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'The Police Killings No One Is Talking About': Native Americans more likely to be killed by cops

Bill Berkowitz
The Smirking Chimp
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 07:21 UTC
The Police Killings No One Is Talking About
© In These Times
"When it comes to American Indians, mainstream America suffers from willful blindness." —Lydia Millet, The New York Times, October 13, 2016
Marcus Lee, Lance McIntyre, Daniel Covarrubias, Raymond Eacret, Jessie Lee Rose, Jacqueline Salyers, Mah-hi-vist Goodblanket, Richard Estrada, Jeanetta Riley, Larry Kobuk, Jamie Lee Brave Heart, Loreal Tsingine, Corey Kanosh, Allen Locke, Sarah Lee Circle Bear.

Say their names because odds are you have not heard about them, or read about them. Say their names because all of them are Native Americans killed by police. However, if the relatively recently organized Native Lives Matter can build a movement that links up with other organizations combatting police killings and racial bias, the deaths of these Native Americans might become the roots of change.

Nearly seven months ago I wrote a piece for Buzzflash titled "Mainstream Media Are Egregiously Negligent in Reporting on Indigenous Peoples," which maintained that not only are stories about Native Americans rarely reported, when they are reported at all, they are all-too-frequently awash in stereotypes. Nowhere has this been more evident than the paucity of reporting about police killings of Native Americans.

According to an In These Times special investigative report by Stephanie Woodard, titled "The Police Killings No One Is Talking About," "When compared to their percentage of the U.S. population, Natives were more likely to be killed by police than any other group, including African Americans."


Despite evidence gathered by Mike Males, senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, "killings of Native people go almost entirely unreported by mainstream U.S. media," Woodard pointed out. She noted that in an April meeting of the Western Social Science Association, Claremont Graduate University researchers Roger Chin, Jean Schroedel and Lily Rowen presented their study of reviewed articles about deaths-by-cop published between May 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, in the top 10 U.S. newspapers by circulation: the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Denver Post, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

Comment: America's dirty laundry: The ongoing genocide of the American Indian

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Blackbox

Tragic loss of Alexandrov Choir, journalists & charity workers in crash of Russian aircraft

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 13:56 UTC
Alexandrov Ensemble Red Army Choir

The Alexandrov Ensemble
All but three members of Russia's most beloved vocal ensemble have died in the tragic plane crash.

Today's news of the Tupolev-154 crash is personally devastating. Of the 92 souls on board, the vast majority were members of the Alexandrov Choir, colloquially known as the Red Army Choir. The rest were civilian journalists and charity workers, including Elizaveta Glinka who has worked tirelessly to help the children of Donbass whilst the west lets them starve.

The Alexandrov Choir were en route to Syria to perform for the troops and civilians as they have done in every major conflict abroad since Alexander Alexandov formed the ensemble in 1926. The choir's music helped comfort civilians and entertain soldiers during The Great Patriotic War. They provided the soundtrack for the most harrowing years in all of Russian history. Many of the most beloved songs composed during the war were by Alexander Alexandrov, including my personal favourite The Sacred War.

Comment: Further reading: Russian military aircraft crashes en route to Syria (UPDATE)

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Quenelle

Russia & China launch construction of bridge across Amur river, after 28 years of negotiations


RT
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 09:26 UTC
Amur River
© Alexander Liskin / Sputnik
Amur River
The construction of a long-awaited bridge across the Amur River, to connect Russia's Far East city of Blagoveshchensk with the northeastern Chinese city of Heihe has finally started after 28 years of negotiations.

"We've started the construction of the cross-border bridge. The governor of the Amur region and top officials in Heilongjiang province took part in the ceremony," a Russian official from the Amur region told RIA Novosti.

Construction officially started on Saturday after 28 years of negotiations between Russia and China. The new cross-border road bridge and its corresponding infrastructure will cost around $355 million and will be 19.9 km long. Some 6.5km of the bridge and road junctions will lie in China, and the remaining 13.5km in Russia, according to China's CNS agency. The length of the main suspension bridge will be roughly 1,300 meters and its width 14.5 meters.


"The bridge is an important link and part of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. It will strengthen cooperation between the two regions, it will break the bottleneck of local development," Qin Enting, Heihe Communist Party Chief, said at the ceremony.

