YES, HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT

The Lt. Governor of Texas ripped into Black Lives Matter protestors as “hypocrites” for fleeing as the bullets flew Thursday night, killing five police officers.

While Dallas police expressed no animosity towards the attendees at the peaceful protest, with some posing for photos with protesters, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick attempted to rile up viewers at a time when Dallas Police Chief Dave Brown and Mayor Mike Rawlings had successfully called for calm and healing.

Patrick acknowledged that the protest was peaceful before launching into a rant, claiming:

 “All these officers last night lost their lives protecting people who were protesting against them. This has to end.”

VIDEO COURTESY OF CNN



The lawmaker went on to claim that “Too many in the general public, who aren’t criminals but have a big mouth are creating situations like we saw last night.”

“We have to have their police back,” Patrick exclaimed. “And I’m sick and tired of those who are protesting our police and putting their lives in danger,” before adding, “All those protesters last night, they turned around and ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to protect them. What hypocrites!”

Congratulations Dan Patrick, you are today's most disgusting human of the world, enjoy asshat!

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

SEATTLE POLICE DO THE RIGHT THING

As Congress drags its feet on implementing gun safety laws, one city is taking its own steps to reduce gun violence. This week, Seattle announced that its police department would no longer sell the extra guns it has on hand, which generally brings in $30,000 revenue, annually. Instead, officers will destroy their firearms so that they don’t fall into the wrong hands.

Last Monday, the City Council unanimously voted in favor of a resolution to change the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) current protocol for purging unused firearms. On average, SPD has 100 extra guns every year, which they sell back to manufacturers. In the past, those guns have landed in civilian hands, and in February, two officers fatally shot a man who was in possession of a gun previously registered to one of their colleagues.

In an attempt to minimize future gun violence, the City Council chose to have SPD melt down its firearms — a move that a department representative later endorsed. Shortly before the decision was made, council members were supposed to vote on a resolution that would only allow SPD to sell unused firearms to other law enforcement officials. Councilman Tim Burgess amended the legislation to ban sell backs altogether, but the idea was originally introduced by Mayor Ed Murray and Councillwoman Sally Bagshaw.

How do we reduce the number of guns when Congress won’t act?

“You know what costs this city? Is violence. Is gun violence. Is crimes involving guns,” Murray said, following the council vote. “So, gun(s) and gun violence is a huge problem for every city in America and mayors around the country are struggling with what I’m struggling with: How do we reduce the number of guns when Congress won’t act? When state legislatures often don’t act?”

That vast majority of Americans support gun control in the form of expanded background checks, but Congress has yet to pass a new gun safety measure that could prevent mass shootings from happening. Meanwhile, thousands of of people are killed by firearms each year. Military-grade assault rifles that have caused some of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history — Orlando, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Virginia Tech — are still on the market.

Gun safety measures have had more luck at the state level, but most states that have passed gun laws this year have actually loosened firearm restrictions.

On Thursday afternoon, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan agreed to hold a vote on a gun bill to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on deadly firearms. The decision was made a week after 170 Democrats, led by Rep. John Lewis (R-AL) staged a sit-in on the House floor.

NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

COPS CAN'T DO JOBS IF EVERBODY'S WATCHING

Gun violence is up dramatically in Minneapolis — and the police union chief blames public scrutiny of law enforcement officers.

The city recorded 74 shooting victims through the first three months of this year, compared with just 40 during the same period last year, reported the Star Tribune.

The predominantly black North Minneapolis neighborhood has seen gun violence shoot up to 55 cases in 2016, from just 21 during the first three months of 2015.

Tensions are high between black residents and Minneapolis police after the officer-involved shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, and community leaders are angry at the police response to subsequent Black Lives Matter protests — where five demonstrators were shot and wounded by white supremacists.

Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, has a simple explanation for the increase in gun violence following the 24-year-old Clark’s slaying and widespread protests.

He admits that officers have stopped doing their jobs, noted City Pages — but he blames the public for hurting their feelings with protests and criticism.

“Kroll …. blames the crime surge on a shrinking police force and greater scrutiny of police that has left some officers disengaged,” the Star Tribune reported. “The slowdown in policing has been noticeable.”

Police have made nearly half as many proactive stops this year through April 11 as they had during the same period last year — with 3,706 in 2016 versus 7,732 last year.

There has also been a dramatic dropoff in the number of traffic stops and arrests for serious crimes.

Police officials said they’re trying to get officers out of their patrol cars to do their jobs, but those efforts apparently aren’t working.

City Councilman Blong Yang, who lives on the city’s North Side, agrees that Minneapolis needs more police officers — but he also thinks those already on the payroll should get back to work.

