yellowxperil:

Woman Sues LAPD For Kidnapping and Sexually Assaulting Her

When Kim Nguyen called a cab after a few drinks, she thought she was on the right side of the law. But in spite of her best efforts, the 27-year-old pharmacist explains she was thrown from a police cruiser after Los Angeles police officers kidnapped and sexually assaulted her while she was waiting for that cab.

Part of the assault on Nguyen was captured on camera, as the young woman was filmed tumbling from a moving LAPD cruiser after being handcuffed and kidnapped while waiting for the cab she called.

Nguyen was just trying to get home in the early morning hours of March 17, 2013, but that’s not where her story ends. More on the latest developments in a minute. First, let’s make sure you understand just how serious her allegations against the LAPD are. Let’s start by taking a look at the video below: (x)

Back in 2013, Nguyen explains that officers confronted her along with two male friends outside of a downtown Los Angeles restaurant at 2 am.

The group had been drinking and they knew they shouldn’t drive home. They were trying to do the right thing, making sure not to drink and drive.

But while waiting for the cab, officers told the men to leave them with Nguyen or they would be arrested. Once the men left, the rogue cops kidnapped Nguyen and assaulted her.

In the deposition taped last month it is alleged that the officer in the back of the cruiser with Nguyen had grabbed her left inner thigh. She resisted, but he forced her legs apart.

Then the officer grabbed her chest, and when she tried to push away, he grabbed her by the ear. In the struggle to get him off over her, she explains that officer negligence led to her being ejected from the vehicle at high speeds.

As a result of this, Nguyen spent two weeks in the hospital. Injuries sustained included having to have her jaw wired shut. She also lost all of her teeth from the impact on the street which was caught on video, after she was ejected from the cruiser.

Now, Nguyen has filed a lawsuit against the LAPD, alleging that officers failed to secure her with a seatbelt or lock her door properly. This, her attorney says, is what led to her being ejected from the car.

Nguyen’s attorney, Arnoldo Casillas was able to obtain surveillance footage of the incident. The video of the incident clearly shows Nguyen sprawled on the ground with her dress removed from the waist down.

The video (above) shows the patrol car speeding through a green light. “The video shows that the statement that the police officers gave the paramedics is an unabashed, unequivocal lie,” Casillas said during the press conference.

The LAPD say that they are “investigating,” but that investigation has never concluded. Still, the department says they “will ensure that Ms. Nguyen is made aware of the outcome of the investigation related to this incident,” whenever they finally conclude it.

In spite of all the evidence, there has been relatively little coverage of this lawsuit in the mainstream media.

Help us get the word out about this important issue. The more we remain quiet about these rogue cops, the more they will continue to take advantage of people like Nguyen!

(source)

“Last November the Activist Post ran a story about the propensity of police officers killing civilians. Stated was the following:

“Since 9/11, and the subsequent militarization of the police by the Department of Homeland Security, about 5,000 Americans have been killed by US police officers. The civilian death rate is nearly equal to the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq. In fact, you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist.”

That statistic is alarming enough considering if the 4,489 American soldiers killed in combat in Iraq constitute a condition of war, then the killing of 5,000 American civilians by United States police departments ought to be viewed as a war on we the People by our very own government.

…[The fact is] a cop is far more likely… to kill you than you are to kill a cop. Stated another way, when an officer comes into contact with you, you are far less of a threat to them than the perception our culture proliferates. The police are, in fact, more of a threat to YOU.

The idea that police have an incredibly dangerous job is what we Southerners call a tall-tale, a stretch of the truth to bolster an ego unwilling to accept mediocrity. Not to take away from what many fair-minded officers do every day, but as those stubborn things called facts would have it, policing is less dangerous than farming, fishing, logging, and trash collecting, as well as six other professions.  

Now is the time to burst the cop myth and to stop giving them the deference to murder our friends and family in the street.”

— Cops: The Myth of the Most Dangerous Job | AmericaWakieWakie 

(Photo Credit: 08/20/14, Oakland marches in solidarity with Ferguson, MO after police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18 yr old Mike Brown | AmericaWakieWakie)

vicemag:

The NYPD’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

A series of horrific videos showing flagrant brutality by cops has NYC’s progressive mayor and his controversial police commissioner on the defensive.

thepoliticalfreakshow:

The NYPD arrested a mother who was standing alone outside an NYC restaurant after she told them she was just waiting for her family to return from the restroom. Turns out, she’s also a human rights attorney.

