Never seen this before, but it is great advice:
Remember to update your membership to the ACLU.
by John Cole| 61 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
Never seen this before, but it is great advice:
Remember to update your membership to the ACLU.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 24 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
The FBI is going to review 2,000 cases of hair analysis to see if they were scientifically accurate:
In 1981, for instance, an 18-year-old Washington resident named Kirk Odom was convicted of rape and sodomy. At his trial, an FBI analyst testified that Odom’s hair samples and samples taken from the crime scene “were indistinguishable” and that this was very rare. Odom was convicted and served about 22 years in prison. In 2011, he was exonerated by DNA testing that wasn’t available at the time of his original trial.
Odom’s case, along with the cases of two other Washington men who’d also been exonerated by DNA testing after convictions based, in part, on testimony about hair analysis, prompted the broader FBI review.
[…] Of 310 individuals exonerated through DNA evidence, according to an Innocence Project database, 72 were convicted in part because of microscopic hair evidence.
This sounds like a voluntary review, and it is only the FBI crime lab, not state crime labs which presumably have thousands more cases that should be reviewed.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 218 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
[…][F]rom 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 “subjects” and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.The last two years have followed the same pattern: an F.B.I. spokesman said that since 2011, there had been no findings of improper intentional shootings.
How is this different from Hoover days?
Update: The Hoover reference isn’t to JEH’s files or the other corruption that flourished there, it’s to the FBI culture that projects an image of Bureau perfection at all costs.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Shitty Cops, War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Decline and Fall, Security Theatre, Very Serious People
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From the NYTimes:
A hunger strike among detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who have been imprisoned by the United States military without trial — some for more than a decade — is continuing to grow, although there is sharp disagreement between the military and lawyers for the detainees about how many are participating.
As of Monday morning, 28 of the 166 prisoners had refused enough continuous meals to be deemed hunger strikers in the official count, and 10 of them were being force fed, said a military spokesman, Capt. Robert Durand. That was up from 26 hunger strikers and 8 who were being force fed on Friday, according to the military’s count. Three detainees have been hospitalized for dehydration, Captain Durand added.
Lawyers for detainees, however, citing declassified notes of conversations with their clients in person and by phone, claim that the military’s numbers are significantly undercounting the actual level of participation. Their clients have told them that an overwhelming majority of the detainees in Camps Five and Six — where low-level suspects who are not facing any charges before a military commission, the bulk of the inmate population, are being held — have been refusing to eat for weeks, they said….
Lawyers for detainees and military officials agree that waning hopes for any release among low-level prisoners are an underlying cause of the unrest. Congress has placed restrictions on further transfers, nearly halting any departures even though about half of the remaining inmates were cleared for release years ago. The bulk of the low-level detainees are Yemenis.
Because it now appears that the prison will remain open indefinitely, the United States Southern Command, which overseas Guantánamo, has requested nearly $200 million to renovate facilities that were built to be temporary and are now deteriorating, including barracks and a meal hall for the guards.
From Wikipedia:
On many occasions in the past prisoners have been force-fed by feeding tube when they went on hunger strike. It has been prohibited since 1975 by the Declaration of Tokyo of the World Medical Association, provided that the prisoner is “capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment”….
It would be much worse if Mitt Romney were in the Oval Office. But that’s one thing for which history won’t call Romney to account.
This post is in: Shitty Cops
From the NYTimes:
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Police Department will reopen its investigation into the 2007 episode that led to the firing of Christopher J. Dorner, the former police officer who is wanted in three killings, department officials said Saturday night.
Mr. Dorner pledged revenge against Los Angeles police officers in a manifesto he posted online, in which he also claimed that racism in the department had led to his dismissal. He is wanted in connection with the killing of a former police captain’s daughter and her fiancé last Sunday and the shooting death of a Riverside, Calif., police officer on Thursday morning.
“I am aware of the ghosts of the L.A.P.D.’s past, and one of my biggest concerns is that they will be resurrected by Dorner’s allegations of racism within the department,” Chief Charlie Beck said in a written statement.
“Therefore, I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner’s allegations regarding his termination,” he said. “I do this not to appease a murderer. I do it to reassure the public that their Police Department is transparent and fair in all the things we do.”
The killings and Mr. Dorner’s online manifesto have reopened old wounds for some black residents here, even as they condemned the violence. For decades, the Los Angeles Police Department was known nationwide for racism and corruption. And memories are still fresh of the riots in 1992 that followed the beating of a black man, Rodney King, by white police officers….
Oh, Sure, <em>Now</em> You’re “Looking Into It”Post + Comments (47)
This post is in: Shitty Cops
I find it insane that this law passed in the first place:
The Supreme Court has rejected an Illinois prosecutor’s plea to allow enforcement of a law aimed at stopping people from recording police officers on the job.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that found that the state’s anti-eavesdropping law violates free speech rights when used against people who tape law enforcement officers. The law sets out a maximum prison term of 15 years.
Good.
by John Cole| 37 Comments
This post is in: Shitty Cops
This is nice:
Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis police officer who became a focal point of last November’s pepper-spraying incident during a campus protest, is no longer employed by the university, a spokesman confirmed late Tuesday.
UC Davis spokesman Barry Shiller said he could not discuss the details of Pike’s departure, but in response to queries from The Bee, he said Pike was no longer employed there as of Tuesday.
“Consistent with privacy guidelines established in state law and university policy, I can confirm that John Pike’s employment with the university ended on July 31, 2012,” Shiller said. “I’m unable to comment further.”
Still don’t know why the chancellor still has her job, though.