Police militarization and excesses

[emay]

What in the actual fuck ?!

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bal-freddie-gray-arrest-documents-drawn-up-for-wrong-people-20150504-story.html


The city charged the wrong people to protect the killer cops

[VDB]

Jesus H. Just imagine if some vigilante had gone out and whacked one or both of those people. "We regret the unfortunate clerical error."

[runawayjimbo]

I finally got through this long read from Radley Balko about the state of criminal justice in the wake of Ferguson and Baltimore: current crime stats, the inherent injustice of the system, and the dangers of looking at everything through a political lens.

http://wpo.st/0MbG0

This isn't 1968. Baltimore isn't Watts. And Hillary Clinton isn't Michael Dukakis.

...

[pcr3]

I finally got through this long read from Radley Balko about the state of criminal justice in the wake of Ferguson and Baltimore: current crime stats, the inherent injustice of the system, and the dangers of looking at everything through a political lens.

http://wpo.st/0MbG0

This isn't 1968. Baltimore isn't Watts. And Hillary Clinton isn't Michael Dukakis.

...

Good read; thanks for sharing. Dude nailed it, with the exception of using "tact" when he meant "tack"...

I can forgive that.

[rowjimmy]

Good read; thanks for sharing. Dude nailed it, with the exception of using "tact" when he meant "tack"...

I can forgive that.

Some crimes are unforgivable.

[runawayjimbo]

At first I thought it was supposed to be "tactic," but upon further review I'm pretty sure he meant "tact."

It's much easier to demagogue riots to exploit white fear of black crime than it is to ask complicated questions about what caused this group of people to grow so desperate in the first place. Historically, that tact has also won elections, and deviating from it arguably has lost them.

Full Definition of TACT
1:  sensitive mental or aesthetic perception <converted the novel into a play with remarkable skill and tact>
2:  a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offense

Go deflate your balls, pcr.  :-P

Still,

Good read; thanks for sharing. Dude nailed it, with the exception of using "tact" when he meant "tack"...

I can forgive that.

Some crimes are unforgivable.

I LOL'd

[ytowndan]

A grand jury indicts all six officers in Freddie Grey killing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/us/six-baltimore-officers-indicted-in-death-of-freddie-gray.html

[emay]

http://www.vice.com/read/an-ex-baltimore-cop-just-came-clean-on-twitter-about-all-the-corruption-he-saw-on-the-job-624?utm_source=vicefbus

[VDB]

http://www.vice.com/read/an-ex-baltimore-cop-just-came-clean-on-twitter-about-all-the-corruption-he-saw-on-the-job-624?utm_source=vicefbus

Not at all surprising but no less troubling.

[runawayjimbo]

I (like most of you, I assume) don't read a lot of RedState, but this story is just so indicative of our disgusting criminal justice system I had to put it here. I could do without the implicit editorializing at the end, but this is reason #47182738 why the War on Drugs is one of the most devastating policies a gov't has ever inflicted on it's on people.

http://www.redstate.com/2015/09/01/president-obama-commute-sharanda-jones-sentence/

President Obama, Commute Sharanda Jones' Sentence

Sharanda Jones is currently serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole at Carswell Federal Prison in Texas. Life without the possibility of parole is the second-harshest sentence our justice system can mete out, short only of the death penalty, and that not by much. What, you might ask yourself, did Sharanda Jones do to merit this sentence?

She was convicted of a single, non-violent drug offense involving crack cocaine. This conviction stemmed from her first ever arrest, and she was not even caught with crack in her possession.

If the above two paragraphs do not shock you, then you haven't spent enough time in the criminal justice system to know how often violent crimes – including intentional homicides – are not punished with life sentences, much less life without parole. It is actually difficult, in many state court systems in particular, to get sentenced to LWP, even for repeat violent offender.

The fact that Sharanda Jones received this sentence for what amounts to being a drug mule is indicative of the unthinking and senseless drug sentencing policy that infected this country for far too long and which has resulted in a gradually worsening over-incarceration problem in the United States, which costs American taxpayers billions of dollars a year.

The basic facts of Sharanda's arrest and conviction are set forth in this Washington Post story published in July. Essentially, Sharanda was convicted based on the testimony of two government informants who themselves were facing draconian drug sentences. The thrust of their testimony was that they had, over the course of several years, received several shipments of crack cocaine from Sharanda, who according to their understanding had brought the cocaine up from Houston to Terrell (northeast Dallas metro area) for them. There was no allegation that Sharanda had ever committed a violent act, and she was not ever caught with any amount of crack in her possession. By the uncontested testimony at trial, Sharanda did not supply the crack herself or distribute it, but rather acted as a conduit to transfer it from Houston to Terrell.

