Tennessee House GOP moves to make camping outside the Capitol a felony

Natalie Allison, Nashville Tennessean

Published  June 15, 2020

VIDEOS AT THE END OF ARTICLE

Two days after protesters set up a small campsite outside the state Capitol, House Speaker Cameron Sexton on Monday moved to amend state law to make doing so a felony.

After reports online Friday that a group of individuals planned to establish an "autonomous zone" outside the Capitol, Sexton, R-Crossville, quickly announced he was prepared to pass legislation to increase from a misdemeanor to a felony the criminal offense of camping on certain state property.
Justin Jones and other protesters face off with Tennessee State Troopers outside the State Capitol building in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, June 15, 2020. (Photo: Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean)

A current state law, passed in February 2012 on the heels of an Occupy Nashville protest months before, makes it a misdemeanor to camp on state property that isn't marked for doing so, though the state's current definition of camping is somewhat murky.

While Gov. Bill Lee on Friday said autonomous zones "will not be tolerated," no protesters were arrested as they remained outside the Capitol day and night throughout the weekend, and officials were uncertain whether their actions met the current law's criteria for camping.

The group set up multiple tents around the site where a statue of Edward Carmack was located outside the Capitol before being torn down by protesters two weeks ago, though there is no evidence the protesters ever went inside the tents to sleep.


Sexton's amendment was presented in the finance committee by House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, who had sponsored an earlier bill increasing penalties for rioting.

Hours later, a group of protesters — including activist Justin Jones and others who were involved in the weekend demonstration — were blocked outside the Capitol from approaching, despite saying they intended to attend the 6 p.m. House floor session.

After initially being told by troopers they were prohibited from doing so, Sexton's office clarified that five of them would be allowed inside based on the remaining seats available in the gallery, the capacity of which has been reduced during the pandemic.

Jay Terry, 23, greets a crowd of protesters after being released following a citation for disorderly conduct outside of the State Capitol building in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, June 15, 2020. (Photo: Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean)
Bill amendment would make camping, graffiti on state property a felony

Sexton's bill amendment would make camping on most state property a felony, as well as vandalizing state property, which is also currently a misdemeanor.

It clarifies language in the state's existing law about camping on state property to specify that merely erecting a tent would qualify as camping, and thus be a felony if done on state property without permission.


Lamberth said the felony vandalism provision would also apply to using chalk to draw on state property, as protesters did over the weekend. The Tennessee Highway Patrol cleared the area at one point to allow part of the Capitol grounds to be pressure washed.

"Every dollar we have to spend of the people's money cleaning up vandalism is money we can't spend on helping treat those who have mental health issues," Lamberth told the committee.

The bill comes with an estimated $9,100 cost for incarcerations and therefore cannot advance without budget negotiations. Lamberth said he hopes the legislature can find a way to fund it.

Protesters gather on the sidewalk outside the Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, June 13, 2020. (Photo: Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean)


According to the bill's fiscal note, no one has been convicted of the current camping misdemeanor in the last five years, the period of time studied for determining the cost of the proposed amendment.

"We hope this bill sends a strong message that peaceful protesters are welcome in Tennessee, but rioters and looters will not be allowed to steal the spotlight from the message peaceful protesters are ardently trying to convey," Lamberth said afterward.

Neither accounts from officials nor observations from reporters indicated any physical violence taking place at the weekend protest, and organizers maintained their intention was to remain peaceful.

COMPLETE COVERAGE
Nashville protests

Protesters plan to camp out in front of Capitol, claiming area as autonomous zone

Civil Rights Movement stalwarts weigh in on George Floyd protests

In their own words: 18 Middle Tennesseans on why they protested


In a statement, Adam Kleinheider, spokesman for Lt. Gov Randy McNally, said the Senate version of the bill has not moved out of the judiciary committee, which has finished its business for the year.

"As of today, no one has requested this bill be taken up under the Senate’s limited criteria," Kleinheider said. "If and when it is, it will be considered as any other bill."

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

Rayshard Brooks Was Killed by Police. Here's How to Demand Justice.By Emily Dixon June 16, 2020

SHUTTERSTOCK

Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was killed by white police officer Garrett Rolfe in Atlanta on Friday, June 12.

Rolfe fired three times at Brooks as he ran away, hitting him twice in the back.
Donate to Brooks' family, sign petitions demanding justice, and donate to bail funds for protestors below.

HIS LAWYER PRESENTED A PHOTO OF THE THIRD BULLET HAVING GONE THROUGH AN SUV WINDOW JUST MISSING A COUPLE OF KIDS IN THE CAR.

Rayshard Brooks planned to go skating with his oldest daughter on Saturday, June 13, to celebrate her birthday. He didn't make it: On Friday evening, he was killed by white police officer Garrett Rolfe, who shot Brooks twice in the back as he tried to run away.

On June 12, Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, fell asleep in his car in a Wendy's drive-through in Atlanta, as the Guardian reports. Police were called, and Brooks co-operated with a sobriety test, chatting to Officers Rolfe and Devin Brosnan about his daughter's birthday. The officers patted Brooks down, and knew he was unarmed.

"I watched the interaction with Mr Brooks and it broke my heart," Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said on CNN, according to the Guardian. "This was not confrontational. This was a guy that you were rooting for."

According to footage taken by a bystander, Brooks struggled when the officers attempted to arrest him, the Guardian reports, before appearing to grab a Taser from Brosnan and running away. Brooks appeared to fire the Taser once behind him as he ran, pursued by Rolfe, according to the New York Times, but the darts did not land anywhere near the police officer. Even before Brooks pointed the Taser, Rolfe had reached for his handgun; he fired at the fleeing Brooks three times, hitting him twice in the back. The father of four died in hospital following surgery.

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Tomika Miller, the wife of Rayshard Brooks, hugs their daughter Memory, 2, during a press conference in Atlanta. The heartbroken family said they're determined to have his death spark positive change.

