NYPD lieutenant apologizes to colleagues for kneeling during protest

FORCED TO RECANT BY KKK WHITE KOPS 

Janelle Griffith, NBC News•June 12, 2020


A lieutenant with the New York Police Department who knelt alongside George Floyd protesters apologized for doing so in an email to his colleagues, writing, "The cop in me wants to kick my own a--."

In a June 3 email obtained by NBC New York, the officer, Lt. Robert Cattani, said his kneeling with protesters "goes against every principle and value that I stand for."

Cattani was among at least four officers who submitted to demonstrators' chants of "NYPD take a knee" during a May 31 protest in Lower Manhattan, according to the New York Post, which first reported the email.

The police lieutenant told his colleagues in the email that he had trouble sleeping after he "made a horrible decision to give into a crowd of protesters demands and kneeled alongside several other officers."

The symbolic pose gained prominence in 2016 after Colin Kaepernick, then quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, began kneeling during the national anthem before games to protest racial inequality and police brutality against people of color.

In his email, Cattani said he knelt to appease protesters.

"The conditions prior to the decision to take a knee were very difficult as we were put center stage with the entire crowd chanting," he wrote.

“I know I made the wrong decision," he added. "We didn't know how the protesters would have reacted if we didn't and were attempting to reduce any extra violence."

He said he thought that by kneeling, maybe "one protester/rioter who saw it would later think twice about fighting or hurting a cop."

Cattani said he spent the first part of his career working to build a reputation as a good cop and that he "threw that all in the garbage" on May 31.

"I know that it was wrong and something I will be shamed and humiliated about for the rest of my life," he wrote.

Protesters across the country and around the world have called for greater police accountability since George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes on May 25.

The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been fired and charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Three other officers involved in the arrest were also fired and face charges of aiding and abetting murder.

Cattani was not the only officer in New York City to take a knee with protesters. The city's top uniformed officer, Chief of Department Terence Monahan, joined hands with and knelt alongside protesters in Washington Square Park on June 1. He drew praise from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted later that day: "We're lucky to have people like Chief Monahan wearing the uniform. He believes in Neighborhood Policing with all his heart."

But some others, such as the city's public advocate, Jumaane Williams, have been critical of the gesture by people who have not been active in the racial justice movement.

In reference to recently introduced police reforms in New York, Williams said on "AM Joy" on MSNBC this week: "It should not have taken 8 or 9 days of unrest" on these issues we have been speaking about for such a long time. "All of the people who now find it easy to take a knee because of the unrest, many years ago were excoriating people like Colin Kaepernick."

Writer Roxane Gay tweeted on June 5: "I need cops and politicians and white people more broadly to stop kneeling. We don't need you to kneel. We need you to stand up for real, radical, sustained change."

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea meanwhile, in speaking directly to officers on Thursday, said they need to listen to public sentiment and understand why people are protesting, NBC New York reported.

“I’ve heard police officials this week talking about how could people feel this way," Shea said. "The quicker we realize that, the quicker we get to a solution."

Two NYPD officers have been suspended without pay for conduct during the Floyd protests. One of them, Vincent D'Andraia, was seen in a video shoving a woman to the ground on May 29 at a demonstration in Brooklyn. He was charged Tuesday with misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing.

FAKE NEWS
Fox News Used Digitally Altered Photos in Coverage of Seattle Protests and ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’

Samson Amore The Wrap June 13, 2020



Fox News has repeatedly published digitally altered photographs as part of a series of stories about protests on Seattle’s Capitol Hill that aired June 12.

The misleading images were first discovered by the Seattle Times, which raised the issue to Fox News.

“Fox’s site had no disclaimers revealing the photos had been manipulated. The network removed the images after inquiries from The Seattle Times,” The Times reported June 12.

The photos are purported to be taken inside Seattle’s so-called “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” a six-block radius in downtown Seattle that is now outside police control. The area was established May 25 after Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered Seattle police to abandon their East Precinct station during protests against the May 25 killing of George Floyd. Seattle residents have nicknamed the reclaimed police station the “Seattle People Station.”

One of the altered images used by Fox News shows a civilian standing outside a demolished storefront with a military assault rifle. The Seattle Times reports the image is not one photograph but a “mashup” of several photos from different days and different photographers — created by layering images from riots in downtown Seattle on May 30 under a Getty Images photo of a man with a gun. Fox News also published an alternate version of this image, where the armed man appeared to stand in front of a sign that said, “You are now entering Free Cap Hill.”

