Darkest Day Of The Year

the flags at city hall. #nypd pic.twitter.com/fZ83FUOnFl
— Azi (@Azi) December 21, 2014

NYPD Cops Brutally Beat Man They Mistakenly Thought Was Trespassing

All caught on tape:



The Murdoch Post reports:

The Brooklyn DA and NYPD Internal Affairs are investigating cops caught on tape beating a man wrongly suspected of trespassing in a Crown Heights synagogue, authorities said yesterday.

The Oct. 8 beatdown took place at the Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults, a synagogue and outreach center for troubled youths.

Cops believed that Ehud Halevy, 21, was homeless and trespassing.

A volunteer security guard mistakenly called police, not knowing Halevy had been staying there for about a month, with permission.

When cops first approached, Halevy, not wearing a shirt or pants, refused to leave.
“You’re not kicking me out — I have a right to stay here,” he insisted according to law-enforcement sources.

Halevy put on his pants before the confrontation escalated to the incident caught on tape.
He was booked for assault, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespassing, resisting arrest, harassment and pot possession.

“He [Halevy] was in a needy position. He needed a place to sleep,” said Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, who runs the center.

Several politicians said cops went overboard in using force.

“When we watched the video and saw some of New York’s Finest behaving in a not very fine way, brutalizing an individual for absolutely no reason, it was just something horrible,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

The only reason Dov Hikind cares about this incident is because the cops beat a white guy who was Jewish.

If this had been another one of those "NYPD Beat Black Guy For No Reason" or "NYPD Shoot, Kill Unarmed Brown Person," Hikind wouldn't have blinked twice.

Therein lies the reason why the NYPD are getting away with all of this brutality.

For the most part, it's happening to people of color and most white people don't seem to really give a shit about that.

But when it happens to one of their own, suddenly the Dov Hikinds are giving interviews to the Murdoch Post criticizing the NYPD for excessive force.

How about criticizing the NYPD for the excessive force and brutality they show every day of the year to people of color in this city?

How about starting a Knapp Commission to investigate Ray Kelly and Michael Bloomberg and all of the police violence these men have allowed to be perpetrated across this city?

The Bronx D.A. has put the NYPD and its Stop and Frisk policies on trial in the Bronx.

How about we start putting these crooked, violent cops who are beating and shooting and murdering people all over this city on trial too?

How about we put Kelly and Bloomberg on trial for running this kind of police department?

Kelly's response to two recent fatal shootings of unarmed civilians by the NYPD was to issue a “tactical awareness bulletin."

 NYPD cops have been warned to brush up on their firearms tactics after two unarmed civilians were recently shot dead by police, The Post has learned.

A memo went up in precinct houses last week reminding officers to “slow down . . . request backup . . . exercise firearms control [and] formulate a tactical plan” before shooting.

The “tactical awareness bulletin” — which outlines various scenarios in which cops could “inadvertently” or erratically discharge their weapons — was also read during roll call, sources said.

The reminder comes in the wake of the recent fatal police shootings of Queens National Guardsman Noel Polanco, 22, during a traffic stop on the Grand Central Parkway and Bronx bodega worker Raynaldo Cuevas, 20, who collided with a cop while fleeing a robbery.

 That's not good enough.

Make no mistake, the police are under a lot of pressure from the top to constantly increase arrests, push the crime stats in the precincts down, and make Kelly and Bloomberg look like crime fighting geniuses.

One of the consequences of all of this pressure is that a lot of cops are taking their frustrations out on the public.

And some, like our old friend Tony Bologna of OWS fame, are just sociopaths who like to goon it up.

But the people in charge of the system - Bloomberg and Kelly - are the ones responsible for these problems and they are the ones who could put a stop to it if they wanted to.

Instead we see week after week more incidents of police brutality, of innocent people being shot and killed by the NYPD, of unarmed alleged "perps" getting shot and killed while "resisting arrest."

The NYPD is out of control and yet, nothing is done to stop this and nothing seems to happen to the people most responsible for this.

Must Be The Fault Of Their Teachers

This story from the NY Post brings back memories of old time New York:

A wolf pack of drunken young women “acting stupid” on the downtown No. 6 train after an all-night party stabbed a 63-year-old man yesterday — for having had the nerve to ask them to pipe down, police said.