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Tomika Miller, Brooks' widow, told CNN that Rolfe did not have to shoot her husband. "I wouldn't have used a gun," she said, saying the officers could have tackled him or let him run. "I don't think it was necessary to shoot." Mayor Bottoms also said Rolfe's use of deadly force was unjustified, as CNN reports. "While there may be debate as to whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, I firmly believe that there is a distinction between what you can do and what you should do," she said.

The Fulton county medical examiner declared Brooks' death a homicide after an autopsy on Sunday, June 14, as the Guardian reports. Atlanta police chief Erika Shields resigned on Saturday, June 13, the day after Brooks' death, while Rolfe has been fired and Brosnan has been placed on administrative leave. Neither have been charged with Brooks' murder.

Brooks' widow Miller told CNN that her husband "always kept [her] spirits up" and "pushed [her] to be better," allowing her to "grow into the woman [she is] today." She has questions for Rolfe and Brosnan. "Do they feel sorry for what they took away?" she said. "If they had the chance to do it again, would they do it the same way or would they do it totally different?"
How can I help demand justice for Rayshard Brooks?

Sign a petition calling for justice for Rayshard Brooks here.

Donate to a fundraiser for Brooks' family here.

Donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund for protestors here.

Split a donation between bail funds across the country here.

Donate to Black Lives Matter here.

Sign the Black Lives Matter petition to #DefundThePolice here.

Donate to the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of Black organizations across the U.S., here.

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EMILY DIXON

Is a British journalist who’s contributed to CNN, Teen Vogue, Time, Glamour, The Guardian, Wonderland, The Big Roundtable, Bust, and more, on everything from mental health to fashion to political activism to feminist zine collectives.

Two experts say use of deadly force against Rayshard Brooks unwarranted

OF COURSE IT WAS

Tim Stelloh, NBC News•June 14, 2020




As authorities investigate the police killing of Rayshard Brooks, which led to the police chief's resignation, protests and the torching of a Wendy's, two former law enforcement officials said the shooting was not justified, while a police union president called it "legitimate."

Cedric Alexander, the former police chief of DeKalb County, east of Atlanta, said the encounter Friday night outside a Wendy's restaurant should never have escalated into a use-of-force situation.

Alexander suggested that the officers who found Brooks, 27, asleep in his car in the restaurant's drive-through could have called him an Uber or given him a ride home instead of taking him into custody.

"Could they have done something different than arrest him?" he said. "We need to get policing back to doing preventative enforcement. That's the key."

Body and dash camera video show that the officers, Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, were trying to arrest Brooks after he failed a sobriety test. The incident quickly escalated when Brooks insisted that he could walk home. As the officers began taking him into custody, they struggled with Brooks.

Surveillance video appears to show Brooks running away from the officers with a stun gun that he had taken from one of them, said Vic Reynolds, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. While running, Brooks appeared to turn around and point the weapon at police, Reynolds said.

"At that point, the Atlanta officer reaches down and retrieves his weapon from his holster, discharges it, strikes Mr. Brooks there on the parking lot, and he goes down," Reynolds said.

Rolfe was fired Saturday after Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a news conference that she did not believe the shooting was justified.

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But Steven Gaynor, a police union president in suburban Atlanta, said he believed the shooting was "legitimate." A stun gun in the hands of someone who is not trained to use it can be lethal, he said.

"If I'm an untrained individual and I aim it at your head, that could be deadly," he said. "You could lose an eye."

Reynolds has said he did not know what the range was of the stun gun that Brooks had taken.

A lawyer for Brooks' family, L. Chris Stewart, said over the weekend that Georgia law does not consider a stun gun to be deadly.

But a 2017 Reuters investigation found that such weapons can be lethal even in the hands of someone trained to use them. It found that roughly 1,000 people have died since the early 2000s after police struck them with stun guns. In 153 of the cases, autopsies concluded that the weapon had caused or contributed to the person's death.

Stun guns, which can sometimes deliver up to 50,000 volts in a single shot, can cause serious problems for people with heart conditions and other medical issues. In a 2016 study, researchers compared the short-term cognitive impairments caused by the weapon to dementia.

Gaynor said a Georgia officer's ability to use force, as taught in the Atlanta police academy, operates on a continuum. If Brooks tried to use the stun gun on Rolfe, then the officer's actions meet the criteria for the next step on the continuum, he said.

The GBI has said Brooks pointed the stun gun at the officer.

"You have the right to use one step above to protect your life or the lives of others," Gaynor said.

But Joe Ested, a former law enforcement officer and founder of the nonprofit Police Brutality Matters, said an officer must see imminent danger either to himself or to someone else for deadly use of force to be justified.

"When we look at this, the video, you see the subject running away," he said. "There's no life at risk at that time — at all.

"Even a subject running away that has a weapon — unless the weapon the subject has results in death, you still are not able to authorize the use of deadly force."

Why Violent Protests Work
A conversation with author and University of Pennsylvania professor Daniel Q. Gillion about the history of protests in America and how they've inspired actual policy change.

ALL VIOLENCE IS POLICE VIOLENCE

BY LAURA BASSETT June 2, 2020

Courtesy of Steven John Irby / @stevesweatpants

The fascist revolution led by Donald Trump hit a crescendo on Monday when the president tear-gassed his own people—peaceful protesters standing outside the White House—to clear a path for himself to take a photo with a Bible in front of a vandalized church.

Earlier in the day, Trump had implored governors across the country to crack down on the riots, “dominate” the protesters and throw them in jail for ten years. He called for the National Guard and the military to squash the uprising. Some of his supporters on the right called the protesters “domestic terrorists” and criticized them for being violent, fully ignoring the act of violence that sparked the protests, in which a police officer brutally knelt on the neck of an unarmed black man until he asphyxiated to death.

In fact, many of the protests have been peaceful, and the police have often stoked violence where it didn’t exist by showing up with military-grade weapons and shooting rubber bullets at demonstrators. Still, as some rioters set fire to police vans and loot stores, a debate is raging as to whether a violent protest is the right way to go about demanding change. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a longtime civil rights leader, called for peace: “To the rioters here in Atlanta and across the country,” he said, “I see you, and I hear you. I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote.”