“With all due respect, it baffles me that anyone, including police officers, can disagree with ‘greater scrutiny of the police,'” Yang said. “You should do your job and do it well, whether 800,000 eyes are watching or none. The idea of some officers disengaging is troubling."

NFTOS
Blogger-In Chief

Roger West

CONGRESS TO POLICE, COUNT YOUR KILL NUMBERS

CONGRESSIONAL BILL AWAITING OBAMA SIGNATURE ON POLICE KILL NUMBERS

This week as all eyes were on budget deal wrangling, with little attention and fanfare, Congress actually got something done to reform the police. It passed a bill that could result in complete, national data on police shootings and other deaths in law enforcement custody.

Right now, we have nothing close to that. Police departments are not required to report information about police to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some do, others don’t, others submit it some years and not others or submit potentially incomplete numbers, making it near-impossible to know how many people police kill every year. Based on the figures that are reported to the federal government, ProPublica recently concluded that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.

Under the bill awaiting Obama’s signature, states receiving federal funds would be required to report every quarter on deaths in law enforcement custody. This includes not those who are killed by police during a stop, arrest, or other interaction. It also includes those who die in jail or prison. And it requires details about these shootings including gender, race, as well as at least some circumstances surrounding the death.

The bill is a reauthorization of legislation that expired in 2006. Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott has been trying to revive it since then without success. Scott told the Washington Post the first time the bill passed in 2000, it took years before data started to come in, because of “the way government works,” and then the bill expired. But if states don’t report information, the federal government could use its power to withhold funds to force compliance. It passed the House last year, but finally moved through the Senate this week on the momentum of post-Ferguson outrage.

The bill also “requires the Attorney General to study such information and report on means by which it can be used to reduce the number of such deaths.”

Why is it, that in 2014, that police have to be directed by congress to statistically track these numbers, shouldn't this metric be something that they were capturing, oh, I don't know, maybe fifty years ago?

Police department transparency, if they don't get it's importance on their own, we'll force them to get it.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

MALFEASANCE TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE

WEAPONS OF WAR DEPLOYED ON U.S. STREETS

Unless you have been living under a rock the last five days, you have to be cognizant of the deplorable actions that have been conducted under Ferguson Missouri's police - abd their invoked martial law.


MADDOW

Why was the Bundy ranch incident not treated in this manner, you know when white "militias" threatened to kill federal agents? I cannot recollect ever seeing any police-state, never seeing tear gas shot at assemblers, nor rubber bullets shot at them.

Tea baggers, Guns Over People, Gun Huggers scream bloody murder daily about the only right they know of - the right to tote a gun - yet last night, rights violations where a plethora:

Freedom to assemble Denied
Freedom of speech, Denied and;
Freedom of press Denied

Seriously readers, is there even a tiny segment of the population that feels that these police are doing good work here?

EGYPT OR AMERICA?

The good news is, I now can tell my grand children that I experienced the 1950's without actually living during the time.

Questions, why is the governor sleeping at the wheel, and if he doesn't act, why doesn't the local council enact a curfew instead of a police state - we are gassing humans, beating up and arresting the press, and shooting rubber bullets?

Bill Maher Police State




BODY CAMS FOR BARNEY FIFE

I've been saying for years, arm the cops with body cameras and microphones:




Its time now to stop the freaking charade. Its time to hold police accountable, no matter what the price! 

ANONYMOUS ATTACKS - "OPERATION FERGUSON"

Anonymous, a loosely organized global network of activists and hackers, has a history of targeting large corporations and governments in the wake of what it deems injustice. Its targets have included everyone from companies such as VISA, MasterCard and PayPal after they prohibited donations to WikiLeaks to the Israeli government in retaliation for its military intervention in Gaza. Amid this week’s mayhem in Ferguson, a group claiming to be associated with Anonymous set up a Web site to organize cyber protests as well as a Twitter account. It released a video and put out a press release, in part addressing police:




NEW WITNESS STEPS UP WITH VIDEO

Another witness has emerged in the shooting of Michael Brown:

Mitchell told News 4 she saw a door close on a police car. An officer was inside and Brown, Jr. was on the outside. She said the two were arm wrestling through the car window. Mitchell said she then tried to pull out her phone to record. Shots then rang out.

“It just didn't look right for them to be arm wrestling,” Mitchell said. “The first gun shot came from the window, so I just started getting out of the way.”

According to Mitchell, Brown, Jr, began to run away after the first shot was fired.

“After the shot, the kid just breaks away. The cop follows him, kept shooting, the kid’s body jerked as if he was hit. After his body jerked he turns around, puts his hands up, and the cop continues to walk up on him and continues to shoot until he goes all the way down,” Mitchell said.

