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I am sure that if the Founders where here today they would tell us that King George was a nice guy compared to the folks that run the current American police state. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/15/attend-vigil-police-brutality/14096151/ About 200 attend vigil against police brutality Dennis Wagner, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:28 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 About 200 Valley residents took part Thursday in a nationwide Moment of Silence vigil to protest police brutality, peacefully but angrily decrying excesses by law enforcement. "What's it really mean to have justice?" asked Tia Oso, a co-organizer of the event. "What's it really mean to have freedom? That's why we're here today." The nationwide vigil was instigated by Saturday's police slaying of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and by ensuing unrest that produced four days of demonstrations marred by looting and allegations of police brutality. The FBI is investigating Brown's death as well as other police conduct. TV images of heavily armed SWAT teams initiating violent confrontations in Ferguson — including arrests and tear-gassing of journalists and lawmakers — caused further political backlash. President Barack Obama on Thursday criticized police in Ferguson at the same time he assailed those who looted and rioted in the mostly Black suburb of St. Louis. The Phoenix vigil was serene by contrast. It took place on a sultry evening at Eastlake Park, a longtime hub for civil-rights rallies and African-American events. There was no visible police presence. Names of alleged brutality victims were recited aloud, followed by a moment of silence. Arizona State University law professor Lawrence Robinson led a prayer asking "that we unite and find a solution instead of just frustration." The Rev. Jarrett Maupin conducted a series of chants linking the slaying of Brown to social action in Arizona. "No justice in Ferguson, no peace. No justice in Phoenix, no peace. ... We need to know who shot the teen. We need to know who killed the dream." Some speakers said they empathize with people whose civil rights were violated because of racial profiling by police in Arizona, including practices of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office that led to court-ordered reforms. Many others described personal encounters with law enforcement. George Vick, 34, of Queen Creek, said he grew up in St. Louis County, Mo., and had personal experience with officers there. "These people terrorize the neighborhood," he said. "This is a first-hand account. My little brother is there right now in the street protesting. Something has to change. ... Next, it could be your kid, your sister, your father, your brother." South Phoenix resident Carolyn T. Lowery, an activist against police brutality for decades, told the crowd, "I'm 74 years old, but I'm still fighting the fight. And every time I look around there's a young Black man being shot. ... Let's stop police brutality before it stops us, OK?"
Another case of the cops murdering a person they pretend to "protect and serve" http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/14/phoenix-officer-involved-shooting-mental-health-abrk/14085607/ Phoenix police shoot, kill woman during mental-health call A Phoenix police sergeant shot and killed a 50-year-old woman while trying to serve a mental-health order at a west-side apartment Thursday afternoon, officials said. 12 News D.S. Woodfill, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:57 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 Officials: Police were called to pick up a mental health patient who had a weapon and was holding it in a threatening manner. She was shot and is in critical condition, according to police. A Phoenix police sergeant shot and killed a 50-year-old woman while trying to serve a mental-health order at a west-side apartment Thursday afternoon, officials said. Sgt. Tommy Thompson, a police spokesman, said officers had a court order to take Michelle Cusseaux to a mental-health facility. Officers went to the Graybriar Condominiums, 3810 N. Maryvale Parkway, to pick up Cusseaux at about 2:15 p.m. Thompson said caseworkers "were trying to get her to come in for treatment. It got to the point that she wouldn't do that. ... She had a weapon and was making threats." As police were opening the security door to her unit, Cusseaux was opening her front door with a claw hammer raised above her head, Thompson said. He said police were within an arm's length of Cusseaux and, feeling threatened, a patrol sergeant fired one shot from his gun, striking her in the chest. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Thompson said the Phoenix Police Department serves an average of 10 mental-health orders each day and that they are some of the most challenging and potentially dangerous tasks for officers. The sergeant, a 19-year police veteran, was placed on routine, paid administrative leave, Thompson said, adding that there will be an internal investigation.
The local BP cops in Arizona are just as bad as the murdering police thugs in Missouri. Got dark skin??? You must be a criminal. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2014/08/15/arizona-border-shootings-whistle-blower-cover/14096341/ Ousted CBP official: 7 fatal border shootings 'suspect' The Republic | azcentral.com 9:46 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 At least seven deaths at the hands of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents since 2010 were "highly suspect," and officials with the agency tried to alter the details of some of the fatal shootings, a former CBP internal-affairs official said in an exclusive interview with the Center for Investigative Reporting. "In nearly every instance, there was an effort by Border Patrol leadership to make a case to justify the shooting versus doing a genuine, appropriate review of the information and facts at hand," James Tomsheck told reporter Andrew Becker in a story published online Thursday. The interview appears to confirm a culture of secrecy and impunity at CBP uncovered by an Arizona Republic investigation in December. On-duty Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers have killed at least 45 people, including at least 15 Americans, since the beginning of 2005, according to The Republic's investigation. All but four of those deaths have taken place along the Southwestern border. In at least six cases agents fired across the international border to kill people, including three unarmed teenagers, in Mexico. RELATED: Killing of Ariz. drug suspect a test of new Border Patrol policy RELATED: Border Patrol traffic stops stir public backlash, site monitoring In none of those cases is any agent known to have been disciplined or suffered any civil or criminal repercussions. AZCENTRAL Customs and Border Patrol Use-of-Force Deaths Tomsheck was reassigned June 9 after serving eight years as the assistant commissioner for internal affairs at CBP and currently serves as the Border Patrol's executive director of national programs. Tomsheck, who filed a whistle-blower retaliation complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, said the agency views itself as above reproach. AZCENTRAL U.S. Border Force Map - Arizona Immigration Issues - azcentral.com "The Border Patrol has a self-identity of a paramilitary border security force and not that of a law enforcement organization," Tomsheck said. Department of Homeland Security and CBP officials declined requests for comment on the story from both The Republic and the Center for Investigative Reporting. Shawn Moran, spokesman for the union that represents border agents, told CIR agents use force only when necessary. Tomsheck, who couldn't be reached for further comment, said he believes the "job of Border Patrol agents is very dangerous ... but it's made more difficult and more dangerous because of their escalating use of force."