Sharanda was initially charged with seven criminal counts, and pled not guilty to all seven. She testified in her own defense and was ultimately acquitted on six of the seven counts. However, at the sentencing phase, prosecutors took the opportunity to pursue a despicable and un-American tactic all too common in our criminal justice system: they sought at sentencing to punish Sharanda for insisting on her right to trial by seeking "sentencing enhancements" – many of which essentially constitute separate crimes (e.g., obstruction of justice) but which of course prosecutors weren't required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at this phase of the trial.

For instance, among other enhancements, Sharanda's sentence was enhanced for carrying a gun "in furtherance of a drug conspiracy," based simply on the fact that she had a legal license to carry a firearm in Texas. There was no testimony at trial or at any other time that she ever used her gun or even brandished or displayed it to anyone at any time. Additionally, although Sharanda was acquitted on six of the seven counts against her, her testimony in her own defense was declared at sentencing to have been false and therefore an "obstruction of justice."

At the end of the day, prosecutors successfully placed Sharanda Jones behind bars for the rest of her natural life after her first arrest, for a nonviolent crime, in no small part because she insisted on defending herself at trial instead of taking a plea bargain that itself involved a lengthy prison sentence.

Sharanda's case represents a small drop in an increasingly large bucket that threatens all of society with its increasing weight. Per the Bureau of Prisons, their budget has steadily grown since 1980 at an inflation-adjusted average of over $130 million per year. Even after adjusting for inflation, the Federal Bureau of Prison's budget has grown by almost 700% since 1980, which does not even account for the fact that, by their own admission, they are dangerously overcrowded and unable to properly serve the current prison population, much less its expected growth in future years. Each year that the government keeps Sharanda Jones – who has already spent 18 years behind bars – locked up costs taxpayers about $28,000.

Given an average expected life span, the Federal drug sentencing regime put taxpayers on the hook for about $1.7 million in present-value dollars for the privilege of keeping a non-violent criminal behind bars for the rest of her natural life, and for discouraging others in Sharanda's place from making the mistake of forcing them to go to trial and prove their case.

Of course, the financial toll pales in comparison to the human toll of Sharanda's story, and so many others like hers. Sharanda Jones is not just a number or a dollar figure. She is a human being with a family (including a daughter) and friendships who has been essentially ripped from society forever. Society, through its criminal justice system, has declared that Sharanda Jones is beyond saving; that no hope exists or ever will exist that she can be a productive member of society, that the crime of drug muling is so heinous that she must never be allowed to see the light of day, in spite of the numerous murderers, rapists, and thieves who are deemed fit for rehabilitation and a second chance.

I think everyone, including Sharanda herself, would concede that she deserved to serve some amount of prison time for her crime; but there has to come a point where enough is enough, and where stories like Sharanda's shock our conscience as a society and we allow some amount of reason to creep back into our criminal justice system.

Thankfully, some semblance of sanity has re-asserted itself over our federal sentencing regime and under the current regime, offenders like Sharanda Jones are extraordinarily unlikely to receive such a sentence. But too many are like Sharanda, languishing behind bars for ludicrous amounts of time under the weight of sentences passed during the middle of the crackdown on crack frenzy. Something is desperately wrong when our prisons cannot hold repeat violent offenders because it is too full of nonviolent drug offenders who are there on mandatory sentences.

For Sharanda, there are essentially two remaining options. The first lies in executive clemency and pardon – which President Obama already passed on extending to Sharanda once. Maybe Obama isn't interested in anything he might read at RedState but his time in office is short and hopefully his successor might be more amenable to suggestions from voters on this side of the aisle. The second, equally unlikely is a Congressional solution that retroactively allows for judicial reconsideration of nonviolent drug sentences where none currently exists. Such a solution, especially as part of broader criminal justice reform like that championed by Texas under Rick Perry, could help both reduce federal prison population while actually reducing violent crime.

Until a day comes where one of these becomes a more politically palatable solution, all Sharanda Jones can do is pray that someday, someone in a position of authority will determine that she has been punished enough, and that she should be given the second chance that we all deep down believe that we deserve for our mistakes.

[Buffalo Budd]

Deplorable
and WTF Obama?!

[PIE-GUY]

Consider the source, but I believe it...

http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/police-culpable-of-for-widespread-panic-concert-attendee-who-died-in-police-custody/

[rowjimmy]

Consider the source, but I believe it...

http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/police-culpable-of-for-widespread-panic-concert-attendee-who-died-in-police-custody/

Despite the source, there is real news in the findings of the ME. The department had pointed to drugs and suggested that he had a condition about which they couldn't know. Now it's clear that those things weren't the reason. Culpability will fall to the courts but nothing in that process will fix the fact that a son, husband, and father has been taken from his family forever after an encounter with the police.

[sls.stormyrider]

then of course, there's this

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/us/minneapolis-protest-police-jamar-clark.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=standard&contentPlacement=4&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F11%2F20%2Fus%2Fminneapolis-protest-police-jamar-clark.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0

[ytowndan]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/illegitimacy-and-american-policing/422094/

A short, but rather solid, piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  He really nails it in the final paragraph.