WE ARE ALL AGITATORS!

THE MYTH OF THE OUTSIDE AGITATOR

THE MYTH OF THE COPS AND THE STATE IS THAT WE ARE NOT SELF ORGANIZED

THAT WE ARE INCAPABLE OF ORGANIZING OURSELVES TO OPPOSE THE STATE AND ITS COPS

 

WE ARE THE COMMUNITY!

NONE OF US ARE OUTSIDE AGITATORS,

WE ARE ALL HOMEGROWN AGITATORS 

DEMANDING FOR JUSTICE FOR ALL!

THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR MOTTO;

THAT IS THE MOST PERFECT GOVERNMENT IN WHICH AND INJURY TO ONE IS AND INJURY TO ALL 

WHICH WAS ADOPTED BY REVOLUTIONARY LABOR AND SYNDICALIST UNIONS AS THEIR POLITICAL AGENDA

Preamble to the Constitution of the Knights of Labor, 1881
From Terence V. Powderly. Constitution of the General Assembly, District Assemblies, and Local Assemblies of the order of the Knights of Labor in America. Marblehead, Mass.: Statesman Publishing Co., 1883. Adapted from www.wadsworth.com/history

PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR Adopted 3 January 1878 The recent alarming development and aggression of aggregated wealth, which, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses, render it imperative, if we desire to enjoy the blessings of life, that a check should be placed upon its power and upon unjust accumulation, and a system adopted which will secure to the laborer the fruits of his toil; and as this much-desired object can only be accomplished by [129] the thorough unification of labor, and the united efforts of those who obey the divine injunction that "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," we have formed the * * * * * with a view of securing the organization and direction, by co-operative effort, of the power of the industrial classes; and we submit to the world the objects sought to be accomplished by our organization, calling upon all who believe in securing "the greatest good to the greatest number" to aid and assist us: I. To bring within the folds of organization every department of productive industry, making knowledge a standpoint for action, and industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness. II. To secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they create; more of the leisure that rightfully belongs to them; more societary advantages; more of the benefits, privileges and emoluments of the world; in a word, all those rights and privileges necessary to make them capable of enjoying, appreciating, defending and perpetuating the blessings of good government. III. To arrive at the true condition of the producing masses in their educational, moral and financial condition, by demanding from the various governments the establishment of Bureaus of Labor Statistics. IV. The establishment of co-operative institutions, productive and distributive. V. The reserving of the public lands--the heritage of the people--for the actual settler; not another acre for railroads or speculators. VI. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal of unjust technicalities, delays and discriminations in the administration of justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing or building pursuits. VII. The enactment of laws to compel chartered corporations to pay their employe[e]s weekly, in full, for labor performed during the preceding week, in the lawful money of the country. VIII. The enactment of laws giving mechanics and laborers a first lien on their work for their full wages. IX. The abolishment of the contract system on national, State and municipal work. X. The substitution of arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employe[e]s are willing to meet on equitable grounds. XI. The prohibition of the employment of children in workshops, mines and factories before attaining their fourteenth year. XII. To abolish the system of letting out by contract the labor of convicts in our prisons and reformatory institutions. XIII. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work. [130] XIV. The reduction of the hours of labor to eight per day, so that the laborers may have more time for social enjoyment and intellectual improvement, and be enabled to reap the advantages conferred by the labor-saving machinery which their brains have created,. XV. To prevail upon governments to establish a purely national circulating medium, based upon the faith and resources of the nation, and issued directly to the people, without the intervention of any system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tender in payment of all debts, public or private. Source:Terence V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor, 1859 to 1889 (Philadelphia, 1890), 128-130. The original pagination appears in brackets   Terence V. Powderly, The Knights of Labor, 1889 https://wps.prenhall.com › wps › media › objects › ch19_a5_d1 Under Powderly the Knights advocated an eight hour ... The first committee on constitution of the order of the Knights of. Labor ... The adoption of the preamble.                                            https://archive.iww.org/about/official/StJohn/2/

WHAT IS ANTI-FA MEMES

Famed DC monuments defaced after night of protests


Tyler Olson

As protests swept the nation following the death of George Floyd in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department last week, some of the most iconic monuments in Washington, D.C. were vandalized Saturday night.

