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Mon, 08 Nov 2021
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To protect and serve: Cops who tasered handcuffed teen on his testicles until he died can't be charged

Graham Dyer
As the Free Thought Project reported earlier this year, police were caught on video tasering a young man's testicles and his body — until he died. Now, we have just learned that although the Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson found that the officers involved had committed a crime during their torture — they cannot be charged.

"If I could go back in time and have this case, it would be indicted," said Michael Snipes, the first assistant district attorney. "We would have pursued criminally negligent homicide charges."

These charges cannot be brought now, however, because — in spite of the family just finding out about their son's horrifying death — cops kept the footage of it secret long enough for the statute of limitations to expire.

Bell

Andre Vltchek: Why I Reject Western Courts & 'Justice'

blind justice
There is a small courthouse from the 'British era', standing right in the center of Hong Kong. It is neat, well-built, remarkably organized and some would even say - elegant.

Earlier this year I visited there with an Afghan-British lawyer, who had been touring East Asia for several months. Hong Kong was her last destination; afterwards she was planning to return home to London. The Orient clearly confused and overwhelmed her, and no matter how 'anti-imperialist' she tried to look, most of her references were clearly going back to the adoptive homeland - the United Kingdom.

"It looks like England," she exclaimed when standing in the middle of Hong Kong. There was clearly excitement and nostalgia in her voice.

Dollars

TSA agent caught stealing cash from luggage at Orlando International Airport

Alexander Shae Johnson

Alexander Shae Johnson
A Transportation Security Administration employee was arrested Thursday after he was caught on video stealing cash from a bag going through screening at Orlando International Airport, Orlando police say.

Alexander Shae Johnson, 22, who had been with TSA just a few months, was arrested on a charge of third-degree felony grand theft, records show.

A passenger was going through security when she was selected for a pat-down search and saw Johnson was standing near her bag.

Afterward, she went through her bag to make sure her cash was still there, but it was missing.


People 2

NC law states women can't revoke consent to sex once underway

gavel
You hear the phrase 'no means no' thrown around when it comes to a woman's ability to protect herself from unwanted sexual advances, but in the state of North Carolina - no doesn't always mean no.

The Fayetteville Observer recently posted a story about a teenage girl who said she was at a party when a man pulled her into a bathroom to have sex. She initially consented, but told police when the sex turned violent, she told the man to stop. And he didn't.

The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 1979, in State v. Way, that women cannot revoke consent after sexual intercourse begins.


Comment: A barbaric law. If a woman says no, it means no, plain and simple.


State v. Way (297 N.C. 293) states that if [intercourse begins] with the victim's consent, no rape has occurred though the victim later withdraws consent during the same act of intercourse.

Link to video:

Camcorder

"The happiest people on Earth": RT crew shares experiences filming new documentary in N. Korea

North Korean workers
© ChinaFotoPress / Global Look Press
In a behind-the-scenes interview about RT's new documentary on North Korea, director Natalya Kadyrova describes the challenges of filming in the world's most restrictive nation, including trying to tell if the family they filmed were real, or actors pretending to be husband and wife.

Even getting routine footage in public places was fraught with difficulties, Kadyrova said while recalling her experiences after returning to Moscow.

"We were not allowed to film statues of the leaders in anyway except in full height or parts of their portraits. On one occasion we filmed an interview with a portrait in the background, which was a bit askew. They asked us to delete the footage, which they considered inappropriate, and film this part again," she said.

Cut

Anti-Nazi group cut from Homeland Security counter-extremism program

protester holds up golf balls with a swastika
© Carlo Allegri / Reuters
A protester holds up golf balls with a swastika as he is removed from a press conference by then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Turnberry Golf course in Turnberry, Scotland.
The US Department of Homeland Security has dropped an anti-Nazi group from a multi-million dollar grant program aimed at 'Countering Violent Extremism.'

The DHS said they were restarting the scheme on Thursday - after stalling the program for review upon Trump taking office - with the exception of a few, including one dedicated to de-radicalizing new-Nazis and stopping white extremism.

Life After Hate, which was promised $400,000 of the two-year $10 million program during the final days of the Obama administration, was inexplicably dropped from the new grant list.

Arrow Down

Mistrial declared again in Cincinnati cop's murder retrial

Former University of Cincinnati police officer Raymond Tensing
© Cara Owsley / Reuters
Former University of Cincinnati police officer Raymond Tensing
A judge in Ohio declared another mistrial in the case of a former University of Cincinnati officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist during a traffic stop in 2015. The jury was not able to reach a verdict after 30 hours of deliberation.

On Friday, Hamilton County Judge Leslie Ghiz declared a mistrial after the jury sent her a note, saying they were "almost evenly split regarding our votes towards a final verdict."

"We have given this extensive deliberation with opportunity for both sides to express their positions. We cannot proceed coming to a unanimous decision," the jury wrote, according to CNN.

Cardboard Box

Strong and stable? Number of homeless families in UK has almost doubled since Tories took power in 2010

UK homeless
© Chris Helgren / Reuters
The number of homeless families in the UK has almost doubled since the Conservative Party took power seven years ago, figures show.

Up to 59,090 households, or one in every 393 in the country, were declared homeless or in "priority need" of housing between March and April 2017, a 48 percent rise on the 40,020 in the same period in 2010.

According to a report by the Department of Communities and Local Government, up to 4,060 of the 14,600 households reported to local councils in the first quarter of 2017 were in London, accounting for 28 percent of the total.

The rise is thought to be down to both the economic and housing crises affecting Britain in recent years.

Comment: While the incomes of the rich have increased substantially, extreme poverty has been growing for years in the UK. The new Tory manifesto, packed with harsh social measures that attack the most vulnerable in society promises more of the same.


Briefcase

Bernie Sanders' wife hires attorneys to represent her in FBI probe of Burlington College land deal

jane sanders burlington college
Jane Sanders has hired attorneys to represent her in a Justice Department probe of a land deal she orchestrated while president of the now-defunct Burlington College.

A former college employee who coordinated the school's response to an FBI subpoena in February 2016 said she was contacted by two attorneys representing Jane Sanders shortly after VTDigger broke the news confirming the federal probe in late April.

Coralee Holm, the former dean of operations and advancement for Burlington College, said the attorneys wanted information about "what I had been asked by the FBI."

"They were trying to get clarification on what the accusations are because they had not been contacted by anybody as to an investigation," Holm said.

Comment: Summary FBI investigates Bernie Sanders' wife for bank fraud ‒ report


Snakes in Suits

Oklahoma doctor charged with murder for over-prescribing opioids after five patients die of multi-drug toxicity

Dr. Regan Nichols opioid deaths
A Oklahoma doctor has been charged with second-degree murder for prescribing excessive amounts of opioids and other drugs, causing the overdose deaths of at least five patients.

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced the murder charges against Dr. Regan Nichols, 57, Friday. The five patients died while she worked at a Midwest City clinic.

The complaint said Nichols' excessive prescribing showed "a depraved mind" and a lack of regard for human life which led to the deaths of Debra Messner, Lynnette Nelson, Sheila Bartels, Chealsy Dockery, and Deborah Hutcheson.

The affidavit alleges that over a five year period, Nichols prescribed more than 1,800 opioid pills to the patients even though they didn't need them. She prescribed three of the five patients a lethal combination of painkillers, muscle relaxants and anti-anxiety drugs.