Look who is the prosecutor!
"US reviews Philadelphia police; Justice Dept. finds shootings are common" by Matt Apuzzo, New York Times March 24, 2015
WASHINGTON — Police officers in Philadelphia have shot at people an average of nearly once a week over the past seven years, the Justice Department said Monday in a report that also criticized the Police Department for inadequate training and a shooting-review process that is too often kept secret.
One word for you: Todashev
Not defending the Philly thugs in uniform by any stretch, but the stench of hypocrisy tends to cloud the air.
The report comes as tensions linger over the death of Brandon Tate-Brown, 26, an unarmed Philadelphia man who was killed by the police in December.
It's the whole black-white thing again, right?
The Justice Department review, which began in 2013, was unrelated to that shooting, but the report describes a department in which shootings are common and where officers are not required to carry less lethal alternatives. Officers were involved in 390 shootings from 2007 through 2014.
Again, why now? This Justice Department is on its way out. Where have they been all this time? If all this is real, they have ignored much of it until the end of the terms? WTF?
Fifty-nine unarmed people were shot by Philadelphia police officers since 2007, a figure that accounted for about 15 percent of shootings, the Justice Department said. National data on police shootings do not exist.
Well, WHY NOT? They have statistics and databases for everything else, with all sorts of analyses and studies broken down by race and gender. WTF?
“Therefore, we cannot say whether this number is high or low,” the Justice Department said.
Then why am I bothering, and why is this agenda-pushing, image-polishing crapola in my paper at all?
Police departments are not required to publish data on shootings involving their officers, and there is no accepted standard for doing so, which makes it difficult to compare figures with departments in other cities.
???????????
But Philadelphia’s numbers are stark when contrasted with New York’s; that city publishes data on police shootings each year. New York’s population and police force are more than five times larger than Philadelphia, yet Philadelphia had dozens more police shootings during the period covered by the report, according to the closest comparable published data.
Last month, the Justice Department issued a scathing review of the Police Department in Ferguson, Mo., after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man.
I already emptied that clip.
The investigation by federal prosecutors and FBI agents found widespread unconstitutional police practices and demanded changes in Ferguson, a city that had been pushed to the forefront of the debate over police and race.
They have some nerve!
The Philadelphia report is very different, both in its tone and its findings. The Philadelphia police commissioner, Charles H. Ramsey, had requested the Justice Department investigation, which was not conducted by federal prosecutors but rather by federal experts who specialize in community-oriented policing.
And while the Ferguson report is likely to lead to a court order and independent oversight of the department, the Philadelphia report is essentially an advisory document.
In about half of the Philadelphia cases involving unarmed suspects, officers said they thought a suspect was reaching for a weapon. In other cases, suspects were unarmed but were fighting with the police.
In other words, they were coming right for them!
The report does not allege racial discrimination or animus by the police in Philadelphia.
What, they not care who they firing at?
Although African-Americans accounted for 80 percent of shooting victims, whites who were shot by the police were more likely than blacks to be unarmed, the Justice Department concluded. And in most cases, unarmed black suspects were shot by black officers.
Come again?
The report also found wide disparities in crime scene photography and documentation, the use of typed notes summarizing interviews instead of audio and video recordings, and an internal affairs shooting team that waits months until after the district attorney clears an officer before interviewing him or her.
The report comes at a tense time in Philadelphia.
Meant to chill things out, I'm sure. See, see, your government that has neglected you for so long is taking action!
At a community meeting last week where the police were expected to discuss Tate-Brown’s shooting, residents angrily shouted at the commissioner and pointed in his face. Protesters tussled with police officers, and the meeting descended into lawlessness. Ten people were arrested.
Hey!
‘‘What we’re doing here today is a start,’’ said Ramsey, who made similar recommendations this month for departments across the country as cochairman of a White House task force on modern policing. ‘‘You can’t fix something until you recognize and acknowledge that it exists.’’
Tell that the the delusional minds in Washington D.C. and in the ma$$ media because they don't seem to get it.
Ramsey requested the federal review in May 2013 after four straight days of police-involved shootings, three of them fatal.
‘‘We need to lower all the numbers,’’ Ramsey said at a news conference. ‘‘Folks need to stop killing each other.’’
And this government reviewing you needs to stop fomenting covert and overt wars (as well as running guns to Mexican drug gangs).