The affected monuments, photos of which were posted in a tweet by the National Mall National Park Service (NPS), included the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the statue of General Casimir Pulaski. It is not clear to what extent any other monuments might have been vandalized.

NOT A SINGLE PHOTO PROVIDED BY FOX NO VISUAL EVIDENCE TO PROVE ITS TRUE 

NATIONAL GUARD MOBILIZED IN STATES ACROSS THE COUNTRY AS RIOTS, LOOTING FEARED

"In the wake of last night's demonstrations, there are numerous instances of vandalism to sites around the National Mall," The National Mall NPS tweeted. "For generations the Mall has been our nation’s premier civic gathering space for non-violent demonstrations, and we ask individuals to carry on that tradition."

Floyd, who is black, died, according to officials, after an officer used his knee to pin Floyd to the ground by his neck as Floyd gasped for air and was not visibly resisting arrest in several minutes of the incident caught on video. The officer who pinned Floyd to the ground, Derek Chauvin, was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

SECRET SERVICE TOOK TRUMP TO UNDERGROUND WHITE HOUSE BUNKER AMID GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS, OFFICIAL SAYS

Saturday night's demonstrations were reprised on Sunday night as Washington, D.C. Mayor Murial Bowser ordered a curfew for city residents beginning at 11 p.m. A tweet from Bowser's account said that "[s]he has also activated the DC National Guard to support the Metropolitan Police Department."

Video showed gatherings of protesters near the White House setting fires Sunday night.

On Saturday night President Trump went to the bunker underneath the White House as the U.S. Secret Service worried about the president's safety while demonstrators approached White House grounds.

"It wasn't long," a senior administration official said of the action taken to protect the president, "but he went."

The Secret Service said that "demonstrators repeatedly attempted to knock over security barriers, and vandalized six Secret Service vehicles" on Saturday, leading to one arrest.

© Provided by FOX News Dr. Marc Siegel says he's very concerned about the spread of COVID-19 amid the nationwide protests.

On Sunday, as protests again ramped up in D.C. and around the country, the Secret Service asked people to stay away from the White House.

"In an effort to ensure public safety, pedestrians and motorists are encouraged to avoid streets and parks near the White House complex," the Secret Service tweeted.

Fox News' Bret Baier contributed to this report.

OK FOUND ONE FROM FAUX NEWS

COVERAGE FROM CNN YOU KNOW THE FAKE MEDIA
THEY HAVE PICTURES



CNN- Popular landmarks across Washington, DC, were defaced with graffiti during the second consecutive night of protests in the nation's capital over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis who was pinned down by police.


Graffiti from Saturday night protests on Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
"In the wake of last night's demonstrations, there are numerous instances of vandalism to sites around the National Mall," the National Park Service for the National Mall said in a tweet with photos of defaced monuments.

"For generations the Mall has been our nation's premier civic gathering space for non-violent demonstrations, and we ask individuals to carry on that tradition."

The vandalism appeared after skirmishes between groups of protesters and law enforcement flared across the city Saturday night.

Some protesters gathered in downtown Washington, DC, at Lafayette Square, which is across from the White House, into the evening, but additional protesters were not allowed in by police. At times there were attempts by some protesters to enter the park. They were met with pepper spray or other mechanisms pushing them back.

Separately, a group marched and then rallied at the Lincoln Memorial where the words "Yall not tired yet?" were spray-painted.

The question "Do black Vets count?" also appeared to be spray-painted across part of the National Mall World War II Memorial.

DC Chief of Police Peter Newsham said Sunday that the Metropolitan Police Department had arrested 17 people Saturday night and that 11 MPD officers were injured during the protests.

None of the officers sustained life-threatening injuries, though one officer is undergoing surgery for multiple compound fractures to his leg after a protester threw a rock at him.
Newsham said that of the 17 people arrested, eight either live in DC or have some ties to the area.

He said police expect to make more arrests, as the department is asking private businesses to review their security footage, and will ask the DC community to help identify those who were damaging property or hurting people.

CNN's Nicky Robertson contributed to this report.








VANDALISM IS NOT VIOLENCE, POLICE BRUTALITY IS!

