SOUTH CAROLINA COP PROTECTS AND SERVES FEMALE STUDENT WHILE IN CLASS

A Columbia, South Carolina sheriff’s deputy can be seen throwing a female student to the ground in video posted online by New York Daily News writer Shaun King.

The footage shows the officer approaching the student at Spring Valley High before grabbing her and wrapping an arm around her head and neck. The student is then seen falling backwards as he flips her over in her chair, before throwing her on the floor and pinning her to the ground. A teacher can be seen standing off to the side during the incident, but does nothing.

The officer can then be heard ordering the student to put her hands behind her back. King identified the officer as Ben Fields, saying that more than a dozen students have told him that they are “scared to death” of Fields.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told WIS-TV that the student was being arrested for refusing to leave class. However, he did not comment on the officer throwing her down.



REALTED: S.C. cop caught in school attack being sued for ‘recklessly’ accusing black students of gang activity

A local advocacy group quickly released a statement calling the officer’s actions “egregious.”

“Parents are heartbroken as this is just another example of the intolerance that continues to be of issue in Richland School District Two particularly with families and children of color,” the statement read. “As we have stated in the past, we stand ready to work in collaboration to address these horrible acts of violence and inequities among our children”.

Update: WLTX-TV confirmed that Fields was the officer seen in the video. He has been placed on administrative duty and will not be allowed to work at any schools pending an investigation.

AS TOLD FROM A COPS PERSPECTIVE

Former Baltimore cop who has since blown the whistle on abuse and corruption he witnessed on the force and called the prosecutor in the Mike Brown case corrupt.

Michael Wood, who was a police officer for 11 years before retiring with an injury last year, blasted onto the national scene last month when he began tweeting illegal and violent things he saw his colleagues do to citizens.

On Wednesday, Wood went on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast to discuss law enforcement. When discussing the need for due process in police shootings, Wood called Robert McCulloch, the prosecutor who led the investigation into the shooting by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson of unarmed black teenager Mike Brown, a criminal.

“He’s a criminal. He criminally covered up that indictment. There’s no way around it,” Wood said. “That’s what they did and no one seemed to care.”

When asked to explain by Rogan, Wood pointed to a saying that “you can indict a ham and cheese sandwich.”

The job of the prosecutor when pursuing an indictment is to “select the evidence that will get the charge,” he said.

“So the way that system actually is, is if there’s four of us in the room right now, if three of us think he did it and one doesn’t, we don’t even listen to the one that doesn’t,” Wood explained. “If you’re not a reliable witness you don’t even come in for the indictment.”

Instead, McCulloch selected unreliable witnesses that tainted it, when he should have brought in evidence and witnesses that were consistent, Wood said.

“And you would have had an indictment. And you would have had a trial,” Wood said.

The former cop said he believed Wilson ultimately would have been exonerated because from a law enforcement perspective, the shooting was justified.

“We would have at least heard the case. The problem is, the police walk away with nothing. That’s why when you see the indictments — South Carolina, there was no uprising,” he said.

In June, a grand jury indicted Michael Slager, a white South Carolina police officer, for murder. Slager was caught on video shooting unarmed Walter Scott in the back while he ran away.





Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream


Similarly, six police officers were charged by Maryland Attorney General Marilyn Mosby in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who died of serious injuries while being transported in their police van.

Part of the problem with policing, he said, is that officers are ingrained with fear early on and feel everyone is a threat.

“They run around with fear, and they will shoot in a heartbeat because they are so afraid,” he said.

In a June interview with the Washington Post, Wood described an awakening he had while working as a police officer in which he realized he was part of a system that was biased and wrong. While doing surveillance, Wood discovered how much he had in common with people the police department often targeted.

“You start to see the cycle of how these kids get put in the system at a young age, often for doing nothing wrong, and how that limits their options, which pushes them into selling drugs or other crime,” he said. “You start to see that they never had a chance.”

NFTOS
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Roger West

“RACE PIMP”

News host Sean Hannity and conservative radio host Kevin Jackson tried to paint Ferguson activist Deray McKesson as a “professional protester” during a contentious interview on Tuesday.