Chaumtoli Huq was standing alone outside a Ruby Tuesday’s in Times Square in July when New York City police officers told her to move. She says she wasn’t in anyone’s way, she wasn’t blocking the sidewalk — she was just waiting for her husband and two young children, 6 and 10, to come outside after using the restroom. 

That’s when the cops arrested her.

DNAinfo, which first reported on the arrest, says Huq “said the officers pinned her against the wall, prompting her to say, ‘I can’t move, I can’t move.’”

Huq told The New Civil Rights Movement in an email conversation that police pushed her “against the wall of Ruby Tuesday, and I screamed ‘Help,’” as this image, taken by a bystander, shows.

She says when the police arrested her they pulled her arm up, causing pain and scars. Another officer, Huq says, was squeezing her arm “so I had to walk bent over,” as this photo, taken by the same bystander, shows.

“My shoe was gone. All in public as folks watched.” It was “humiliating,” Huq adds.

As it turns out, Chaumtoli Huq is a human rights attorney. She says she is on leave from her position as general counsel for NYC Public Advocate Letitia James. And she says she’s suing.

“When I was arrested,” Huq tells The New Civil Rights Movement, "I was with my family, and we had left a rally for children in Palestine who were being injured, killed because of the conflict, and [were] heading to a picnic in Brooklyn.“

"At that moment, I was a mom, a loving partner to my husband of 12 years, but I became in a second the arresting officer’s ‘prisoner.’ He said to me when he was searching my purse and took my identification and when I objected, that I was his prisoner and he could do whatever he wanted.”

The New York Daily News reports that when Huq “said she was in pain, one of the officers, Ryan Lathrop, allegedly told her, ‘Shut your mouth.’ When he found out she had a different last name than her hubby, he told her ‘In America, wives take the names of their husbands.’”

She was held for nine hours after the officers falsely claimed she had refused instructions to move and had “flailed her arms and twisted her body” to make it hard for them to handcuff her, the suit says.

Huq, who is 42, says she is currently “on a fellowship to investigate labor conditions in Bangladesh after the collapse of Rana Plaza.” She says, “I think that as a mom [that] I can be reduced and humiliated and separated from my family is what impacts me most to this day. My son asked me: ‘Why did the officer arrest you?’”

Raising a boy of color, and knowing how youth of color are vulnerable to over-policing, made me think, this is not about me but about my life’s work of protecting New Yorkers.

If at this moment, I didn’t step up and advocate for their rights, then, how can I authentically call myself an advocate for New Yorker.

As for the lawsuit, Huq says, “I am demanding in my suit and through community groups: (1) the officer to be removed; (2) training for NYPD on Muslim and South Asia community as well as gender: (3) change in city policy on over-policing in communities of color; (4) resources for youth of color who are most vulnerable to over-policing and whose life chances are most impacted by a criminal record.”

Source: David Badash for The New Civil Rights Movement

iwriteaboutfeminism:

Police pick people out of the crowd, then rush forward. Frightening. 

September 28th

america-wakiewakie:

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Talk to the Police | The Free Thought Project

REASON #1: Talking to the police CANNOT help you.

If the police are talking to you, it’s because they suspect you have committed a crime. If they have detained you, it’s because they already have enough evidence to arrest you and they want to see if you will admit it and thus, give them an even stronger case against you.If they have evidence to arrest you for a crime, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. It’s as simple as that.Talking to them or not talking to them won’t make a difference! No one has ever “talked his way out of” an arrest. If the police have enough evidence to arrest, they will. If you deny that you committed the crime, they will not believe you. They already have evidence suggesting that you committed the crime. They’ll assume you’re just doing what every criminal does in denying the offense. It will not prevent you from getting arrested.

This is completely contrary to popular belief. For some reason, many people think that they are savvy enough or eloquent enough or well educated enough to be able to talk to the police and convince the police not to arrest them. But ask any police officer if because of the eloquence and convincing story of the suspect, they have ever been convinced not to arrest somebody whom they had originally intended to arrest, and they will tell you no. They will tell you that in their experience, no one has ever talked themselves out of getting arrested. Talking to the police cannot help you. It cannot prevent you from getting arrested. It can only hurt. 

REASON #2: Even if you’re guilty, and you want to confess and get it off your chest, you still shouldn’t talk to the police.

