Next week’s cover issue ‘Say their names’
Kadir Nelson’s “Say Their Names” | The New Yorker
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London Breed pushes San Francisco reforms: Police no longer will respond to noncriminal calls
San Francisco police officers will be replaced with trained, unarmed professionals to respond to calls for help on noncriminal matters involving mental health, the homeless, school discipline and neighbor disputes, as part of a new wave of police reforms.
That change and others, which will be implemented over the coming months, are part of a plan by Mayor London Breed to try to reduce police confrontations with the community. Breed unveiled her proposals after weeks of massive protests over the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“San Francisco has made progress reforming our police department, but we know that we still have significant work to do,” Breed said. “We know that a lack of equity in our society overall leads to a lot of the problems that police are being asked to solve.”
Of all the Mayors, Breed has notably shown some of the strongest leadership, through both the coronavirus lock downs and the police brutality protests. Super fan, or as the young say, I stan.
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Woman apologizes after backlash from confronting homeowner
Bubba Wallace emerges as NASCAR’s improbable yet ideally suited change agent
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Police retract claims that Seattle’s ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ protesters tried to extort local businesses
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Trump’s comments on what he plans to do with his “Law and Order pitch” Executive Order he’s signing today.
This is the most controversial - gives police that same option, I had to protect myself.
Yes - campaign-speak
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The FBI is involved in how these hanging deaths occurred…Very sad news…and confounding how and why these happened.
When Malcolm Harsch, a 38-year-old Black man, was found hanging from a tree in Victorville two weeks ago, authorities said they saw no evidence of foul play.
A week later, when Robert Fuller, another Black man, was discovered hanging from a tree in Palmdale, the initial cause of death was listed as suicide.
But after protests and questions in the two deaths, the FBI announced Monday that it was examining both cases.
Local authorities say both the Fuller and Harsch cases remain under investigation.
…
Robert Fuller
Fuller’s family and friends described him as a peacemaker, a street-smart man with shoulder-length dreadlocks and a bright smile who loved music, anime and video games and mostly stayed to himself. Days before he died, he attended a Black Lives Matter protest.
His body was found by a passerby at 3:39 a.m. Wednesday, a time when Fuller would never have been out, said Tommie Anderson, 21, a close friend since high school.
“For my best friend to be gone, it’s hurting me,” said Anderson, who was wearing a T-shirt depicting one of Fuller’s favorite characters from the Japanese anime TV series “Dragon Ball Z.”
Fuller was too large and too muscular for the thin tree to support his weight for long, she said. And he was too tall to hang from its lowest branches.
“For people to say he did this, this wasn’t Robert,” Anderson said. “For him to tie himself to that tree, it’s not possible.”
Malcolm Harsch
The Victorville Fire Department discovered Harsch’s body May 31 after receiving a dispatch call around 7 a.m., officials said. When firefighters arrived at the library, they found Harsch hanging from a nearby tree.
On Monday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department offered more details about what happened, saying deputies were were called to a homeless encampment regarding Harsch.
“The caller said she and [her] boyfriend, later identified as Malcolm Harsch, had been together during the morning, but she had since returned to her tent for a short period of time. She was alerted by others in the encampment that Mr. Harsch was found hanging from a tree and cut down. People in the encampment were performing CPR, attempting to revive Mr. Harsch,” the statement said.
“Upon arrival, deputies immediately took over and continued CPR. Emergency medical personnel arrived on scene a short time later, and despite additional lifesaving efforts, pronounced Mr. Harsch deceased,” officials added.
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More on Steven Carrillo… who had an accomplice, it seems.
This guy was the LEADER of a highly trained US Air Force security team that guards aircraft in high terrorist and high crime areas overseas.
And he became a domestic terrorist instead.
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Tell Siri you’re getting pulled over and this iPhone shortcut will record your interaction with the police
A black officer stepped in when a white cop had a suspect in a chokehold. She was fired and the city wants an investigation
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The Trump campaign is selling onesies that say ‘Baby Lives Matter’ in the same style as the ‘Black Lives Matter’ slogan
This is either pandering to his “pro-life” brigade or to the crazy “globalist pedophile ring” nuts, I don’t know which. Or both.
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Clearly some white supremacists are signalling their true feelings. Awful.
Oakland residents found a body hanging in effigy on Thursday, one day after the mayor addressed reports of knotted ropes resembling nooses hanging near the city’s Lake Merritt.
The Oakland Police Department is working with the FBI to investigate the latest incident.
According to a police department statement, a witness called at 8:20 Thursday morning to report “a fake body hanging from a noose.” The witness removed the body from the tree before the police arrived.
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This might be the most obscene and insane suggestion since “crisis actors.”
Mark Taylor Says Black Men Are Hanging Themselves to Stoke Racial Division and Prevent Trump’s Reelection
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This hits home, literally; this is my town.
