July 24, 2015

Why Is It So Hard to Track Taser Use?

"Sandra Bland was threatened with a Taser even though she posed no harm to officers. She’s not the only one. "


In the video, Bland, the 28-year-old woman whose hanging death in a Texas jail cell is the subject of a federal investigation, is pulled over by an officer for failing to signal a turn. The officer, a Texas state trooper named Brian Encinia, exchanges words with Bland, then demands she step out of the car. It’s unclear why he made this request—he first asked her to stop smoking a cigarette, which Texas state law permits her to refuse—but he continues to insist on it, saying the demand is a “lawful order.”

And then: He appears to threaten her with his stun gun. Encinia tells Bland he will “light you up” if she doesn’t get out of her car.

The footage is disturbing, but it also reflects a common problem: Tasers are not only used by law-enforcement agents as less lethal alternatives to guns, or even as weapons for self-defense—but often as tools to get people to do what they want. "

*The Centers for Disease Control, which keeps some of the most comprehensive mortality data in the United States, told me it does not keep records on Taser-related deaths. The best source may be Amnesty International, which counted 540 Taser deaths in the United States over a 12-year period."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/why-is-it-so-hard-to-track-taser-use/399467/

July 23, 2015

White Dad Mysteriously Dies In Police Custody

Saturday evening, Troy and Kelli Goode of Memphis headed off to a Widespread Panic concert in nearby Southaven, Mississippi. What should have been a nice night off for two young parents ended with Troy, a 30-year-old chemical engineer, loving husband and devoted daddy of a 15-month-old, being hogtied by the Southaven police, and soon after dying in their custody.

*Regardless of the exact cause of death, McCormack told Wonkette, “Everyone realizes that the real story here is how Troy was treated by the police. We have video of how he was treated. Everyone can see that they hogtied him. They strapped his head down while he was hogtied. It’s a shame that the Southaven Police Department isn’t focusing on their officers’ use of force.”

*And remember how Goode had asthma? A close friend of the family with detailed knowledge of the incident reports that Kelli Goode tried in vain to tell the officers that her husband had asthma and needed his inhaler, at which point they allegedly threatened to arrest her. This source’s account also describes Goode screaming, “I can’t breathe!”

http://wonkette.com/591729/nice-white-dad-mysteriously-dies-in-police-custody-we-can-talk-police-brutality-now

July 20, 2015

The Movement for Basic Nondiscrimination Protections for LGBT Americans Just Took a Big Step Forward

The movement for basic nondiscrimination protections for lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans just took a big step forward. Gay people all across the country now have a place to turn if an employer fires them because of their sexual orientation. That’s a big deal because explicit protections for lesbians and gay men are almost nonexistent in federal law, and 28 states also lack any explicit state-level protections.

The advance comes from a ruling by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination, which is outlawed by longstanding federal law. Back in 2012, the EEOC issued a similar ruling that discrimination based on gender identity or expression is also a form of sex discrimination that violates federal law. Both rulings are landmark advances for civil rights. Now anyone, in any part of the country, who works for an employer with 15 or more employees can file a charge of sex discrimination with the EEOC if she is discriminated against because of her sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. "

*EEOC ruling is a monumental step forward and provides important protections for millions of LGBT Americans. That’s something to celebrate!"

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/movement-basic-nondiscrimination-protections-lgbt-americans-just-took-big-step

July 18, 2015

End police brutality

Thirty-eight year old Sheldon Haleck died on March 16 after struggling with Honolulu police. After tasering the intoxicated man multiple times and pepper spraying him, officers handcuffed him while forcing him to the ground. He was unresponsive and pronounced dead that night, although the results from the autopsy were just obtained by Civil Beat earlier this week.

What’s wrong with this video goes far beyond excessive violence. It shows the harmful and unjustified actions of a person of authority — who is supposed to ensure security — on an unarmed civilian.

Excessive force in paradise

Instances of police brutality in the United States have recently caused a growing uproar from the public. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner are names you’ve probably heard of, and while these incidents struck places far from Hawai‘i, therecurring theme of unjustifiable police attacks has not overlooked O‘ahu. HPD officer Vincent Morre was recorded on security video Sept. 5 last year assaulting two bystanders after failing to find a suspect at a game room near Ala Moana. Morre throws a chair at one of the victims and kicks the other in the face.

*In May, Ka Leo published an op-ed calling for body cameras for officers. We can also lessen police brutality by encouraging the public to be adamant with their own video and photo coverage. It is a First Amendment right for citizens to record the police. Journalists and witnesses still run into the difficulty of being apprehended despite this right. However, we need to be resilient.

Incessant police violence should inspire and enrage both fellow officers and citizens. Under surveillance or not, officers should be people to run to, not from. What will we do in the face of danger if we’re more afraid of the cops than we are of the situation that called for their intervention?"

http://www.kaleo.org/opinion/end-police-brutality/article_97ed8dfc-2d09-11e5-8af2-6b48ab3bc836.html

July 18, 2015

Handcuffed Teen Is Slammed Onto Floor, Knocking Her Teeth Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=20&v=KcEk3FggMx0

Police brutality allegations were prompted when a police officer slammed a teen’s face onto a hospital floor. The young woman suffered significant injuries, including trauma to the head, face, jaw, and teeth. She also sustained concussion, migraine headaches, cognitive and memory function problems, closed head injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.)