One dead in Louisville after police and national guard 'return fire' on protesters

A man was shot dead in the Louisville protests after police officers and the Kentucky National Guard "returned fire" while clearing a large crowd during a protest early Monday.

THAT MAKES EIGHT DEAD IN LOUISVILLE THIS WEEK

© Max Gersh Image: Police and Kentucky National Guard troops chase protesters as they flee toward a fence Sunday, May 31, 2020, in a parking lot at the corner of East Broadway and South Brook Street in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad said in a statement that at around 12:15 a.m. his officers and the national guard were sent to a parking lot to break up a crowd.

"Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at," Conrad said in a statement. "Both LMPD and national guard members returned fire, we have one man dead at scene"

Conrad did not specify who fired the fatal shot, and authorities have not released information about the victim. Louisville police say they are interviewing "several persons of interests" and collecting video.

Louisville has seen a weekend of protests, as the city mourns Breonna Taylor, 26, a black woman killed in her home in March by Louisville police who were executing a "no-knock" warrant targeting her former boyfriend.

Last Thursday, seven people were shot in the city during protests that turned violent.

NYC Mayor de Blasio's daughter arrested during Saturday night protests

AFTER DE BLASIO BLASTED PROTESTERS AS ANARCHISTS 

HIS DAUGHTER IS ONE

Adam Edelman and Tom Winter

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter, Chiara de Blasio, was arrested Saturday night during the citywide protests over the death of George Floyd, a senior NYPD law enforcement official told NBC News.

© Demetrius Freeman Powered by Microsoft News

Chiara de Blasio was arrested Saturday night at East 12th Street and Broadway in Manhattan for "unlawful assembly."

The official said Chiara de Blasio was taken into custody at 10:30 p.m. She has been released.

The news was first reported by the New York Post. The Post reported that de Blasio had been blocking traffic and was arrested after she refused to move.

Her arrest came roughly one hour before the mayor held a late night news conference Saturday, telling protesters that "it's time to go home."

NBC New York reported that the NYPD made at least 345 arrests during Saturday's protests and that 33 officers were injured over the course of the day.

The protests also saw two incidents of NYPD vehicles driving directly into crowds of protesters.

De Blasio defended the department after a pair of the force's SUVs drove into a crowd during Saturday's protest against George Floyd's death.De Blasio reacted after videos were posted to social media, which showed protestors moving a yellow barrier in front a police vehicle in Brooklyn. Protestors threw traffic cones and other items at the SUV as a second vehicle arrived and slowly drove through the crowd forming around it.

On Sunday morning, de Blasio clarified his comments about the video, saying he didn't like what he saw "one bit" and announced an independent review into the video.


De Blasio now says some 'anarchist' protesters are local amid continued defense of NYPD
By MICHELLE BOCANEGRA
05/31/2020 

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday blamed an organized group of anarchists for inciting violence and vandalism amid protests over the killing of George Floyd, but conceded some were from the city and the neighborhoods where demonstrations were happening — a shift from his message Saturday night.

“Some come from outside the city. Some are from inside the city,” he said. “Some are from the neighborhoods where the protests take place, some are not. But what we do know is there is an explicit agenda of violence and it does not conform with the history of this city in which we have always honored non-violent protests.”


Only hours before, on Saturday night, the mayor insisted the threat of violence was coming from “out of town” demonstrators, many of whom are “not from communities of color” and have a “warped ideology” that leads them to “harming working people who are police officers.”

De Blasio, who first came to office with a promise of police reform, has ardently defended the NYPD during the recent protests and insisted officers were exercising great restraint in the face of threats from demonstrators bent on attacking cops. He’s faced fierce backlash from criminal justice advocates and members of his own party.

“@NYCMayor your comments tonight were unacceptable,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted early Sunday morning. “Defending and making excuses for NYPD running SUVs into crowds was wrong. Make it right. De-escalate.”

Police officers drove through a barricade into throngs of protesters in Brooklyn Saturday evening. Video of the incident, which quickly went viral, shows demonstrators throwing cones, garbage bags and water bottles at the NYPD vehicles before they plowed into the crowds.