Hopkins Park Band Shell defaced with pro-Trump and “All Lives Matter” graffiti overnight ahead of tonight’s Black Lives Matter townhall
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Air Force Investigates Military Planes That Monitored Protesters
The Air Force inspector general is investigating whether the military improperly used a little-known reconnaissance plane to monitor protests in Washington and Minneapolis this month, the Air Force said on Thursday.
The inquiry was apparently prompted by lawmakers who expressed concerns to Pentagon officials that the use of military surveillance airplanes may have violated the civil liberties of the mostly peaceful protesters demonstrating against the police killings of African-Americans.
“Following discussions with the secretary of defense about shared concerns, the secretary of the Air Force is conducting an investigation into the use of Air National Guard RC-26 aircraft to support civil authorities during recent protest activity in U.S. cities,” Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the chief Air Force spokesman, said in response to questions from The New York Times.
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As protests spread to small-town America, militia groups respond with armed intimidation and online threats
Public Enemy return with explosive new anti-Trump song, ‘State of the Union (STFU)’
“‘State of the Union (STFU)’ speaks truth to power while urging people to fight against racism, injustice and oppression with their vote”
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One dead, one in critical condition in early morning shooting at Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHOP
Seattle police homicide and assault detectives are investigating an early morning shooting in the Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHOP that left one person dead and another in critical condition.
Seattle police said a 19-year-old man was pronounced dead at Harborview Medical Center. A second man suffered life-threatening injuries. Police have not identified the victims.
Sgt. Lauren Truscott, the department’s public information officer, said no suspects were in custody and the department urged anyone with information to call its tip line, 206-233-5000. Truscott said the department is reviewing public-source video and body-camera video for clues.
Footage from on the ground 
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This.
Defund the Police and Invest in Our Communities | Ben & Jerry’s
Bad at Solving Crimes
A comprehensive studyOpens a new window published in 2019 found that police across the US make a total of about 10.5 million arrests every single year, aggressively pursuing drug violations (disproportionately affecting Black people) and low-level offenses. (80% of all arrests are for low-level crimes, and only 5% for crimes that involve violence.) More than 10 million arrests is a lot! But all that activity doesn’t signal effectiveness: Only 40% of victims report crimes to the police (which speaks to a lack of trust), and police only solve 25%Opens a new window of those reported crimes. With spending on policeOpens a new window skyrocketing over the past six decades, you’d think it would lead to less crime and more effective investigations, but no.
American police do rank highly, though, in their use of force. As CNN Opens a new windowputs it, “American police shoot, kill, and imprison more people than other developed countries.” And given the racismOpens a new window in the overall criminal justice system, it’s sadly no surprise that Black people are more at risk than white people of being killed by police. Black men are up to 3.5 times more likelyOpens a new window than white men to be killed by law enforcement—in fact, 1 in every 1,000 Black men Opens a new window will die at the hands of policeOpens a new window. Maybe this is one of the reasons that the mayor of Boston recently declared racism a public health crisisOpens a new window.
And for all this violence, Americans spend about $115 billion a yearOpens a new window. New York City’s police budget, to cite just one hard-to-believe example, is about $6 billionOpens a new window, way way way more than the city spends on health and community services. Even in our own hometown of Burlington, Vermont,Opens a new window the $17.4 million spent on the police department accounts for about 22% of the city’s proposed overall budget, leaving vital community programs underfunded. Does it make any sense for Americans to pay billions upon billions of dollarsOpens a new window for a violent, racist, and ineffective system that causes so many people so much pain?
Time to Defund the Police!
Incremental reforms. Promises to do better. Increased training. We’ve tried thatOpens a new window. But American policing is fundamentally flawed—Band-Aids won’t fix it. So it’s time to do something fundamentally different. The good news is that many states and cities have clearly heard protesters’ demands and are already working to do just that:
- School districtsOpens a new window around the US are cutting ties with police departments, helping shut down the school-to-prison pipeline.
- MinneapolisOpens a new window has vowed to disband its police department.
- Mayors, governors, and other politiciansOpens a new window are pledging to reduce police department budgets and spend the money on community services instead.
- New YorkOpens a new window just passed a law to put historic restrictions on the police.
- San FranciscoOpens a new window will send trained experts, instead of police, to calls regarding homelessness, school discipline, mental-health crises, and other non-criminal activities.
This is a great start. But more must be done. George Floyd was murdered over a disputed $20 transaction at a grocery store. The response by the police took his life, failed his community, and made our world less safe. This Juneteenth, on what should be our nation’s true Independence Day, it’s time to liberate ourselves from a dangerous, racist model of law enforcement and work toward a new vision of building thriving communities where all people have what they need to be healthy and safe. Let’s dismantle the old system and build a new one that guarantees freedom and justice for all.
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