Cops don't think it's a big deal that they falsely arrested 1 person out of 160. I do!!!! Personaly I suspect it's a hell of a lot more then 1 person that was illegally stopped and falsely arrested or detained by the police. Sadly that good democratic idea of "innocent until proven guilty" has been replaced with a standard attitude of "you guilty until proven innocent" which seems to be the standard operating procedure of the police. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/08/15/salt-river-quits-gang-unit-outside-police-stop-tribal-exec/14096865/ Salt River quits gang unit after outside police stop tribal exec Jim Walsh, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:35 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 Less than three months after a Salt River tribal police officer was killed after being lured into a traffic stop with suspected gang members, the agency has pulled out of a gang task force formed in response to his murder. Salt River Police Chief Patrick Melvin said his decision was based on staffing issues in his department. But other members of the East Valley task force said they believe it was because of political pressure after a tribal executive was mistakenly followed by detectives on the task force. The task force has made about 160 arrests in the past five weeks. AZCENTRAL Records: Man had rifle trained on Salt River police officer before he got out of his car U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said that overall, there have been "several hundred'' gang arrests in recent months, including those in Phoenix and other Valley communities and that a dozen homicide suspects have been booked. Mesa Police Chief Frank Milstead learned of Melvin's decision in an Aug. 1 phone call in which Melvin told him to "stand down,'' that local police officers were no longer welcome on the reservation and that his agency was dropping out of the task force. Melvin said that he is missing about 20 percent of his staff and that his department is "regrouping." He said that he appreciates the task force taking on the gang members and that many of the arrests are in nearby cities, not just on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land. "We have supported the task force from the beginning. We had to interrupt our participation because of staffing,'' Melvin said, adding that the pullout is not permanent. "We're going to be back. We just have to regroup at this time." But in a series of e-mails obtained Thursday through the Arizona Public Records Law, Melvin reacted angrily when he learned that officers affiliated with the task force mistakenly followed the wrong car and briefly questioned a woman who they determined was not the suspect they were seeking to arrest on a warrant. The woman, Carla Banuelos, a tribal executive, sent him an e-mail July 31, complaining about the incident. "I'm concerned we may have given the other agencies (too) much free reign to conduct the stops/searches in a manner that maybe a little overboard, for lack of a better word,'' wrote Banuelos, who was questioned after she pulled into a church parking lot, according to the e-mails. "I think once this is said and done, we're going to be the ones that will have to answer for all of these very aggressive stops/searches/arrests.'' The same day he received Banuelos' e-mail, Melvin responded by writing an e-mail to Salt River Cmdr. Gregory Anderson, saying that "if there is another incident, this operation will be abruptly terminated!" "This can't happen again," Melvin wrote. "These are our Community Members. ... If we get the right person there usually is no problem. However, if we stop the 'wrong' person like we did in this situation, it's over.'' Anderson immediately inquired about the incident with Mesa police Lt. Mike Beaton, who wrote in response that officers were expecting to find a violent gang member in the car, but quickly backed down. Beaton said no guns were drawn, no one was detained and police merely checked the car to make sure the gangster wasn't present. Anderson sent a subsequent e-mail to Mesa police saying that Salt River was going to cease involvement with the task force because of staffing shortages. A U.S. Marshals Service official also notified members of the task force that Salt River was no longer participating and that a change in strategy was required. Statistics compiled by a Mesa police crime analyst found that 65 percent of those arrested were gang members, which she considered a low estimate, according to an Aug. 4 e-mail that tracked 144 arrests. She found the majority of those arrests, 66 percent, were in Mesa and 10 percent were on the reservation. Mesa Deputy Police Chief John Meza told The ArizonaRepublic that prior to the May 24 slaying of Salt River Officer Jair Cabrera, Mesa police were preparing an enforcement operation targeting Native American gang members who live and commit crimes in north Mesa. Meza said the incident that irritated the tribal executive was an honest mistake and was not excessive. "Out of 160 arrests so far, we stopped one wrong person," said Meza, who worked with or supervised gang squads for 10 years. Although other gangs in the Phoenix area have adopted a low-profile to avoid detection, sometimes even working together to commit more sophisticated crimes like other organized- crime organizations, Native American gangs still are acting off an old script, centering their criminality on intimidation and machismo, Meza said. "The gangs on the reservation, I say they are in a time warp,'' Meza said. "They are still wearing their colors, having confrontations with the police.'' Mesa police Cmdr. Deanna Cantrell, who supervises the gang unit, wrote Beaton an e-mail apologizing for Melvin's criticism. "I apologize to you for Melvin's comments and am saddened that his officers who are working incredibly hard to make their community safe are not receiving the kind of support they need and deserve,'' Cantrell wrote. Gonzales said he deputized all officers working on the task force for the purpose of targeting the gang members. He said local officers will go on the reservations only when a U.S. marshal is present in order to serve search warrants necessary to gain evidence against suspects arrested in nearby cities. "The protocol issues arise frequently when dealing with criminal activity on the Indian community,'' Gonzales said. "This task force has made hundreds of arrests of dangerous and violent gang members, and it will continue.'' Gonzales said the task force also is attacking the attitude of tribal gang members that they can commit felonies in nearby cities and escape to the reservation. "We wanted to make a point that you can't hide on the reservation," he said. Milstead, Tempe Police Chief Tom Ryff and others decided the operation was too important to cancel. "When you are dealing with a group of individuals who place no value on human life, they have to be removed from society,'' Milstead said. "We would be absolutely neglectful of our duties to do anything else.'' Milstead said crimes committed by Native American gangs can spill over to surrounding communities, including Mesa, Tempe and Scottsdale, which has a border within eyesight of the Cabrera murder scene. Cabrera was gunned down on May 24 near a popular reservation convenience store at Pima and Chapparal roads near the Scottsdale border. Investigators suspect the killing was orchestrated by a prison gang, according to police records,which further demonstrates the reach of the reservation gangs, he said. If police were to back off, "we are allowing our citizens and our officers to be at increased risk,'' Milstead said. "We are not going to allow political pressure to interfere with the enforcement efforts of the criminal activity of these gangs. If you want to protect criminals from law enforcement, I have no respect for you.'' Cabrera was the first Salt River officer killed in the line of duty. Maybe they should just make it illegal to breath. That why they could justify shooting anybody without jumping thru all these hoops. And maybe a double or triple felony for people that have dark skin to breath. That way the cops wouldn't look like racist *ssholes when they justify murdering people with dark skin. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/missouri-police-shooting-protests/14057435/ Highway Patrol seizes control amid Mo. protests Associated Press 5:34 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 FERGUSON, Mo. — The Missouri Highway Patrol seized control of a St. Louis suburb Thursday, stripping local police of their law-enforcement authority after four days of clashes between officers in riot gear and furious crowds protesting the death of an unarmed black teen shot by an officer. The intervention, ordered by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, came as President Barack Obama spoke publicly for the first time about Saturday's fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent violence that shocked the nation and threatened to tear apart Ferguson, a town that is nearly 70 percent black patrolled by a nearly all-white police force. Obama said there was "no excuse" for violence either against the police or by officers against peaceful protesters. Nixon's promise to ease the deep racial tensions was swiftly put to the test as demonstrators gathered again Thursday evening in the neighborhood where looters smashed and burned businesses on Sunday and police repeatedly fired tear gas and smoke bombs. After a particularly violent Wednesday night, Nixon said Thursday that local police are no longer in charge of the area, although they would still be present. He said Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who is black, would be in command. The change was meant to ensure "that we allow peaceful and appropriate protests, that we use force only when necessary, that we step back a little bit and let some of the energy be felt in this region appropriately," Nixon said. "Ferguson will not be defined as a community that was torn apart by violence but will be known as a community that pulled together to overcome it," the governor said at a news conference in the nearby community of Normandy. The governor was joined at a news conference by the white mayor of St. Louis and the region's four state representatives and the county executive, all of whom are black. Johnson said he grew up in the area and "it means a lot to me personally that we break this cycle of violence." He said he planned to keep heavily armored vehicles away from the scene and told his officers not to bring their tear gas masks. By late afternoon, Johnson was walking down the street with a group of more than 1,000 protesters as they chanted "Hands up, don't shoot," a reference to witness accounts that described Brown as having his hands in the air when the officer kept firing. Johnson planned to talk to the demonstrators throughout the night. "We're going to have some conversations with them and get an understanding of what's going on." Earlier Thursday, Obama appealed for "peace and calm" on the streets. "I know emotions are raw right now in Ferguson, and there are certainly passionate differences about what has happened," Obama said, speaking from the Massachusetts island where he's on a two-week vacation. "But let's remember that we're all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes the belief in equality under the law, respect for public order and the right to peaceful public protests." St. Louis County police spokesman Brian Schellman said officers on Wednesday night tossed tear gas to disperse a large crowd of protesters after some threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at officers. More than 10 people were arrested in Ferguson. "In talking to these guys, it is scary," Schellman said of officers on the front lines of the protest. "They hear gunshots going off, and they don't know where they're coming from." Residents in Ferguson have complained about the police response that began soon after Brown's shooting with the use of dogs for crowd control — a tactic that for some evoked civil-rights protests from a half-century ago. The county police took over, leading both the investigation of Brown's shooting and the subsequent attempts to keep the peace at the request of the smaller city. County Police Chief Jon Belmar said his officers have responded with "an incredible amount of restraint" as they've had rocks and bottles thrown at them, been shot at and had two dozen patrol vehicles destroyed. The city and county are also under criticism for refusing to release the name of the officer who shot Brown, citing threats against that officer and others. The hacker group Anonymous on Thursday released a name purported to be that of the officer, but the Ferguson police chief said later that the name was incorrect. Twitter quickly suspended the Anonymous account that posted the officer's purported identity and personal information. The site's code of conduct strictly forbids the publication of private and confidential information without permission. Like last year's Trayvon Martin shooting, social media brought international attention to a tragedy that might otherwise have been known only to the immediate community. Ferguson spawned a proliferation of hashtags and was the dominant subject Thursday on Twitter, Facebook and other sites. Journalists and protesters offered real-time pictures, videos and text reports, and the world responded, often in outrage. Joe Millitzer, web manager for KTV1 in St. Louis, said that a live stream from Ferguson had been viewed everywhere as far away as Australia and Colombia. Police have said Brown was shot after an officer encountered him and another man on the street. They say one of the men pushed the officer into his squad car, then physically assaulted him in the vehicle and struggled with the officer over the officer's weapon. At least one shot was fired inside the car. The struggle then spilled onto the street, where Brown was shot multiple times. The officer involved was injured, with one side of his face swollen, Jackson said. Dorian Johnson, who says he was with Brown when the shooting happened, has told a much different story. He has told reporters that the officer ordered them out of the street, then grabbed his friend's neck and tried to pull him into the car before brandishing his weapon and firing. He says Brown started to run and the officer pursued him, firing multiple times. Attorney General Eric Holder has said federal investigators have interviewed eyewitnesses to the shooting. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said federal authorities have interviewed Johnson. Holder spoke by telephone Thursday with Brown's family to offer condolences and to tell them that the Justice Department was committed to a full and independent investigation.
Kind of reminds me of the Vietnam war when the generals told us that they had to "destroy the village to save the village". That's from a newsreel I once saw where they were burning down a Vietnamese village to allegedly save it from the Viet Cong. The American military propaganda master supervising the war crime gave reporters the above line of "destroying the village to save the village". http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/08/14/ferguson-police-pour-gasoline-fire/14085795/ Ferguson lesson: We need to talk about race Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 5:15 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 Our View: It's time to understand and overcome the community disenfranchisement and police arrogance that set Ferguson on fire. When Ferguson, Mo., exploded, nobody was really surprised. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't care. The scenes of an over-amped police force moving against a grieving city with tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades and smoke bombs showed why residents were so quick to suspect police brutality when an unarmed Black teen was shot. There is no trust between the cops and the community. Racial profiling is a common complaint. Police are supposed to defuse violent situations. In Ferguson, they escalated it. When cops arrest reporters in a quiet fast-food restaurant, you know things are out of control. Two reporters were arrested inside of a McDonald's when police clad in riot gear tried to clear the premises. The looting that followed the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown was wrong, too. There is no excuse. But as syndicated columnist Leonard J. Pitts Jr. wrote, rioting can also be "a scream of inchoate rage." The nation knows the name of Treyvon Martin, but the Black community knows a much longer list of young Black men whose deaths at the hands of law enforcement smack of racism. Too little is known about Brown's shooting to assign blame. Yet the reaction from predominately African-American Ferguson should not have been a surprise to the predominantly White local police. Police, who were so sensitive about releasing the name of the police officer who shot Brown, should have been ready to offer the community something better than brute force. Community members should have used something more creative than violence. On the fourth consecutive night of protesting and rallying in Ferguson, Mo., police used tear gas to disperse crowds. KSDK.com There were plenty of mistakes. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't care. Race is never fun to talk about. But we all need to talk. As a nation, we need to understand and overcome the kind of community disenfranchisement and law enforcement arrogance that set Ferguson on fire.