“You haven’t been to the funeral of any cop that was killed in the line of duty, I’ll bet you that,” Jackson told McKesson. “I bet you haven’t saved up for that. I bet you haven’t been to the celebration ceremonies of cops who protected many, many black people for decades. I bet you haven’t been to the funeral of any of the kids that are killed that aren’t in these types of scenarios where race-baiters and race pimps like you appear.”

Jackson also accused McKesson of traveling around the US “starting problems” in the hopes of gaining notoriety.

“So, Kevin, have you been to the funerals of all the victims of Sandy Hook?” McKesson responded. “Or all the victims of Katrina? Do you not care about those, Kevin? Do you not care, Kevin?”

As McKesson went on, Jackson yelled at him, repeating his accusations.

“You should stop yelling,” McKesson said. “You want me to feed into this narrative. I’ve answered the question many times, and I’ll say it again to you: I’m going to places like many others, where the police have killed people.”

Before McKesson could continue, however, Hannity began chiming in on top of Jackson’s yelling.

“Do you believe cops are innocent until proven guilty?” the host asked.

McKesson responded by citing the attack on 15-year-old Dajerria Becton by former McKinney, Texas police officer Eric Casebolt. Casebolt resigned his position on Tuesday after video of the incident spread online.

“What I believe is that that girl should not have been abused, and Mike Brown should be alive,” McKesson said. “Freddie Gray should be alive.”

Hannity — who argued earlier this week that Casebolt could have been “shanked” by black teenagers during the encounter — began the segment by bemoaning the increase in “anti-police protesters” focusing on “select incidents,” and scoffed at McKesson’s intent to organize a 501 (c)(3) group to continue his work.

“Is this what you do for a living, you want to set up a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt organization?” Hannity asked. “Is this your profession now?” 

“I’m somebody who’s focused on justice,” McKesson told him. “Is this a question you’re asking me because I’m a person of color? Would you ask white people this, too?” 

“It has nothing to do with race,” Hannity replied after stammering. “It has to do with, is this your profession? You’re tweeting out that you’re a professional protestor.” 

Later, Hannity asked if McKesson had been involved in any “rioting” or “looting,” adding, “A lot of minority store owners lost their life’s possessions in these riots.” 

“There has been property damage in some cities, and I’ve not participated in that,” McKesson said. 

“Do you still believe that false and proven false narrative of ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’?” Hannity asked. 

“I think that Michael Brown should be alive today,” McKesson replied. “And that he was murdered by a cop who used his power because he knew that power would be protected.”

cript type="text/javascript" src="http://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=4286724157001&w=425&h=263">

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Roger West

PROTECTING AND SERVING THE SHIT OUT OF FLOYD DENT

MICHIGAN POLICE PROTECTING AND SERVING THE SHIT OUT OF FLOYD DENT 

On January 28, Floyd Dent was arrested in Inkster, Michigan and charged with resisting arrest, assault and possession of cocaine. The charges seemed unusual considering Dent had worked at Ford for 37 years and had no criminal history.

A video of Dent’s arrest, released today, reveals a far more disturbing picture. It shows Dent being dragged from his car, placed in a chokehold and struck 16 times in the head. Dent was also Tasered three times.

In all, 10 cops arrived at the scene. They were all white, according to Dent’s attorney.

Police say they pulled Dent over while they were “watching an area known to have drug activity” and saw that Dent “didn't make a complete stop at a stop sign.” After a judge saw the video, the charges of resisting arrest and assault were immediately thrown out. Dent still faces drug possession charges.



According to the police, when Dent exited the car he said, “I’ll kill you.” There is no audio recording of the incident. The officer who had Dent in a chokehold says that Dent bit him, but he did not seek medical attention or photograph his alleged injury.

Dent says the bag of crack cocaine the officers claim they found was planted and, according to his attorney, there is unreleased video which shows the officers planting the drugs. The officer who repeatedly punched Dent was “was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for planting evidence and falsifying reports” in 2003. He was ultimately found not guilty.

“I’m lucky to be living. I think they was trying to kill me, especially when they had choked me. I mean, I was on my last breath. I kept telling the officer, ‘Please, I can’t breathe,’” Dent said in a media availability today.

This incident is just one of hundreds, where a cowardly pack of sadistic hyenas that should be charged for at a minimum, excessive force.

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

IS THERE A POLICE PROBLEM IN AMERICA?

AND SOMEONE THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?

