Tag: lethal force

Jeremy Miller breaks down the complexities of the efforts of the San Francisco Police Officers Association to convince the SF Board of Supervisors that the City needs the SFPOA, and SFPOA members need to be paid well, have millions in assets, more millions in budgets, and be protected from the public as they continue killing unarmed Black and Brown folks with impunity.

Police kill a lot of unarmed people. So far in 2015, as many as 100 unarmed people have been killed by police. So far in 2015, there have been around 400 fatal police shootings; one in six of those killings, 16 percent, was of unarmed people, 49 had no weapon at all and 13 had toys, according to the Washington Post. Here are 15 of the most outrageous reasons given by police to justify killing unarmed people in the last 12 months.

On May 23, Cuyahoga County Judge John P. O’Donnell found Officer Michael Brelo not guilty of felony involuntary manslaughter in the killing deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell. Williams and Russell were killed in November 2012 after Cleveland police officers unleashed 137 gunshots into the couple’s car following a police pursuit. The family of Timothy Ray Russell released the following statement in response.

The uprising in Baltimore has delivered an unmistakable and powerful message that the time is over when people will tolerate the unending and outrageous murder and brutality carried out by police. The torture and murder of Freddie Gray for nothing – and the ongoing, infuriating lies and coverup – is only the latest in a long line of such horrors in not only Baltimore but all over the U.S., from North Charleston, S.C., to Ferguson, Missouri, from Pasco, Washington, to New York City and beyond – THIS MUST STOP!

Wait. Patience. Stay Calm. We’ve been waiting for dozens, hundreds, thousands of indictments and convictions. Every death hurts. Every exonerated cop, security guard or vigilante enrages. The grand jury’s decision doesn’t surprise most Black people because we are not waiting for an indictment. We are waiting for justice – or more precisely, struggling for justice. The young people of Ferguson continue to struggle with ferocity.

Just one day before his 17th birthday, on July 22, 2010, James Earl Rivera Jr. died in a hail of 48 rounds fired by three Stockton, Calif., police officers after they forced the car he was driving to crash. Nearly two years later, a report by the district attorney found James’ death “justified.”

Never before has a police officer been tried for murder for actions taken while on duty. The defense is taking the position that Oscar Grant was a threat and noncompliant and that BART Officer Johannes Mehserle thought he was tasing him but shot him by mistake. The trial is expected to wrap up soon.