to be seen," said committee leader Edathy. "But membership in such an organization must be an absolute no-go for employees of German security agencies."
Edathy says he wants to examine the issue thoroughly. "I want to know if these were isolated cases," the politician said.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-police-kept-jobs-despite-ku-klux-klan-involvement-a-847831.html
Photo Gallery: A KKK Spin-Off in Germany
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
Domestic Intelligence Scandal: Effort to Ban Far-Right NPD More Unlikely than Ever (07/23/2012)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 63,00.html
Neo-Nazi Terror: Interior Ministry Ordered Destruction of Intelligence Files (07/19/2012)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 63,00.html
Neo-Nazi Terrorist Probe: Third Spy Chief Quits as New Errors Emerge (07/11/2012)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 72,00.html
The World from Berlin: Germany's 'Incompetent, Sloppy' Spy Agency (07/03/2012)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 10,00.html
by fruhmenschen » Sun Oct 07, 2012 6:40 pm
by fruhmenschen » Sat Oct 13, 2012 1:46 am
by Bruce Dazzling » Sat Oct 13, 2012 11:27 am
Stopped-and-Frisked: 'For Being a F**king Mutt'
Ross Tuttle and Erin Schneider October 8, 2012
The Nation
Exclusive audio obtained by The Nation of a stop-and-frisk carried out by the New York Police Department freshly reveals the discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy is being implemented on the city’s streets.
On June 3, 2011, three plainclothes New York City Police officers stopped a Harlem teenager named Alvin and two of the officers questioned and frisked him while the third remained in their unmarked car. Alvin secretly captured the interaction on his cell phone, and the resulting audio is one of the only known recordings of stop-and-frisk in action.
In the course of the two-minute recording, the officers give no legally valid reason for the stop, use racially charged language and threaten Alvin with violence. Early in the stop, one of the officers asks, “You want me to smack you?” When Alvin asks why he is being threatened with arrest, the other officer responds, “For being a fucking mutt.” Later in the stop, while holding Alvin’s arm behind his back, the first officer says, “Dude, I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arm, then I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ face.”
“He grabbed me by my bookbag and he started pushing me down. So I’m going backwards like down the hill and he just kept pushing me, pushing me, it looked like he we was going to hit me,” Alvin recounts. “I felt like they was trying to make me resist or fight back.”
Alvin’s treatment at the hands of the officers may be disturbing but it is not uncommon. According to their own stop-and-frisk data, the NYPD stops more than 1,800 New Yorkers a day. A New York Times analysis recently determined that more than 20 percent of those stops involve the use of force. And these are only the numbers that the Department records. Anecdotal evidence suggests both figures are much higher.
In this video, exclusive to TheNation.com, Alvin describes his experience of the stop, and working NYPD officers come forward to explain the damage stop-and-frisk has done to their profession and their relationship to the communities they serve. The emphasis on racking up stops has also hindered what many officers consider to be the real work they should be doing on the streets. The video sheds unprecedented light on a practice, cheered on by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, that has put the city’s young people of color in the department’s crosshairs.
Those who haven’t experienced the policy first-hand “have likened Stops to being stuck in an elevator, or in traffic,” says Darius Charney, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “This is not merely an inconvenience, as the Department likes to describe it. This is men with guns surrounding you in the street late at night when you’re by yourself. You ask why and they curse you out and rough you up.”
“The tape brings to light what so many New Yorkers have experienced in the shadows at the hands of the NYPD,” says Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP. “It is time for Mayor Bloomberg to come to grips with the scale of the damage his policies have inflicted on our children and their families. No child should have to grow up fearing both the cops and the robbers.”
“This audio confirms what we’ve been hearing from communities of color, again and again,” says Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “They are repeatedly subjected to abusive and disrespectful treatment at the hands of the NYPD. This explains why so many young people don’t trust the police and won’t help the police,” she adds. “It’s not good for law enforcement and not good for the individuals who face this harassment.”
The audio also betrays the seeming arbitrariness of stops and the failure of some police officers to fully comprehend or be able to articulate a clear motivation for carrying out a practice they’re asked to repeat on a regular basis.
And, according to Charney, the only thing the police officers do with clarity during this stop is announce its unconstitutionality.
“We’ve long been claiming that, under this department’s administration, if you’re a young black or Latino kid, walking the street at night you’re automatically a suspicious person,” says Charney, who is leading a class-action lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices. “The police deny those claims, when asked. ‘No, that’s not the reason we’re stopping them.’ But they’re actually admitting it here [on the audio recording]. The only reason they give is: ‘You were looking back at us…’ That does not rise to the level of reasonable suspicion, and there’s a clear racial animus when they call him a ‘mutt.’”
The audio was recently played at a meeting of The Morris Justice Project, a group of Bronx residents who have organized around the issue of stop-and-frisk and have been compiling data on people’s interactions with police. Jackie Robinson, mother of two boys, expected not to be surprised when told about the contents of the recording. “It’s stuff we’ve all heard before,” she said at the gathering. Yet Robinson visibly shuddered at one of the audio’s most violent passages. She had heard plenty about these encounters, but had never actually listened to one in action.
“As a mother, it bothers you,” says Robinson. “The police are the ones we’re supposed to turn to when something bad happens. Of all the things I have to worry about when my kids walk out the door, I don’t want to have to worry about them being harmed by the police. It makes you feel like you can’t protect your children. Something has to be done.”
Officers who carry out such belligerent stops face little accountability under the NYPD’s current structure. The department is one of New York City’s last agencies to operate without independent oversight, leaving officers with no safe place to file complaints about police practice and systemic problems.
“An independent inspector general would be in a position to review NYPD policies and practices—like the recorded stop-and-frisk shown here—to see whether the police are violating New Yorkers’ rights and whether the program is in fact yielding benefits,” says the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel. “An inspector general would not hinder the NYPD’s ability to fight crime, but would help build a stronger, more effective force.”
NYPD spokespeople have said that stop-and-frisk is necessary to keep crime down and guns off the street. But those assertions are increasingly being contradicted by the department’s own officers, who are beginning to speak out about a pervasive culture of number-chasing.
Two officers from two different precincts in two separate boroughs spoke to The Nation about the same types of pressures put on officers to meet numerical goals or face disciplinary action and retaliation. Most chillingly, both officers use the word “hunt” when describing the relentless quest for summonses, stops and arrests.
“The civilian population, they’re being hunted by us,” says an officer with more than ten years on the job. “Instead of being protected by us, they’re being hunted and we’re being hated.”
The focus on numbers, and the rewards for those who meet quotas has created an atmosphere, another veteran officer says, in which cops compete to see who can get the highest numbers, and it can lead to the kind of arbitrary stop that quickly became violent in this recording.
“It’s really bad,” says the officer after listening to the audio recording. “It’s not a good thing at all. But it’s really common, I’m sorry to say. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
Lieberman from the NYCLU agrees: “It’s time for the Mayor and the Police Commissioner to stop trying to scare New Yorkers into accepting this kind of abuse, and to recognize that there is a problem.”
The day after this video was first released, the New York City Council met to debate the Community Safety Act, a package of bills that would curb some of the abuses associated with stop-and-frisk. Click here to read a full report from that meeting.
by fruhmenschen » Mon Oct 15, 2012 12:26 pm
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