The mayor insisted again Sunday the officers were reacting to a dangerous situation caused by threats of violence.

“We’re going to fully investigate that incident,” the mayor said Sunday. “I don’t ever want to see a police officer do that. ... But I also know that it was an extremely dangerous situation and the one thing [police] couldn’t do was stay there.”

“There are protests, and there are mobs,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea added later in the conference. “A protest does not involve surrounding and ambushing a marked police car.”

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, speaking in a separate press conference that morning, criticized the mayor’s earlier remarks to the incident as “a terrible response.”

“We can’t have police officers who haven’t been trained on how to handle a panicked situation and are handling it through plowing protesters,” he said. “That’s not something we can accept.”

The mayor announced he was appointing his corporation counsel, Jim Johnson, and Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett to conduct a full investigation into the police response to protests which began late last week and will continue Sunday night.

Shea said multiple officers were injured in skirmishes over the weekend and close to 350 arrests were made — but aside from property damage, police said no serious injuries or fatalities have occurred.

De Blasio praised Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s remarks from Saturday morning, in which he said he would sign legislation updating New York’s 50-a law, criticized by criminal justice advocates who say it shields too much information relating to police disciplinary records.

The de Blasio administration had previously cited the law when groups and officials across New York City pushed for the records of former officer Daniel Pantaleo, who fatally placed Staten Islander Eric Garner into a chokehold in 2014.

“I have said we need to repeal and replace, I want to be abundantly clear,” de Blasio said Sunday. “There must be some provision in the law to protect the personal information, the home address, the type of information about an individual police officer that is about their safety and security.”

De Blasio said Sunday he hoped Cuomo would sign such legislation in June.

Footage from Minneapolis of Floyd’s death, whose final words were “I can’t breathe” as a police officer knelt on his neck, has drawn parallels to Garner’s death in Staten Island as he gasped the same words.

“I think that when you look at something as terrible as that incident, what could come out of it?” said Shea of footage of Floyd, who was apprehended while unarmed for allegedly using counterfeit money to buy cigarettes. “Hopefully something does come out of it.”

“Whether it’s law enforcement or not, there is universal condemnation ... to what we saw in that video,” he said.

Minneapolis police rendered 44 people unconscious with neck restraints in five years

Several police experts said that number appears to be unusually high. "By using this tactic, it's a self-fulfilling tragedy," said one.

A protester in Minneapolis on Thursday, May 28, 2020.Julio Cortez / AP

GEORGE FLOYD DEATH

June 1, 2020
By Emily R. Siegel, Andrew W. Lehren and Andrew Blankstein

Since the beginning of 2015, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department have rendered people unconscious with neck restraints 44 times, according to an NBC News analysis of police records. Several police experts said that number appears to be unusually high.

Minneapolis police used neck restraints at least 237 times during that span, and in 16 percent of the incidents the suspects and other individuals lost consciousness, the department's use-of-force records show. A lack of publicly available use-of-force data from other departments makes it difficult to compare Minneapolis to other cities of the same or any size.

Police define neck restraints as when an officer uses an arm or leg to compress someone's neck without directly pressuring the airway. On May 25, Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was captured on video kneeling on the neck of a prone and handcuffed George Floyd for eight minutes — including nearly three minutes after he had stopped breathing.

Chauvin was charged Friday with third-degree murder and manslaughter for Floyd's death.

More than a dozen police officials and law enforcement experts told NBC News that the particular tactic Chauvin used — kneeling on a suspect's neck — is neither taught nor sanctioned by any police agency. A Minneapolis city official told NBC News Chauvin's tactic is not permitted by the Minneapolis police department. For most major police departments, variations of neck restraints, known as chokeholds, are highly restricted — if not banned outright.

Related

Nation's police widely condemn move used to restrain George Floyd

The version of the Minneapolis Police Department's policy manual that is available on-line, however, does permit the use of neck restraints that can render suspects unconscious, and the protocol for their use appears not to have been updated for more than eight years.

Live updates on George Floyd's death and protests around the country.

Minneapolis police data shows that in the bulk of use-of-force cases involving neck restraints when an individual lost consciousness, the restraint was used after a suspect fled on foot or tensed up as they were being taken into custody. Almost half of the people who lost consciousness were injured, according to the reports, which do not spell out the severity of those injuries.

