United States police brutality continues

This 10 June 2020 video from Britain says about itself:

7-Year-Old Delivers Powerful Poem at BLM Protest | NowThis

‘Black is beautiful.
Black is excellent.
Black is love.
Black is elegant.’

Listen to 7-year-old Nylah perform this beautiful piece at a Black Lives Matter protest in the UK.

BLACK MAN’S VIOLENT DEATH IN CUSTODY WAS FILMED Police video and documents released more than a year after the in-custody death of a Black man in Texas show that sheriff’s deputies repeatedly used a stun gun on him despite multiple pleas that he couldn’t breathe following a chase after he failed to dim his headlights. The revelations in the 2019 death of Javier Ambler raise questions about Williamson County deputies’ practice of pursuing drivers for minor crimes. A local prosecutor says the circumstances of Ambler’s death are troubling because it was being filmed for A&E Network’s real-time police show “Live PD.” [AP]

How was my son Ahmaud Arbery’s murder not a hate crime?

The grim resilience of Black mothers of murdered children.

THE POLICE HAVE SPIED ON BLACK REPORTERS AND ACTIVISTS FOR YEARS On Aug. 20, 2018, the first day of a federal police surveillance trial, I discovered that the Memphis Police Department was spying on me. The ACLU of Tennessee had sued the MPD, alleging that the department was in violation of a 1978 consent decree barring surveillance of residents for political purposes. I’d long suspected that I was on law enforcement’s radar, simply because my work tends to center on the most marginalized communities, not institutions with the most power. [HuffPost]

PUBLIC DANGER: MANY COPS MASKLESS On May 13, five New York City police officers wrestled a 22-year-old mother to the ground in a Brooklyn subway station and arrested her in front of her young child for refusing to wear a mask. Like two-thirds of New Yorkers arrested for not wearing a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic, the woman was Black. Less than a month later, New York cops themselves are overwhelmingly going without masks at protests against police brutality and racism ― so much so that Mayor Bill de Blasio, widely criticized for defending NYPD violence against demonstrators, pleaded with officers to “follow the rules.” [HuffPost]

NEW YORK REPEALS LAW SHIELDING POLICE DISCIPLINARY RECORDS New York lawmakers passed a bill that will enable police officers’ disciplinary records to be made public through freedom of information law requests. The decades-old legislation made personnel records of police officers, firefighters and corrections officers unreviewable unless mandated by court order. The news comes as the New York Police Union boss has demanded respect for officers after brutal protest crackdowns. [HuffPost]

FLORIDA POLICE UNION PRESIDENT SUSPENDED The president of a Fraternal Order of Police chapter in Florida was suspended from his position at a sheriff’s office after he sent a Facebook post encouraging cops accused of misconduct in other cities to apply for jobs in Florida. Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said Bert Gamin, a lieutenant at the agency and president of the Brevard County FOP, was suspended with pay while an internal investigation is conducted. Ivey called the posts “disgusting.” [HuffPost]

THE ME TOO-STYLE RECKONING FOR RACISM HAS BEGUN As anger over racism builds in the U.S., a familiar pattern is unfolding: the culling of the bad apples. Black people and other people of color are calling out not just police brutality, but also racism, discrimination, harassment and racial bias in the workplace. They’re sharing stories publicly about bosses and colleagues who have mistreated them and others. They’re pointing out that the companies that now publicly state that Black lives matter don’t bother to actually follow through by treating employees of color fairly and equally. [HuffPost]

TRUMP SMEARS 75-YEAR-OLD SHOVED BY POLICE President Donald Trump dangerously suggested, with no evidence whatsoever, that a 75-year-old protester shoved by police in Buffalo, New York, last week could be “a set up” by “an ANTIFA provocateur.” Martin Gugino, a longtime activist, remained hospitalized with a serious head injury. Trump was denounced by Gugino’s lawyer and Democratic politicians, while Republicans pretended not to see the president’s vile tweet. [HuffPost]

“Cops” canceled amid a nationwide reckoning over police violence.

Trevor Noah shames police brutality with one brutal observation.