Society's ChildS

Pistol

Excessive force: Dashcam shows mentally-ill man shot 14 times as he flees Sacramento police

Sacramento police dashcam video
© Entertainment 10 / YouTube
Sacramento police have released three dashcam videos and one surveillance video which show the pursuit and killing of 50-year-old Joseph Mann, who was shot 14 times by police.

Video and audio recordings were released by Sacramento Police Chief Sam Somers on Tuesday after mounting pressure from the mayor, members of the city council and Mann's family, who called for more information surrounding the July 11 shooting.

"It's unprecedented for us to release video prior to the adjudication process," Somers told reporters. "There are times that we're in today, sometimes it's important that we come out with this video or this audio.

"It's a very disturbing situation when you have to see someone lose their life and it's captured on video."

Eye 2

Cash-strapped Daesh reportedly trafficking children and human organs through Turkish company

Daesh flag
© Reuters/Ali Hashisho
As Daesh continues to lose territory -- and therefore their means of collecting revenue through oil -- in Iraq and Syria, it is believed that the violent extremist group has resorted to trafficking children, and their own members' organs.

According to an Iraqi News report, the terror group has sold approximately 23 organs taken from their own injured or dead members to a Turkish organ trading organization, the same organization that they are also using to traffic children.

Special medical unit of the organization [ISIS] proceeded to steal human organs for about 23 [Daesh] militants of those who slept in the hospitals of Nineveh," a local source told the outlet. "What has been stolen from those members included the kidneys, intestines and more; they were transferred under tight control to [an] affiliated hospital on the outskirts of the city."

Comment: We can remind ourselves of this story the next time we hear about the US "accidentally" and "inadvertently" dropping a bomb on the individuals working to defeat ISIS.


Attention

'End prison slavery!' 24,000+ inmates join nationwide jail strike causing lockdowns (VIDEO)

Prison strike
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
More than 24,000 inmates in at least 40 prisons from over two dozen states have refused to follow orders, failing to report for work and causing prisons to go on lockdown, since the nationwide prison work strike began in early September.

From Alabama to Michigan to Texas, despite the isolation of prisons and a desire to cover-up news of the work stoppages by correctional departments, reports are leaking of widespread disruption at prisons.

The nationwide prison strike began September 9, when inmates refused to report for their prison jobs. It is becoming the largest prison strike in US history.

Comment: It seems like a complete overhaul of the prison system is in order.
See also: Bend the bars: US inmates organizing nationwide strike in protest of prison slavery


Wolf

Dallas has a stray dog problem โ€” about 9,000 of them, woman fatally attacked

killer dogs
© Guy Reynolds / Dallas Morning NewsStray dogs wander past apartments in south Dallas, where many residents fear the thousands of strays living in the area.
A deep growl came from the other side of Shaniqua Roland's front door.

She was pregnant at the time and headed to a doctor's appointment, but she knew she couldn't leave the house. Not with the dogs back.

For half an hour, as she tried to shoo them away, a pack of pit bulls snarled and snapped at her metal door. She thought of her sister, who'd recently lost a chunk of her calf in a dog attack. She'd see her doctor another day.

"It's crazy," Roland said, sighing. "I don't walk outside anymore. No way."

Across the low-income, predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods of southern Dallas, so many stray, sometimes vicious dogs roam the streets that many residents have given up on going outside without a bat or pipe for protection. Some carry pepper spray, others ride in golf carts to outpace the canine cliques.

Laptop

Maine high school employs computer program after call for foreign language teacher yields no responses

computers replacing teachers
© reuters
Foreshadowing a future crisis in teacher availability, a small central Maine high school seeking a teacher for French- and Spanish-language classes has come up with a radical solution: employ a computer program instead.

Madison Area Memorial High School, in the 4,800-person town of Madison, Maine, has turned to a Rosetta Stone program to teach the foreign languages after its call for a teacher yielded no responses. The school also hired an education technician to help oversee the class and the program's operation, according to the Morning Sentinel.

Despite posting the job in numerous places, no applicants answered, and the rural high school was left with few options, Principal Jessica Ward said.

"It was coming down to the wire and school was starting," Ward told the Sentinel. "Students were already scheduled for foreign language, and we can't just not offer it."

Comment: More schools may be facing such dilemmas as many teachers are leaving the profession and fewer students are signing up to replace them. A majority of teachers are stressed to the point of burnout, and it's no wonder considering the robotic experiment of Common Core, the police presence in schools and the difficulties posed by having a large majority of students under stress due to hunger and poverty.