Five of the cases involved assaults on officers, while several others involved domestic abuse or domestic assault cases. In most cases, there was no apparent underlying violent offense.

Watch a minute-to-minute breakdown leading up to George Floyd's deadly arrest

MAY 28, 2020

The Minnesota police data showed three-fifths of those subjected to neck restraints and then rendered unconscious were black. About 30 percent were white. Two were Native Americans. Almost all are male, and three-quarters were age 40 or under.

One was a 14-year-old in a domestic abuse incident that was in progress when the officer arrived. Another was a 17-year-old fleeing from a shoplifting incident. Another involved a traffic stop where the suspect was deemed "verbally non-compliant."

The on-line version of the policy manual says, "The unconscious neck restraint shall only be applied … 1. On a subject who is exhibiting active aggression, or; 2. For life saving purposes, or; 3. On a subject who is exhibiting active resistance in order to gain control of the subject; and if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective."

The passage includes a date in parentheses, April 16, 2012. The front of the manual is dated July 28, 2016.

George Floyd died May 25 after being pinned to the ground by an officer who put his knee on the man's neck for about eight minutes.Darnella Frazier

The Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately provide comment on the data, and did not respond to a request to confirm that the dates in parentheses refer to when the manual and its sections were updated.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts on this story

Ed Obayashi, an attorney and the deputy sheriff in Plumas County, California, is a national use-of-force expert who trains and advises California police agencies. He said police departments across the country have been moving away from the neck restraint option for many years because of its "inherent life-threatening potential" and because officers often misinterpret resistance by a suspect, who may simply be struggling to breathe.

"It's common sense," Obayashi said. "Any time you cut off someone's airway or block blood flow to the brain, it can lead to serious injury or death as we have seen in so many of these tragedies. By using this tactic, it's a self-fulfilling tragedy."

Video appears to show George Floyd in struggle in police vehicle
JUNE 1, 202001:36

Obayashi said it's notable that the Minneapolis Police Department policy on neck restraints appears to be dated and said that rather than discouraging or generally prohibiting the tactic, its policy language is consistent with a permissive stance.

"The [Minneapolis] policy doesn't appear to reflect what California and other law enforcement agencies using best practices recognize, which is if officers don't use extreme caution with this force option, the likelihood of serious injury or death rises significantly," Obayashi said.

"This seems to be a routine practice by the Minneapolis Police Department," said Obayashi. "As a cop, the tone is there, 'Use it when you think it's appropriate.'"

Shawn Williams, an assistant professor and professional peace officer coordinator at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, worked at the Minneapolis Police Department for more than 10 years and oversaw training his last two years there, including the use of unconscious neck restraints. He said he understands why other departments do not use the maneuver.

This March 31, 1991 frame from a video tape shot by George Holliday from his apartment in a suburb of Los Angeles shows a group of police officers beating a man with nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on. The April 29, 1992 acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King sparked rioting that spread across the city and into neighboring suburbs. George Holliday / Courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles / AP, file

"If it's used correctly, you can cause the suspect to render themselves compliant and we can take someone into custody without damage internally," he said. "If it's not used correctly, and the arm is placed in the wrong place, you're talking about damage to one's trachea and you're talking about taking someone's life."

During his time in the department, he said officers needed to be trained correctly, often and while under stress so they could fully understand how to use the move.

Richard Drooyan served as counsel to the Christopher Commission, which investigated the LAPD beating of Rodney King, and later on the independent panel that examined the Rampart Division corruption scandal. Drooyan, who now oversees the L.A. County jail, said neck restraint should only be employed when there is an urgent matter of life or death, and that the number of times it was used by the Minneapolis Police Department seemed "extraordinary."

People participate in a protest to mark the five year anniversary of the death of Eric Garner during a confrontation with a police officer in the borough of Staten Island on July 17, 2019 in New York City.Spencer Platt / Getty Images
"In many cases," he said, "the justification was that the suspect tensed up, which I read to mean resisted arrest or fled on foot without any indication that the suspect was armed or dangerous. You have a combination of a large number of incidents involving the use of neck restraints on individuals who were not engaged in violent criminal activity and appeared to have been restrained because they appeared to be resisting arrest."

