Society's ChildS


Sheriff

Cop who viciously shoved and slapped elderly man cleared of all charges

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 21:32 UTC
officer Ramirez
Officer Victor Ramirez mid-assault.
A video uploaded to YouTube went viral last year, showing Fort Lauderdale police officer Victor Ramirez harassing and assaulting an elderly gentleman at the Broward Bus Terminal in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Shortly after the department watched the video, Ramirez was charged with battery and falsifying the police report since he made no mention of the assault. However, on Wednesday, a jury, clearly sympathetic to police brutality, found Ramirez not guilty on all counts.

Somehow, the defense managed to convince the jury that Ramirez acted appropriately when he threw an inebriated elderly man to the ground and slapped him so hard across the face that it echoed in the bus terminal.

Comment: Slap-happy cop gets slapped back: Battery charges filed

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Cross

Pope fires Vatican ambassador to U.S. over Kim Davis invite

Aximill
Daily Kos
Wed, 16 Mar 2016 20:44 UTC
pope Francis
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is a staunch conservative and was vocally opposed to same-sex marriage throughout his five-year tenure as the Vatican's nuncio (ambassador) to the United States.

He also sent an anonymous invite to Ms. Kim Davis, of anti-equality fame, to the Pope's DC visit. While people, here and elsewhere, initially thought this was a coup for Davis and bigotry, Pope Francis turned the other cheek.

And now word comes that the incident is prompting The Vatican to replace Vigano. A friend of the Pope's claimed he was blindsided by the meeting, and the move caused the Vatican to distance itself from Viganò, leading many to believe the Pope would quietly replace him as his "statutory retirement age" was approaching. Viganò turned 75 in January; when bishops and archbishops reach that age, they are required to submit a letter of resignation to the Vatican.
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Rainbow

LGBT activist wins court case against Russian region over wrongful gay pride ban


RT
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 20:18 UTC
Russia LGBT
© Alexey Filippov / Sputnik
A court in the Northern Russian city of Kostroma has ruled that municipal authorities had wrongly banned LGBT marches and pickets and ordered monetary compensation in favor of gay rights activist Nikolay Alekseyev.

The press service of the Sverdlovsk District Court in Kostroma reported on Monday that the judge ruled to partially fulfill two lawsuits filed by Alekseyev against the Financial Directorate of the city administration and ordered the city authorities to pay the activist compensation of 6,000 rubles plus 300 rubles of court fees (about $90 in total). The press service added that one more "Alekseyev vs. Kostroma administration" case was still being considered.

According to Russian news portal RBC, the court decision concerned the events of April 2014, when city authorities in Kostroma refused to license a gay pride event that organizers named 'For Ranevskaya!' in honor of Soviet-era movie actress Faina Ranevskaya, known for a collection of her witty sayings. One such famous saying was "Homosexuality is not a perversion. Field hockey and ballet on ice are," and activists intended to carry slogans with this phrase at their event. The other court decision dealt with the official ban on the gay pride parade in Kostroma in June 2014.
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Sheriff

New rape kit system unnecessary since most accusations are false, Idaho sheriff says


The Oregonian
Tue, 15 Mar 2016 12:59 UTC
Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland
© Idaho State Journal via YoutubeBingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland
An Idaho sheriff says the Legislature shouldn't have gotten involved in creating a statewide system for collecting and tracking rape kits because many rape accusations are false.

The state lawmaker who introduced the bill immediately denounced the comments.

Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland made the comments Monday to Idaho Falls TV station KIDK before lawmakers unanimously approved the new system and sent the measure to the governor.

The bill would require medical clinics to use rape kits to collect forensic evidence after a suspected sexual assault. The clinics would then have to send the evidence for DNA testing, unless the victim requests otherwise or law enforcement agencies get prosecutors' approval to not test the kits.

Rape kits contain samples of semen, saliva or blood taken from a victim during an examination. Specimens containing DNA evidence are uploaded to a national database to check for a match.

Rowland said legislators should let law officers decide which rape kits need testing, the system that is currently in place.

He said: "The majority of our rapes — not to say that we don't have rapes, we do — but the majority of our rapes that are called in are actually consensual sex."

Such claims are part of a larger problem of law enforcement harboring unfair skepticism of victims of rape more so than other crimes, said Ilse Knecht, policy and advocacy director for the Joyful Heart Foundation.

"It's hard to know if a claim is false if the kits don't get tested," she said. "Each one of these kits represents a survivor. ... We need to take their claim seriously, treat them with respect and use the evidence."

Comment: How does this sheriff know that the majority of allegations are false if he doesn't care enough to have all rape kits tested? Rowland's statement shows a prejudice against women and rape victims that, whether he realizes it or not, makes it more difficult for them to come forward for fear of not being believed or fear of being blamed for their assault.

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Arrow Up

Returning Russian pilots get hero's welcome after a job well done in Syria


Russia Insider
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
russian pilot welcome home
Russian Pilots Returning From Syria Get a Hero's Welcome
International Business Times relays a Russian report:

The pilots were met by a large, flag-carrying delegation of senior officers as well as their wives and children after they touched down at an aerodrome near the southern Russian city of Voronezh. Some of the pilots were carried on the shoulders of their fellow soldiers, while others were given flowers and balloons.

The head of Russia's air force, Gen. Viktor Bondarev, was present among the welcoming party and told pilots all their bombs had been on target, according to state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

Comment:

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Better Earth

Turning to conscience: How an Israeli made the decision to be critical of Zionism

Jonathan Ofir
Mondoweiss
Tue, 15 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
Jonathan Ofir
Jonathan Ofir
"What brought you to be critical of Israel?"