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Okay, time for opening statements:
"Pa. police corruption trial underway" Associated Press March 31, 2015
PHILADELPHIA — Lawyers for six fired police officers charged with stealing millions of dollars in cash and narcotics from drug dealers attacked the government case Monday, saying it relies on 19 lying drug dealers and a ‘‘dirty, despicable’’ ex-colleague.
No wonder the drug war goes on and on and why heroin addicts are to be coddled -- not to mention the black profits that booster CIA black operations and the bottom lines of money-laundering banks that will only face kickbacks, I'm sorry, I meant fines from the government trying to stamp out the evil scour.... ha, ha, ha.
I'm sorry, folks. I thought I could get through it without giggling. Must be the marijuana.
Jurors heard a full day of opening statements as the trial got underway in the sweeping police corruption case.
Assistant US Attorney Anthony Wzorek told jurors that if police steal money from drug dealers, it’s still robbery because ‘‘it’s not yours to take.’’ He said the former officers routinely broke into homes without search warrants and ransacked them to steal drugs, cash, a Rolex watch, and other valuables.
Related: Modern Day Robin Hoods
That's the defense?
Scores of convictions based on the unit’s work have been overturned, and about 100 lawsuits are on hold amid the officers’ criminal trial.
I seem to remember a similar problem under a different governor that has kind of faded from memory.
Related: “You know there’s a problem when the guy who is supposed to be in charge has a bag of crack on his desk for no apparent reason.”
Good thing they cleaned it all up, huh?
Defense lawyer Jack McMahon said the government had little evidence to back up the testimony of their criminal witnesses, including convicted ex-officer Jeffrey Walker.
‘‘They take all this cast of characters, and they get Jeffrey Walker, and they think . . . they can wash away all the problems of this case,’’ he said.
Walker began cooperating after he took the bait in an FBI sting focused on an aggressive undercover drug unit. He admitted in a February 2014 plea that he had planted evidence in a suspect’s car and had taken $15,000 from him.
Nice to know the cops are being set-up as much as the patsy terror plotters, 'eh?
After his arrest, Walker told the FBI that drug dealers were robbed, beaten, threatened, and even hung over high-rise balconies. He said unit members stole items ranging from loose change to $80,000 in a safe they removed from an apartment and carried down 17 flights of stairs.
I can't believe that!
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"Pa. officer accused of shooting, killing unarmed motorist in back" Associated Press March 25, 2015
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania police officer was charged Tuesday with criminal homicide after investigators concluded she shot an unarmed motorist in the back as he lay facedown after a traffic stop over an expired inspection sticker.
She white, he black?
Authorities accused Hummelstown police Officer Lisa J. Mearkle of shooting 59-year-old David Kassick twice on Feb. 2 without legal justification. She was released on $250,000 bail.
Her attorney, Brian Perry said Mearkle acted in self-defense, and he warned the case could cause police officers to hesitate in high-pressure situations.
‘‘She felt like she had to do what she did,’’ Perry said. ‘‘This person was being commanded, begged, ‘show me your hands,’ and he kept going to his waist.’’
Authorities said Mearkle had attempted to pull over Kassick for expired inspection and emissions stickers before he sped away. She caught up to Kassick near his sister’s home where he had been living for a short time.
He got out and ran before Mearkle incapacitated him with a stun gun, held in her left hand. He was on the ground when she shot him twice in the back with the gun in her right hand, police said.
I'm sorry, but after South Carolina, I'm thinking another staged gait prop shooting -- although this one was washed right down the memory hole and I have no color component yet.
Mearkle, 36, told investigators she fired because he would not show her his hands and she thought he was reaching into his jacket for a gun. Perry said she did not know Kassick before the shooting.
The offense of criminal homicide encompasses a range of charges, from misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter to felony first-degree murder. Prosecutors often narrow the charge later in the process, about the time when defendants are formally arraigned.
The stun gun contained a camera that recorded audio and video from portions of the encounter, and District Attorney Ed Marsico called it the strongest evidence in the case.
So we are reaching a point where official videos are going to be considered proof positive after all the frauds and fakes we have seen just these last couple years (from school and mall shootings to beheading and terror attack videos)? Pah!
Sorry, genie not going back in bottle, I don't care what official videos the propaganda pre$$ or ma$$ media cite.
He said it appeared Kassick had been trying to remove the stun-gun probe from his back.
‘‘At the time Officer Mearkle fires both rounds from her pistol, the video clearly depicts Kassick lying on the snow covered lawn with his face toward the ground,’’ according to the arrest affidavit. ‘‘Furthermore, at the time the rounds are fired nothing can be seen in either of Kassick’s hands, nor does he point or direct anything toward Officer Mearkle.’’