When it comes to polluting the environment and not cleaning it up the government has a far worse track record then private citizens or corporations. The Feds say it's going to take 100 years to clean up this mess Uncle Sam created during WWII. Personally I doubt if Uncle Sam will live up to his promise. In reality, Uncle Sam will screw the Indians, like Uncle Sam has always done. http://www.azcentral.com/longform/news/arizona/investigations/2014/08/06/uranium-mining-navajo-reservation-cleanup-radioactive-waste/13680399/ Uranium-mine cleanup on Navajo Reservation could take 100 years CHURCH ROCK, N.M. -- Twin plateaus of radioactive rock and dirt stand as monuments to the daunting and expensive cleanup ahead. The piles from two former uranium mines — Northeast Church Rock and Quivira — rose steadily on opposite sides of Red Water Pond Road until the Cold War's final decade, and now stand as silent hulks over Navajo homes and hogans up the valley. The federal government is working with two companies to finalize a plan to remove the waste and dispose of it a few miles down a state highway, consolidating it with another pile of radioactive mill waste farther from homes. Estimated price: $131 million. These piles are from just two of 521 old uranium mines — one for every 52 square miles — afflicting Navajo lands, not counting hundreds more sites with related contamination. And the Northeast Church Rock and Quivira piles are among only a few dozen for which the government can determine ownership. "It's going to take 100 years," lamented Lillie Lane, Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency outreach coordinator. The cost is too high and tribal EPA staffing too low to plan and execute quick action, she said. The office working on cleanup has 10 employees but needs 50, she said. The tribe asked for 25 full-time appointments from federal funds during a congressional hearing in 2007, but has not received them. Likewise, the federal purse isn't up to the task. The entire budget for 2008-12 reservation cleanups was only $110 million, less than what it will eventually cost to clean up just these two mines. "This whole thing is huge," Lane said. "It's homes. It's mines. It's our old dump site in Tuba City." America's legacy of uranium extraction and toxic abandonment remains a bitter betrayal to Navajos here, on their reservation's eastern side, and across thousands of square miles through northern Arizona to Cameron on the west. Decades after the mines and mills served their purpose, hundreds remain as health threats, many with no clear path to cleanup. Some mines left heaps of radioactive waste that sloughs or blows toward homes. Others were pits that have since been bulldozed over with a temporary soil covering. Still others were shafts that have been plugged but may still contaminate groundwater. With 521 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, cleanup could take decades or more and cost billions of dollars. So far just one abandoned uranium mine has been cleaned up. At Church Rock, at least, there is a plan. The U.S. Department of Justice this spring announced a $5.15 billion settlement for nationwide environmental cleanups — the largest in U.S. history. It included about $1 billion to clean up 49 mine sites on Navajo lands, with $87 million to remove the Quivira waste. The settlement from Anadarko Petroleum Co. covers hazards left by Kerr-McGee Corp., which Anadarko purchased in 2006. Anadarko officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Northeast Church Rock pile across the road, owned by General Electric since its acquisition of United Nuclear Corp., will cost $44 million to move up the road to an existing tailings dump on private land nearer the spired sandstone tower that gives Church Rock its name. Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards will roll out on trucks from each. For perspective, a hundred thousand yards of dirt would fill 5,000 "belly dump" truck trailers. If those trailers were placed end to end, they would extend nearly 38 miles. The government will pay to move residents to temporary housing for up to five years to isolate them from any radioactivity that is kicked up. Then they will monitor to ensure soils around the homes are clean. GE argued that the government shared responsibility because the uranium was mined for weapons, and in a 2012 consent decree, the government agreed to reimburse the company about a third of the cost. "GE and UNC are committed to continue to work cooperatively with the U.S. government, the EPA, Navajo Nation, the state of New Mexico, and local residents to carry out interim cleanups and reach agreement on the remedy for the mine," the company said in a written statement to The Arizona Republic. Uranium Part 3 Ch 2 resize latest Around 100 people march around 3 miles during the Uranium Legacy Remembrance and Action Day in Church Rock, N.M., on the Navajo Reservation on July 19, 2014. The event commemorated when a dam broke near a uranium mine. causing a major uranium spill into the Rio Puerco river. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic) An arduous task The Environmental Protection Agency has completed just one mine cleanup on the reservation. Hundreds more mines have no cleanup dollars or plans. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has completed just one mine cleanup on the reservation, and the logistical challenges at that site on the Arizona-Utah state line illustrate the enormousness of the task ahead. Skyline Mine, in Monument Valley, was a uranium seam atop an 800-foot mesa requiring a cable tram for ore removal. After years of neglect, the waste that spilled down the cliff during rainstorms and that piled around former truck-loading areas on the valley floor remained hazardous to occupants of nearby homes. "It was spreading out," EPA cleanup coordinator Jason Musante said, "basically by the flow of water." His team rebuilt the tram, this time with the intent of returning contaminated rock and soil to the mesa top for burial in a polyethylene-lined, covered dump. The tribe prefers removal of wastes from its land, but EPA chose on-site isolation to avoid trucking loads through the nearby Navajo community of Oljato, Utah. Musante also directed blasting and widening of a Jeep trail on the back of the mesa, to fit dump trucks and heavy loaders needed for the project. Twenty people worked the cleanup, using three dump trucks and several excavators. Needing water for dust control, they filled a tank at a well 5 miles away on the valley floor, then trucked 3,000 gallons at a time to another tank from which they pumped it in a new pipeline up the mesa. The $8 million cleanup started in November 2010 and wrapped up in October 2011. That was just one mine, with 30,000 cubic yards of waste. GE's Northeast Church Rock Mine, one of the biggest cleanups facing the reservation, contains 130,000 cubic yards waiting to be trucked away— a volume that would fill nearly 6,500 belly dump trailers. Hundreds more mines have no cleanup dollars or plans. The Anadarko fund covers only 49 of the abandoned mines on the reservation. Another $3 billion or $4 billion likely will be needed, said Dave Taylor, an attorney with the Navajo Department of Justice. "What we've got is we've got a good start," he said. But, he later added, "All we got is a good start." One of the biggest problems is that out of 521 mines, the government only knows who is responsible for 78 of them. The EPA is working to track down more, and to reach more cleanup settlements. But EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld said it's likely that the paper trail on some mines won't lead to companies that can pay for cleanup. More cash will be needed, perhaps using "legal theories" targeting uranium's "end users." The end user of most of this uranium was the national nuclear-weapons program, a supply complex that the Department of Energy inherited when it was established. "Our goal is to make sure that we do find responsible parties for all of them," Blumenfeld said. Essentially, whatever cleanup costs the responsible parties don't pay for would have to be paid by federal funds approved by Congress, or possibly, in a scenario raised by Blumenfeld, from a lawsuit requiring the Energy Department to pay. The EPA would administer the cleanup. Our goal is to make sure that we do find responsible parties for all of them. Jared Blumenfeld, EPA regional administrator An Energy Department spokeswoman said the agency could not comment. An EPA spokeswoman said in an e-mail that the agency asked for Energy Department help with the highest-priority mines but learned that the department lacked congressional budget authority. The cleanup also affects the neighboring Hopi Tribe, whose boundary is close to the contaminated Tuba City dump. That dump, along with wastes from an old Tuba City uranium mill, threatens groundwater flowing into the Hopi Reservation. Federal and tribal officials are working on plans to contain or remove it so the plume won't reach drinking wells. The EPA is working under its second five-year cleanup plan initiated since 2008. It identified 43 sites, including those in Church Rock, as the top priorities, partly because they're near homes. An arc of mines around the western village of Cameron also made the list. Only a couple of these 43 are covered by the Anadarko settlement, and the rest will cost another $700 million to $1 billion in all, Blumenfeld estimated. It means more settlements are needed before work starts. Blumenfeld said he expects actual waste removal will begin on some of the priority sites within five years, but not on all. First, scientists and engineers must determine each site's best and safest strategy, whether that means total removal to a central repository or something else. He acknowledged that the pace of progress is frustrating. "We want to get it right," he said. "At the end, we want to be able to guarantee a community like Cameron that when we say it's cleaned up, it is cleaned up." Uranium Part 3 Ch 3 Lillie Lane, the public-information officer for the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, uses her fleece to cover her face as high winds pick up dust by abandoned uranium mines at Church Rock, N.M., on the Navajo Reservation. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic) 'They're playing with us' Generations of Navajos are left wondering how the radiation has tainted their chromosomes. Even where there is a plan, Navajos have grown skeptical of government or corporate work progressing. "Like a snail," said Annie Benally, a 56-year-old neighbor of the Church Rock mines. She had stopped to chat with Lane and Chandra Manandhar as the two Navajo Nation environmental officials were touring mine sites. The EPA isn't serious, she told them. "They just come out and check whether we're still here and whether we're glowing in the dark yet," she said. Manandhar, a senior environmental engineer for the tribe, told her the EPA initially thought waste removal would start this year, but now it's looking like 2018. "They're playing with us. We've been doing this since 2007," Benally said, recalling being forced to move into Gallup motels when crews scraped away tainted soils that had blown onto yards. "I know it'll never be back to what it was," she said, "but give us back our ways of life, our ways of harmony. Right now we're stressed out. We see it in our kids. They're acting up in a way they shouldn't because their home is disturbed." Lane stood holding her fleece jacket's collar over her mouth and nose, screening dust that blew off the piles. Generations of Navajos are left wondering how the radiation has tainted their chromosomes, she said. "I think we are still in the infant stages of seeing what the impacts are on the gene pool of the Navajo people," Lane said. Uranium Part 3 Ch 3 small pic A geiger counter is used to measure radiation at an abandoned uranium mine in Cameron. Readings on the geiger counter were many times above background readings. There are 521 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic) Cleanup took on new urgency after a 2007 U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing in Washington. Then-Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who is retiring this year, called the Navajos' plight "a modern American tragedy." This summer, he said he is pleased with the government's attention to the problem since, though the pace remains frustrating. If officials can't identify all of the companies who mined the ore, he said, then the government should start spending to clean up the most dangerous sites. "I refuse to accept the idea that we're just going to say we can't afford it," Waxman said. "We live in the richest country in the history of the world. We've got to make sure that we take care of people who are suffering from our actions of the past." The 2007 hearing resulted in the 2008 five-year plan that spent $110 million in federal funds and $17 million from mining companies. More than a fifth of that money went to delivering clean water to nearly 5,000 reservation residents who had been drinking tainted water. Several million dollars also went to removing mill-tainted dirt from Tuba City and trucking it to a Colorado dump, and to scanning and replacing contaminated homes. The EPA also directed removal of more than 100,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil around the Church Rock sites, and completed the Skyline cleanup. While much of the reservation's unwanted waste languishes, to the north, the Energy Department already has moved nearly 7 million tons of uranium from the banks of the Colorado River at Moab, Utah, by train to an engineered and covered dump on the desert. That cleanup, near the entrance to Arches National Park, is expected to top $1 billion on its own. It sends a 34-car train full of tailings north four days a week. When the U.S. needed Navajos to mine uranium for atomic bombs, they went willingly. Decades later, the Navajo Reservation is dotted with signs like this one posted by the Environmental Protection Agency in Church Rock, N.M. There are 521 abandoned uranium mines on the reservations. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic) Taylor, the Navajo Nation attorney working on cleanup issues, suggested it's happening faster there because the Colorado supplies water to Los Angeles, a political force. Navajos, it seems, have less clout. "We think that's a horrible environmental-justice issue," he said. Unlike the Moab dump, where solid shale 2,400 feet deep shields the waste from groundwater, the plan at Church Rock is to pile waste onto a tailings heap that threatens both groundwater and downstream communities during heavy rains, said Paul Robinson, research director for the Southwest Research and Information Center, an environmental and public-health group in Albuquerque. The Moab cleanup occurred because Utah's congressional delegation demanded it, he said. White leaders also demanded and, by the 1990s, got full removal of tailings piles from Durango and Grand Junction, Colo., and from South Salt Lake, Utah, he said. Most of the reservation's waste remains where it was dug or milled. "There's science and then there's politics," Robinson said. One "unfortunate silver lining" from mining is that the cleanup will provide jobs on Navajo land, said Blumenfeld, the U.S. EPA official. For the 43 priority projects alone, he said, he expects there will be 1,000 positions. The EPA has invested in a hazardous-materials training program in Albuquerque to prepare Navajos for the work. "My personal goal is to make sure as many of these jobs go to the (Navajo) nation as possible," he said. Uranium Part 3 Ch 4 Peterson Bell, 58, who has diabetes, arthritis and vision impairment, looks on as his grandson, Kravin Keyanna, 8, plays with a water gun at their home, which is surrounded by abandoned uranium mines in Church Rock, N.M., on the Navajo Reservation. Bell worked these uranium mines from 1974 through 1982. Bell's exposure to uranium could likely be responsible for his health issues. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic) The next generation “This is the next generation. Most of these young kids have asthma,” Church Rock resident Peterson Bell said. At Church Rock this spring, 58-year-old Peterson Bell sat on a folding chair outside his shack gazing east into the sun's reflection off the Quivira waste pile. A great-nephew who he considers his grandson, Kravin, ran circles around him and the home, randomly squeezing a squirt pistol at skittering sheep, or at unseen foes on the desert. He was one of three siblings living in Bell's little house, along with their parents. The youngest, a week-old girl, rested in her mother's arms inside Bell's little house. "This is the next generation," he said, referring not just to his family but to kids who hop the school bus up and down the road. "Most of these young kids have asthma." He worked in the mine within view of his doorstep, as a cager or elevator man from 1974 to 1982. "We went in there for the money," he said while seated in the same outdoor chair on another day this spring, "because it was the only place with money coming out of it." He's unsure whether the radiation contributed to his diabetes. At any rate, the federal law that provides compensation to early miners has a 1971 cutoff date, so his tenure isn't covered. "They sweep it under the rug," Bell said, complaining that all these years later the mess is still across the road from him. "It's Native Americans; that's what the White man does. They came in and desecrated our home." The low hum of ground-sucking vacuum pipes underlay his speech with non-stop white noise. It came from a remediation project that General Electric installed to vent diesel that United Nuclear Corp. spilled in the soil while stacking up a second 1980s mesa of uranium tailings just around the toe of a butte. Bell doubts he'll live to see the end. "They said they'd do a five-year plan, but what did they do?" he said. "Maybe it's up to the young kids to take over." If Navajo environmental official Lillie Lane is right, most of the kids won't live to see the end, either.