Alicia Garza, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, respectfully disagreed with Lewis. “It’s a familiar pattern: to call for peace and calm but direct it in the wrong places,” she told The New Yorker. “Why are we having this conversation about protest and property when a man’s life was extinguished before our eyes?”



“We don’t have time to finger-wag at protesters about property,” she continued. “That can be rebuilt. Target will reopen. The stores will reopen. That’s assured. What is not assured is our safety and real justice.”


I spoke with historian and University of Pennsylvania professor Daniel Q. Gillion, an expert on civil rights protests and the author of The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American Democracy, about what history can tell us about the effectiveness of violent vs. nonviolent protests.

GQ: I want to start with a general question: What is your reaction to the rioting going on right now?
Daniel Q. Gillion: My reaction is conflicting. This is something I study, and I realize the potential impact that protests can have. I’m in Philadelphia here. West Philly was looted yesterday, and as I walked past some of those stores, my heart broke for many of those business owners who have struggled. They’re already struggling with the pandemic, but this is a compounded burden put upon them. So I’m really depressed and saddened by that experience. That being said, I am hopeful for what will transpire in the aftermath, that this is a discussion that many people are having. People are very sincere and genuine about engaging with this discussion about racial inequity and police violence. So I’m hopeful for what the future will bring, not only in terms of societal shifts, but also in terms of the political and policy shifts.

There’s a debate right now as to whether violent protest is really effective as a catalyst for political change. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “A riot is the language of the unheard”—but people even disagree over what he meant by that, since he is seen as an advocate of nonviolence. In your research of protests throughout history, what has been the relative effectiveness of violent vs. nonviolent protest?
I’ve studied protest from the 1950s to today, and I’ve looked at this across a host of different issues in which individuals can see change, whether electoral shifts or policies or donations. The reality is that—objectively examining protests—violent protest has a positive impact on political and policy change. Nonviolent protest brings awareness to an issue; violent protest brings urgency to an issue. It forces individuals to pay attention to these important discussions of race relations, but also prompts the international community to join in and say, “Hey, there’s something wrong there.” We see protests breaking out in Berlin and other cities throughout the world right now. So there is a positive, influential aspect of violent protest. Saying that, naturally I don’t condone violence, and I’m not pushing for individuals to engage in unlawful behavior, but if we are objectively examining the influence of protests, we’re being disingenuous to say that violent protest does not bring individuals to the table, that it does not lead to policy change. That simply isn’t true.







Where would you situate this particular moment in history, compared to other historical protests?
One of the most contentious protests we’ve seen that we can relate and compare to what we’re seeing now in 2020 is the Rodney King riots in the 1990s. This is a protest that became very violent, and if you look at the representative for that area, it was Maxine Waters in South Central L.A. When she spoke about these events, she referred to it as “righteous anger,” because she understood the pain individuals were going through. And it led her to engage in more policy actions in the House. Before the riots took place, she was looking at initiatives involving international things, women’s rights— but after this took place, she began focusing on bills dealing with the concerns of protesters. We saw her work on public housing, we saw a neighborhood infrastructure bill pass, we saw an inner city job creation bill she introduced. In addition to that, George Bush had several meetings looking at how he should address this. Later Bush came out and he had no choice but to acknowledge the reality of the times. He said, “In the wake of the L.A. riots, can any one of us argue that we have solved the problem of poverty and racism?” And the answer is no. Every day discussions at the water cooler actually changed because of that.

Oftentimes, when people say “violent protest has no impact,” it’s not because they have empirical evidence. They’re relying on their optimistic notions of seeing King and hearing his rhetoric. And those things are true, that nonviolence can be effective, but the violence can also be effective if you look at the data and follow the protests and see the impact it has on policy.

John Lewis put out a statement pleading with protesters to be peaceful. He obviously fought for civil rights alongside King. What do you make of that?
I lump him in with Andrew Young—both are civil rights leaders who were on the front lines, and for them, nonviolent protest was effective. So they’re speaking from experience. John Lewis has skull fractures from crossing that bridge on Bloody Sunday—he knows what he’s talking about, what worked for him. I think the difference is that the same way his generation had to learn how to overcome the great inequities that they faced in that particular time period—because their strategies were different from the strategies we saw in the 40s and 50s— it’s the same way that this generation has to learn how to address the great inequities they experience. I’m not comparing battle scars here, but each generation has to find its way through this hardship, and that’s what this generation is doing. It’s trying to cope with the despair and madness in a society in which they’re told they’re equal and that they’re on the same footing, on paper we have civil rights laws, but they experience the constant forms of inequity on a daily basis—the harassment, the brutality, the death—and they are fed up and frustrated. It will be the case that the older generation of African Americans who have paved the way, we owe a great deal of debt to them and should listen to what they have to say, but at the end, this generation has to find its own path forward. It may look different, but it will end up at the same destination, which is greater racial progress in America.



The Ferguson riots under Obama in 2014 were pretty violent, similar to what’s happening now. And obviously, six years later we’re still seeing the same kinds of police violence against black people that protesters were responding to then. Would you say that protest was ineffective?
Ferguson is a great example for us to assess activism and policy, because with Ferguson, we didn’t see a massive change in many things. But the point we gotta take from Ferguson is that it fits into a larger narrative. Sometimes we see protests today, and then we wait 24 hours, and see that nothing happened the next day. We say to ourselves, “This is useless, we’re wasting our time.” But the way in which I approach protest influence is through a larger, broader lens. What protest does, especially Ferguson, is it fits in this larger narrative of racial and ethnic minority protests that have pushed back on police brutality throughout the years. So we’re seeing the Ferguson arrests around 2014—what’s the impact it has? It begins to bring awareness and urgency to this issue. Shortly after that, there’s more attention and more interest in Black Lives Matter. There are more protests in 2016, and Black Lives Matter begins to grow in strength. By the time we get to 2020, the reason why George Floyd becomes a protest that bubbles over into the streets and leads to various forms of violence and resonates across the world is because of all the protests that preceded it. George Floyd is not necessarily the catalyst—it’s the crescendo.





It was like this in the ‘60s. Some might have said, “Why didn’t we see some kind of change immediately following the protest in 1961 or ‘62 or ‘63?” Take your pick. But then we see the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and all of a sudden we have the policy change we’re looking for. But it took time.