In the past few years I have been asked several times (the latest time a few days ago), what it was that brought me to have critical views about Israel. The question has often pointed specifically to my service in the Israeli Defense Forces, and what those experiences may have caused.

I'm 43 today. My significant turnaround in terms of looking at Israeli history and current practices began around 2007, after over 12 years of living in Denmark. It's not really that dramatic a story as you might think. It might even be disappointing.

My army service was mostly as a musician - I was given the title of 'Distinguished Musician' and allowed to continue my violin career, whilst occasionally playing concerts for soldiers, mostly classical music and mostly for officers. Yet, as a kibbutznik I had a societal conditioning which was very militaristic, and at a point I actually felt it was shameful to just play Bach and Mozart whilst my peers were combat soldiers. At a point I felt so bad about it that I volunteered for a combat unit, an elite one no less - I went through the sifting test, the two-day physical ordeal that you go through when you want to get into these combat units. Whoever survives it can go on. Then I did the basic training of four months, but regretted it deeply after a few months. Even though I had anticipated that I would miss playing the violin, the deprivation became visceral.

Comment: Israel has been built on, grown, and perpetuated by a mountain of lies that is a dangerous to those people in neighboring countries as it is to Israel's citizens themselves. The Israeli government and military's overt and covert brutality has reached such a fever pitch in recent years, that one can only expect their "existential threat" to be fully manifested and realized - like dark magic returning to plague the conjurer - or just a mini-empire reaping what it sows.

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Arrow Down

Blaming the victim: Muslim teens may be expelled from NY school for defending themselves against bullies


RT
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:22 UTC
bullying
© Brian Snyder / Reuters
A pair of brothers at a New York school may be expelled after defending themselves against anti-Muslim bullies, who have been picking on them for the past two years.

Adam and Jameel Siam, who were born in the US, attend Williamsville East High School in western New York and claim that their complaints of harassment by fellow students have gone unanswered by school management.

"I was bullied for Osama bin Laden, I've been called a terrorist," said 16-year-old Jameel, a junior. "We've been called terrorists, go back home and make bombs in your basement or you're going to come back and shoot up the school ‒ and it's just like, people kept pushing our buttons."

Comment:

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USA

5 cops disciplined after failing to act when Trump supporter sucker-punched protester


WRAL
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:26 UTC
man attack protesters trump rally
The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office said that five deputies have been disciplined in connection with the assault of Rakeem Jones at a Donald Trump rally in Fayetteville on March 9.

The sheriff's office said the deputies witnessed the assault and did not take action. Three of the deputies were demoted and were also suspended without pay for five days. The other two were suspended without pay for three days. All five deputies face one year of probation.

"I applaud the sheriff's department for their work and finding the deputies responsible," said Jones.

In a statement, Sheriff Earl "Moose" Butler said the deputies faced disciplinary action for "unsatisfactory performance and failing to discharge the duties and policies of the office of the sheriff."

"The actions of the deputies and their failures to act in situations such as that which occurred during the Trump rally at the Crown Coliseum have never been and will never be tolerated under the policies of this office," Butler said in a statement.
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Blackbox

San Francisco's BART cars knocked out by 'mystery glitch' again, snarls commute

Matier & Ross
San Francisco Chronicle
Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:49 UTC
BART transit knocked out glitch
© Michael Short/San Francisco ChronicleCrowds of commuters wait to board San Francisco bound trains at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland.
For the second time in a month, a mysterious power surge knocked out numerous BART cars Wednesday — puzzling agency officials who thought they had the problem under control the first time around, and making life miserable for commuters packed into shortened trains.

BART was able to repair some of the 25 or so cars that lost their propulsion systems on the Pittsburg-Bay Point line, but not all of them — raising the likelihood that many trains will be short of cars for the Thursday morning commute.

BART engineers worked into the night trying to find an answer for what is becoming a major problem for the aging rail system.

When the first round of problems began in late February, BART focused on a new electrical substation that had been installed a few months earlier near the Oakland end of the Transbay Tube. Wednesday's problems, however, happened far from there — between the North Concord and Bay Point stations.

"It's the same symptoms," said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost. "But we don't know if it's the same cause."

Comment: There's been a fair number of problems lately attributed to electrical glitches and faults. The BART's issues are fairly minor. Could there be something affecting the Earth's fields? Just a small sample:

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Pistol

Cop mistakes fellow black cop in shootout as suspect, shoots and kills officer

Jordan Sargent
Gawker
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:19 UTC
Jacai Colson
© AP
Jacai Colson, a Prince George's County (Mary.) cop, was killed over the weekend by friendly fire during a shootout outside PGC police headquarters. Today in a press conference, police chief Hank Stawinski said that Colson was shot not accidentally, but instead "deliberately," by a fellow officer who mistook him for one of the three suspects who participated in the offensive.

According to Stawinski, Colson, who was an undercover narcotics detective, was not in uniform and had gotten out of an unmarked vehicle at the station prior to being shot. It's also worth noting that like the three suspects—Michael, Elijah, and Malik Ford—Colson was black. But Colson, pictured above, looked nothing like the suspects, who are pictured here.

Michael Ford, 22, was the leader of the attack on the police station. While no officers aside from Colson were wounded, Ford was shot and hospitalized. While Michael Ford fired at officers, his brothers filmed the assault on their phones. In an earlier press conference, per the Washington Post, Stawinski said the brothers will face dozens of charges, including second-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder.

The Prince George's County PD has a long history of recklessly using its weapons. In a study of police shootings across the 1990s, the Washington Post found that the PCG PD had the highest rate of fatal shootings per officer of any major city or police force in America. In 2001, the same year the Post investigation was published, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a long examination of the PCG PD's history of violence against its black citizens inWashington Monthly.
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