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Post by Admin on Dec 8, 2014 22:43:36 GMT
 The mother of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old fatally shot while playing with a pellet gun in a Cleveland Park, said Monday the family wants the white officer who fired at the child to be convicted. In her first news conference since last week's funeral of her son, Samaria Rice was pointed and blunt when asked how she wanted Cleveland police to be held accountable for the shooting of Tamir on Nov. 22. "I am looking for a conviction," she said. The Rice family has retained Benjamin Crump to represent them. The lawyer also represents the family of Michael Brown, 18, fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9. Crump also represented the family of Trayvon Martin, shot to death on Feb. 26, 2012, in Florida by George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of all charges.  The Rice case was the third of a trio of recent cases involving African Americans killed by white police officers. Eric Garner died on July 17 on Staten Island when he was subdued by a New York police officer in what appeared to be a banned chokehold. Grand juries in Missouri and New York declined to charge the officers, setting off days of demonstrations around the country that have sometimes turned violent. On the afternoon of Nov. 22, Tamir Rice was playing in the park around Cudell Recreation Center, less than 100 yards from his home. The 911 calls that were released by the city showed that a dispatcher received a call about a person with a gun and a police car responded. Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner arrived and Loehmann jumped out of the car and saw Rice, who was displaying what turned out to be a toy gun. The officer fired, hitting Rice in the body and the child died the next day. |
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Post by Admin on Dec 13, 2014 22:45:32 GMT
 Thousands of protesters marched across the country Saturday — past the White House in the nation's capital, along iconic Fifth Avenue in New York and in the middle of Nashville's honky-tonk district — to call attention to the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police and urge lawmakers to take action. Chanting "I can't breathe!" "Hands up, don't shoot!" and waving signs reading "Black lives matter!" the demonstrators also staged "die-ins" as they lay down across intersections, and in one city briefly blocked an onramp to an Interstate. "My husband was a quiet man, but he's making a lot of noise right now," said Washington protest marcher Esaw Garner, widow of Eric Garner, 43, who died in July after being put in a chokehold by New York City police during an arrest for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. "His voice will be heard. I have five children in this world and we are fighting not just for him but for everybody's future, for everybody's past, for everybody's present, and we need to make it strong." Organizers had predicted 5,000 people at the Washington march, but the crowd appeared to far outnumber that. They later said they believed as many as 25,000 had shown up. It was not possible to verify the numbers; Washington police do not release crowd estimates. Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, called the demonstrations a "history-making moment." "It's just so overwhelming to see all who have come to stand with us today," she said. "I mean, look at the masses. Black, white, all races, all religions. ... We need to stand like this at all times." |
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Post by Admin on Mar 11, 2015 22:21:38 GMT
Police Chief Thomas Jackson will resign, seven months after one of his officers killed an unarmed black 18-year-old and set off months of unrest, and one week after federal investigators accused his department of harassing and racially profiling the town's predominantly black residents. Jackson was expected to announce his resignation at a news conference Wednesday evening, city officials said.  He will leave his post on March 19 with an undisclosed severance and a year's worth of health insurance, according to a news release, and Lt. Col. Al Eickhoff will take temporary command while the city searches for a replacement. Jackson and the city’s mayor, James Knowles III, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Jackson is the highest-profile Ferguson official to resign as change sweeps through the government of the St. Louis suburb of 21,111 people, a town still scarred by the riots that broke out after Michael Brown's death on Aug. 9 and after a November grand jury decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson, who is white.  "It's a difficult time," Ferguson City Councilman Mark Byrne told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. "We've listened for many weeks and months to this stuff and we're doing our very best to try to address those concerns by in effect accepting resignations when people want to give them, and at the same time making the changes to the system if they're needed and warranted." |
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Post by Admin on Mar 12, 2015 22:26:09 GMT
With tensions running high after the shooting of two officers in Ferguson, Missouri, state and county police are once again taking over protest security in the St. Louis suburb. St. Louis County Police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol will "assume command of the security detail regarding protests" at 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET), St. Louis County Police said in a statement.  The takeover comes less than a day after two police officers standing guard outside Ferguson police headquarters were shot in what St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar called an "ambush," spurring a manhunt for those responsible for targeting the line of officers. "We could have buried two police officers," Belmar told reporters. "... I feel very confident that whoever did this ... came there for whatever nefarious reason that it was." The shots rang out shortly after midnight, at the end of a protest against the Ferguson Police Department. That department has been under fire since one of its officers, Darren Wilson, shot and killed black teen Michael Brown in August, and more recently since a scathing U.S. Department of Justice report came out documenting a pattern of racial discrimination. Authorities haven't indicated they know who shot the officers, though Belmar did say "several people ... have been very forthright with" investigators. Police have also recovered shell casings that may be tied to the shooting. Heavily armed officers converged on one Ferguson home as part of the investigation, St. Louis County police spokesman Brian Schellman said. Video from CNN affiliate KMOV showed three of them trying to pry a hole in the roof, while others went through the front door of the one-story residence. |
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Post by Admin on Mar 15, 2015 22:22:33 GMT
Two officers were wounded in the attack early Thursday morning and released later that day. Authorities in St. Louis announced Sunday afternoon that an arrest had been made in connection with last week’s shooting of two police officers outside the Ferguson police department.  St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch said in a news conference that charges were filed against a 20-year-old man Jeffrey Williams. McCulloch added that Williams, 20, admitted to firing the shots but claimed to have been firing at others, not the officers. Among the charges are two counts of first-degree assault, one count of firing a weapon from a vehicle and three counts of armed criminal action, McCulloch said. Williams is being held on $300,000 bond.  Williams is charged with two counts of first-degree assault, one count of firing a weapon from a vehicle and three counts of armed criminal action. McCulloch said the investigation is ongoing.The officers were shot early Thursday as a crowd began to break up after a late-night demonstration that unfolded after Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson resigned in the wake of the scathing federal Justice Department report. "He was out there earlier that evening as part of the demonstration," McCulloch said of Williams. The officers were released from the hospital later Thursday, and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said Sunday that "officers were getting better, not getting worse." Williams used a handgun that matches the shell casings at the scene, McCulloch said. He also said tips from the public led to arrest. Williams, who Belmar said is black, is being held on $300,000 bond. County police spokesman Brian Schellman said he didn't know whether Williams had an attorney or when he'd appear in court. A message left at the St. Louis County Justice Center was not immediately returned. |
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