"George Floyd is not necessarily the catalyst—it’s the crescendo."

Some have argued that rioting throughout history has only resulted in a “law and order” backlash, using the Detroit and Chicago riots in ‘67 and ‘68 in particular as examples of that, because the Nixon Administration followed. Is that a fair assessment?
Those who push back on the violence cite these riots and look at the change in the presidency afterward, they say the law and order campaign was able to be successful as a consequence of the riots. The reality is, it’s simply not true. The rioting was occurring in a couple of cities, and in those cities, it was devastating and heart wrenching. But protest most impacts the people who are looking at it in their backyard—mayors, congressional members. And if you look at 1968, you have a candidate named Abner Mikva running for Congress on a ticket looking to push back against the war and racial inequality, and he was able to ride the wave and get elected in Chicago. That protest had an impact on local electoral returns.


What’s different about those riots from 2020 is that we’re not seeing this in one or two cities, we’re seeing it across the nation. It’s boiling over in so many different cities. What starts out as being a geographically specific effect now can snowball into being a larger national effect. So if you’re a politician running for office at a national level, that should concern you. People will go to the polls and be conscientious of what’s taking place.

Trump today got on a call with governors and told them to crack down on protesters and is threatening to call in the military. Do you think this could be an effective political strategy in responding to a protest?
Will this law and order campaign he has put forth be effective? Absolutely it will. The question is to what degree. We’ve seen in the past Trump has tried to villanize BLM and others who have pushed back against what he stands for. And you will have people who buy into his words. But a recent study I put forth in my book, The Loud Minority, I examine the backlash towards BLM in part led by Trump. When you look at negative perceptions of BLM, I did not find that that was leading them to the polls or affecting whether they vote for a Democrat or Republican. However when you look at the positive support towards Black Lives Matter, it’s highly correlated with individuals voting. They’re more likely to turn out and when they turn out, they vote for the Democratic candidate. More African Americans turned out in 2012 than in 2016, but when you look at the areas where BLM protests took place, we saw increases in black voter turnout even as other areas saw a drop. So the backlash to these protests will not have the electoral outcome people think it will.

And these protests cause a spike in donations to liberal candidates. This is also true for conservative protests—the more protests there are, the more money people donate to conservative candidates and causes. But the current protests are part of a blue wave. If history is any guide, we should see a major change take place in 2020.

Laura Bassett is a GQ columnist

A Minneapolis Police Officer Opens Up About the Toxic Culture Inside the Department

“The mentality that we’re in a war, and the culture of ‘us versus them,’ starts in the academy”

BY LAURA BASSETT June 10, 2020
 

Getty Images

Since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin brutally pressed his knee onto George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, and three other officers stood by and did nothing as he suffocated to death, the entire world has responded with shock and outrage and demanded an overhaul of American policing.

One of Chauvin’s colleagues, meanwhile, was surprised that it took people this long to notice how bad things were in her own department and with the police in general. “I am a Minneapolis police officer, something I probably should not be broadcasting right now, but I’m tired and want change,” Megan Jones, 27, wrote to me last week. “I want better for my department and I wish it didn’t take the murder of George Floyd for this national conversation on police reform to be had.” Jones agreed to a phone interview on the condition that GQ withhold her real name, because her department prohibits officers from talking to the media.

Jones is something of an outcast in the Minneapolis police force. The other officers—overwhelmingly straight, white, conservative men—wear Trump bracelets, rail about the “lamestream media” and “fake news,” and regularly ostracize and harass the few Black and female officers in the department. Jones, meanwhile, describes herself as liberal feminist. She became a police officer because she studied domestic violence in college and didn’t like the way law enforcement responded to it; she hoped to be a “good cop,” as the expression goes, and change the system from the inside. In 2016, Jones carried a sign at the first annual Women’s March that said “Donald Trump is a racist.” “I posted a picture of it on my private Facebook page and within eight hours, everyone knew, and no one would work with me,” she said. “There were cops who never gave me a chance for that reason. I’m kind of notorious in the department because I don't fit in.”

Being at once an insider and an outsider in the MPD gives Jones a unique perspective on the system that enabled the murder of Floyd. It starts with the paramilitary-style police training academy. “The mentality that we’re in a war, and the culture of ‘us versus them,’ starts in the academy,” she said. “Everything is ‘yes sir,’ ‘no sir,’ respect the chain of command, don’t question your superiors.”

She saw this dynamic play out in the widely circulated video of the Floyd murder, in which Thomas Lane, 37, briefly questioned the methods of Derek Chauvin, his training officer and the man with his knee on Floyd’s neck. “You hear the younger officer, four days out of training, say, ‘Do you think we should roll him over?’ Because you’re supposed to immediately roll them into a recovery position,” she said. “But being a cop, you don't tell a 19-year veteran how it’s done. You don't forcibly remove a knee from a neck when they have that much seniority. The culture is, we can't call out our own.”

Then there’s the problem of the police union, which in Minneapolis, is run by Lt. Bob Kroll, who once wore a “white power” patch on his motorcycle jacket, called Black Lives Matter a “terrorist organization,” and told union members Floyd was a “violent criminal,” though Floyd had not been suspected of a violent crime. Under Kroll’s leadership, the union has negotiated contracts that crippled the department’s ability to do any meaningful discipline, and police officers who were already racist have understood that they could abuse Black people with impunity. “We've had a number of cases that led to internal investigations, and the worst punishment any officer has received was a 48-hour suspension,” Jones said. “In a department with the track record of Minneapolis, that shows everything.” (On Wednesday, the head of the Minneapolis PD said they were withdrawing from contract negotiations with the union.)

That explains in part why Chauvin, who now faces second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges, had 17 misconduct complaints filed against him before he killed Floyd that hadn’t derailed his career. Jones said when she and her colleagues first learned of the incident, “our immediate reaction was: ‘What was he still doing on patrol?’”

