Brooklyn cop Adrian Schoolcraft, pictured with copies of police states in 2009, sues NYPD for locking him up in psych ward.
In the midst of these protests the stop and frisk policy is on trial in a class action lawsuit, as we reported last week.
So far it has been revealed in court through whistleblower testimony and audio evidence that the NYPD's stop and frisk policy was motivated by racism and quotas. This is something that we all know about police departments all over the country, but it was extremely important to get this confirmation in court because way too many people still refuse to recognize the brutality that takes place and authoritarianism.
The whistleblower testimony that has come to light so far has been unexpected, because police departments, and the NYPD in particular are very unforgiving towards those within their ranks who attempt to do anything to change the status-quo.
Just recently a report with claims against the NYPD from 2010 was finally made public, when this report was released two weeks ago the world also learned that its author was suspended from the NYPD and involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward. The claims that this officer made weren't even as serious as those being brought up in court over the past week, so there is no telling the kind of persecution that these new whistleblowers will be forced to endure.
Comment: It is still not clear how G4S guards will "protect" the banks. Will they prevent people from going to take out their money? So far all Cypriot protests have been civil and peaceful and there's no indication that the people will turn against the bank tellers, so hiring these guards seems pointless and might be dangerous, considering their resume:
"G4S is present in the occupied Palestinian territories - manning checkpoints and managing prison security for Israel and is thus can be considered as complicit in Israel's illegal settlement policy and the torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
G4S supplies security equipment and services for use at Israeli prisons, checkpoints and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It also helps to maintain and profit from Israel's prison system. In 2007, the Israeli subsidiary of G4S signed a contract with the Israeli Prison Authority to provide security systems for major Israeli prisons. [...]
In February 2011, The Guardian reported that G4S guards in the United Kingdom had been repeatedly warned about the use of potentially lethal force on detainees and asylum seekers. Confidential informants and several employees released the information to reporters after G4S's practices allegedly led to the death of Jimmy Mubenga. An internal document urged management to "meet this problem head on before the worst happens" and that G4S was "playing Russian roulette with detainees' lives."The following autumn, the company once again faced allegations of abuse. G4S guards were accused of verbally harassing and intimidating detainees with offensive and racist language."