The territorial principle dominates the construction agreement, each country will construct the respective part of the bridge. Russian companies will make the connection between the two parts. When the construction is completed, the Russian side of the bridge will become the property of the Amur region, while the Chinese part will be owned by Heilongjiang Province. The bridge will contribute greatly to modernization of the transport system of the two regions, according to Heilongjiang Province Governor Lu Hao.

Comment: See also: Win-win approach: Russia and China to construct first rail bridge across Amur River

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Bad Guys

SOTT Exclusive: Mohamed, Who Lost His Wife In Brussels Bomb Attacks, Delivers Year-End Message

Bahar Azizi
Sott.net
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 19:50 UTC
bachiri and loubna

Mohamed El Bachiri and his wife Loubna Lafquiri. Lafquiri was one of the victims of terrorist attacks in Brussels in March 2016.
Mohamed El Bachiri is a Belgian-Moroccan Muslim residing in Molenbeek, a municipality that gained the negative reputation of being the home of several Belgian terrorists who carried out attacks in Brussels. Recently, Mohamed delivered a message that has gone viral in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Mohamed lost his wife, Loubna Lafquiri, in a terror attack on March 22nd at the Maalbeek metro station. Since then he has looked after his three young children. On December 22nd, nine months after the attacks that deprived him of his wife and his children of their mother, Mohamed appeared on the Belgian TV programme De Afspraak and delivered a message to close out the year. In this talk he called for 'jihad', but not the kind we hear about so often. See the video below (he speaks in French, but English subtitles are included):


While his idea on there not being one truth might be off the mark, the above message clearly shows that not all Muslims are out to kill others. If anyone has the right to be angry, it's Mohamed, and yet he has found the strength to do the opposite, to ask people not to let authorities to divide them, but rather to come together and to discuss important matters. It also shows how Bachiri, and many like him, are thankful for being where they are: they don't hate their country. Yet, due to the Islamophobia that has been promoted since the Bush administration and fueled by the Obama administration and western governments, even he, whose wife died during terrorist attacks, is considered by some people as a potential terrorist.

Comment: See also the following SOTT Focus for an in-depth look at the March 2016 attacks in Brussels: Who is Bombing European Civilians?

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V

Assange: Trump offers opportunity for change, Killary election would have consolidated power for ruling class


Sputnik
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 22:05 UTC
assange
© AFP 2016/ Rodrigo Buendia
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the Trump administration will offer "opportunities for change" in the United States and condemned the president-elect's erstwhile opponent Hillary Clinton in an interview with Italian newspaper La Republicca.

"Donald Trump is not a DC insider, he is part of the wealthy ruling elite of the United States, and he is gathering around him a spectrum of other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities," Assange said during the wide-ranging interview.

So far, Trump's team is not a power structure itself, but is "displacing and destabilizing the pre-existing central power network within DC."

"It is a new patronage structure which will evolve rapidly, but at the moment its looseness means there are opportunities for change in the United States: change for the worse and change for the better," he said.
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Gold Seal

James O'Keefe of Project Veritas says it well: Mainstream media are 'corrupt scum' (VIDEO)

Oscar Platt
Russia Insider
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
James O'Keefe

James O'Keefe of Project Veritas nails it
This video will make you want to stand up and cheer.

James O'Keefe has got to be one of the true heroes of the 2016 election campaign.

More than any other single investigative journalist, he and his team at the now legendary Project Veritas, exposed the appalling corruption festering in America's political system, and successfully beat back a vicious smear campaign aimed at silencing him.

Comment: If you haven't already, see the superb investigative videos that O'Keefe and his group made:

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Vader

Human Rights Watch: Saudi forces use banned cluster rockets to hit schools in Yemen, kill civilians


RT
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 11:04 UTC
Yemen students
© Naif Rahma / Reuters
Students gather inside a class at their school, which has been recently hit by a Saudi-led air strike, in the northwestern province of Saada, Yemen November 29, 2016
The Saudi-led coalition used Brazilian-made surface-to-surface rockets containing banned cluster munitions when it targeted two schools in the northern Yemeni city of Saada earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

According to the rights group, the December 6 airstrikes killed at least two civilians and injured at least six, including a child. The attack came only a day after Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the US abstained from a UN vote to ban the use of cluster munitions.