Since Floyd’s murder, Jones says the police have been “run ragged.” Days off were canceled; she’s worked at least 80 hours of overtime in the past week responding to protests, and tensions are running high. Jones’ colleagues are “sick of having to work every day because of [Chauvin’s] fuck-up, to be blunt,” she said. “There’s the frustration and confusion of why he would put his knee on a man’s neck for eight-plus minutes, but also frustration with the riots and political leadership. It’s Democratic leadership here, so it’s, ‘The liberals are out to get us; the liberals hate cops.’ And there's no room for context.”

After centuries of American law enforcement officers abusing their power and disproportionately targeting and brutalizing Black people, the Floyd incident has sparked growing calls to defund or even entirely do away with the police. Most Democratic politicians, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, oppose defunding and disbanding and would prefer to implement reforms, while activists note that the police have proven themselves for decades to be impervious to reform: a New York police officer choked Eric Garner to death, for instance, years after the N.Y.P.D. had banned chokeholds.

Jones, of course, is a police officer by trade, and therefore disagrees with leftist activists that disbanding the police force, as Minneapolis city council members have said they intend to do, is a good or even workable solution. She pointed to a number of logistical barriers to its dissolution becoming a reality: The Minneapolis City Charter requires there to be a police force proportional to the city’s population. The council wants the fire and emergency medical services departments to start responding to overdoses, but under state law, only peace officers and mental health professionals have the authority to write a transport hold to force someone to go to the hospital. The council wants to replace traffic cops with cameras, but in 2007, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that traffic cameras are unconstitutional. Mayor Jacob Frey has said he supports reforming, but not disbanding the police—so the council would likely have to let voters decide whether to amend the rules at the ballot box in 2021.

“I get the frustration,” Jones said. “And they can certainly cut our funding. But we live in a country with as many guns as people. I don't understand how it's even feasible to be a major city without a police department.” (No U.S. city as populous as Minneapolis has ever attempted to disband its police department, but CNN reported that Camden, New Jersey, has managed to dissolve and reimagine its system of policing rather successfully.)

Jones does support a thorough “pattern or practice” investigation into her department, stronger disciplinary practices, deep reforms to the hiring and recruitment process for police, and a much longer training period by which officers can learn better, safer techniques with which to defend themselves, like Brazilian jiu jitsu. She says the past few weeks of watching her colleagues use excessive force to crush protests have only further highlighted the problems in her department. “The vast majority of these protests are peaceful,” she said, “and the way law enforcement in this city is responding is just proving why people are protesting.”

Laura Bassett is a GQ columnist, and a freelance journalist writing about politics, gender, and culture.

How Violent Police Culture Perpetuates Itself
Danielle Cohen June 16, 2020


The past month has shone a long-overdue light on police brutality, and, along with it, a whole range of alarming attitudes that seem to pervade police forces across the country. It's not just the aggressive responses we've seen to nonviolent protest—officers are refusing to wear masks in the middle of a pandemic, as union leaders brandish their badges on national TV angrily demanding they be treated with “respect.” The idea that there is something rotten at the core of police culture is rapidly becoming commonplace.

“Black communities have been talking about this for decades,” said Michael Sierra-Arévalo, a sociologist at UT Austin who’s spent the last five years observing police precincts across the country in an effort to understand the mechanisms driving our nation’s policing crisis. Sierra-Arévalo believes many of the systemic problems with policing stem from what he calls the danger imperative—a long-held conviction shared among all policemen that their job places them in immediate and very acute danger.

“A fundamental feature of police culture is this preoccupation with danger and violence,” Sierra-Arévalo says. This conviction is instilled the second recruits enter the academy and reinforced at every level, leading officers to understand their lives as constantly threatened by the civilians they’re supposed to be protecting. “Your number one priority is ensuring your physical safety, the physical safety of other officers, and then the public. In practice, it ends up becoming a hierarchy: officers must ensure their own survival before they can do anything else.”

Often this obsession manifests in overblown reactions to minor offenses directed at officers. Sierra-Arévalo points out that last summer, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the second largest police union in New York, responded to a string of incidents where civilians doused police officers with water, claiming the buckets could have contained acid or bleach. “The only way that makes sense,” he says, “is if you believe that any sign of resistance whatsoever is a harbinger of doom to come, and indicative of a potential attack.” This type of exaggeration will sound familiar to anyone who watched NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea seemingly jump to conclusions to assert without evidence that a pile of construction debris miles from any major protest had been stashed by looters to threaten the police.

A key piece of this mentality is an obsession with officers who have died on the job. Trainees in the academy and beyond are repeatedly shown videos and told stories of fellow officers killed in the field, leading them to believe it could happen at any moment. Most departments have a memorial wall front and center displaying every officer that’s been killed in the history of the department. Less formal reminders include officers wearing bracelets and sporting tattoos honoring dead colleagues, much like military commemorations. The message is clear: officers die on the job all the time, and anyone could be next.

The reality is that policemen are actually safer now than they have been in the last 50 years. Fewer than 57 cops are killed each year, and that number is going down, even as the number of officers in the field increases. Policing is a relatively dangerous job, but less deadly than working as a roofer or driving a cab. Garbage collectors are killed at twice the rate of police; fishermen are more than eight times as likely to die on the job. The undue emphasis on officer deaths, Sierra-Arévalo explains, tells cops that they’re putting their lives on the line every time they step onto the job, thus “ignoring 90% of police work, which is actually more akin to very poorly equipped social work.”

Other symbols underline the idea of policemen as unappreciated heroes risking their lives in the name of justice, like the Punisher logo Sierra-Arévalo saw on water bottles during his ride-alongs. Some use “Bad Boys” as their ringtone because it was the theme song to COPS, which was canceled just last week as part of America's reckoning with the glorification of police culture. Another logo of a skull with a sheriff’s hat, often accompanied by crossed pistols à la Jolly Roger, pops up on clipboards, stickers, and in tattoos, sometimes next to the words “We conquered the West.” “This is all indicative of a deep-seated understanding,” Sierra-Arévalo explains, “of ‘our job is dangerous, we are crime fighters above all else, and in order to do this job, we must be prepared to use force.’”