Fox removed the images, telling the Times “we have replaced our photo illustration with the clearly delineated images of a gunman and a shattered storefront, both of which were taken this week in Seattle’s autonomous zone.”

However, according to the Times, that statement and the new photos are also misleading. The gunman photo is from June 10, but the storefront image it has been combined with is a Getty Images photo dated May 30, the paper said.

Fox also used images from protests in other states in its coverage of the Seattle unrest. The network published an image of burning streets in St. Paul, Minnesota as part of its package on Seattle May 30, along with the headline “CRAZY TOWN.” Fox has since also removed that image.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported Seattle is negotiating with Black Lives Matter activists to determine a way to clear the Autonomous Zone and return the area to a semblance of normal. The local activists say they won’t leave the area until the City meets a list of demands, which include redirecting half of the Seattle Police Department’s budget to aid the black community.

Black Lives Matter spokesperson Jessica Kilpatrick told the Wall Street Journal about the unrest, “it’s a temporary occupation until we get our demands met.”

Fox News spokesperson Caroline Shanahan provided TheWrap a copy of the editor’s note Fox News published addressing the issue. “Editor’s Note: A FoxNews.com home page photo collage which originally accompanied this story included multiple scenes from Seattle’s ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ and of wreckage following recent riots. The collage did not clearly delineate between these images, and has since been replaced. In addition, a recent slideshow depicting scenes from Seattle mistakenly included a picture from St. Paul, Minnesota. Fox News regrets these errors.”

Read original story Fox News Used Digitally Altered Photos in Coverage of Seattle Protests and ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ At TheWrap

Who are police protecting and serving? Law enforcement has history of violence against many minority groups

Rick Jervis, USA TODAY•June 13, 2020

AUSTIN – If she sees a crime being committed, Ishia Lynette is more likely to call her father than police.

Her reluctance to turn to law enforcement for protection stems from growing up half Black and half Mexican in El Paso, Texas, and witnessing her African American father arrested – twice – for minor traffic violations and relatives harassed by police.

“From very early on, I was fearful of the police,” said Lynette, 30, who now lives in Austin and works with the Austin Justice Coalition, which advocates for police reform and accountability. “I can’t think of a time when I called the police unless it was very necessary – like a murder.”

Global protests in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25 death have called for massive overhauls of police, with some groups demanding that American cities defund police departments. Many law enforcement agencies embrace a mission to "protect and serve" but the debate over police brutality and funding has raised questions about just who these departments keep safe.

Police departments have a long history of violence and aggression toward many minority communities in the U.S., including Latino, Muslim, LGBTQ and Black Americans, creating a deep mistrust of police that has resulted in many minority communities already under-using police departments because they are reluctant to call them for help.

Two young boys join LGBTQ community members and Black Lives Matter protesters holding signs and chanting slogans on an intersection in West Hollywood, Calif. on June 3, 2020, over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day.

Police relations in Black communities have been at the center of worldwide protests, ever since Floyd, 46, who is Black, was pinned to the ground in Minneapolis by officers after being accused of passing a fake $20 bill at a grocery store. In a video of the encounter, Floyd gasped for breath as officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes while three other officers looked on.

Other minority groups, such as Latino and LGBTQ Americans, have also faced decades of strained relations with police and are hesitant to call on them, according to experts, activists and studies.

Recent cases include:

Tony McDade, a 38-year-old transgender man, was shot and killed by Tallahassee police two days after Floyd was killed.

Mike Ramos, 42, who was shot and killed in April by Austin police after they answered a call of people doing drugs in an apartment complex parking lot. Police later said he didn't have a gun.

Earlier this month, California Highway Patrol officers repeatedly shot Erik Salgado, 23, after a traffic stop. His pregnant girlfriend survived but was severely injured.

Fear of police in African American communities could be traced back generations to “slave patrols” that worked with sheriff’s departments across the South to capture and terrorize runaway slaves, said David J. Thomas, a criminologist at Florida Gulf Coast University and retired veteran police officer. Through the years, departments have attempted reforms – such as hiring more minority officers – but those efforts have fallen short of restoring confidence to black communities, he said.

The Department of Justice under Barack Obama launched a series of lawsuits and consent decrees on police departments known to have civil rights violations. But those efforts all but vanished under President Donald Trump, he said.

“There’s nobody that oversees local law enforcement when they run amok,” Thomas said. “Law enforcement without oversight is a very dangerous thing.”