Rieder: Stop interfering with news media in Ferguson Sadly the police are are war with any American who thinks she or he has "Constitutional Rights" and one of the ways to win that war is to muzzle the media. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2014/08/14/mistreatment-of-press-in-ferguson/14049985/ Rieder: Stop interfering with news media in Ferguson Rem Rieder, USA TODAY 4:53 p.m. EDT August 14, 2014 Freedom of the press is under siege in Ferguson, Mo. Two reporters, one from The Washington Post and one from The Huffington Post, told of being roughed up and apprehended briefly for nothing more than literally recharging their batteries at a McDonald's. They weren't at a crime scene. They weren't in the way of the police. They identified themselves as reporters. But police saw fit to order them out of the McDonald's, and when they didn't move quickly enough for the officers' taste, they were arrested. That's not all. Police fired tear gas at journalists from the cable news channel Al Jazeera America. Al Jazeera said its staffers were easily identifiable as working journalists, and that police continued to fire even after they shouted "press." After the journalists fled, officers took down their television lights. As police patrolled the streets of Ferguson, Missouri on Wednesday night, journalists got caught in the cross fire. This raw video shows an Al Jazeera America crew running for cover after a tear gas canister exploded in front of them. VPC A photojournalist with St. Louis television station KSDK, filming an altercation in which the police were involved, had his camera hit by a "bean bag round" fired from a rifle. KSDK journalists say they were never told to leave the area. Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, has been gripped by tension since an 18-year-old African American named Michael Brown was fatally shot on Saturday afternoon. Protests have engulfed the majority black suburb, and police have responded in a very aggressive fashion. USATODAY Mo. governor to visit Ferguson after 4 nights of clashes It's vitally important that Americans receive as richly detailed a picture as possible of what is happening in this fraught situation. To do that, they need journalists on the scene to chronicle the events. But the journalists can't do their jobs if they are harassed and obstructed by the police. Make no make mistake, this isn't just a problem for journalists. The First Amendment is a critical element of American democracy. The American people suffer when it is trampled. To their credit, journalism organizations are fighting back. Mike Cavender, president of the Radio Television Digital News Association, wrote a letter to Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson decrying the treatment of The Washington Post's Wesley Lowery and The Huffington Post's Ryan Reilly. He said such treatment of journalists was "unconscionable and must be stopped immediately." USATODAY Hands up: Howard University photo of students in solidarity goes viral "The journalistic community is demanding that you, other command officials and all law enforcement officers involved in this continuing situation respect the rights of reporters and other journalists to provide news coverage in Ferguson so long as they operate legally -- which these two reporters were doing," Cavender wrote. "Harassment and abuse of anyone in a similar situation cannot be accepted and must not be tolerated by you and others charged with maintaining the peace and security in Ferguson." Said National Press Club President Myron Belkind, "In the United States, it is not acceptable to prevent reporters from doing their jobs, let alone to knock them around and throw them in jail and then release them as if nothing happened." Al Jazeera America said in a statement that it was "stunned by this egregious assault on freedom of the press that was clearly intended to have a chilling effect on our ability to cover this important story." USATODAY Tweet inspires hundreds of vigils with #NMOS14 Adding some silliness to a quite serious situation, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, co-host of Morning Joe, said Lowery and Reilly should have just done exactly what police told them to do and that the journalists simply "want to get on TV." We'll give the last word to Lowery. The Post journalist told CNN's Kate Bolduan, "I would invite Joe Scarborough to come down to Ferguson and get out of 30 Rock where he's sitting and sipping his Starbucks smugly."
Local police involved in 400 killings per year If you are one of those Americans who thinks you have "Constitutional Rights", you are part of the problem. And if you are one of those American's with "dark skin" who thinks you have "Constitutional Rights" that applies doubly to you. Well sadly that's how the cops seem to feel. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/ Local police involved in 400 killings per year USA TODAY investigative reporter Brad Heath explains findings behind police shootings. Kevin Johnson, Meghan Hoyer and Brad Heath , USA TODAY 9:41 a.m. EDT August 15, 2014 WASHINGTON — Nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI. On average, there were 96 such incidents among at least 400 police killings each year that were reported to the FBI by local police. The numbers appear to show that the shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., last Saturday was not an isolated event in American policing. The reports show that 18% of the blacks killed during those seven years were under age 21, compared to 8.7% of whites. The victim in Ferguson was 18-year-old Michael Brown. Police have yet to identify the officer who shot him; witnesses have said the officer was white. While the racial analysis is striking, the database it's based on has been long considered flawed and largely incomplete. The killings are self-reported by law enforcement and not all police departments participate so the database undercounts the actual number of deaths. Plus, the numbers are not audited after they are submitted to the FBI and the statistics on "justifiable" homicides have conflicted with independent measures of fatalities at the hands of police. USATODAY Police in Ferguson ignite debate about military tactics About 750 agencies contribute to the database, a fraction of the 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. University of South Carolina criminologist Geoff Alpert, who has long studied police use of deadly force, said the FBI's limited database underscores a gaping hole in the nation's understanding of how often local police take a life on America's streets — and under what circumstances. ''There is no national database for this type of information, and that is so crazy," said Alpert. "We've been trying for years, but nobody wanted to fund it and the (police) departments didn't want it. They were concerned with their image and liability. They don't want to bother with it.'' Alpert said the database can confirm that a death has occurred but is good for little else. "I've looked at records in hundreds of departments,'' Alpert said, "and it is very rare that you find someone saying, 'Oh, gosh, we used excessive force.' In 98.9% of the cases, they are stamped as justified and sent along.'' Despite those flaws, the FBI records remain the most complete nationwide accounting of people killed by the police. The International Association of Chiefs of Police, the nation's largest group of police officials, has maintained that police use of force is rare. Citing data gathered by the Bureau of Justices Statistics in 2008, the IACP said less than 2% of the 40 million people who had contact with police reported the use of force or threatened use of force. "In large part, the public perception of police use of force is framed and influenced by the media depictions which present unrealistic and often outlandish representations of law enforcement and the policing profession,'' the group said in a 2012 report. And in a written statement Thursday, IACP President Yost Zakhary said the group "remains committed to studying police use of force issues.'' But University of Nebraska criminologist Samuel Walker, who has conducted extensive research on police force issues, called the lack of a national repository tracking such incidents a "major failure'' of the criminal justice system. That doesn't mean that all incidents have escaped scrutiny. In addition to federal and state prosecutions of individual officers, seven U.S. police departments have been the subject of reviews by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in the wake of fatal police shootings since 2010, according to Justice records. Albuquerque and New Orleans represented the most egregious cases during that time, while separate reviews have involved Puerto Rico, Portland, Miami, Seattle and Newark. USATODAY Timeline: The Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo. USATODAY Mo. governor to visit Ferguson after 4 nights of clashes Earlier this year, street protests erupted in Albuquerque following the police shooting death of James Boyd, a homeless man who had a history of violent outbursts and mental instability. A month later, the Justice Department issued a scathing review of the local police department, concluding that of 20 fatal shootings resulting in death between 2009 and 2012, a "majority ... were unconstitutional.'' "I'll be the first one to say that they put their life on the line every day, but they're killing innocent people and kids," said Christal Kennerson, whose nephew was shot and killed by an Albuquerque police officer in 2012. XXX_AP120329096644 Kendrec McDade's cousin, Kaysa McDade, left, gets a kiss from her niece, Ryan McDade, 5, as the family mourns Kendrec McDade, a 19-year-old Citrus College student at a memorial in Pasadena, Calif. on Thursday, March 29, 2012. McDade was shot by police after being chased and making a move, reaching into his waistband, according to police. The police were chasing McDade, believing him to be one of two thiefs who had just robbed Oscar Carrillo, who had told police that McDade was armed.