The mentality that police are constantly in critical danger then gets shored up at the federal level through the transfer of military equipment to local precincts. While this gear has been flowing into departments since the 90s, it caught a spotlight in 2014 when officers were photographed barreling through the Ferguson protests in MRAP vehicles designed to withstand land mine explosions. “The presence of this stuff confirms for officers just how dangerous their job is,” says Sierra-Arévalo.

On a social level, the structure of police units also fuels the opportunity for these beliefs to be reinforced by fellow officers. Andrew Papachristos, a sociology professor at Northwestern University, has found that use of force actually spreads throughout police units via social networks. He and his colleagues used records from the Chicago Police Department to trace misconduct, mapping social and professional networks through which they could track the spread of violent behavior. They found that officers who fire their gun most often occupied the most central nodes of those networks.

“Our studies show that there are quite a few bad apples, but what actually happens is the rest of that phrase: they spoil the bunch,” Papachristos says. Since the structure of policing is built on a series of networks—patrol partners, districts, units—the so-called “bad apples” have ample opportunity to spread misconduct. And since the unions’ extravagant efforts to protect policemen make it impossible to fire officers, those with complaints filed against them end up getting shuffled around between districts, presenting more and more opportunities for “infection.” This is all before you consider the informal social networks—friends from the academy and former districts, family members—that help bolster the same behavior.

The sheer amount of reinforcement might explain why no reform has yet been able to curb, let alone eradicate, the rampant displays of violence and aggression, that fall largely on the shoulders of Black and brown communities. “The departments that I’ve observed have de-escalation training,” Sierra-Arévalo emphasized, on top of procedural justice and implicit bias training. “This is something about policing itself. This is a story of inherently flawed people and inherently flawed systems that set them up to engage in miscarriages of justice.”



A Minneapolis Police Officer Opens Up About the Toxic Culture Inside the Department

“The mentality that we’re in a war, and the culture of ‘us versus them,’ starts in the academy”

Originally Appeared on GQ

Liberal groups warn Biden could lose over policing policies

ALEXANDRA JAFFE, Associated Press•June 16, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than four dozen progressive groups have signed a letter to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign criticizing his police reform proposals and warning that if he doesn’t adopt more progressive policies he risks losing black voters — and the election — this fall.

“You cannot win the election without the enthusiastic support of Black voters, and how you act in this moment of crisis will play a big role in determining how Black voters -- and all voters concerned with racial justice -- respond to your candidacy. A “return to normalcy” will not suffice, the letter reads.

It criticizes in particular Biden’s commitment to add $300 million in funding for community policing programs, arguing that such programs have contributed to police violence against black Americans.

The signers ask that Biden instead ensure “that the federal government permanently ends and ceases any further appropriation of funding to local law enforcement in any form, whether it be money for trainings, equipment, hiring, re-hiring, overtime,” and redirect the funds towards education, healthcare and other community services. Biden has resisted calls to support defunding the police, which have intensified in recent weeks among progressives in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man.

The letter, which is signed by more than 50 groups, including the Bernie Sanders-linked Our Revolution, Black Voters Matter, and the League of United Latin American Citizens, among others, was dated June 11, nearly two weeks into the nationwide protests — and renewed conversation around criminal justice and policing reform — that erupted in the wake of Floyd’s killing. It also came the day after Biden wrote a USA Today op-ed proposing adding new funds for community policing.

The letter also calls on Biden to support a raft of policies laid out in an agenda issued by The Movement for Black Lives, including reparations for black Americans, something Biden has not opposed outright but says he'd like to study before making a final decision.

‘I just don’t understand how any of them can sleep’: Parents of seven-year-old allegedly maced at Seattle protest speak out against police

Louise Hall,The Independent•June 15, 2020

The parents of a seven-year-old child who was allegedly sprayed with mace by police at a peaceful protest in Seattle have spoken out about the traumatising incident.

Footage of the protest that showed the boy screaming in pain while protesters attempt to help by using a milk-like substance to wash the child’s eyes went viral online at the beginning of June.

The video also shows protesters confronting the officers allegedly involved in spraying the child and asking for their badge numbers. One officer allegedly refused to give the protesters his badge number.

Mando Avery, the father of the seven-year-old, told The Guardian that he and his son had just finished praying with members of their church as part of a peaceful anti-racism protest when a police officer fired mace at the group which hit his son in the face.

When asked by the newspaper what he would say to police about the alleged incident he said: “I would say that you were targeting my boy.”

“I don’t know if you were trying to set an example and strike fear into him. You did a great job,” Mr Avery said.

The boy’s father also claimed that officers and a group of emergency medical technicians standing about a block away did not try to assist his son.

“No officer, who’s paid to protect, chose to stand up, break the ranks, go help this child,” he told the outlet.

“I just don’t understand how any of them can sleep.”

The child’s name is being withheld to protect his privacy.

The Guardian contacted the Seattle police department for comment, and was referred to the city’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA), which said it was expediting its investigation into the incident.

The OPA reportedly said the “child pepper spray case” was “currently being investigated. We should have a public update on the progress soon.”

The department reported at least 12,000 complaints, of which a majority were related to Mr Avery’s son, the newspaper reported.

Protesters who witnessed the scene and posted the video had previously called on people to file complaints with the department.

Shenelle Williams, the boy’s mother, told the newspaper that hearing her son’s scream was the “most gut-wrenching feeling”.

“I kind of feel like a failure as well,” she said, “because I feel like I couldn’t protect him, but there was nothing that we could do at that time to prevent it.”

The Seattle Police Department recently banned the use of tear gas at protests for 30 days.

The family have received some criticism online about bringing their young child to the protests, but said that when they arrived they had seen other families and young children, saying that it had initially felt “completely safe”.

“We just wanted to stand up for what was right,” Mr Avery said. “Ultimately our boys will become men and our daughters will become women. And they will ultimately have to face some of the same racial injustices. And enough is enough. Black lives matter,” he told The Guardian.

According to the newspaper, the family is working with a lawyer before deciding on the next steps going forward.

Evan Hreha, the 34-year-old hairstylist who filmed the footage of the alleged incident, told the newspaper that he confronted the officer he believed had maced the boy and said that he would post the video online.

