Wednesday, May 20, 2015

NO JUSTICE FOR BLACK YOUTH KILLED BY PASADENA PD



   NO JUSTICE FOR BLACK YOUTH KILLED  BY PASADENA POLICE
10/16/14 A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the city of Pasadena can release a redacted version of an independent report (OIR) on the officer-involved deadly shooting of 19-year-old Kendrec McDade.  No charges were filed against the officers and they are on duty. They were not  charged with involuntary manslaughter,  Thus far there is neither the redacted report nor a non-redacted report made available to the citizeny.

So where is the report?  If one searches on-line it cannot be found in the Pasadena Star News.  Their search engine doesn’t even come up with the name Kendrec McDade. The local PBS station, KPPC, has nothing.  Several of us are on the case and are demanding the version,  of which 20% is redacted,  from city hall.  Why hasn’t the City Council made this public?

Two Pasadena police officers, Matthew Griffen and Jeffery Newlen, who shot and killed an unarmed teenager three years ago were not disciplined for the shooting and made tactical errors during the incident, according to a court document. 
According to part of the an Office Of independent Review (OIR) According to excerpts of the report quoted in a March 16, 2014 court filing, the officers “repeatedly made tactical decisions that were not congruent with principles of officer safety.”  Some of these severe errors are enumerated in the (OIR) but 20% of the report is being withheld from the public. But what has been released in the OIR is not nearly as specific as in the depositions taken of the officers themselves.  

The` officers said they chased McDade in a police car, without lights and sirens, following a report of an armed robbery. At one point, Newlen exited the patrol car and began to chase McDade on foot through the dark streets in northwest Pasadena. Griffin remained in the car, and fired the first shot when he said McDade began running into the street toward him.
Newlen said he fired from the sidewalk after he saw a “muzzle flash” near the rear of the police car.
“I saw him run directly at the drivers side door of the police car. I heard a shot. I heard two shots specifically. At one point I saw a muzzle flash, I believed that my partner had just been killed and he was turning and firing at me,” Newlen said, adding that he saw McDade turning toward him in a “crouched position.”

Both officers said they did not see McDade’s hands during the altercation and never saw a weapon.
The officers also indicate a Pasadena police patrol car was wrecked when it struck a wall during the brief pursuit of McDade. Newlen said he told McDade to stop as he chased him on foot, but Griffin said he did not give any commands before firing at McDade.

An attorney asks, “Did you ever say to him, ‘Put your hands up’ before you shot him?”
Griffin’s answer was, “No.”

Later on Griffin was asked, “Did you give him any warning at all you were going to shoot?”
Griffin again answered “No.”

Griffin admits his patrol car, left in reverse, injured him and nearly ran over McDade in the seconds after the fatal shots were fired.

Both officers said the incident was the first time they had been involved in a shooting. The officers were legally cleared in the shooting by the District Attorney’s Office and an internal policy review. Both have returned to patrol duty.

One wonders if the 20% of the OIR, which the judge allowed to be redacted  relates to these damning statements by the officers.

Pasadena citizens or those whose business or pleasure takes them to the city should demand answers from the Pasadena PD and city hall.  We need the whole report—which we don’t yet have-- not some redacted version or, at least for now, the redacted one.  Are the Pasadena Police and city hall trying to hide something?

Meanwhile we’ll try to get the redacted OIR report, which seems to be withheld from the public.  It should be public information.  Stay tuned.


Sunday, May 17, 2015

GOP CONGRESS TO OPPOSE CLEAN NEEDLE EXCHANGE


Written by Keith Shirey
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Sunday, 17 May 2015
image for Lois Lane, Clark Kent Advocate For Clean Needle Exchange
WANTS CLEAN NEEDLE EXCHANGE
NEW YORK TIMES
by James Earl Jones
NEW YORK
In the past, conservatives successfully pushed Congress to prohibit federal dollars from being used to distribute sterile syringes to intravenous drug users. Now, with a severe outbreak of H.I.V. and hepatitis due to a surge in heroin use in states including Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia, the issue has returned with liberal House members calling for needle exchange programs.
With the pressure for congress to provide funds for sterile needle distribution, there is push back from conservative Christians and right wing Republicans who have established a new foundation called "Americans Against Harm Reduction."
The Reverend Mike Chickadee, spokesman for the group, stated today at a news conference, "Moral relativist, social nihilist, sick lifestyle activists are condoning sin when they advocate needle exchanges. In doing so they are supporting shooting up narcotics, but they call it "harm reduction."
Lois Lane, nationally known anti drug war and needle exchange advocate somehow was not screened out of the press conference and boomed out, in a deafening contralto voice that shook the room, "How is preventing the spread of a disease promoting the spread of disease you idiot?"
When two burly men sporting large lapel crosses attempted to remove Ms. Lane from the room, she more than successfully resisted (she seems to be an expert in some form of martial art employing high heels).
"Answer the question you fathead Bible Thumper," Lane thundered. "Too, tell me why the Surgeon General says that needle exchanges induce addicts to enter treatment programs."