Alexander Weiss, an expert on police staffing who has helped reform police departments in major U.S. cities, said that distrust of police – especially after publicized incidents of police brutality – often leads to minority communities refusing to call police for help, further endangering those neighborhoods.

A study by his consulting firm in February in Baltimore showed that white, affluent areas of the city called on police more than twice the number of times as neighborhoods populated by minority groups.

“It’s one of the biggest challenges here,” Weiss said.

A 2013 PolicyLink/University of Illinois at Chicago study revealed that 32% of U.S.-born Latinos would rather tell a church or community leader about a crime than law enforcement. That number rises to 50% for foreign-born Latinos.

“The Latino community is mistrusting and actually fearful of some of the police in their communities,” said Claudia Ruiz, a policy analyst with UnidosUS, a Washington-based Latino advocacy group. “Latinos have some of the lowest reporting statistics in the U.S.”

One of the biggest barriers in improving relations and avoiding civil rights violations in Latino communities is lack of good data, Ruiz said. Local law enforcement agencies often include race but not ethnicity in arrest records, a discrepancy UnidosUS is lobbying Washington to fix, she said.

“It’s very hard to call for changes in how law enforcement interacts with Latinos when the data is not complete,” Ruiz said.

Blacks and Latinos are not the only groups that have complained of police mistreatment. In 2017, a New York federal judge approved a settlement that protected Muslims and others from New York Police Department investigations into political or religious activity. The agreement stemmed from lawsuits that accused the NYPD of illegally surveying Muslims in the wake of the 911 terrorist attacks.

To repair mistrust between police and minority communities, police officials have been bolstering training among their ranks and encouraging more hiring of minority officers, said Cindy Rodriguez, president of the National Latino Peace Officers Association.

Her group offers training to departments around the U.S. that encourage inclusiveness, both inside and outside of agencies, she said. Rodriguez said she's also encouraged by NLPOA's growing size: In the past four years, the group has welcomed 600 new members and grown by 12 chapters.

Those minority officers go into neighborhoods and bridge a lot of gaps, she said.

"That’s how you gain the trust," Rodriguez said. "It's going into the community and doing things."

The modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the U.S. began with a response to police brutality: the 1969 Stonewall riots. Violent street demonstrations erupted on the streets of New York City after an early morning police raid on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a popular hangout for the area’s gay men and lesbians. Today, popular LGBTQ Pride events are held toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.

Through the years, new laws and police practices have improved police reaction to LGBTQ rights, but widespread harassment and discrimination still exists in the community at the hands of police, said Avatara Smith-Carrington, a law fellow at Lambda Legal, a New York-based organization that supports LGBTQ rights.

And people in the LGBTQ community who are also Black or brown often receive even harsher treatment from police, Smith-Carrington said. Many of them are reluctant to call police to report crimes for fear of being harassed themselves, Smith-Carrington said.

In a 2012 study released by Legal Lambda, 73% of those surveyed reported having some face-to-face encounter with police over the previous five years and 21% said police had been hostile toward them. Another 14% of respondents reported being verbally assaulted by police, according to the study.

One gay man in the study reported being called a homophobic slur and beat up by police in Washington, D.C., then charged with assaulting them and forced to plead guilty to being under the influence of his HIV medication.

The recent protests sparked by Floyd’s death are a good opportunity to shine an equally bright light on LGBTQ rights, Smith-Carrington said.

“The beauty of this movement right now is that it’s elevating and amplifying the harm that happens to communities of color,” they said. “These same incidents of violence at the hands of police also happen to LGBTQ people across the spectrum.”

In Austin, Brenda Ramos, Mike Ramos's mother, has been speaking at rallies drawing thousands of protesters following Floyd's death, raising awareness of police brutality on people of all races and colors.

"My son, Mike, my baby, was shot and killed by Austin police officer Christopher Taylor one month ago. I cried every day," she said at a May 31 gathering alongside parents of other slain victims. "Now, I'm in this terrible heartbreaking club. It's a club of mothers of black Americans who have been murdered by police."

Lynette, the Austin activist, said she doesn’t agree with completely abolishing police but does think many of the millions of dollars that go into paying for more officers and weapons could be better used toward eradicating homelessness, improving mental health and overall empowering communities historically weary of police.

“We will keep having the same issue as to how minority communities interact with police until we can build that trust back up,” she said. “At this point, it’s gone.”

Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Police brutality makes many minority groups afraid of law enforcement

ALL Police 'woefully under trained' on using force, experts sayMARTHA BELLISLE, Associated Press•June 11,2020

BURIEN, Wash. (AP) — Seattle officers hold down a protester, and one repeatedly punches him in the face. In another run-in, officers handcuff a looting suspect on the ground, one pressing a knee into his neck — the same tactic used on George Floyd.

The officers were captured on videos appearing to violate policies on how to use force just days after Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police, setting off nationwide protests.

With calls for police reforms across the U.S., instructors and researchers say officers lack sufficient training on how and when to use force, leaving them unprepared to handle tense situations. Better training can’t fix all the issues facing the nation’s police departments, but experts believe it would have a big impact.

“The skills are not taught well enough to be retained and now the officer is scrambling to find something that works,” said William Lewinski, executive director at Minnesota-based Force Science Institute, which provides research, training and consulting to law enforcement agencies.

Its two-year study of three large U.S. police academies says skills like using a baton or taking down an aggressive offender deteriorate dramatically within two weeks.

A recent Associated Press investigation found that a lack of firearms training has resulted in unintentional shootings by law enforcement. It’s the same problem with use-of-force techniques, Lewinski said.

“Police officers across the country are woefully undertrained,” said Sean Hendrickson, an instructor at Washington state’s police academy in suburban Seattle.

The AP was invited to the facility to see use-of-force training, a component of a 2012 federal agreement to reform the Seattle Police Department after officers were found to routinely use excessive force. The academy is considered one of the more progressive in the country for trying to mirror what officers will face on the streets.

There's classroom work, and cadets learn to combine skills by play-acting scenarios. In an old building decorated to look like an apartment, one officer plays the offender and others try to deescalate tensions, take away his weapon and put him in handcuffs.

In a parking lot, officers pair off. One wears padding on their shins and the other practices swinging a baton, hitting low on the legs.

They also learn to arrest someone who’s fighting back. An instructor plays the suspect, with one officer bear-hugging his legs and another wrapping his arms around him to take him to the ground. That officer presses against him chest to chest until he “wears himself out,” instructor Rich Lee said.

Then they flip him over, still holding his legs, with an officer's knee in the center of his back as they handcuff him.

Police in the Seattle videos didn’t use those techniques. No one held the suspects’ legs and one officer had his knee on a suspect's neck until his partner pushed it off.

In Washington state, cadets must complete 720 hours of training, “but those skills start to degrade immediately,” Hendrickson said. Some states only require 400 to 500 hours of academy training and require 24 hours or less of training once they’re on the job. Often, follow-up training is online, not hands-on.

“There’s no profession that trains so little but expects so much,” Lewinski said.

But not all officers can be taught, he acknowledged. When it came to Derek Chauvin, the officer charged in Floyd’s death, “I’m not sure that training would have made a difference,” Lewinski said. “What he did was definitely criminal.”

Protesters are demanding reforms ranging from cutting funding to banning chokeholds. There's been success in some states, such as California, where the governor ordered the police training program to stop teaching a neck hold that blocks blood flowing to the brain.

A measure introduced this week in Congress would limit legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force incidents and address training.

“A profession where you have the power to kill should be a profession where you have highly trained officers that are accountable to the public,” U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters.

Reforming police use-of-force training was a major issue in 2014 and 2015, following the deaths of several black men at the hands of police, including Eric Garner, Michael Brown and others. In New York City, where Garner died, the nation’s largest police department retrained all patrol officers, dismantled how beat cops did their jobs and moved to a community policing model where officers were encouraged get to know their precincts and focus on deescalation.

It looked like police reform was gaining traction nationwide, but as the 2016 election took the spotlight, the effort faded, especially after the Justice Department shifted its civil rights priorities.

Most academies bombard officers with one subject, like communication, and then move to the next topic, like use of force, without integrating those skills, making them easy to forget, Force Science studies say.

An example of successfully using training can be seen in a video of a security guard who took two stolen AR-15's from some young men during the Seattle protests. The guard with military training hired to protect several journalists secured one gun and then calmly walked up to the second suspect, took the firearm out of his hands and unloaded it.

“His movements were very deliberate, even under those stressful circumstances,” Hendrickson said. “When you've done it enough times, that's going to dictate how smooth you're able to take control. He didn't have to think about those skills."

Lacking skills leads to bad reactions, Hendrickson said.

“I’ve been in situations where I’m frantic and the other officer is cool, calm and collected,” he said. “How did they do that without screaming? It all comes back to training. When we lack confidence, a lot of times we raise our voice, start swearing. It's all about fear.”