Let it be clear to all, that the assassination of two NYPD officers is disgusting, but in the same breath, especially for this blogger, I can say, and It's possible for Americans to be both appalled by senseless executions of cops, and angry at unjustified killings by cops.

Police lives matter, but so do black lives, especially unarmed black men. This is not a choice of either/or, its both. Since when did it become controversial to believe that both NYPD officers and unarmed black NYC residents don't deserve to die?

From Sally Kohn on twitter:

"When there’s a school shooting, we don’t blame it on critics of public schools. Equally absurd to blame cop shootings on critics of police."

When a police union can publicly debase a Mayor and threaten the citizens they're paid to protect, this should make us pause. This is not just about Eric Garner, nor is this just about Michael Brown, this is about a systemic problem that has been allowed to go on for way to long.

I keep hearing readers tell me that "we are better than this". Well to you I say, evidentially not.


Below, two recent stories of cops being, oh do I dare say it, racist:

Police Officer In Ohio Acts Racist, Gets Caught And Then Blames It All On Immaturity


An auxiliary officer with the Fairview Park Police Department, who had written that black people should be "exterminated," resigned from the force last week.

Two Ohio Cops Suspended With Pay Over ‘I Hate N***ers, I’ll Stab A Coon’ Texts

Two cops were suspended in Ohio after the Dayton chapter of the NAACP brought a string of racist texts to the attention of authorities.

Captain Thomas Flanders and Michael Sollenberger, a detective, both working for Montgomery County, Ohio, were placed on indefinite leave with pay for their part in the scandal.

The department has not released the names of three others who were implicated in the texts, and the individuals have not been suspended, though Sheriff Phil Plummer did confess that the investigation is “in its early stages.”

WHIO-TV reports that it was NAACP Dayton President Derrick Forward who brought the racist texts to light. He would not reveal how he got them or the names of anyone who may have provided them.

What do you think should happen if these allegations turn out to be true, readers? Is it possible for an officer to effectively do their duty while harboring racial biases or telling racist jokes? Should the cops suspended be fired altogether?

An eye for an eye only leaves the world blind. Hey Merica, you claim to be a Christian nation, with Christmas upon us, how about proving to the world that you are indeed a civilized nation and not some rogue killing machine. America kills more humans via gun by nine am, than the entire world does in a day.

There are three problems in this country as I see it, the preponderance and overwhelming amount of guns in this country, mental illness, and the systemic and epidemic problems in policing of our communities.

With 400 million guns in this country, a failure to check the NRA - and a gun lobby that owns politicians, can we really do better?

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Roger West

COP KILLS IN LESS THAN FOUR SECONDS, THEN DOESN'T PROVIDE FIRST AID FOR OVER FOUR MINUTES

Protecting and Serving the shit out of us:

The Cleveland officers who shot a 12-year-old boy holding a toy gun then failed to give him first aid for nearly four minutes. The boy was finally administered first aid when a detective and FBI agent arrived at the scene.

But it was too late. The boy, Tamir Rice, died after being transported to the hospital.

According to newly surveillance video, Rice was shot by the officers within two seconds of their arrival at the scene.




A department spokesman told a local ABC station he “was unsure of the policy related to how and when officers are required to provide medical assistance.” The officers’ conduct is “under investigation.”

The officers believed that the 12-year-old Rice was a “black male” who appeared “about 20.”

The family is outspoken in their belief that their son’s death was avoidable, had the police officers acted appropriately. The U.S. Justice Department has an ongoing investigation into the Cleveland Police “over allegations of excessive and unreasonable deadly force.”

As per the norm in this country, whether it be cops or gun huggers, its shoot first ask questions later.

Bundy Militia Aiming At Federal Agents

At the Bundy ranch we had white men aiming rifles at federal agents - the Second Amendment doesn't apply to black people. White men with guns equals Second Amendment right, black men with guns equals thugs who deserve a death sentence.

What kind of human, let alone a man sworn to protect and serve the shit out of us, takes four minutes to save a live, your answer, an in-human one.

The NRA and GOP [Guns Over People] have reduced America to armchair Judge's, Jury's and executioners. Selling our soul's to the lowest bidders. Maybe this officer, like Darren Wilson, saw demons and thought this twelve year old looked like Hulk Hogan?