Tiffany Mitchell tells KMOV what she saw:





Your "PROTIP" for the day readers: That tear gas is banned by the Geneva Convention. But yet we subject our own citizens to something that was deemed wrong after the Nazi regime. What the fuck are we becoming as a country, would it be that we are indeed becoming a "Police-State"?

Let's be kind to each other people, I get it, your angry, I am as well. Do this the right way, so we, those on the other-side of this police state, come out on top of this issue. 

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

TWENTY FOUR PERCENT OF BLACKS EXPERIENCE POLICE UNFAIRNESS

Cross posted from thinkprogress

Almost one in four young black males have experienced recent unfair treatment by the police, according to a newly released Gallup Survey. Among black males between ages 18 and 35, 24 percent said they recalled an instance within the last 30 days in which they were treated unfairly during dealings with the police. For all African Americans, that number was 17 percent. Here’s Gallup’s breakdown by category:

Twenty-four percent of African Americans also reported unfair treatment at a store, while 16 percent reported mistreatment in a restaurant, bar, theater, or other entertainment place within the last 30 days.

Police targeting of young black men has drawn new attention with the acquittal of George Zimmerman, but it is not a new phenomenon. Reports of police mistreatment of African Americans reached their peak in 2004, when 25 percent of all blacks surveyed by Gallup reported police mistreatment within a one-month period. In 2011, the New York Police Department made more stops of young black men than the number of young black men in all of New York City. Personal experiences have prompted even some of the most prominent and powerful African Americans to advise their sons on avoiding mistreatment by police, including former Reading Rainbow host Levar Burton, and Attorney General Eric Holder. After a jury found Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman not guilty, MSNBC Host Melissa Harris Perry said she was relieved when her ultrasound revealed that she was pregnant with a girl because of the adversity she feared a boy would face. “I will never forget the relief I felt — I’m a sexual assault survivor — and yet the relief I felt at my 20-week ultrasound when they told me it was a girl,” she said. “And last night I thought, I live in a country that makes me wish my sons away, makes me wish that they don’t exist because it’s not safe.”

What is most remarkable about the Gallup poll is that it captures only unfair treatment by police within a random 30-day time period — a duration during which most Americans probably have no interaction at all with police.




NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

STATES WITH WEAKER GUNS LAWS - MORE COPS LIKELY KILLED

POLICE MORE LIKELY TO BE SHOT BY STATES WITH LAX GUN LAWS

As Americans squabble over the outcome of gun safety legislation in the Senate reaches a fever pitch, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) has been quiet on where she stands. Her home state, though, exemplifies the real risk weak gun laws pose–not only to residents, but also to the men and women charged with protecting them.

Gun laws in Louisiana prevent the state’s law enforcement officers from doing their jobs, and put them at a much greater risk of gun violence. Last November, the state passed an NRA-backed ballot initiative that enshrined gun ownership in the constitution and removed provisions that prohibited certain individuals, such as domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill, from carrying a concealed weapon. In March, a judge ruled that the amendment outlawed a “state statute forbidding certain felons from possessing firearms,” noting that “The courts cannot question the wisdom of fundamental law and frustrate the will of the people.”

This new law makes it easier for dangerous people to possess guns and endangers law enforcement officials. But Louisiana has long been a trail-blazer for weak gun laws. Prior to this amendment’s passage, the state denied giving law enforcement discretion when issuing concealed handgun permits and a slew of other weak regulations have ranked the state among the worst in the nation on key measures of gun trafficking as determined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A new study released just last week by the Center for American Progress analyzed 10 key measures of gun violence and found that Louisiana is worst among the 50 states. Included in the report is a 50-state ranking of law enforcement officers killed by guns: Louisiana ranks second worst in the nation behind South Dakota.

The Newtown tragedy has alerted legislators across the country to up to the need for sensible gun violence prevention measures. Landrieu, recognizing the important role law enforcement plays, has said that “some of the most respected law enforcement leaders in our country are calling for commonsense reforms.” Among the most obvious and effective of these reforms is to require every gun buyer to go through a mandatory criminal background check.

Universal background checks, which enjoy support from 85 percent of Louisianans, would help prevent criminals and other dangerous people from having easy access to guns. And they would cut down on illegal gun trafficking by holding straw purchasers accountable for giving guns to criminals. But of course, the law must require the firearm sellers conducting background checks to keep a record; otherwise, law enforcement would once again be undercut by having no method to enforce the law.

The NRA often says that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” But in states like Louisiana, no single group has done more than the NRA to put guns in the hands of bad guys. That puts the good guys with guns—like law enforcement officers—and good guys without guns at a higher risk. Universal background checks, as evidence has shown, are a meaningful and uncontroversial measure that would make all states a safer place and protect those charged with protecting us.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West