People plead guilty in America every day. Probably over 90% of defendants in state court plead guilty at some point during their case. There is plenty of time to confess and admit guilt at a later stage of the proceedings. What’s the rush? Get a lawyer first. Let the lawyer set up a deal whereby you get something in exchange for accepting responsibility for the offense. A better plea bargain, or maybe even immunity. If you confess to the police, you get nothing in return. Zero. In fact, you probably get a harsher prosecution because the state’s case is now airtight, now that you have confessed.

REASON #3: Even if you are innocent, it’s easy to tell some little white lie in the course of a statement.

This kind of thing happens all the time. A person who is completely innocent and who is trying to vehemently assert their innocence will go overboard and take it a little bit too far and deny some insignificant fact, tell some little white lie, because they want to sound as innocent as possible. But if the police have evidence of that lie, it makes your entire statement look like a lie. The prosecutor will ask: “Why did he lie to the police? Why indeed would he lie to the police, unless he were guilty?”

That little white lie could be used to destroy your credibility at trial.

An example would be a man who is questioned about a murder. He wants to sound innocent. He wants to sound non-violent. He is, in fact, innocent. So he denies everything. He denies the killing. He denies being in the area where the killing occurred on the night that it occurred. He denies owning a gun, and denies that he has ever owned a gun in his whole life. But it Turns out that this last statement is not true, And the police can prove it. He did at one time during his life own a gun. Now he has told a lie and the police have caught him and things will only go downhill from there. Although he is innocent of the murder, he has told a lie that will be used to destroy his credibility at trial and could be the cause of his conviction.

REASON #4: Even if you are innocent, and you only tell the truth, and you don’t tell any little white lies, it is possible to give the police some detail of information that can be used to convict you.

For example, a suspect is being questioned about a murder. He is truly innocent of the murder. But in the course of explaining his innocence, he makes the statement that he never liked the victim, because the victim was not a nice guy. A statement like that could be used to prove motive.

Or in the course of the statement, the suspect might admit that he was in the area of town where the murder was committed at the time it was committed. Although he’s innocent and although this statement is true, the prosecutor could use that statement to suggest that the suspect had the opportunity to commit the crime, which looks very bad in front of a jury.

REASON #5: Even if you were innocent, and you only tell the truth, and you don’t tell any little white lies, and you don’t give the police any information that can be used against you to prove motive or opportunity, you still should not talk to the police because the possibility that the police might not recall your statement with 100% accuracy.

What if the police officer remembers something wrong? What if he remembers you said “X” when actually you said “Y”? If the police officer takes the witness stand and contradicts your statements at trial, it will kill your credibility. You can take the witness stand and say “I never said that!” But it’s your word versus a police officer. Who’s the jury going to believe? Who will the jury assume is lying to save his own skin? Who will the jury believe is lying because he’s really guilty? You guessed it. YOU!

REASON #6: Even if you’re innocent, and you only tell the truth, and your entire statement is videotaped so that the police don’t have to rely on their memory, an innocent person can still make some innocent assumption about a fact or state some detail about the case they overheard on the way to the police station, and the police will assume that they only way the suspect could have known that fact or that detail was if he was, in fact, guilty.

Example: Suppose a police officer is questioning A suspect about a homicide. And the suspect makes the statement “I don’t know who killed the victim. I’ve never owned a gun in my life. I don’t even like guns.” On it’s face, there’s nothing incriminating about that statement. But suppose at trial, the prosecutor asks the police officer if anything about that statement surprised him. The police officer answers “Yes, it surprised me when the suspect mentioned a gun, because I had never mentioned a gun before that. I merely told him that I was investigating a homicide.”

When the officer said there has been a homicide, the suspect may have simply assumed that the killing was done with a gun. Or the suspect may have overheard in the police station some other officer talk about the fact that it was a shooting. But if the officer taking the statement had never mentioned a gun or a shooting, and the suspect makes the statement that he had never owned a gun, you give the prosecution the opportunity to create some high drama, suggesting that suspect has had a Freudian slip, and has made a statement about a gun because he is, in fact, the murderer. And as the murderer, he knew that a gun was used.

REASON #7: Even if you’re innocent, and you only tell the truth in your statement, and you give the police no information that can be used against you, and the whole statement is videotaped, a suspect’s answers can still be used against him if the police (through no fault of their own) have any evidence that any of the suspect’s statements are false (even if they are really true).