What an utter clusterfuck this is. What cop barrels up like the A-Team within 3 feet of an armed suspect, despite their age? The cops yelled three times for him to drop the gun? Not likely. With the mentality of police of late, maybe first aid was withheld because these incompetent cops began to realize that dead men (kids) tell no tales.

Too often is the case, many American cops think its their duty to carry out a final solution to the Black problem.

America is at a golden age, where authoritarian incompetence has run rampant. Being a cop is not a license to kill, its a license to protect. When the mentality exists - "that we trust no one", that you are guilty before proven innocent - herein lies the problem.

This is the second story of late, where an African American with a toy gun has been peppered with bullets by over zealots with a badge and gun.

Utterly fucking Disgusting people!





NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

DARREN WILSON VIDEO SHOWS NO EVIDENCE OF "EYE SOCKET FRACTURE" OR ANY OTHER INJURIES FOR THAT MATTER

All the hyperbole over whether Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson had a "broken eye socket" from his "brief" encounter with Michael Brown - all claims can now be quashed as unequivocally false!

Below is Darren Wilson, his union lawyer Greg Kloeppel, and two police officers leave the Ferguson police station for the hospital at 2:08 p.m. on Aug. 9, the day Wilson shot Michael Brown Jr.

THE MURDERER JUST AFTER THE KILL




WILSON RETURN BACK TO STATION




The brief encounter with Brown happened at 12:02 noon time, the first video above with Wilson is exactly two hours and six minutes removed from the killing. Either Darren Wilson cleans up very well or his healing powers are immaculate.

Often if a story smells like shit, it is shit.

NFTOS

Blogger -In-Chief

Roger West

HOLY HANDCUFFS BATMAN!

NYPD "COURTESY, PROFESSIONALISM, RESPECT"? 

NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT LAW SUIT SETTLEMENTS REACH 100 MILLION FOR SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS.

Mudruck filed a FOI request to the NYPD for information concerning cases they had closed since 2009. It's a big PDF containing more than 10,000 settlements, ranging from $1–$11,500,000. Gawker explains:

Those numbers are in line with the findings of a 2010 AP investigation, which discovered nearly $1 billion in NYPD payouts over the previous decade. In 2012, Bloomberg News found the City of New York planned to spend $735 million on settling lawsuits, police and otherwise, almost six times what Los Angeles pays per capita.

Those Bloomberg numbers can be found here.

The cost of claims is forecast to rise to $815 million by 2016, more than the city pays to run the Parks and Recreation Department, according to budget documents. Among the incidents triggering payments are malpractice in public hospitals, police beatings, improper arrests, collisions with fire trucks and potholes causing accidents. [...}
New York spent $664 million on claims in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2011, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the Law Department. Claims alleging personal injury accounted for $565 million, including $119 million for police misconduct and civil-rights violations.

Recent examples of Police enforcement around the United States. Without listing them all you can read about some of The Big Apple's recent highlights of law and order here and here and here.

There's video and imagery for all of those cases and many others. It makes it hard not to settle for millions and millions of dollars. What's extraordinary about racism and the privileged class' dislike of the lower strata of society is that, even using the most cynical logic, it just doesn't make good economic sense. It's bad business for everyone.

Is this the cost for doing "police business"? Why is this story not front page news across the country? And police wonder why they have a bad reputation and are considered not better than the deviants they arrest? SMH!

portions of this blog are Cross posted from daily kos

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

BLACK KIDS MORE LIKELY TO BE KILLED BY POLICE THAN WHITE KIDS

Who knew?

There’s a lot we don’t know about how many people have actually been killed at police hands in the United States, thanks to woefully inadequate transparency and federal record-keeping. But there’s one thing we do now know: Among those we do know were shot by police, black teens were 21 times more likely to be shot dead than their white counterparts.

“The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police,” a new ProPublica report explains, noting that if whites were killed at the same ratio there would have been another 185 white deaths, just during that three-year period, just of those in that narrow age range.

To arrive at this statistic, ProPublica analyzed the list of 12,000 police shooting deaths that were self-reported by agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation between 1980 and 2012. Because this data is self-reported and departments are not required to submit information, this data likely significantly ucounteractsthe number of shootings. Florida departments, for example, haven’t submitted data since 1997 and New York City hasn't submitted data since 2007. And the FBI asks only for “justifiable homicide ”figures, meaning in those instances where the shootings are most overtly viewed as unjustified or the litigation is ongoing, departments are less likely to report.