(Photo: Damian Dovarganes ASSOCIATED PRESS) Her nephew, Daniel Tillison, 31, was unarmed at the time. Police said the officer was responding to an anonymous report of someone selling stolen stereo parts. An investigation by local prosecutors found that when the officer approached him, Tillison put his car in gear and tried to drive away, colliding with the officer's patrol car. The officer, Martin Smith, said he saw Tillison holding a black object; fearing that it was a gun, he shot Tillison once, killing him. Prosecutors concluded that the shooting was justified. Kennerson said nothing her nephew had done justified killing him. "Just because my nephew wasn't an angel didn't mean he needed to die," she said. An Austin police officer shot Billie Mercer's unarmed son in the back of the neck last year. The oldest of his three children, now 13, still asks when he'll be able to see his father again, she said. "I already feel like I have a hole in my heart, and to see my grandkids missing him like that," she said, going quiet for a moment. "That detective, he just doesn't know what he did to our family." Tinoris Williams (left) with his daughter, Dejeh Williams. Tinoris Williams was shot to death by a PBSO deputy during an incident on Orleans Court earlier this week. (Allen Eyestone / The Palm Beach Post) ORG XMIT: 1113308 [Via MerlinFTP Drop](Photo: Allen Eyestone, The Palm Beach Post) Mercer's son, Larry Jackson, Jr., was killed after he tried to open the door of an Austin bank that had been robbed earlier that day. A detective, Charles Kleinert, tried to question him, but Jackson fled. Kleinert — who at one point got a ride from a passerby — pursued him under a nearby bridge, where he shot Jackson in the back of the neck. A grand jury indicted Kleinert on a manslaughter charge in May. It charged that Kleinert was trying to strike Jackson while he was holding his gun, "recklessly" causing his death. Jackson died under the bridge. Watching news reports of other police shootings "hurts, and something needs to be done about it. The police are protecting their own when they know they're wrong," Mercer said. Beyond the work of Justice's Civil Rights Division, which is largely focused on individual agencies, Walker said a national repository of police deadly force cases is needed to define the scope of the problem for the public. "The reason there isn't one is because the information is often embarrassing for police departments,'' Walker said. "People should be able to log into a database and identify where their own department stands on this,'' he said, adding that the information supplied annually to the FBI on police officers who are killed or assaulted in the line of duty is far more detailed. The IACP was part of project launched in 1996 to collect police use-of-force information across the nation. That effort was shutdown in 2001 when federal funding expired. Contributing: Mark Hannan
Those tank and machine guns aren't there to protect us from criminals. Those tank and machine guns are there to protect the police from us. And this Ferguson incident is a perfect example of why the Founders gave us the 2nd Amendment to protect us from government tyrants. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/opinion/ferguson-shows-the-risks-of-militarized-policing.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region Get the Military Off of Main Street Ferguson Shows the Risks of Militarized Policing By ELIZABETH R. BEAVERS and MICHAEL SHANKAUG. 14, 2014 WASHINGTON — FERGUSON, Mo., has become a virtual war zone. In the wake of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, outsize armored vehicles have lined streets and tear gas has filled the air. Officers dressed in camouflage uniforms from Ferguson’s 53-person police force have pointed M-16s at the very citizens they are sworn to protect and serve. The police response has shocked America. The escalating tension in this town of 21,200 people between a largely white police department and a majority African-American community is a central part of the crisis, but the militarization of the police is a dimension of the story that has national implications. Ferguson’s police force got equipped this way thanks to the Pentagon, and it’s happening all over the country. The Department of Defense provides military-grade weapons and equipment to local law enforcement agencies through the 1033 program, enacted by Congress in 1997 to expand the practice of dispensing extra military gear. Due to the defense industry’s bloated contracts, there is a huge surplus. To date, the Pentagon has donated military equipment worth more than $4 billion to local law enforcement agencies. And the giving goes on, to police forces in all 50 states in the union. Ferguson’s police department is just one recipient; small towns all over America are now the proud owners of “MRAP” armored vehicles. The largess has gotten so out of hand that a congressman, Hank C. Johnson, is introducing a bill to block the 1033 handouts. Whereas the Department of Defense hands over weapons directly, the Department of Homeland Security provides funding for arms. It has distributed more than $34 billion through “terrorism grants,” enabling local police departments to acquire such absurd items as a surveillance drone and an Army tank. For a police department like Ferguson’s, the path to becoming a paramilitary force is a short one. After loading up with free military gear, it is no surprise that law enforcement agents want to use it. In fact, the 1033 program’s regulations require that the police use what they receive within one year. In the absence of extreme violence or actual terrorist threat, what happens — as the American Civil Liberties Union has documented — is that the equipment and weapons are used by SWAT teams in routine situations, such as low-level drug raids or the execution of search warrants. As Ferguson shows, this militarizing of routine police work exacerbates tensions and increases the likelihood of disorder. This, in turn, appears to justify a militarized police response, and so the cycle continues. The federal government can stop this increased militarization at its source. The Pentagon must end its transfer of military-grade weapons through the 1033 program. And the Department of Homeland Security should stop handing out the terrorism grants. The ease with which police departments can avail themselves of Homeland Security funding for enormous caches of weapons and ammunition in the name of counterterrorism is deeply disconcerting. Veteran police chiefs who have served on the front lines of America’s biggest police forces are voicing their concern. Norman H. Stamper, the former police chief of Seattle, has written with regret about the military-style tactics employed during the protests against the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle; he now advocates “an authentic partnership in policing the city,” involving rank-and-file officers, civilian employees and community representatives. Militarizing our police officers does not have to be the first response to violence. Alternatives are available. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s statement Thursday highlighting resources like the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services office is welcome. This is where the government should be investing — instead of grants for guns. Police militarization is a growing national threat. If the federal government doesn’t act to stop it, the future of law enforcement everywhere will look a lot like Ferguson. Elizabeth R. Beavers is the legislative associate for militarism and civil liberties, and Michael Shank is the associate director for legislative affairs, at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Darren Wilson Is Identified as Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Teenager in Ferguson, Mo. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/us/darren-wilson-identified-as-officer-in-fatal-shooting-in-ferguson-missouri.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well Darren Wilson Is Identified as Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Teenager in Ferguson, Mo. By ALAN BLINDER and TIMOTHY WILLIAMSAUG. 15, 2014 FERGUSON, Mo. — The police in Ferguson broke their weeklong silence on Friday and identified the officer involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager. The Ferguson police chief, Thomas Jackson, said the officer was Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of the force who had no disciplinary actions taken against him. Chief Jackson said Mr. Wilson had been alerted to a robbery at a convenience store shortly before the encounter with the teenager, Michael Brown, 18, who was walking home from a store on Saturday when he was shot. Mr. Brown’s death had ignited several days of protests that have been quashed by police officers shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at groups of demonstrators. Earlier, Chief Jackson said the authorities thought that it was an appropriate time to identify the officer. Continue reading the main story Related in Opinion Editorial: Abusive Police Tactics in Ferguson Will Only Delay JusticeAUG. 14, 2014 Op-Ed Contributors: Ferguson Shows the Risks of Militarized PolicingAUG. 14, 2014 A police sharpshooter was part of the law enforcement contingent forming a blockade against demonstrators on Tuesday. Room for Debate: Protests and Police MilitarizationAUG. 