Suppose the police have a statement from a witness who claims to have seen the suspect in the area where the crime was committed at the time of the incident. Suppose further that this witness is actually wrong, but has made an honest mistake. The suspect then gives a statement to the police in which he says he was nowhere near the area where the crime took place at the time of the incident. By giving the statement, the suspect has now created a conflict between his own statement and the statement of this witness. By itself, the statement of the witness that he or she saw the suspect in the area at the time the crime was committed is not that useful. But by giving this statement, and creating a conflict with this witness’s statement, the suspect has now made this relatively minor witness into the government’s star witness.

The jury will hear the conflict and will assume that the suspect is lying and wonder why.

So even if you tell the complete truth, you’re putting your cards on the table without first seeing what evidence the government has. And if the government has some bit of evidence which, through some honest mistake, contradicts part of your story, you set yourself up to be portrayed as a liar by giving a statement without first knowing what evidence the government has.

REASON #8: The police do not have authority to make deals or grant a suspect leniency in exchange for getting as statement.

People tell me all the time that they gave a statement to the police because the police told them that they would be better off if they confessed, better off if they admitted what they did wrong, better off if they cooperated. The police will make vague statements that things will go easier on the suspect if he simply admits what he did wrong. The police will also make vague statements suggesting that they will do what they can to help the suspect, that they will put in a good word for the suspect, if the suspect will just come clean.

Number One thing to remember: The police do not have authority to make deals, grant immunity, or negotiate plea agreements. The only entity with that authority is the District Attorney in state court and the U.S. Attorney in federal court. Despite their claim that they are trying to help you, the only help police are providing when they take your statement is giving you rope with which to hang yourself.

REASON #9: Even if a suspect is guilty, and wants to confess, there may be mitigating factors which justify a lesser charge.

Mitigating factors are rarely brought out by the police in an interview. Normally, police want to focus on the facts that will suggest the suspect has committed the most severe crime possible. In fact, the suspect may have committed a lesser grade of offense. And if given the opportunity to talk to an attorney first, the attorney may be able to explain to the suspect what facts are important in establishing that he is guilty of a lesser grade of an offense, and not a higher grade. A confession presented in this context to the District Attorney’s office might result in a lesser charge and a more appropriate and fair penalty.

REASON #10: Even for a completely honest and innocent person, it is difficult to tell the same story twice in exactly the same way.

If you tell your story one time at trial and you tell the truth and you’re innocent, there’s very little the prosecutor can do by way of cross examination. But if you’ve told your story twice, once at trial, and once previously in a statement to the police, many months apart, the chances are very high that, even if you are telling the truth, some little details in your statement are going to change.

A good cross examiner will pick up on these changes and will relentlessly question you about them in an effort to make it look like you are lying.

So for all these reasons, whether you are guilty or innocent, whether you want to confess or want to exonerate yourself, whether you’re poorly educated or the most eloquent speaker in the world, you should NEVER, EVER, under any circumstances, give a statement to the police when you have been detained as a suspect.

america-wakiewakie:

“Recent reports have indicated that law enforcement agencies from coast to coast have been turning to IMSI-catcher devices, like the StingRay sold by Florida’s Harris Corporation, to trick ordinary mobile phones into communicating device-specific International Mobile Subscriber Identity information to phony cell towers — a tactic that takes the approximate geolocation data of all the devices within range and records it for investigators. Recently, the Tallahassee Police Department in the state of Florida was found to have used their own “cell site simulator” at least 200 times to collect phone data without once asking for a warrant during a three-year span, and details about the use of StingRays by other law enforcement groups continue to emerge on the regular.”

— Feds Forcing Cops to Remain Silent About the Gear they are Using to Spy on You | The Free Thought Project 

occupyallstreets:

Richard Haste, an NYPD officer, killed an unarmed black teen (Ramarley Graham) in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother at point blank range over marijuana. The landlady, Paulet Minzie, 55, ran out the shower with only a towel after hearing the gunshots. Officers then put a gun to her head and told her to put her hands up. It wasn’t until she told them that there were cameras surveilling them, that they put their guns down.

Court papers say “[He\] immediately lowered his weapon. His demeanor completely changed, and he alerted his colleague that they may be on camera,”. The footage later revealed that Graham walked calmly to his apartment followed by police barging in without a warrant, contradicting the officers original claim that the teenager was running away from him. (Source)

Haste was freed on $50,000 bail yesterday after pleading not guilty. Police cheered for him as the parents of Graham wept in the court room.