At this point co-founder of "Americans Against Harm Reduction," Rep. Harold Rogers (R. KY) and chair of the House Appropriations Committee seized the microphone and sneered at Lane, "Drug use is criminal activity. Instead of passing out needles to addicts they should be arrested. So should you, lady, for advocating and abetting criminal behavior."
In response, Lois Lane and her partner Clark Kent pushed their way to the stage with their friend Mary Marvel, M.D. in tow. Dr. Marvel explained that," Addiction comes about through distortions of cognitive and emotional functioning that characterize addicts, particularly the compulsion to use drugs."
"This is the essence of addiction. Addiction is a brain disease. It cannot be treated by the police or politicians; it must be dealt with by the medical community," stated the muscular physician.
But the GOP controlled congress, whose power base in located in the conservative Christian right is highly unlikely to appropriate funds for needle exchange programs for states overwhelmed by heroin abuse and the cascading health crisis.
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Saturday, May 16, 2015

America's Homeless Final Solution


Written by Keith Shirey
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Monday, 2 December 2013
image for America's Homeless Problem: The Final SolutionGENERAL PUCK OFFERS SOLUTION
America's Homeless Problem: The Final Solution.
By General Wolfgang Puck America Heritage Foundation.
"We Offer Final Solutions To America's Problems."
Every day there are over 3.5 million people in the United States that are homeless. Of course, many of them are hungry. As part of what is increasingly called the "war on the homeless" local governments and businesses are united in trying to beautify cities by sweeping the destitute off the sidewalks along with the trash.
It most cities it is a crime to be homeless. New ordinances are being enacted and police sometimes use draconian methods to enforce them. Activities of charitable homeless caregivers have been criminalized. It is a crime to give food to the poor in many cities.
Sadly, In the U.S., Municipal, State and Federal governments are helpless in meeting the desperate human needs of the homeless.
Given their hopeless plight, coupled with the pathetic inability of states and municipalities to cope with the problem, it is clear that a final national solution is in order. At the outset, the homeless must be rounded up and sent to concentration camps just as the Japanese were in World War II.
One-room, eighteen square foot plywood huts can be provided the homeless in camps throughout the U.S. just as many were for the Japanese during their internment during WWII. The cramped quarters will be preferable to sleeping on America's streets. For every square block of houses a shower can be provided. Coupled with the suggestions offered below, this will provide humane treatment for our American Homeland Homeless Citizens.
President Obama must invoke Executive Order 1101, which allows the Federal Government to take over all health, education, and welfare functions. The Office Of Emergency Planning, FEMA, and the United States Army can administer the program, aided by the CIA, NSA, Delta Forces, Navy Seals and Guantanamo Bay physicians and psychologists.
My plan includes employment: Work will give our homeless dignity; this is particularly true with children, young or older. Work done by the camp inmates will come from trans-national corporations and other businesses, as is currently the case in America's private prisons. Indeed, all services provided in the camps will be privatized in accordance with the customs of unregulated capitalism. Minimum wage laws will not apply in order to give a powerful incentive for free enterprise to provide labor for the concentration camp prisoners.
As it did during World War II for Nazi Germany, IBM will keep records on prisoner labor activity. Speaking of Nazi Germany, the entrances to the American concentration camps for the homeless shall have the words, ""Arbeit macht frei" a German phrase meaning "work makes you free." I cannot emphasize enough the role that work will play in the internment camps. The inability of the American economy to provide employment for homeless millions will be mitigated by establishment of the camps.
The Secretary Of The Army will oversee a federal registry of the homeless. This will enable police and military to arrest them at will without needless interference from Constitutional freedoms and rights considerations. That registry is also needed in situations where homeless prisoners escape from detention and need to be shot, and/or rounded up and sent back. (Escapees will then be subject to court martial procedures held by a camp military tribunal headed by the camp commandant).
Because of the severity of the security issue, ever facet of the homeless prisoners' existence will have to be monitored by guards and ever-present surveillance devices. Some of this was done in Nazi camps which may serve as a model for the U.S.'
Close supervision in the camps by armed personnel could be provided by private contractors such as Blackwater or other operatives who have necessary experience gained by working with the military in such locations as Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay.
Drone surveillance should be employed along with helicopters that will incessantly rumble over the camps as they now do in the ghettos of all U.S. cities.
My plan provides for security, safety, work, food, clothing and shelter for homeless Americans. This incarceration scheme embodies sacred American values and institutions such as free enterprise capitalism, our proud work ethic, the omnipresent U.S. security surveillance state, our love of the military and police, fascination with drones, and the American tradition of sweeping dangerous and severe problems under the rug and out of sight.
(Too, running these camps will provide jobs for unemployed Americans. Because the GOP controls the congress, and the program will therefore be underfunded, the new jobs created will be part-time, no-benefit, low wage affairs, just as the vast majority of new jobs now created in the U.S. are. And, remember, as our economy worsens and another economic collapse occurs, we'll need todd open more camps!)
This is America! We are a "can do" nation that can achieve the final solution to our homeless problem. Let's do it within the framework of our American heritage.
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