Jerrell Wills, manager of the applied-skills division at the Washington academy, said racial tension is a reason he wants to improve how officers are taught.

A black man who's been in law enforcement for 30 years, Wills said he's been racially profiled and had people threaten to call the police for no good reason. Now, he worries about his sons.

“That's why the work we do is so important,” Wills said. “Because I care about this industry, my community and my African American community.”

Letters to the Editor: Try this: Don't call the police. Use respect to de-escalate dangerous situations

MORE MEDIATORS LESS COPS

Los Angeles Times Opinion•June 13, 2020

Dozens of protesters are arrested for curfew violations in downtown Los Angeles on June 2. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: When it comes to proposals to defund the police, the word "defund" is misleading. "Redirected" is more apt. Redirected funds would address mental health and substance abuse problems, education needs and resources for impoverished communities. Focusing on these would reduce crime.

In my 30 years as executive director of Friends Outside in Los Angeles County, a 48-year-old nonprofit that serves inmates, ex-inmates and their families, I have contacted the police one time. We serve all who come to us, never screening for the nature of their criminal record or for how long they have been out of prison.

Our staff, 45% of whom have a criminal record, is trained to de-escalate situations. Our holiday parties in Watts attracted 550 clients, and we never had one problem in 10 years. Young men who appeared to be gang members would arrive to see what was happening and say something like, "Cool, as long as it is for the community." No police or security companies were ever used or needed. Respect goes a long way when dealing with people.

This is not to say the police have no role to play. But for the vast majority of situations, police intervention should be the last resort, not the first.

Mary Weaver, Studio City

To the editor: Columnist Doyle McManus believes that "defund the police" might be the worst campaign slogan ever. How is it any worse than "make America great again"? It's a matter of perspective.

Recent events of police brutality have made it abundantly clear that the system is unjust. As a taxpayer, I do not approve of my hard-earned dollars being allocated toward a system that prioritizes incarceration over care.

If we divest from police, then we will be able to invest in communities. Allocating funds toward healthcare, mental health services, programs for homeless people, education and nutrition will undoubtedly result in less crime and therefore reduce the need for police.

Whether or not one likes the slogan, I encourage people to become educated about the movement to defund the police rather than dismiss it as a poorly constructed catchphrase.

Lisa Lynch, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Today's police officers have to walk a very fine line. They must be friends to their communities, de-escalate difficult situations and refrain from abusing their power.

Many officers do well with that. However, as soon as there is an active shooter, we all want that Rambo cop who has no fear and is ready to run into harm's way.

Matthew D. Kerster, Gardena

..

To the editor: We must remember that the Obama administration and the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, during his tenure, initiated pattern-or-practice investigations into local police departments nationwide.

The Justice Department, through the legal processes, put pressure on local police departments that had a pattern or practice of violating the constitutional rights of their citizens to clean up their act. Systemic racism, abuses of power, excessive force, unconstitutional searches and the like were targeted.

This made for better police practices and safer communities.

In September 2017, then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Session's Department of Justice, under President Trump, brought these investigations to a virtual halt. Police reform became "voluntary," which is just another term for nonexistent.

It is long past time to bring back these investigations. Justice demands it.

Christopher T. Armen, Woodland Hills

The writer is a criminal defense attorney.

Chicago's police union president says officers who kneel with Black Lives Matter protesters could be kicked out of the organization
SO CALLED POLICE UNIONS ARE NOT LABOR UNIONS THEY ARE FRATERNAL ORDERS OR ASSOCIATIONS OF WHITE COPS

Kelly McLaughlin INSIDER•June 12, 2020
Police force at the Chicago protests for George Floyd , on May 30, 2020 during a protest against the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while while being arrested and pinned to the ground by the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.More

Jim Vondruska/NurPhoto via Getty Images


John Catanzara, the new president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police criticized officers' decisions to kneel with protesters at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in an interview with Fox32 Chicago.

He said now is not the "time or place" to be kneeling with protestors, and said officers would be "risking being brought up on charges and thrown out of the lodge" if they did so.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called his comments "really unfortunate."

The president of Chicago's police union said that any officer who kneels with Black Lives Matter protestors could be kicked out of the organization.

John Catanzara, the new president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police told Fox32 Chicago that he didn't believe the current Black Lives Matter protests that broke out after the death of George Floyd were the "time or place" to be kneeling.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=FOP
"If you kneel, you'll be risking being brought up on charges and thrown out of the lodge," Catanzara, who has been in office for a month, told Fox32. "This was about defunding and abolishing the police officers. And you're going to take a knee for that? It's ridiculous."


