Browsing: FTP

A Ferguson solidarity march last week in Minneapolis turned ugly when a man drove through activists and pinned a teenage girl under his car, sending her to the hospital. The incident made news rounds (with media capturing footage) and went viral online–and that’s where we meet Santa Ana Police Sergeant Michelle Miller.
On her Facebook page, the sarge shared a wacky right-wing article titled “Driver Plows Through Ferguson Protestors In Minnesota.”
“I would have done the same,” she wrote. “I’m surprised this didn’t happen more.” A friend added, “what are these savages thinking?”

No sooner had the NYPD received praise for respecting peaceful protests than the force doubled back and reminded everyone that while officers might have let people on a couple bridges this week, they’re still very adept with a bottle of pepper spray.
More than 200 protesters were arrested through the night of December 4, the highest number since protests began. On Wednesday, December 3, a total of 83 people were arrested. On November 24, during the first anti-police-brutality protests after Ferguson, Missouri, Police Officer Darren Wilson was not charged for shooting Michael Brown to death, only two people were arrested — one for pouring fake blood all over NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and his security detail and the other for throwing an aluminum can at an officer. Village Voice has more.

It was impossible for Balboa Peninsula motorists to notice anything unusual when they passed Newport Beach City Hall on the afternoon of March 10, 2011. The warm sun hovering above steady beach traffic and palm trees swaying from a periodic, lazy breeze revealed just a typical, Southern California day.
But not far from Pacific Coast Highway, on a sidewalk adjacent to 32nd Street–a road flanking local government offices until last year’s relocation–high-ranking police officers were teaching a lesson to one of Orange County’s most heroic whistleblowers and his wife: Mess with us, and you’ll pay dearly.
OC Weekly has more on how bad cops work to keep the good ones from improving the state of our wrecked system.

In Colorado, if you’re 21 or older, you’re free to buy, use, grow and give away cannabis. You can even apply for a sales license to grow and sell it for profit. But what you can’t do is take pounds of it across state lines and try to make a killing selling it for double what it goes for in Colorado. That’s no secret — as anyone with common sense knows.
According to Nashville cops, two Coloradans visiting Tennessee had a lot more cannabis than they did common sense: They were busted with more than 425 pounds of pot — worth an estimated $1.5 million — and $355,000 in cash.

Jim McDonnell.

Long Beach Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell was sworn in as Los Angeles County Sheriff yesterday afternoon.
There’s no question that he was elected in November to reform a department rocked by federal charges against deputies that included allegations of excessive force against inmates, assaults on jail visitors, and the attempting thwarting an FBI investigation by hiding an incarcerated informant. It sounds like a clear task, but it won’t be easy. LA Weekly has more.

Dallasboy/WikiCommons.

Until the very end, last Tuesday night’s demonstration in Dallas against the grand jury’s decision in the Ferguson case was uneventful. Marchers congregated at Dallas Police Department headquarters in the Cedars then walked through downtown to protest the grand jury’s decision not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for killing unarmed teenager Mike Brown.
“Tonight I’m somewhat numb, but I’m also saddened,” Michael Bowie Jr., new senior pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas told The Dallas Morning News at the protest. “First it was Trayvon [Martin], now it’s Michael Brown. And it’s sad that killing of black males is justified and legal.”

“People in the state of California unfortunately have to be aware of the inherent risk that the feds may come in and shut you down.” – Nathan Shaman, CA-based Attorney


Earlier this year, 25-year old Zack Curcie was at work as a gardener on a 10-acre parcel of land being used to cultivate medical marijuana in the foothills of southern California.
Though the grow site was legal under California state law, and the people behind it went to great lengths to follow the state’s 18-year old pot laws as best they could, on September 24th Curcie, an Iraq War vet, found out what it is like to be on the other side of a military-style raid as aggressive San Diego-based Narcotics Task Force (NTF) agents stormed the property with weapons raised.

On an evening of largely peaceful protest in the Mile High City after a Ferguson, Missouri grand jury’s failure to indict a police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown, video has surfaced in which a Denver cop can be repeatedly punching a drug suspect in the head, as well as tripping a woman said to have been seven-and-a-half months pregnant.

Ray Stern.
A homeless guy in Phoenix.

Lingering on a road median in Phoenix can now mean a possible fine or jail time, but police are required to give first-time warnings to offenders. In an apparent effort to limit a dangerous form of panhandling, the Phoenix City Council last week passed an ordinance that bans pedestrians from hanging out in the middle of a street. Designated as an “emergency,” it took effect immediately, and enforcement begins this week.
Phoenix New Times has more.

Julian Harris, a rookie officer in the Dallas Police Department’s South Central Patrol Division, was arrested Thursday morning after police were called to meet with an injured woman at Dallas’ Charlton Methodist Hospital. DPD detectives say that a fight between Harris and the woman at Harris’ Dallas apartment escalated into violence that left the woman hospitalized with serious injuries.
Harris was booked into Dallas County Jail just after 11 a.m. for aggravated assault. An emergency protective order was also issued to keep him away from the woman. In May, just nine weeks after Harris graduated from the police academy, he and another officer were praised for helping rescue a group of hooky-playing boys from a flooding creek.
The Dallas Observer has more.