Mr Hreha, said he was later arrested by police a week after posting the footage, with police alleging that he had pointed a laser in an officer’s eye.

There are currently no pending charges against Mr Hreha and no sign of any “documentation with any narrative about the incident that allegedly justified his arrest”, his lawyer, Talitha Hazelton said.

Mr Hreha, who is white, was reported to have been denied bail and held for two days. He told the newspaper that he believed his arrest was a response to him posting the footage online.

“It’s woken me up a bit,” he said. “It just kind of shattered that false narrative that was in my head that cops always protect and serve.”

The Guardian contacted the Seattle Police Department for comment, and was referred to the OPA, which said it did not know if a complaint had been received about Mr Hreha’s arrest.

Seattle Police Department referred a further request for comment to the city attorney, according to the report, which said the police department had not yet referred the case.

The Independent has contacted the Seattle Police Department for comment.





The Seattle police were accused of macing a 7-year-old boy at a Black Lives Matter protest. The protester who filmed the aftermath was held in jail for 2 days a week later.

INSIDER•June 15, 2020

Video captured at a Seattle Black Lives Matter protest on May 30 showed a young boy who was said to have been sprayed with mace by the police.
Screenshot/Evan Hreha

A Seattle protester who captured video of a distressed young boy who was said to have just been maced in the face by the police at a Black Lives Matter demonstration on May 30 was himself arrested a week later.

Evan Hreha had posted the video to social media. The video caused 11,000 complaints to be filed to Seattle's Office of Police Accountability, Seattle's Komo News reported.

Hreha attended another peaceful protest in Seattle on June 7. Following the protest, he told The Guardian, he was confronted by several officers who told him he "had been identified as someone who pointed a laser in an officer's eye." He was denied bail and held for two days in jail but was not charged with a crime.

Hreha told the outlet that he believed his arrest was in retaliation for the video he captured of the young boy.

Video footage captured at a Seattle protest on May 30 showed a small child in distress.

The footage was posted online by a man named Evan Hreha, who attended the Black Lives Matter demonstration and said the child in the video had just been maced by the police.

"First person maced is a little girl," Hreha wrote in a caption alongside the video, originally mistaking the young child for a girl. "What the f--- is wrong with you people."

Several days later, after he had attended another Black Lives Matter protest, Hreha was arrested on suspicion of unlawful discharge of a laser. He was held in jail for two days before being released, according to King County Jail records.

Hreha, who was not charged with a crime, told The Guardian that he believed his arrest was in retaliation for the video.

"It just kind of shattered that false narrative that was in my head that cops always protect and serve," Hreha told the outlet.
What happened at the protests

Protesters shouting at law-enforcement officers on May 30 in Seattle.
Karen Ducey/Getty Images

Hreha had been attending a Black Lives Matter protest in Seattle on May 30. Mando Avery was also there with his family, including his 7-year-old son, he told The Guardian.

Mayor Jenny Durkan announced a 5 o'clock curfew that night to quell protests inflamed by the death of George Floyd, who was killed following an arrest in which a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. According to The Seattle Times, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington activated the National Guard shortly after the curfew began.

The day began with several peaceful rallies, though police officers used flash bangs and tear gas to break up crowds that continued protesting into the evening. There were reports of break-ins and looting in downtown Seattle. Seattle's police chief, Carmen Best, said in a statement that 27 people were arrested that evening.

Hreha told Komo News that around the time he shot his video, roughly 50 people were "facing off against the cops" at about 3 p.m. during a peaceful protest at Seattle's Westlake Park.

But Avery told The Guardian the police turned on the protesters seemingly unprovoked. He said his 7-year-old son was hit in the face with mace.

"I would say that you were targeting my boy," Avery told The Guardian, addressing the police. He said he didn't know whether the police "were trying to set an example and strike fear" into his son but was most upset that no officers or medical technicians stepped in to help.

Hreha's video begins with the young boy clutching onto his father while screaming. Several protesters attempt to spray the boy with water, while another appears to douse him in milk to try to stop the burning.

According to Komo News, Hreha's video caused 11,000 complaints to be filed to Seattle's Office of Police Accountability.

Andrew Myerberg, the director at the Office of Police Accountability, told Komo News the agency would be "actively investigating" an officer believed to have been involved in the incident.

On June 7, Hreha attended another protest, where he told The Guardian he helped hand out free hot dogs to demonstrators.

Hreha told the outlet he was surrounded and arrested on his way home by several officers and "had been identified as someone who pointed a laser in an officer's eye" during the protest, an allegation he denies.

The King County prosecuting attorney said in a tweet on June 8 that charges were not filed against Hreha but that the Seattle Police Department would be sending the case to Seattle Municipal Court "for consideration of a misdemeanor charge."

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability did not immediately respond to Insider for comment about the macing allegation and Hreha's allegation of retaliation.

Read the original article on Insider

NYPD says 'no criminality' after officers fall ill after drinking milkshakes at Shake Shack in Manhattan

WHY WE HAVE WORKPLACE HAZARDOUS MATERIALS LABELLING RULES

UNLABELLED OR MISLABELLED CHEMICALS ARE A COMMON PROBLEM IN THE WORKPLACE

The New York Police Department found no criminality after officers became sick Monday night from shakes they got at a Shake Shack in downtown Manhattan, Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted early Tuesday. Sources told CBS New York it appears the incident was accidental, possibly the result of cleaning solution that wasn't properly removed from the shake machine.

Harrison tweeted that, "After a thorough investigation by the NYPD's Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by Shake Shack's employees."

Police – and the police union -- initially suspected an employee may have contaminated the shakes with bleach.

The officers were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where they were treated and released. A shake sample was taken to a lab for testing, police said.

The Police Benevolent Association said the officers were assigned to a protest detail. There have been numerous racial justice demonstrations in the area since the George Floyd's death – some marred by clashes with police.