Police have been photographed kneeling with protesters at demonstrations across the US in recent weeks, as tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets daily calling for police reform and the end of police violence. There have also been reports of police officers driving squad cars into crowds, attacking people with pepper spray and batons, and shooting rubber bullets at journalists and demonstrators.

In New York, one NYPD lieutenant apologized for taking a knee with protesters and fellow police department members.

"The conditions prior to the decision to take a knee were very difficult as we were put center stage with the entire crowd chanting," he wrote in his apology, seen by the New York Post. "I know I made the wrong decision. We didn't know how the protesters would have reacted if we didn't and were attempting to reduce any extra violence."

When asked about Catanzara's comments, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said they didn't "dignify" a response.

"I don't really think that we should credit those kinds of really unfortunate comments, and I'm not going to dignify them with any further response," she said.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=POLICE+UNIONS

Floyd’s death hastens shift in police pop culture portrayals
HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press•June 13, 2020

FINALLY THE BORING REPETITIVE LAW & ORDER SUV IS BOOTED OFF AIR

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America Protests-Fictional Cops
In this image released by NBC, Jason Beghe portrays Hank Voight, left, in a scene from the crime series "Chicago PD." The May 25 killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has set off protests worldwide and transmitted images of law enforcement that long remained far outside the narratives of crime stories. (Matt Dinerstein/NBC via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Gary Phillips, a prize-winning crime novelist from Los Angeles, grew up on TV shows that showed a world nothing like the one he lived in.

"I watched them all, ‘Dragnet,’ ‘Adam 12,’ ‘The Wild, Wild West,’ ‘Mannix,’ ‘Cannon,’ ‘Peter Gunn’ reruns and on and on. Now these were white guys and they were tough but fair and even-handed,” he told The Associated Press in a recent email, referring to popular programs mostly from the 1960s and 1970s.

“I remember a ‘Dragnet’ episode where tight-ass Joe Friday solved racism among black and white officers in a weekend retreat. But I was a kid growing up in South Central and even then some part of me knew a lot of this was jive. We knew the cops out of Newton and 77th Division policed the ’hood a lot different than shown on TV.”

The May 25 killing of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck, has set off protests worldwide and transmitted images of law enforcement that long remained far outside the narratives of crime stories — beatings and lethal chokeholds of handcuffed suspects, firing mace and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters, harassing and cursing at journalists.

Police stories have evolved far from the prime of Sgt. Friday. But the idealized crime fighter remains a cultural touchstone even when countered by such recent narratives as Ava DuVernay's Netflix series “When They See Us,” about the wrongfully convicted Central Park Five, and Angie Thomas' “The Hate U Give,” a best-selling novel about a black teen murdered by police that was adapted into a feature film of the same name.

“Hopefully what we're seeing on TV now, and on social media, is that bubble being popped,” Thomas told the AP.

Protests have already changed television. “Cops,” which for 33 seasons helped shape an authorized narrative that allowed viewers to sympathize and identify with real police on patrol, was dropped this week by the Paramount Network. A&E did the same with a similar show, “Live PD,” one of its mostly highly rated programs. Earlier this year, five police procedurals were consistently in the Nielsen company's top 20 ratings, including NBC’s “Chicago PD” and CBS’s “FBI.” Now, even those portraying law enforcement officials are pulling back: Griffin Newman, who appeared as a detective on the CBS series “Blue Bloods,” announced he was donating his earnings from the show to help raise bail for arrested protesters.

The divide between crime fiction and real life dates back to the genre's origins, more than 200 years ago. Law enforcement violence and corruption were extreme in the mid-19th century and some police forces were rooted in the patrols that used to chase down runaway slaves. Meanwhile, “The police in early crime fiction were depicted as good, courageous, and brilliant,” says Otto Penzler, the crime fiction publisher and bookseller.

In the 20th century, shows such as “Dragnet” and “Highway Patrol” were collaborations between law enforcement and the entertainment business, to the point where J. Edgar Hoover was permitted to vet the politics of the actors appearing in “The FBI,” the long-running series starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Otherwise, police and other officials were portrayed as jaded and self-contained in the fiction of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, comical and bumbling like the Keystone Kops or the misfits of “Police Academy,” rumpled and savvy like Peter Falk's Columbo, or witty and indomitable like Bruce Willis' New York City detective John McClane in the “Die Hard” movies.