Witnesses described hearing a loud explosion followed by several smaller explosions.

"We thought it's like the regular missiles that always hit Saada... which only create single explosions. This one was different, a series of explosions together... All of the bombs landed over our neighborhood, over houses, and on the streets," Bassam Ali, a 20-year-old neighborhood resident, told HRW.

Comment: Why isn't Samantha Power saying anything about this?

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Sheriff

As feds finally make an effort to count police related deaths they see that numbers have doubled

Jack Burns
Free Thought Project
Fri, 23 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
Police killings
Since 2003, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has been documenting deaths of citizens by police, also known as Arrest Related Deaths (ARD). It is "designed it to be a census of all deaths that occur during the process of arrest or during an attempt to obtain custody by a state or local law enforcement agency in the United States" according to the website. The federal bureau also tracks records of "Deaths in Custody Program (DCRP)" which records deaths of prisoners while in jail or prison. According to the BJS, which released its preliminary findings from 2015, an estimated 1,900 ARDs occurred (over a 12 month period in 2015 and 2016).

Unfortunately, the BJS had to rely on "open-source" data for much of its calculations as there is no federal database, mandated for use in reporting such deaths. It had previously been estimated, based on reports from surveyed agencies, that there were only 425 deaths but after an exhaustive search of media reports, a total approaching 2,000 was discovered to have occurred between June of 2015 and March of 2016.

BJS admitted it relied on information obtained from police watchdog groups and associations. "In addition to direct media alerts, BJS consulted existing open source lists of deaths with scopes that overlapped with the ARD program, including lists maintained by Fatal Encounters, The Guardian, Killed by Police, Gun Violence Archive, and The Washington Post...Of these, Fatal Encounters most closely matched the ARD program scope. Killed by Police included deaths associated with off-duty police officers who are not acting in an official agency capacity, and the ARD program excludes such deaths," notes the BJS report. Did you catch the last line in the quote? The official BJS report doesn't include officer-involved shootings which took place when an officer was off-duty.
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Attention

12 dead, many injured as truck plows into Christmas market in Berlin in likely terrorist attack: Update


RT
Mon, 19 Dec 2016 20:09 UTC
A truck is seen near the Christmas market in Berlin, Germany December 19, 2016
© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
A truck is seen near the Christmas market in Berlin, Germany December 19, 2016.
A truck has ploughed into a Christmas market in western Berlin killing nine and injuring several people, according to police.

The incident happened on one of Berlin's largest Christmas markets, located in the western Charlottenburg district. It is also close Berlin's key shopping mile Kurfuerstendamm and a famous Gedaechtniskirche (Memorial church) tourist site.

"We can confirm nine fatalities & many injured. A lot of our colleagues are at #Breitscheidplatz to investigate the background," a message on the official police Twitter account said.

A police spokesperson told German media that they are treating the truck incident in Berlin as a terrorist attack.

Comment: Updates: Videos from the scene available on RT here.

No doubt Berlin truck incident was terrorist attack - German Interior Ministry:
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said there is "no doubt" that the truck incident at a Christmas market in Berlin was a terrorist attack.

"At this point, we have no doubt that this horrific crime was a terrorist attack," de Maiziere told a news conference on Tuesday. He added that there is no evidence so far to indicate the suspect is linked to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) or any other terrorist group.
Pakistani refugee named as Berlin attack suspect by minister, police not sure they agree:
The man, suspected of ramming a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, is a Pakistani refugee aged 23, the German Interior Minister confirmed. Meanwhile, police say they aren't sure if that man is the perpetrator.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has confirmed that Naved B., who was arrested on suspicion of carrying out the Berlin truck attack, is from Pakistan and had applied for asylum earlier this year. He arrived in Germany last December and arrived in Berlin in February. De Maiziere also said the suspect denies the charges.

A Polish haulier, who also was a cousin of the victim and owner of the truck, said he lost contact with the driver on Monday at 4pm local time, according to the newspaper. It is still unclear how the Pakistani suspect managed to get into the truck.