Despite a turbulent past, the LAPD was one of the first police agencies to address deadly or excessive force incidents that grew out of using chokeholds. In 1982, at the request of then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, the department banned the bar-arm chokeholds and limited upper-body controls, then commonplace, after a federal lawsuit. Sixteen people — including a dozen African-American men — died from various forms of upper-body controls over a seven-year period leading up to the decision.

The Los Angeles Police Commission followed up the bar-arm ban weeks later by restricting the carotid chokehold, designed to immobilize a suspect by blocking the neck artery and, by extension, the flow of blood to the brain. The department still allows officers to use a carotid restraint but limits those situations to immediate danger to life.
Related

Eric Garner's mom says video of man's police death is 'reoccurring nightmare'

Use of unconscious neck restraints is not specifically referenced in the New York Police Department patrol guide. On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died after he was put in a chokehold by New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo while under arrest for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes in New York's Staten Island.

A chokehold is prohibited by the NYPD in the normal course of policing, but in a self-defense situation officers are allowed to use whatever technique is appropriate. NYPD procedure for use-of-force states that officers "take necessary action to protect life and personal safety of all persons present, including subjects being placed into custody."

Pantaleo was fired from the department. A state grand jury and federal prosecutors both declined to bring charges against him. The Garner family settled a lawsuit against the city for $5.9 million.

--------------------

Emily Siegel is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Andrew W. Lehren is a senior editor with the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Andrew Blankstein is an investigative reporter for NBC News. He covers the Western United States, specializing in crime, courts and homeland security.
Tom Winter contributed.

How the Supreme Court enabled police to use deadly chokeholds

When the Supreme Court turns its back on injustice, there are consequences.

By Ian Millhiser May 30, 2020, 9:00am EDT

Protesters gather in a call for justice for George Floyd, a black man who died after a white policeman pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck for several minutes, at Hennepin County Government Plaza on May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

The video is horrific.

George Floyd lies on the ground, facing the back end of a police SUV, as three cops kneel on his body. One of them, Derek Chauvin, has his knee on Floyd’s neck as the helpless man begs for his life.

“I can’t breathe, man. Please understand. Please, man.”

It’s a sadly familiar scene, and quite like one that played out in 1976 after Los Angeles police officers pulled over Adolph Lyons for a broken taillight.

Like Floyd, Lyons was black. The officers met him with guns drawn and ordered him to face the car, spread his legs, and place his hands on top of his head. Not long after Lyons complained that a ring of keys that he held in his hands was causing him pain, one of the officers wrapped his forearm around Lyons’s throat and began to choke him. Lyons passed out. He woke up facedown on the ground, covered in his own urine and feces. The officers released him with a citation for the broken taillight.

Lyons brought a federal lawsuit against the city and officers who assaulted him. But that case, City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983), did not end well for him. Decades later, the 5-4 decision still stands as one of the greatest obstacles to civil rights lawyers challenging police brutality in cases like George Floyd’s.
Lyons was a case about whether courts can prevent police violence before it happens

Adolph Lyons was not the only man choked by a Los Angeles police officer. Between 1975 and 1980, LAPD officers used chokeholds on at least 975 occasions.

As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his dissenting opinion, “the city instructs its officers that use of a chokehold does not constitute deadly force.” Nevertheless, “no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by an LAPD police officer,” 12 of whom were black men.


According to Justice Marshall, “the evidence submitted to the District Court established that, for many years, it has been the official policy of the city to permit police officers to employ chokeholds in a variety of situations where they face no threat of violence.”

When Lyons sued the city, he wanted more than just a sum of money compensating him for his injuries. He sought an injunction — a formal court order that would have forbidden the LAPD from using chokeholds “except in situations where the proposed victim of said control reasonably appears to be threatening the immediate use of deadly force.”

But the Supreme Court held that Lyons could not obtain such an injunction unless he could show that he was personally likely to be choked by a Los Angeles police officer in the future. “Past exposure to illegal conduct,” Justice Byron White wrote for the Court, does not permit someone to seek an injunction. Rather, “Lyons’ standing to seek the injunction requested depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use of the chokeholds by police officers.”