Walter Mosley, known for his “Easy Rawlins” novels about a black detective in Los Angeles, noted that even if the plot included a bad cop “it wouldn't be instituonalized. It would be that cop is bad because he or she is a bad person.”

For Gary Phillips and many others, it took years to find stories in which they could see themselves. Naomi Hirahara, the Edgar Award winning author of the Mas Arai detective novels, remembered the “fantasy” or watching the white male protagonists in “Columbo,” “The Rockford Files” and other shows. As an adult, she was drawn to African American crime writers such as Mosley and Chester Himes, and now admires Rachel Howzel Hall’s novels about the African American LAPD homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton, books “revealing the complexity of a black woman in a system that has traditionally disempowered minorities.”

Penzler and others cite Joseph Wambaugh's 1971 novel “The New Centurions” as a turning point in showing a more realistic portrait of police, although no single trend has prevailed. Over the past 50 years, the image of law enforcement has sometimes mirrored debates between liberals and conservatives. Sidney Lumet's 1973 film “Serpico” dramatized the corruption of New York City police and the heroism of the real-life title character's willingness to speak out. Around the same time, Clint Eastwood's “Dirty Harry” movies positioned Eastwood's San Francisco lawman as a needed rule-breaker in a system too permissive of crime. Spike Lee's landmark 1989 release “Do the Right Thing,” in which a black man is choked to death by police, was released two weeks after the premiere of “Lethal Weapon 2” and the crowd pleasing defiance of Mel Gibson's Sgt. Martin Riggs.

“Cops,” which allowed the departments it covered significant control over its content, has been contrasted by the tougher perspective of Lena Waithe’s Showtime series “The Chi." But even shows like “The Wire,” and “The Shield” that take frank looks at police abuses can end up making the audience identify with officers.

“At first it’s ‘police are dirty bums’ and it’s ‘look at the awful thing they did,’” says Miki Turner, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in diversity and controversial topics in the entertainment industry and television. “And th

Africa's most famous silverback gorilla Rafiki has been killed by poachers and people are heartbroken

#BUSHMEAT 

Posted 10 hours ago by Louis Staples in discover

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One of Africa’s most famous mountain gorillas, Rafiki, has been killed.

Four men have been arrested in Uganda and face a life sentence if found guilty of killing an endangered gorilla.

Rafiki was killed by a sharp object that penetrated his internal organs, an investigation found. There are only 1,000 of his species left in Uganda and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) described Rafiki's death as a "very big blow".

The silverback gorilla was the leader of a group of 17 mountain gorillas.

Bashir Hangi from the UWA told the BBC:

The death of Rafiki leaves the group unstable and there is the possibility that it could disintegrate.

It has no leadership at this time and it could be taken over by a wild silverback.

To find the poachers, a UWA team tracked a suspect to a nearby village, where he was found with hunting equipment. He admitted that he, and three others, had been hunting smaller animals in the park and that he killed Rafiki in self-defence when he was attacked.

The mountain gorilla species is restricted to protected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. They are classified as endangered.

On social media, people were devastated about the gorilla’s death.

After his sudden death, it's not clear who the next leader of his tribe will be, or if it will continue.

UK Far-right protesters filmed doing 'Nazi salutes' in front of the cenotaph war memorial in London

WHILE CLAIMING TO BE PROTECTING IT 

Posted 5 hours ago by Louis Staples in news


Screengrab: Twitter

In London, a shocking video has emerged which appears to show protesters doing Nazi salutes standing just metres away from the cenotaph war memorial.

The disturbing video emerges as far-right protesters take to the streets of London, supposedly in opposition to statues of slave traders being forcibly removed and against London’s Winston Churchill statue being defaced last weekend.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan had warned Black Lives Matter protesters, who were planning a second weekend of protests, that the far-right were planning to “hijack” the occasion by staging counter protests. Shortly after this warning, official Black Lives Matter protests were called off as "All Lives Matter" protesters confirmed plans to stage large counter-protests against them.

Despite the fact that BLM protests were called off, the far-right counter-protests have gone ahead anyway under the guise of "protecting" statues (which are now boarded up anyway, for protection) from the now non-existent anti-racist protesters.

Onlookers have said that the far-right protesters – who are overwhelmingly white and male – have become increasingly loud and belligerent, with many appearing to have consumed large amounts of alcohol. There have been reports of violence against police, members of the public and even each other. A photographer was allegedly assaulted and there are videos of bottles being thrown at police as well as xenophobic chanting.