Marsico said Mearkle waited 4 seconds between the first and second shots, and afterward performed CPR. He called the shooting ‘‘a tragedy for all involved.’’
The district attorney said a syringe was found near Kassick’s body, and alcohol and unspecified drugs were found in his system.
Lawyers for Kassick’s family and estate issued a statement calling the charges ‘‘a substantial step toward closure’’ after what they described as a horrifying tragedy. They said he had worked as a Teamsters union laborer and struggled with addiction.
‘‘Mr. Kassick is now dead as a result of a traffic stop, a routine traffic stop,’’ said one of the family’s attorneys, Christopher Slusser. ‘‘He should not be dead. He should not have died as a result of that traffic stop. And the manner in which he was shot — you can infer from that what you will.’’
I'm thinking white man, real killing, and down the memory hole it will go.
That's the key to understanding the propaganda pre$$: the more print an issue or event is given, the more likely it is a false flag and/or staged and scripted fiction. The less coverage it gets, the more likely it is a real event. Those that get no coverage? That's why you are here.
Hummelstown Police Chief Charles M. Dowell did not respond to a message seeking comment, but his department issued a news release that said it had cooperated fully, calling the matter ‘‘an extremely difficult case for all involved.’’
‘‘We are servants of justice and must now allow the judicial process to conduct a fair and impartial review of the allegations that have been presented,’’ the news release stated.
Quite a thing when boot is on other neck, huh?
Perry said Mearkle has been on the force for 15 years. She is married to a state trooper and has young children at home, he said. She was expected to be under electronic monitoring.
Oh, the injustice of a GPS!
So who did Kassick have in the way of family?
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Okay, cop was white.
Maybe she was the one sending e-mails to the judge:
"Dubious e-mail tied to nominee for Pa. high court" Associated Press February 21, 2015
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A white judge nominated for Pennsylvania’s highest court apparently forwarded a racially insensitive e-mail showing a black couple talking through glass via a jailhouse phone under the heading, ‘‘Merry Christmas from the Johnsons.’’
Centre County Judge Thomas Kistler told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a story posted Friday he did not remember sending the e-mail in December 2013 to more than 20 people, including lawyers, the county prosecutor, and people who work in the criminal justice system.
Kistler did not deny sending the image, which is readily available online, but told the paper if he did, it would not have been intended to mock black people. He said the message would have been, ‘‘Christmas goes on, even for the people we put in jail.’’
The elite supremacism across all levels of the ruling cla$$ is really disgusting.
Based on the recommendation of Senate leaders, Governor Tom Wolf has nominated Kistler, a Republican, and Duquesne Law School dean Ken Gormley, a Democrat, to fill two high court vacancies.
A Wolf spokesman said late Friday the governor did not plan to make an immediate decision on Kistler’s status.
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That's why minorities can never make anything of themselves, right? The man keepin' 'em down.
"Son of Pa. congressman fights lawsuit" Associated Press March 23, 2015
PHILADELPHIA — The son of a veteran US representative is awaiting trial over $200,000 in bank loans that fueled his image as a self-proclaimed “lifestyle mogul,” but he calls himself collateral damage in the Justice Department’s long-running investigation of his father.
The cavalier use of that term when there are dead Iraqi and Afghan bodies.... sigh.
The FBI believes Chaka Fattah Jr. misspent loans and some of the nearly $1 million in federal education funds he obtained — despite never finishing college — as a 27-year-old school management subcontractor living in a $600,000 condo, spending lavishly on cars for himself and his girlfriend, and racking up $33,000 in casino gambling debts.
See? The whole cla$$ of people, be they white, black, woman, man, are totally corrupt. At least it's diver$e at the top!
And when tax time came around, authorities said, he was lax about filing returns annually and instead filed a batch of them in late 2010. IRS agents, finding the returns suspect, raided his bachelor pad a year later.
In a trial memo last month, prosecutors said Fattah’s companies were merely a shell for business loans he spent on ‘‘extravagant personal living expenses.’’
But rather than cower in the midst of FBI stings that have ensnared his college roommate and two advisers to his father — Representative Chaka Fattah Sr. — the younger Fattah has instead fought back, acting as his own lawyer.
Yaaaaaaaay!
‘‘Chip’’ Fattah, now 31, scored an early victory this month when a US appeals court agreed to delay the case and review one of his countless legal challenges. A legal brief in the case is due Tuesday.
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This is worse than a delay of game penalty:
"Penn State trustees vote to authorize Sandusky victim deals" Associated Press April 10, 2015
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Penn State board on Thursday authorized university officials to settle litigation related to Jerry Sandusky, but it was not clear how much money is at stake or the number of victims involved.
The trustees voted 18 to 6 to let high-ranking administrators execute settlements after they discussed dollar limits during a closed session.
A university news release said the terms were subject to confidentiality agreements, although Penn State may release details on the number of deals and the amount of money being paid out later, when other settlements are made.
Chairman Keith Masser said during a public conference call before the vote that the authorization covers ‘‘one or more’’ claims related to the actions of Sandusky, the school’s former assistant football coach now serving a lengthy prison sentence for child molestation.
The university previously announced settlements with 26 young men for nearly $60 million, but it has been sued by at least two others, referred to as Victim 6 and Victim 9 in court documents at Sandusky’s criminal trial.
Messages left for their lawyers on Thursday were not immediately returned.
No one spoke in favor of the resolution before the vote, but trustees who were opposed — all of them among the alumni-elected board members — said they were not willing to act without all the facts, or believed the university should not continue paying for Sandusky’s actions.
Problem is there is a whole lot of elite pedophilia if that scapegoat scab were to be ripped open.
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And I'm not even going to go to mass, if you know what I mean.
Doesn't Pennsylvania have enough sex scandals?
UPDATES:
"Rogue ex-drug officer admits ‘thousands’ of crimes, lies" Associated Press April 16, 2015
PHILADELPHIA — A rogue ex-police officer testifying against drug squad colleagues in a federal corruption trial admitted Wednesday that he committed ‘‘thousands’’ of crimes during his career on the Philadelphia Police Department.
Former officer Jeffrey Walker said he and other members of his undercover unit routinely lied to judges and juries after planting evidence, stealing drug money, and beating suspects to get information.
Walker acknowledged that his lies have led to any number of unjust convictions. He didn’t consider the victims ‘‘human’’ because they were drug dealers.
What it causes a person to do is distrust and doubt the whole $y$tem, and for good reason.
‘‘We were getting the drugs, the guns, the money [off the street],’’ Walker, a 24-year police veteran, testified Wednesday. ‘‘We were also stealing.’’
At least 160 convictions have been overturned and scores of civil rights lawsuits filed since Walker’s plea in the case in 2013. The lawsuits are on hold while six former colleagues charged following of his cooperation fight the Justice Department racketeering charges.
Yeah, now $et-upon taxpayers will have to pay up for police malfeasance. Talk about fa$ci$m!
Walker, 46, explained that the squad targeted white, college-type dealers for the on-duty heists because they were easily intimidated.
That why they gotta kill the black man?
More than a dozen such witnesses have testified, some telling the jury they presumed they were being robbed by rival criminals when the thuggish officers descended on them.
The squad routinely barged in first, stole what they wanted, and then went to court to get a search warrant, the July 2014 indictment said.
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And if you killed one in defense?
"Students asked about writing to Mumia Abu-Jamal" Associated Press April 16, 2015
ORANGE, N.J. — A suspended New Jersey teacher said her third-grade class asked about writing ‘‘get well’’ letters to a sick inmate convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer, but Marylin Zuniga apologized for publicizing the effort online.
Third-grade kids asked that?
Zuniga spoke before the Orange School Board Tuesday, days after she was suspended with pay after school officials learned about the letters.
The letters were delivered to Mumia Abu-Jamal in prison following his hospitalization last month for what his family said was treatment for complications from diabetes. The former Black Panther is serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder.
Zuniga said she had assigned her class in February to consider the theme of Abu-Jamal’s quote: ‘‘So long as one just person is silenced, there is no justice.’’
‘‘In April, I mentioned to my students that Mumia was very ill and they told me they would like to write ‘get well’ letters to Mumia,’’ Zuniga said.
So they didn't really ask, it was a suggestion.
She told the board she made a mistake and had learned from it.
But not her le$$on.
She said she was prepared to resign to avoid consequences to her career if the panel decides to fire her. The board met in closed session, before deciding to table to issue.
School Board attorney Melvin Randall told NJ.com he misspoke when he had said during the meeting that a decision had been made.
‘‘No decision had been made,’’ Randall said. ‘‘It was a recommendation.’’ But Randall declined to say what that recommendation was.
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Something wrong with that guy's celebrity.