In dark times - why teachers matter


Airplane

Small plane crashes into home in Gilbert, Arizona

Gilbert, Arizona plane crash
© KNXV
A pilot is being treated for minor burns and four skydivers escaped uninjured after a small plane crashed into a Gilbert home Saturday night.

The crash happened around 7:30 p.m. Saturday night near Ray and Gilbert roads.

An FAA spokesperson says the Cessna 182 plane crashed in the neighborhood during parachute operations.

Gilbert police say the small plane was carrying skydivers for the annual Constitution Fair.

The pilot is hospitalized with minor burns after landing half a mile away from where the plane went down, Gilbert fire officials said. Four skydivers ejected from the plane and landed safely.

According to officials, the pilot noticed flames on the wing before the plane went down. An FAA spokesperson said circumstances surrounding the crash are unclear at this time.

Two people inside the Gilbert home were able to get out unhurt after the plane crashed toward the back of the house.


V

Entire Seattle high school football team takes a knee during national anthem

seattle football team kneels
© Seattle Times/Dean Rutz
The entire Garfield High School football team, including the coaches, took a knee during the national anthem Friday night before their game against West Seattle High on Friday night to protest "social injustices."

After the game, which Garfield won, Garfield High School head football coach Joey Thomas said that "the players decided to do this" to bring attention to "social injustices," emphasizing that it was "a player-driven" move and that his players plan to continue the practice during the anthem before every game "until they tell us to stop."

About four or five players on the West Seattle High School team also knelt during the anthem at the Southwest Athletic Complex in the West Seattle area.

Comment: See also:


Airplane

'Dragon Lady' military plane crashes in California; 1 dead

dragon lady plane
© US Air Force / ReutersA U-2 "Dragon Lady" reconnaissance aircraft
A Cold War-era spy plane nicknamed "Dragon Lady" has crashed in central California during a training flight, sparking a wildfire. Both pilots have ejected, but the US Air Force confirmed one was killed.

The U-2 spy plane went down in Sutter County, approximately 45 miles north of the state capital of Sacramento, local media reported.

The US Air Force has confirmed the crash, and later in the day said one of the pilots had died, while the other was injured.

Black Cat

The American public doesn't care if politicians lie

lying politicians
To say that a voter cares whether or not a given politician is a liar, is to say that even if the politician is of that voter's own political party, the voter will reject the politician for being a liar.

In the United States, most voters are either Democratic or Republican; and, for example, Republicans accept George W. Bush (he left office in 2009 with a Republican approval rating of 75%, but a Democratic approval rating of 6%) even though he lied us into invading Iraq, and Democrats accept Barack Obama (his latest approval rating is 90% from Democrats but 11% from Republicans) even though he tried to lie us into invading Syria and was stopped only when British intelligence warned David Cameron and leaked to Seymour Hersh that the 21 August 2013 Syrian sarin attack which Obama was using as a pretext for his planned invasion had been done by the jihadists that Obama was arming, not by Assad as Obama was falsely claiming.

An independent American investigation found exactly he same thing. And Obama knew that if he couldn't get Britain in on the invasion, the invasion would need to be cancelled. And, as things turned out, he couldn't get Britain in on it. Cameron didn't want to become another Tony Blair.

Sheriff

Good cop, bad cop: Breaking the chain of obedience to wake up

"To live outside the Law, you must be honest." ~Bob Dylan
police badge
We are living in revelatory times. The mask of authoritarian rule is slowly dissolving. The veil is being lifted and the immoral power gained from deception and appropriation is slowly being replaced by a far superior moral power gained from truth and prestige. More and more people are waking up to the fact that power gained from violence is immoral. The era of blind allegiance is coming to an end. But it's a slow and frustrating process for those few of us who have already remedied such a fear-based, slave-prone disposition and eliminated it from our mindset and lifestyle.

The most apparent crack in the tank-like armor of authoritarian rule lately, has been the gradual realization that police are nothing more than hired thugs paid to uphold the outdated laws of the authoritarian state. As it stands, the authoritarian state represents immoral power gained from smoke-and-mirror deception and violent appropriation. Cops are paid to uphold this immoral institution. Even worse, they are expected to be proud of it.

Here's the thing: there are good people, but there are no good cops. In order to be a "good cop" the officer would have to hold people accountable to outdated, stupid, and in some cases, downright violent and immoral laws. Which would make the officer a bad person. So the officer is caught in a catch-22. Either the officer chooses to be a good person and does not enforce those laws, in which case he chooses to be a bad cop; or the officer chooses to be a "good cop" by enforcing those laws, in which case he chooses to be a bad person.