Still, assessing available data may provide the best insight we have into how grave racial disparities in police violence are, particularly when it comes to young black men, who were stopped by NYPD officers in 2011 more times than the total number of young black men in New York City. Unsurprisingly, past analyses have also found disproportionate violence against blacks, including a 2007 investigation by Color lines and the Chicago Reporter in 10 major cities. An NAACP report of Oakland, California, found that 37 of 45 police-involved shootings were of blacks, while zero were of whites. “Although weapons were not found in 40 percent of cases, the NAACP found, no officers were charged," Mother.

Studies of human and police behavior suggest that racial bias is baked into policing, particularly because individuals mis-perceive the threat posed by African Americans. Nonetheless, a 2012 poll after the George Zimmerman verdict found that that the gap between whites and blacks who think the justice system is biased was greater than ever.

portions of blog from thinkprogress

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

DARREN WILSON ET AL EXPOSED

FERGUSON STATISTICS PAINT HORRIBLE PICTURE

This past Sunday the, Washington Post featured an article which provided a granular background piece about the troubled upbringing and early law enforcement career of 28-year-old Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Missouri police officer who, on August 9th - when he abandoned all realistic public policing procedures - and he grotesquely fired at least six 9 mm bullets into 18-year-old Michael Brown, executing him on the spot.

This spot, is where Michael Brown laid on public display, in a pool of his own blood for four hours—and then for good measure, not getting the courtesy of a hearse, was tossed into the back of a police SUV like road kill - the first of two weeks’ worth of shocking, visual reminders, laid unearthed for all the world to witness - everything that’s wrong with the institutionalized racism that runs rampant throughout America’s militarized police state, today.

“WaPo: Darren Wilson’s previous job was at disbanded PD fraught w/ racial tension, like Ferguson.”

Yesterdays delayed and highly emotional start to the new school year in Ferguson, the Huffington Post jumped onboard about the preposterous recent history of the Ferguson Police Department with a story (SEE: "Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Hog-Tied And Injured A Young Child, Lawsuit Alleges") about the gauche behavior of a plethora of St. Louis County law enforcement officers, specifically focusing upon - two of Ferguson's 50 white (out of a total of 53) police officers (in a city where almost 70% of its citizens are African-American), starting with patrolman Justin Cosma. Officer Cosma joined the city’s force in Fall 2012, “transferring” from his job as a Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy where it’s alleged (in a pending lawsuit by the victim) that he choked, hog-tied and otherwise beat the shit out of a 12-year-old boy in front of his own house. The child's capital crime - was checking his mailbox at the end of his driveway.

As you’ll soon see below - another Ferguson police officer, Eddie Boyd III - According to the Huffington Post, Boyd has faced “allegations of hitting children” (including pistol-whipping a 12-year-old girl in the head; and, in a separate incident, repeating the same behavior against a teenage boy, this time his nose was the recipient of the abuse) while serving in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Eventually, and after being demoted, Boyd “resigned" - and you guessed it, Boyd was hired by the Ferguson Police Department sometime between July 2009 and December 2010.”

Monday’s New York Times has a lead story that is, perhaps and by far, the most cloying article on the behavior of Darren Wilson and the overall practices of the FPD (SEE BELOW: "Darren Wilson Was Low-Profile Officer With Unsettled Early Days”).

In their totality, these latest stories depict the deplorable operations of police within the FPD.

Here are the links and excerpts from Sunday's Huffington Post piece and yesterday's NYT article:

HUFFINGTON POST

Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Hog-Tied And Injured A Young Child, Lawsuit Alleges

Ashley Alman and Ryan J. Reilly
Huffington Post
Posted: 08/24/2014 5:48 pm EDT Updated: 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON -- A Ferguson police officer who helped detain a journalist in a McDonald's earlier this month is in the midst of a civil rights lawsuit because he allegedly hog-tied a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mail at the end of his driveway.

According to a lawsuit filed in 2012 in Missouri federal court, Justin Cosma and another officer, Richard Carter, approached a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mailbox at the end of his driveway in June 2010. Cosma was an officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office at the time, the lawsuit states. The pair asked the boy if he'd been playing on a nearby highway, and he replied no, according to the lawsuit.