The emergence of a video of people appearing to do Nazi salutes on the streets of London, standing just feet away from a war memorial, takes things to a new level. In the clip, a group of men can be seen walking forwards doing what looks very like a Nazi salute.

On social media, people immediately recognised the gesture and were shocked and disgusted.

On Twitter, some people defended the protesters by saying they simply had their hands up singing. But others felt that the gesture was unmistakable and truly shocking.

Family demands investigation after black man found hanging from tree

Crowd chants 'speak the truth' at official during press conference on Friday Rory Sullivan


The family of a black man who was found hanging from a tree in California has called for an urgent investigation into his death.

Early on Wednesday morning, a passerby noticed the body of 24-year-old Robert L Fuller in the city of Palmdale in northern Los Angeles County.


Members of a nearby fire crew arrived on the scene shortly afterwards and determined that the victim was deceased.


In a statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) said Fuller’s death was being treated as an alleged suicide and that a full autopsy would soon be carried out.

However, the victim’s family said it did not agree with the department’s verdict and is seeking a full investigation into his death.

One of the victim’s cousins told a local TV station: “We are not going to stop until we get answers.”


On Friday, a crowd of people attending a news conference on the incident in Palmdale expressed their outrage that Fuller was thought to have died by suicide.

In response to the comment, audience members chanted “speak the truth” and demanded to know why the LASD called it suicide when the coroner had deferred making comments on the death “pending additional investigation”.

An online petition calling for a “thorough and transparent investigation” has been signed by more than 91,000 signatories. Kim Kardashian is among those who has shared it on Twitter under the hashtag #JusticeforRobertFuller.

The change.org petition also asks for video surveillance from the surrounding area to be made available. However, a city official said on Friday that there was no footage of the incident.

A GoFundMe page set up by Fuller’s family to cover funeral costs had raised more than $140,000 (£112,000) by Saturday morning.

Protesters demand investigation after young Black man is found hanging from tree in Palmdale

Luke Money, Matt Hamilton, Kiera Feldman,
LA Times•June 12, 2020

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is investigating after the body of 24-year-old Robert Fuller was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale. (Los Angeles Times)

The discovery of a 24-year-old Black man hanging from a tree near Palmdale City Hall this week has sparked alarm in the Antelope Valley as investigators try to determine whether his death was caused by suicide or if foul play was involved.

A passerby spotted the man's body at 3:39 a.m. Wednesday in the 38300 block of 9th Street East, according to authorities. Emergency personnel responded and determined that the man — identified as Robert Fuller — was dead, authorities said.

Lt. Kelly Yagerlener of the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner's office said the death was initially reported as an apparent suicide, but a decision on the cause of death is deferred pending an investigation. A full autopsy is planned.

"Investigators have been in contact with Mr. Fuller’s family and are continuing their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Fuller’s death," Palmdale officials wrote in a statement.

Fuller's death has generated intense attention, especially after weeks of protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Kim Kardashian West tweeted about the case, urging people to sign a petition demanding a full investigation.

Community members confronted city officials at a news briefing Friday, questioning why they were quick to label Fuller's death a suicide and asking whether he might have been the victim of homicide.

The residents asked whether there were cameras around the park. The city said there were no outdoor cameras, and video recorders on a nearby traffic signal could not have captured what happened.

Some of the community members detailed examples of racism in the high desert city, including confederate flags, and said officials should not be quick to dismiss it as playing a role in Fuller's death.

"We have a history with nooses. We don’t like ropes around our necks," said one man. "It was a message for the protest we had in Palmdale and Lancaster."

City Manager J.J. Murphy acknowledged, "Maybe we should have said it was 'an alleged suicide.'" Then he added: “Can I also ask that we stop talking about lynchings?”

The audience erupted with cries of “Hell no!”

Capt. Ron Shaffer of the L.A. County Sheriff's Palmdale station said homicide detectives are investigating and urged members of the public to contact the homicide bureau with any information.

"I have doubts about what happened," said Marisela Barajas, who lives in Palmdale. After the press conference, Barajas walked over and joined a crowd gathering at the tree where Fuller died. An American flag flew nearby.

"All alone, in front of the City Hall — it's more like a statement," she said. "Even if it was a suicide, that in itself is kind of a statement."

Fuller's family has launched a GoFundMe page seeking help covering funeral expenses.

"Words can’t describe how my family is feeling. We grew up there in the Antelope Valley, we have so many friends, families that loved Robert," one wrote.