It didn’t matter that nearly a thousand other Los Angeles residents were subjected to police chokeholds. To obtain a court order protecting future victims of police violence from being choked, Lyons would have to show that he was likely to be choked by an LAPD officer a second time.

Indeed, White’s opinion went even further than that. To obtain an injunction, White wrote for the Court, Lyons “would have had not only to allege that he would have another encounter with the police, but also to make the incredible assertion either (1) that all police officers in Los Angeles always choke any citizen with whom they happen to have an encounter, whether for the purpose of arrest, issuing a citation, or for questioning, or (2) that the City ordered or authorized police officers to act in such manner.”

As Justice Marshall pointed out in dissent, Lyons made it so difficult to obtain an injunction preventing police misconduct that “if the police adopt a policy of ‘shoot to kill,’ or a policy of shooting 1 out of 10 suspects, the federal courts will be powerless to enjoin its continuation.”
Why injunctions are necessary to stop police violence

Lyons did not foreclose lawsuits against rogue cops altogether. Someone like Adolph Lyons (or, for that matter, George Floyd’s survivors) may still sue cops who violate their constitutional rights, and they may potentially receive monetary damages from those cops.

But those lawsuits would face numerous barriers.

For one thing, cops benefit from a doctrine known as “qualified immunity,” which protects them from having to pay for violating the legal rights of another person, unless the police officer violates “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” As the Supreme Court explained in Malley v. Briggs (1986), qualified immunity “provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”

Even if a civil rights plaintiff overcomes qualified immunity, many jurisdictions have indemnity laws protecting police from civil suits. Under these laws, the government agrees to pay any damages awarded against an officer. Indeed, these indemnity laws are so common that a 2014 study by UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz found that “during the study period, governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.”

So cops are unlikely to face financial consequences themselves if they violate someone’s civil rights. And, while the jurisdiction that employs them may be forced to pay for their actions, money damages won in civil lawsuits often are not painful enough to inspire policymakers to make lasting changes.

In most lawsuits, the primary purpose of money damages is to compensate the victim for the injury inflicted on them. That may be enough to cover hospital bills, lost wages, and the like, but it’s not always enough of a hit to state or municipal budgets to inspire the government to change its behavior.

In particularly egregious cases, a victim of police violence may also receive punitive damages — extra money awarded to a plaintiff to deter future bad behavior by the defendant. But the Supreme Court is reluctant to allow large punitive damage awards. Indeed, in State Farm v. Campbell (2003), the Court held that “few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process.” Thus, for every dollar that a plaintiff receives in compensation, they typically may not receive more than $10 in punitive damages.

Which brings us back to injunctions. When a court enjoins a particular defendant, they don’t just order that defendant to cease a particular behavior, they also can enforce that order with criminal sanctions or by imposing escalating fines until the defendant ceases their illegal conduct. A party subject to an injunction, in other words, can be squeezed so hard by court sanctions that they have no choice but to change their behavior.

Consider the case of Eric Garner, who was killed by a New York police officer’s chokehold in 2014. Although the NYPD had a formal policy barring chokeholds, it was frequently unenforced. The city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board received 219 chokehold complaints against NYPD officers in just one year.

If one of the victims of those chokeholds had obtained an injunction against the NYPD, then a court could have imposed strict sanctions on the city until police chokeholds ceased. And Eric Garner might be alive today.

MAP OF PROTESTS

THIS MAP IS PROVIDED COURTESY A CONSERVATIVE 
PRO COP TWIT(ER)

MOST OF THESE EVENTS ARE VANDALISM NOT VIOLENCE

ALLEGED LOOTER SHOT BY PAWNSHOP OWNER IS VIOLENCE
ASSAULT BY CAR IS VIOLENCE, DONE IN ATLANTA OR DONE
IN NEW YORK WHEN COPS RAMMED PROTESTERS WITH THEIR
SUV!

THIS MAP DOES NOT INCLUDE INCIDENTS LIKE 2 COPS WHO
TASERED CITIZENS IN THEIR CAR WHO WERE FIRED IMMEDIATELY
BY MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF!