New York City policeman indicted for killing unarmed Akai Gurney

This video from the USA says about itself:

Ferguson Residents Challenge “Modern Debtors’ Prison Scheme” Targeting Blacks with Fines, Arrests

10 February 2015

Monday marked six months since a white police officer killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The shooting sparked protests over Brown’s death and the broader racial divide it came to symbolize. Now, half a year later, a major legal action is taking that divide head-on.

On Sunday, more than a dozen St. Louis-area residents filed class-action lawsuits against Ferguson and another suburb, Jennings. The residents accuse local officials of creating a “modern debtors’ prison scheme” that targets African Americans with arrests and fines and then locks them up when they cannot pay. A study last year by the ArchCity Defenders found a large part of the revenue for several St. Louis counties comes from fines paid by African-American residents disproportionately targeted for traffic stops and other low-level offenses.

In Ferguson, fines and fees were the city’s second-largest source of income in fiscal year 2014. Ferguson issued on average nearly three warrants per household last year — the highest number of warrants in the state, relative to its size. We speak to Michael-John Voss, managing attorney at ArchCity Defenders, one of the groups that has filed a lawsuit against Ferguson and Jennings. We are also joined by Allison Nelson and Herbert Nelson Jr., two of the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuits.

From Vox.com in the USA:

Report: NYPD officer indicted for killing unarmed Akai Gurley in Brooklyn stairwell

Updated by German Lopez on February 10, 2015, 6:00 p.m. ET

A grand jury indicted New York City police officer Peter Liang for the shooting death of Akai Gurley, an unarmed 28-year-old black man, the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press reported.

See also here. And here.

Alabama’s governor apologized yesterday to the government of India for the police officer who assaulted and injured an Indian grandfather on Feb. 6. Governor Robert Bentley has also ordered his state to investigate exactly what happened, alongside an FBI probe. The use of “excessive force” left Sureshbhai Patel, 57 years old, partially paralyzed: here.

New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Peter Liang waited nearly 20 minutes to report the shooting of Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black man who was killed when Liang’s weapon discharged on November 20 in an unlit stairwell in Brooklyn, according to a prosecution motion released by the Brooklyn Supreme Court last week: here.

Opening statements and testimony began this week in the long-awaited trial of New York City police officer Peter Liang for the killing of Akai Gurley, an unarmed 28-year-old African-American man walking down the stairs in his apartment building, part of the Louis H. Pink housing projects in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Jury selection in the case was completed last week: here.

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