Ariel Zurawski, the haulier who owned the truck, told Polish television he noticed that the vehicle was maneuvering in a strange way before the attack. "Someone was making forward and backward movements as if he was learning how to drive," said Zurawski. He added that "someone was in the cabin" by the time he lost contact with the original driver.
Berlin police detained 'wrong man,' truck attacker still at large, armed:
The Pakistani suspect arrested following the truck attack in the German capital reportedly had no involvement in the crime. The actual perpetrator is armed and still at large, Die Welt reports, citing high-ranking security sources.

"We have the wrong man," Die Welt cited a Berlin police official as saying. "And thus a new situation. The actual perpetrator is still at large and armed, and can inflict more damage."

The source said that all police and special forces units in Berlin have been informed and put on high alert.

Speaking at a press conference, Berlin police chief Klaus Kandt said investigators are unsure if the Pakistani man arrested shortly after the truck attack was actually the driver who rammed the vehicle into a crowd at the Christmas market.

"As far as I know it is in fact uncertain whether that really was the driver," he said.

Despite the heightened security alert, the preparations for New Year's Eve celebrations will continue as planned, Kandt added.

Entrances to all Christmas markets will be guarded by police officers armed with submachine guns, and security barriers will be erected.
Update (Dec. 20): Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the driver responded to IS's call for attacks. (In other words, he likely had no actual connection to IS and was either a lone wolf, or manipulated by a third party not formally connected with IS.) The Polish man found in the truck's cabin has been identified as Lukasz Urban, 37, the truck's original driver. He was stabbed and shot to death during the hijacking of his truck.

Update (Dec. 21): German police are now looking for a young Tunisian man whose identity documents were found in the cabin of the truck used in the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, which killed 12 people and injured 48 others. The suspect, identified as a Tunisian national named Anis A., is also believed to have several IDs, according to various media reports.

Der Spiegel reports that his identity document has been found by investigators under the driver's seat in the truck cabin. The suspect was born in Tataouine, Tunisia in 1992, according to the report. Bild, however, quoted police sources which suggest that Anis A. had several passports in different names with ages between 21 and 23. All of the passports have surnames starting with the letter A, according to Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz. One of his aliases could be Ahmed A., the newspaper reports. The man's German residence permit was reportedly issued in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia. Meanwhile, Suddeutsche Zeitung reports that Anis A. arrived to Germany as a refugee and filed an asylum request. He was later granted a resident permit.

Police and secret services are now stepping up "immense security measures" in North-Rhine Westphalia, DPA news agency said. According to German media, Anis A. was in contact with Salafist preachers from the cities of Hildesheim and Duisburg. Earlier, German special forces had interrogated radical preachers who were suspected of recruiting for Islamic State.

Berlin police have reportedly received more tip-offs after the attack and are looking for a suspect, according to Spiegel. Earlier, investigators released a 23-year-old Pakistani refugee detained on suspicion of carrying out the attack, admitting that the wrong man was taken to custody. Police say the actual attacker may be armed and is still on the run.

Update (Dec. 22): Dashcam footage of the truck has been released:


Update (Dec. 24): Two brothers arrested on December 23 on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack in Germany have been released for lack of evidence.
Police in the city of Essen said on December 24 that the two men, aged 28 and 31 and originally from Kosovo, were released because the allegations could not be substantiated "despite careful investigation."

Police originally made the arrests on the basis of a tip from intelligence services saying the brothers were plotting a terrorist attack against a mall in the nearby city of Oberhausen.


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Fire

Large fire destroys 28 containers sheltering refugees in Hamburg


RT
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 03:37 UTC
Blaze in Hamburg
© Ruptly
Dozens of refugees have miraculously escaped a fire which suddenly erupted at a refugee center in a Hamburg suburb. A total of 28 residential containers were totally destroyed in the blaze.

Hamburg's fire brigades were alerted at 4:57pm local time during the ongoing refugee camp fire in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg. The authorities immediately dispatched forces to deal with the flames.

As more emergency calls were placed, the fire department raised the alarm level, indicating that "human life [was] in danger." When rescue teams arrived, they found a crowd of about thirty people watching their shelters burn to the ground.

Comment: We do not yet know what started this fire, but it does fit the pattern of appalling attacks against refugees in Europe. See also:

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