Showing posts with label police shootings of unarmed black men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police shootings of unarmed black men. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Sen. Cory Booker calls for national registry to highlight police misconduct

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker called for a national registry of police misconduct in order to keep a record of incidents in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week.

“We have to create transparency and accountability,” Booker, D-N.J. said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He said he was drafting legislation to set up a registry for cases of misconduct, use of force incidents, and people killed at the hands of police. He said he would move to change the section of federal law governing misconduct so make it easier to hold police officers accountable. He also called for a ban on racial and religious profiling.

We know what to do. There are things we can do. We are not helpless. We are not weak. We are strong,” Booker said.

“And so now it’s a time to take this energy and this anger and this focus and keep it, until we actually change laws and systems of accountability that can raise standards in our country.”

[SOURCE: NJ.COM]

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Texas police officer found guilty in the death of 15 year old Jordan Edwards

On Tuesday, a Dallas County jury convicted the former Balch Springs police officer of murder for shooting Jordan Edwards an unarmed 15-year-old as he left a party with his brothers and two friends in April 2017.

Roy Oliver, 38, was found not guilty, however, on two counts of aggravated assault for firing his rifle into the car full of teens.

The former officer, who was fired from the force not long after the shooting, was immediately taken into custody, and his bond was revoked.

He faces up to life in prison when testimony resumes Wednesday in the trial's punishment phase.

The mother of Jordan Edwards thanked jurors Tuesday for convicting her son's killer rather than letting him "walk away."

"The police just walk away and don't have to give account for anything," Charmaine Edwards testified in the punishment phase of Roy Oliver's trial. "I'm forever grateful that y'all seen it in your hearts to see that it was wrong."

[SOURCE: DALLAS NEWS]

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

White ex-Tulsa cop sentenced in killing of daughter's black boyfriend

A white former police officer in Oklahoma was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for the fatal off-duty shooting of his daughter's black boyfriend, after four trials spanning nearly a year including three that resulted in hung juries.

Former Tulsa officer Shannon Kepler was convicted last month of first-degree manslaughter in the 2014 slaying of 19-year-old Jeremey Lake.

Tulsa County District Court Judge Sharon Holmes also issued him with a $10,000 fine.

Kepler's lawyers said the 24-year police veteran was trying to protect his daughter because she had run away from home and was living in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Kepler, who retired from the force after he was charged, told investigators that Lake was armed and that he shot him in self-defense. Police never found a weapon on Lake or at the scene, and several neighbors testified that they didn't see a gun, either.

There also was a racial undercurrent to the trials. Kepler killed Lake days before the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, fanned a national debate over the treatment of minorities by law enforcement.

Read more: White ex-Tulsa cop sentenced in killing of daughter's black boyfriend

Tuesday, May 02, 2017

Police Account Changes in Killing of Jordan Edwards


HIS NAME IS JORDAN EDWARDS! Thank God for the body cams on the police officers involved in the murder of Jordan Edwards. The officers had fabricated a story about the car coming at them and were going to paint Jordan Edwards,an honor student, his brother, and his friends as thugs and the aggressors. We now know that that story is false and the boys had not been drinking. Well lets see if Trump comments at all or at least ask his "Justice" department to look at the case. George L. Cook III African American Reports.

As family and friends mourned the death of a 15-year-old boy shot in the head by a police officer in a Dallas suburb over the weekend, the police chief said Monday that new evidence showed the killing did not unfold the way the authorities had originally claimed.

The Police Department in Balch Springs, Tex., said Sunday that the officer, whose name has not been released, fired on a car carrying the teenager, Jordan Edwards, a freshman at Mesquite High School in Balch Springs, because the car was reversing down a street toward the officer in an “aggressive manner.”

But Jonathan Haber, the police chief, told reporters at a news conference on Monday afternoon that video showed the opposite. He said the officer fired when the car was “moving forward as the officers approached,” according to The Associated Press. The Dallas County medical examiner’s report ruled the death a homicide caused by a “rifle wound” to the head.

Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the Edwards family, praised the police chief for his willingness to admit the department’s mistake and called the new account “a big deal.”

Read more: Police Account Changes in Killing of Texas 15-Year-Old


Saturday, December 03, 2016

How one juror is holding up a verdict in the Michael Slager trial

George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

Many in the black community had doubts that Michael Slager would be convicted of murdering Walter Scott even before the trial started. Those doubts were only magnified when a predominantly white jury was picked with only the jury foreman being African American. It turns out that those suspicions may be well founded.

A video clearly shows Walter Scott running way and being shot five times in the back. That same video shows Slager planting a taser by Scott's body. And on top of that, the North Charleston police department fired him for using excessive force. In spite of all that one lone white juror refuses to convict him of either manslaughter or murder.

What's very sad is that the juror is not saying that Slager is not guilty, and even refers to him as a killer but that he can't and won't convict him under any circumstances.

In an unusual move the juror bypassed the jury foreman sent a letter directly to the judge in the case, Judge Newman stating why he could not and would not convict.

Newman read the letter to the court in which the juror wrote:

"I can’t in good conscience approve a guilty verdict”.

“I regret to say we may never reach a unanimous decision,”

“We all struggle with the death of a man,” the juror continued. “My heart does not want to have to tell the Scott family that the man who killed their son, brother and father is innocent. But with choices, I cannot and will not change my mind.”

Judge Newman has instructed the jury to come back on Monday and to resume deliberations. If the jury can come to no verdict, the judge has said that he would declare a mistrial. Unfortunately, that looks like where we are headed.

George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Pres. Obama defends Black Lives Matter movement right to protest

While on a trip to Spain, President Obama made the following statement concerning the right of the Black Lives Matter movement to protest.

Thursday, July 07, 2016

Pres. Obama Statement On Shootings Of Alton Sterling And Philando Castile

President Obama has released a statement on the shooting deaths of both Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police officers. Read President Obama's statement below.