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Tag: Black Lives Matter

ACLU Of Oregon Condemns State’s Surveillance Of Black Lives Matter Activists

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

An investigation of social media surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists shows a pattern of systemic racism and disregard for the law, according to an Oregon civil rights group.

The comments from the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon came in response to a report issued this month by the Oregon Department of Justice on the DOJ’s Criminal Justice Division’s monitoring of the social media use of Black Lives Matter activists.

“The report is damning,” wrote Mat dos Santos, the nonprofit’s legal director. “It paints an abysmal picture of rampant misinformation, beginning with agents and analysts and running all the way up to the deputy attorney general, and it shows how one mistake in judgment can lead to dangerous consequences for the public.”

Last year, a “threat assessment report” issued by an investigator at the state’s DOJ, singled out Facebook and Twitter users that used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag for surveillance. The investigation became so broad that one of the department’s own attorneys was cited in the report as a possible threat.

Ellen Rosenblum, the state’s attorney general, said she was “shocked and appalled” and called for a full investigation, according to a November article from The Oregonian.

Protests In Salt Lake City After Cop Shoots Black Teen Holding A Broomstick

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Local residents and the family of a shooting victim are demanding the release of police body camera footage that shows the wounding of a black teenager last week.

Abdi Mohamed, a 17-year-old Somali refugee, was shot by police on Saturday while holding a metal broomstick. The following day, family sources told Robert Boyd, a reporter with local news station Fox13, that Mohamed was in a coma at a local hospital after being shot three times.

Det. Greg Wilking, a Salt Lake City Police Department official quoted by Boyd, claimed that Mohamed had gotten involved in a dispute, and that he was shot while “officers intervened into that altercation.”

But Selam Mohammed, who said he was walking with Abdi Mohamed at the time he was shot, told Boyd that Abdi Mohamed had just picked up a broken broomstick when police arrived:

Can Being White Save You From A Fatal Police Shooting?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Last week, a white man was captured alive after a five-hour shootout with police at a Planned Parenthood clinic that claimed the lives of three and injured nine. Coming just days after the one-year anniversary of Tamir Rice’s death, and amid a number of high-profile police brutality protests, the violent incident has renewed a debate about race and policing in the United States.

On Friday, Robert Lewis Dear barricaded himself inside the health clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he engaged in an ongoing fire-fight with police before being captured alive. Among the victims were a university police officer, a mother of two, and an Iraq War veteran with two children. At least five of the other injured victims were police officers.

Earlier that week, activists took the streets in Cleveland to mark one year since the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy, who was killed by police while playing in a park with a toy gun. It is legal to openly carry firearms in Ohio, yet video footage of the shooting shows police opening fire on the boy within just two seconds of their arrival in the park. Police were slow to provide medical attention to the boy, even detaining his sister when she tried to provide medical aid. He died the next day.

Activists Occupy The Minneapolis Police Department After Shooting Of Jamar Clark

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

After the weekend shooting of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, protesters camped overnight in a local police station, saying that they won’t leave until they receive justice.

Jamar Clark is on life support after the shooting, which took place early Sunday morning at the intersection of James and Plymouth Aves. in North Minneapolis. Numerous eyewitnesses at the scene, some of whom can be seen shouting on in a YouTube video uploaded on Sunday, claim that Clark was handcuffed at the time of the incident, though police deny that this was the case:

Like many other major cities, Minneapolis police have paid out millions in lawsuits over police conduct in recent years. In October, the city settled a lawsuit for $122,000 regarding a 2012 incident in which police allegedly assaulted a black man over a gun he was legally permitted to carry.

‘Autism Is Not A Crime’: Transit Police Beat St. Paul Teen During Arrest

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Marcus Abrams, a 17-year-old autistic teen from St. Paul, who also suffers from seizures, didn’t belong on the tracks at a Metro Transit station, but his family is questioning the violence of his subsequent arrest during which police tackled him to the platform floor.

A photo collage posted to Facebook by Abrams’ sister two days after the incident shows multiple bruises to his face.

Advocates for the autistic and disabled say the incident highlights the need for better police training.

‘Police Lives Matter’ March In Austin, Texas, Hosted By Ex-Cop Accused Of Violence

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and MintPress News

An Austin, Texas, police constable with a violent past as an officer is organizing a “Police Lives Matter” march in opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, which police supporters blame for the recent death of a Houston-area sheriff’s deputy.

Shannon J. Miles was arrested on Aug. 29 and charged with fatally shooting Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth on Aug. 28. Miles allegedly shot Goforth 15 times, including in the head and back, after sneaking up on him from behind. In response to the incident, pro-police marches are planned to take place in Houston on Sept. 12 and Austin on Sept. 19.

Although Miles has no known connection to the Black Lives Matter movement and was once found mentally unfit to stand trial for a 2012 assault charge, police officials were quick to make the connection. The Associated Press quoted Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman as saying that the “dangerous national rhetoric that is out there today … has gotten out of control.”