14, 2014 “A lot of the stakeholders had a big meeting conversation yesterday, and then yesterday evening,” Chief Jackson told a St. Louis television station, “and we made the determination that today is the day.” Photo Security camera video released by the Ferguson, Mo., police of a convenience store robbery shortly before Michael Brown was fatally shot. Credit Ferguson Missouri Police Department Continue reading the main story Related Coverage New Tack on Unrest Eases Tension in MissouriAUG. 14, 2014 A police sharpshooter was part of the law enforcement contingent forming a blockade against demonstrators on Tuesday. In Wake of Clashes, Calls to Demilitarize PoliceAUG. 14, 2014 Clockwise from top left, the police detained a protester in Ferguson, Mo.; a police dog attacked a civil rights demonstrator in Birmingham, Ala., in May 1963; heavily armed members of the Alabama Highway Patrol in Birmingham in 1963; police officers stood guard outside a vandalized gas station and convenience store in Ferguson. Ferguson Images Evoke Civil Rights Era and Changing Visual PerceptionsAUG. 14, 2014 video Video: Obama Calls for Peace in FergusonAUG. 14, 2014 video Video: Standoff in FergusonAUG. 14, 2014 Gov. Jay Nixon, right, prayed on Thursday with St. Louis clergy members in Florissant, Mo. For Missouri Governor, Test at an Uneasy TimeAUG. 14, 2014 Michael Brown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, while mourning their son, asked supporters to remain peaceful. interactive Timeline: The Shooting of a Missouri TeenagerAUG. 12, 2014 Influential Republicans including Senator Rand Paul expressed concern about the crackdown by the police in Ferguson, Mo. Missouri Unrest Leaves the Right Torn Over Views on Law vs. OrderAUG. 14, 2014 Buttons urge “Justice for Michael Brown.” In Operation Ferguson, online activists hope to reveal information about his death. Anonymous Hackers’ Efforts to Identify Ferguson Police Officer Create TurmoilAUG. 14, 2014 “Nothing specific went into that decision, but we feel that there’s a certain calm,” he said. “There’s a huge outcry from the community.” Photo Part of the incident report of the convenience store robbery released Friday by the Ferguson Police Department. Credit Ferguson Missouri Police Department The initial refusal of Chief Jackson to reveal the officer’s name had galvanized demonstrators and prompted civil rights groups to go to court to force its release. Chief Jackson had said that his unwillingness to disclose the name had been based on safety concerns after death threats against the officer and his family were posted on social media. Photo Another page of the incident report. Credit Ferguson Police Department Continue reading the main story Recent Comments Kay 7 minutes ago The depth of white fear of black behavior is the result of a lifetime of subconscious messages of 'them and us' and it surfaces in countless... Dan Stackhouse 7 minutes ago Another thing strikes me about this release of the cop's identity: it was probably pushed forward by the Anonymous group's releasing the... Cartman 7 minutes ago And soooooo....the story begins to unravel and our innocent young man had committed a "strong arm" robbery just minutes before. Face meet... See All Comments Write a comment On Thursday, Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the Missouri Highway Patrol to take control of security and crowd control in Ferguson, replacing the St. Louis County Police Department, which has been criticized for its heavy-handed tactics against protesters. Wednesday night’s protests ended with the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. Continue reading the main story Timeline: The Shooting of a Missouri Teenager The difference in tactics and tone was apparent almost immediately here. On Thursday night, the armored vehicles and police cars were gone, and the atmosphere was celebratory. A street barricaded on previous nights was filled with slow-moving cars blasting their horns. There were few signs of police officers, let alone a forceful response. Continue reading the main story Graphic: Sites of Protests and Police Confrontation in Ferguson Clashes between the heavily armed police officers and furious protesters in Ferguson have defined the aftermath of Mr. Brown’s death on Saturday, and the latest moves came as federal and state officials scrambled to quell the growing crisis. Alarm had been rising across the country at images of a mostly white police force, in a predominantly African-American community, aiming military-style weapons at protesters. Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, the highway patrol official appointed by the governor to take over the response, immediately signaled a change in approach. Captain Johnson told reporters he had ordered troopers to remove their tear-gas masks, and in the early evening he accompanied several groups of protesters through the streets, clasping hands, listening to stories and marching alongside them. “We’re just starting today anew. We’re starting a new partnership today,” said Captain Johnson, who is African-American and grew up in the area. “We’re going to move forward today, to put yesterday and the day before behind us.”
Cops shoot woman holding drill!!!! Hey, the cops life was in danger. It wasn't just an ordinary drill, it was a "fully automatic machine drill". Press the trigger and the drill stays on and spins at a rate of 1,000 rpm. Enough to terrify any racist cop into killing the holder of the drill. Well at least that's the line of BS the San Jose piggies want us to believe. http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26336743/san-jose-police-cop-shoots-woman-who-was San Jose police: Officer shoots, kills drill-wielding woman who threatened her family By Robert Salonga, Katie Nelson, Mark Gomez and Andie Waterman Mercury News Posted: 08/14/2014 11:49:00 AM PDT San Jose police investigate the scene of an officer-involved shooting in the 700 block of Blossom Hill Rd. in San jose, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. There were reports that a San Jose police officer or officers shot a woman who was reported to be threatening to shoot members of her family in ... ‹› SAN JOSE -- The young woman called 911 and said she was going to kill her family with an Uzi if the cops didn't show up. When they arrived, the 19-year-old woman emerged from her home with what looked like a weapon in each hand. Officers yelled at her to drop what she was holding. She released something from one hand but continued approaching them, still holding a larger item. As she drew closer, Officer Wakana Okuma fired and the woman crumpled to the ground. That's how police and witnesses described the dramatic scene Thursday morning that ended with the fatal shooting of a mentally ill woman in front of her duplex on busy Blossom Hill Road, two blocks east of Oakridge Mall in South San Jose. Police later discovered that the woman had been holding a power drill, which was painted painted black and measured about 13 inches long on one end and 12 inches on the other, they said in a news release. But there are still many unanswered questions about the city's second officer-involved shooting of the year, including who the woman was and why she threatened her family. But police said the 911 call required a quick and strong response. "We had a call, somebody with an Uzi threatening to kill family members," San Jose police spokesman Officer Albert Morales said. "It was a very serious situation, a very dangerous situation for our officers." Police did say that the officer who fired the fatal shot is a 13-year veteran of the department and has crisis intervention training. The woman made the violent threat to emergency dispatchers around 10:30 a.m. Multiple witnesses described the encounter -- captured on cell phone video and posted on the Internet -- in similar fashion to this newspaper. About five officers responded to the call. The woman dropped one of the items she was holding onto a front lawn. But she held onto the second item and kept walking in a slow and deliberate manner, intermittently pausing to point the item at the officers. When she got within about 15 feet of Okuma the officer fired once, hitting the woman in the chest, witnesses said. "They told her many times to stop, to drop her weapon," one witness said, asking not to be named out of privacy and safety concerns. "And she didn't." The wounded woman was rushed to the hospital and died about two hours later. Only one officer opened fire, Morales said. All of the officers present for the shooting were taken to police headquarters where they were expected to be interviewed about the encounter. The homicide unit is investigating, which is protocol in officer-involved shootings. San Jose Police Department investigators work at the scene of an officer involved shooting on Blossom Hill Road and Playa Del Rey in San Jose, Calif., on San Jose Police Department investigators work at the scene of an officer involved shooting on Blossom Hill Road and Playa Del Rey in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group) Witnesses also said no one else was in the home when the woman made her threat. Beyond confirming that the item in question was a drill, police did not comment further on the case Thursday. Two people told this newspaper officers removed images or video from their cell phones after they recorded video of the shooting scene. Police denied they tampered with any cell phones. Family members told police the woman suffered from bipolar disorder and may have not been taking her prescribed medication leading up to the deadly confrontation. The San Jose Police Department's previous officer-involved shooting occurred four days into the New Year when an officer shot a knife-wielding man in a Berryessa neighborhood home. The man survived. Mercury News staff writer Mark Gomez contributed to this report. Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga.
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