Before word came down that no foul play by Shake Shack employees was discovered, the PBA was quick to express its outrage over the incident on Twitter:

#BREAKING When NYC police officers cannot even take meal without coming under attack, it is clear that environment in which we work has deteriorated to a critical level. We cannot afford to let our guard down for even a moment. pic.twitter.com/fbMMDOKqbV

— NYC PBA (@NYCPBA) June 16, 2020

Also before the determination that none of its workers was implicated, Shake Shack tweeted that it was "horrified":

We are horrified by the reports of police officers injured at our 200 Broadway Shack in Manhattan. We are working with the police in their investigation right now.

— SHAKE SHACK (@shakeshack) June 16, 2020

Later, the company said:

Our team is working hard to get the full picture. In the meantime, we’re relieved to hear the officers are all okay. https://t.co/rjJYFSYjZc

— SHAKE SHACK (@shakeshack) June 16, 2020

AS I HAD SUSPECTED AT THE FIRST, WITH MY TRAINING IN CHEMICAL SAFETY THIS WAS A FAILURE TO LABEL A TOXIC CHEMICAL PROPERLY SO IT RESULTED IN THIS UNINTENTIONAL POISONING WHICH THE POLICE UNION FAILED TO THINK OF BEFORE BEAKING OFF 

NYPD officers hospitalized after drinking milkshakes from Shake Shack

The New York Police Department investigated whether three of its officers were poisoned after drinking milkshakes Monday night at a Shake Shack restaurant in Manhattan.

The officers complained of "not feeling well" before being hospitalized and later released, the NYPD said in a statement to USA TODAY, and Shake Shack said via Twitter that it was "horrified" and working with police.

The Detectives' Endowment Association, the labor union that represents 20,000 active and retired New York City Detectives, condemned the incident as an attack on police, claiming on Twitter that the officers were "intentionally poisoned by one or more workers."

However, Chief Rodney Harrison, NYPD's chief of detectives, tweeted early Tuesday: "After a thorough investigation by the NYPD’s Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by shake shack’s employees."

GRIFTER NATION

GoFundMe froze $350,000 in contributions after Black Lives Matter supporters mistakenly donated to an unaffiliated group with the same name
Tyler Sonnemaker Business Insider•June 15, 2020

Black Lives Matter murals have been painted by activists in several US cities in recent days. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


GoFundMe has frozen $350,000 in donations to a group called Black Lives Matter Foundation after BuzzFeed News informed it the group was unaffiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement.


The foundation's founder told BuzzFeed News the group had a different mission from that of the anti-white-supremacy movement: "unity with the police department."


Employees from companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox also raised over $4 million for the group through the charity platform Benevity, which told Business Insider the funds had not been distributed to the group.


GoFundMe and Benevity told Business Insider they're working with donors and campaign organizers to get the funds to the intended places.

Donors looking to support the global Black Lives Matter movement raised an estimated $4.35 million in June for an organization called Black Lives Matter Foundation, but most of those funds are now in limbo after BuzzFeed News discovered that the foundation was unaffiliated with the movement.

Black Lives Matter Foundation is based in Santa Clarita, California, and was founded in 2015, BuzzFeed News reported. Robert Ray Barnes, the founder and sole paid employee of the foundation, told the outlet that the two groups had nothing to do with each other and had vastly different missions.

"Our whole thing is having unity with the police department," Barnes told BuzzFeed News in a report Monday.

Despite differing approaches to ending racial injustice and police brutality, their similar names led many donors and supporters to give to Barnes' organization, mistakenly assuming it was associated with the global movement, according to BuzzFeed News.

After George Floyd's killing following an arrest in Minneapolis prompted donations to begin pouring in to racial-justice organizations, people organized campaigns on charity sites like GoFundMe and employers offered to match donations using platforms like Benevity, and both listed Black Lives Matter Foundation as a recipient option.

Employees from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox took advantage of their company's donation-matching programs via Benevity to help raise over $4 million for Black Lives Matter Foundation, according to BuzzFeed News (while both Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston listed the organization as an eligible organization in letters to employees).

BuzzFeed News said neither platform appeared to be aware that Black Lives Matter Foundation and the global Black Lives Matter movement weren't connected until it contacted them, and now they've halted donations to the group and are trying to get the funds to the intended recipients.

A GoFundMe representative told Business Insider that the company used the PayPal Giving Fund database to enable people to donate to causes and that it's working with PayPal to redirect funds.

The representative said "180 campaigns have recently raised money for the Black Lives Matter Foundation, raising $350,000," continuing: "GoFundMe placed all funds on hold and we are working with PayPal and the campaign organizers to ensure all of the money raised is transferred to the Black Lives Matter movement via their fiscal sponsor."

"A number of donors have recently given to PayPal Giving Fund in support of the Black Lives Matter movement by making donations through one of our platform partners," a PayPal representative told Business Insider. "We are diligently looking into the matter and working with the donors, our partners, campaign organizers, and charities involved to ensure that the funds are granted as quickly as possible."

A Benevity representative told Business Insider the $4 million in funds mentioned in the BuzzFeed article "have not been distributed to Black Lives Matter Foundation per our standard vetting and disbursement process."

"No funds will be going to the Black Lives Matter Foundation as they've been deactivated from our platform," the person added. "Benevity is working closely with our clients to redirect the funds to other social justice cause."

The Black Lives Matter movement that has gained global attention in recent weeks began as a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) following the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2013 and became more widely known as simply Black Lives Matter in 2014 after a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The movement's official organization, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc, wasn't registered as a corporation in Delaware until 2017, and its nonprofit fundraising arm is called Thousand Currents.

Barnes defended his organization's name, even claiming the global movement had "stolen" his name and idea, according to BuzzFeed News, even though it was widely recognized before he started the foundation.

A representative for the Black Lives Matter movement told BuzzFeed News that the Santa Clarita group was "improperly using our name" and that the movement planned "to call them out and follow-up."

Barnes did not disclose how much his foundation had raised in total but said he planned to use the funds for community and police bonding events, according to BuzzFeed News. As the publication noted, however, the California attorney general's office in December sent the foundation a cease-and-desist order, which accused it of failing to properly register with its office and file annual financial reports and barred it from disbursing any funds without permission.