Then, the officers "became confrontational" and intimidated the child, the lawsuit claims. "Unprovoked and without cause, the deputies grabbed [the boy], choked him around the neck and threw him to the ground," it says. The boy was shirtless at the time, and allegedly "suffered bruising, choke marks, scrapes and cuts across his body."

The 12-year-old was transferred to a medical facility for treatment, but the lawsuit says Cosma and the other officer reported the incident as "assault of a law enforcement officer third degree” and “resisting/interfering with arrest, detention or stop."

Jefferson County prosecutors "refused to issue a juvenile case" against the young child, the suit says.

The allegations against Cosma were made in September 2012, shortly after he was introduced as a new officer at a Ferguson City Council meeting. Jefferson County is just south of Ferguson.

Near to this point in the Huffington Post article, journalists Alman and Rielly proceed into a short list of some of the other officer-related perversions at the FPD and elsewhere in suburban St. Louis, over the past couple of weeks, which include:

• FPD officer Eddie Boyd III, whose plight was discussed farther up in this post.

• Dan Page, a St. Ann Police Department officer for 35 years, who "was suspended from duty for inflammatory comments made while addressing the Oath Keepers of St. Louis and St. Charles." If some readers recall, it was Page who "made racist and sexist remarks, called President Obama an “illegal alien,” denounced hate crime laws and spoke flippantly about violence and killings. The video, uploaded to YouTube in April, was uncovered by CNN after Page pushed anchor Don Lemon on Aug. 18 during demonstrations in Ferguson."

• St. Louis County police officer Lt. Ray Albers, who was suspended from duty, just a few days ago, "after he threatened civilians in Ferguson, pointing his gun at them and shouting, 'I will fucking kill you.'


NY TIMES

Darren Wilson Was Low-Profile Officer With Unsettled Early Days

By MONICA DAVEY and FRANCES ROBLES
NEW YORK TIMES
AUG. 25, 2014

…As a teenager, Darren Wilson lived in St. Peters, Mo., a mostly white city of 54,000 about 20 miles west of Ferguson, where his environment was chaotic. He was the eldest of three children of Tonya Dee Durso, who, records show, carried out financial crimes, including against Sandra Lee Finney, who lived across the street and had believed they were friends.

“It’s a terrible thing that has happened now, but he did have a troubled childhood,” Ms. Finney said in an interview, adding that Officer Wilson’s family had somewhat awkwardly stayed in the neighborhood — moving just one door down — even after his mother was convicted of stealing and forgery in 2001.

After her bank informed her that it was freezing her accounts, Ms. Finney said she learned that numerous credit cards had been opened in her name, her mail was being stolen, her phones were secretly forwarded across the street, and the thief had managed to obtain her driver’s license and a copy of the key to her front door. Among the purchases: tens of thousands of dollars of candles; home decorations; furniture; clothes, including some from American Eagle Outfitters, which Ms. Finney says was Officer Wilson’s favorite store at the time; and hockey gear.

“All the while, she’d come over and sit at my kitchen table to chat and say how she would help me with this terrible thing that was happening to us,” Ms. Finney said of Ms. Durso, whom she described as a thin, blonde woman who seemed upper-middle class. “What hurt me more than all of it was what she did to those kids.”

Ms. Durso pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation. Not long after, in 2002, when Officer Wilson was a sophomore in high school, Ms. Durso died at age 35 and one of his stepfathers was granted guardianship until he finished high school. An obituary cited natural causes.

Years later, Ms. Finney said she was stunned when she saw her former neighbor appear outside the old house in a police uniform. “My husband and I thought, ‘How did he get to be a police officer?’ ”

After attending the police academy, Officer Wilson began work in Jennings, another suburb, in June 2009…

Officer Wilson’s formative experiences in policing came in a department that wrestled historically with issues of racial tension, mismanagement and turmoil. During Officer Wilson’s brief tenure, another officer was fired for a wrongful shooting, and a lieutenant was accused of stealing federal funds. In 2011, in the wake of federal and state investigations into the misuse of grant money, the department closed, and the city entered into a contract to be policed by the county…

There’s something terribly wrong within the political bailiwick of the state of Missouri, specifically with regards to the lack of local enforcement of civil rights laws in St. Louis County.

It would appear, that for Ferguson and surrounding militarized police stations, that when you give a man a hammer, everything looks like a nail!




NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West