The allegation of police brutality involves Colorado Springs Police Officer Tyler Walker and 18-year-old Alexis Akers."

http://www.inquisitr.com/2260878/police-brutality-alleged-handcuffed-teen-slammed-onto-floor/

July 17, 2015

Hate Is A Disease

Hate is a disease you catch from others who are already infected. It is contagious, virulent, and can be fatal unless the infection is caught in time."


Here is a list of symptoms:

Obsession with an person, event, or idea, to the extent that you cannot let go of it even when you try. Usually accompanied by a desire for revenge, “justice”, or for something you want from the person (or powers-that-be),.
The conviction that you are completely right and justified, and that the other party is absolutely wrong. Your attitude becomes self-righteous in the extreme.
You seek out other people who will agree with you and support the energy with which you have been infected; a lack of tolerance for anyone who disagrees with you. In fact, this disease almost compels you to infect others, even if you sometimes feel guilty for doing so. (Usually, however, the infection prevents you from feeling guilt simultaneously with the hatred.)
Usually accompanied by frequent,trong rushes of anger and/or rage, either topically initiated or from random stimuli.


Some experts believe that the antidote to hate is love; but infected individuals who have recovered state that smaller doses of subtler antidotes may work much better. “Love” is often too difficult to administer in sufficient dosages to a person infected by hate; an infected person often seems unable to digest even small doses of love when administered."

http://www.brightwings.com/hate-disease/

July 17, 2015

How Prison Reform Became a Presidential Priority

 "Obama’s prison visit would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. But organizing and advocacy created a new consensus."


 This week in Philadelphia President Obama made a bold statement to a packed auditorium of NAACP members, “Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it.” Today, he becomes the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.

We should not forget how unlikely either the president’s statement or his prison visit would have been just a few years ago. President Obama’s rousing speech to the NAACP in 2009, a few months after the start of his presidency (and the start of my presidency of the NAACP), included just two fleeting references to criminal-justice reform.

At that same convention, the NAACP made it clear that we were going to double down on ending mass incarceration. It was not clear that the nation’s leaders shared our concern. What a difference a few years can make.

* This new consensus involves sending drug addicts to rehab instead of to prison. It involves ensuring that offenders who go into prison illiterate leave prison knowing how to read. It involves demanding that the Department of Corrections actually helps correct the paths of our neighbors who have lost their way.

* The president, himself a former organizer, is fond of quoting President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous charge to the then-preeminent black labor and civil-rights organizer, A. Phillip Randolph: I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it.

This is what it looks like when organizers and leaders from both ends of the political spectrum unite to do just that. "

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-prison-reform-became-a-presidential-priority/

July 16, 2015

Obama to visit prison, seeking failed systems' reform

Washington (AFP) - Barack Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit a federal prison on Thursday, in a push to reform one of the most expensive and crowded prison systems in the world."

The statistics against US prisons are many: 2.2 million prisoners are housed in the United States, which is more men and women behind bars than the top 35 European countries combined.

During his visit to El Reno prison in Oklahoma, Obama will advocate for fairer sentencing and better professional integration for former inmates, among other measures.

"Our incarceration rate is four times higher than China's" Obama said Tuesday, adding that prisons were four times less crowded in 1980 and two times less crowded just 20 years ago.

Nearly a quarter of the world's prison population is concentrated in American jails, while the United States accounts for less than five percent of the world's population.

One of Obama's first orders of business will be to change the duration of prison time for inmates."

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-visit-prison-seeking-failed-systems-reform-070207456.html#

July 16, 2015

Millennials Who Are Thriving Financially Have One Thing in Common

Millions of America’s young people are really struggling financially. Around 30 percent are living with their parents, and many others are coping with stagnant wages, underemployment, and sky-high rent.

And then there are those who are doing just great—owning a house, buying a car, and consistently putting money away for retirement.

These, however, are not your run-of-the-mill Millennials. Nope. These Millennials have something very special: rich parents.

These Millennials have help paying their tuition, meaning they graduate in much better financial shape than their peers who have to self-finance college through a mix of jobs, scholarships, and loans. And then, for the very luckiest, they’ll also get some help with a down payment, making homeownership possible, while it remains mostly unattainable for the vast majority of young adults."

*“Haves are turning their riches or their wealth into bigger wealth because they are investing in the housing market by simply living in a house,” says Gudell. This advantage is one that these Millennials will carry forward as they earn more than their degree-less peers, and save more than those who were forced to throw away tens of thousands of dollars on rent due to their inability to buy. In the future, they’ll have wealth to pass down to their own kids, continuing the cycle."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/millennials-with-rich-parents/398501/

July 15, 2015

Baby's first stool can help predict future IQ score

NEW YORK: Analysis of a newborn's first stool can alert doctors whether a child is at risk of problems with intelligence and reasoning, new research shows.

In particular, high levels of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) found in the meconium (a newborn's first stool) from a mother's alcohol use during pregnancy can alert doctors that a child may develop cognitive problems in teenage years, the findings showed.

"We wanted to see if there was a connection between FAEE level and their cognitive development during childhood and adolescence -- and there was," said one of the researchers Meeyoung Min, research assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in the US.

For this study, researchers analysed the meconium of 216 babies for levels of FAEE. They then gave intelligence tests at ages nine, 11 and 15. The researchers found a link between those with high levels of FAEE at birth and lower IQ scores. "

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Babys-first-stool-can-help-predict-future-IQ-score/articleshow/48067193.cms