The man was on his way to work as a vendor near the World Trade Center at about 6:15 a.m., a law-enforcement source told The Post.

“The eight females were acting stupid. He just told them, ‘Relax. Calm down,’ ” the source said.

Instead, one stabbed the man, Ralph Carnegary, in the shoulder. He was in stable condition at Bellevue.

The women were busted on the street near at the 23rd Street station.

A city bus driver who witnessed the arrests said the women, beers in hand, were screaming, “We didn’t do anything.’’

Seven of them, ages 17 to 20, were charged with gang assault, disorderly conduct, rioting, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing and felony assault.

Cops added that they recovered a knife.

The suspects later shouted and cursed at reporters and photographers as they were led to a police van.

Just another example of how "failed" schools and "bad" teachers are bringing about the demise of civil society.

You see, if only these girls had received better schooling from better teachers, they would have been home readying for a productive day at work rather than riding the 6 train with beers in hand at 6:15 AM.

You can trace every problem in society back to "failed" schools and "bad" teachers.

Well, at least the corporate reformers, corporate media and corporate politicians can.

A Matter Of Context

Horrific:

AURORA, Colo. — A gunman wearing a gas mask set off an unknown gas and fired into a crowded movie theater in suburban Denver at a midnight opening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others, authorities said.

Moviegoers didn’t know what was happening and some thought the attack was part of the show. Then they saw a silhouette of a person in the smoke at the front of the theater near the screen, pointing a gun at the crowd.

“I told my friend ‘we’ve got to get out of here,’ but then he shot people trying to go out the exits,” Jennifer Seeger told NBC’s “Today.” She said the shooter made his way up the aisle, firing as he went, saying nothing.

Some of those injured are children, including a 3-month-old infant who was shot.

...

Victims are being treated for chemical exposure apparently related to canisters thrown by the gunman. The shooter, a man in his 20s, was arrested shortly after the attack at 12:30 a.m. MDT at the multiplex theater at a mall in Aurora.

FBI spokesman Jason Pack said there’s no indication so far of any connection to terror groups.

It was the worst mass shooting in Colorado since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at the school in the Denver suburb of Littleton, about 15 miles west of Aurora, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school’s library.

Just like a video game or Batman movie.

Or life in any number of countries we're "freeing" from terrorism - like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somali, Yemen, etc.

Barack Obama says he is "shocked" by this horror.

Why?

Every week he kills as many or even more innocent people as this 24 year old Denver murderer did last night.

Isn't dropping death from the skies onto innocent people from a remote location as horrific and evil as what happened in the Aurora theater?

Isn't targeting people for assassination who have never been charged with crimes, let alone convicted of them, and carrying those assassinations out in secret as horrific and evil as what happened in the Aurora theater?

Might there even be a connection between a country whose foreign policy involves slaughtering innocents in the name of "freedom" and a domestic homeland where an overarmed populace fed on a steady diet of media and government lies, force-fed fear and anger by the corporate state in order to increase sales, and fighting it out for an ever-diminishing pool of jobs and resources gets horrifically violent?

I bet there is.

But the good news is, if this murderer were to just join the American armed forces and head to a foreign country armed and ready to kill in the name of "freedom", his murderous instincts could be put to good use.

You see, if this 24 year had simply killed 12 alleged "terrorists" overseas or dropped a drone bomb on a Pakistani wedding party from some remote Colorado location, they'd have given him a medal.

He'd have been cheered on Morning Joe.

It's all a matter of context.

And therein lies the core rot in modern America.

The evil and horrors that we perpetrate as a nation every day in our foreign policy in the non-ending War on Terrorism only become horrific and evil to us when we see them perpetrated on innocents here at home.

Rahm Turns Chicago Into Murder Capital Of Country - As Bad As A "Warzone"

The Guardian looks at a rash of violence over the July 4h holiday in the United States:

While Americans across the country celebrated Independence Day on Wednesday, several of the nation's largest cities reported disturbing incidents of violence, with dozens of people shot and many killed.

Chicago was among the worst, with five people killed and 21 wounded in separate shootings Wednesday. By Thursday morning two more people had lost their lives and eight more were injured.

In New York City, meanwhile, 17 people were shot in 13 separate incidents that left three people dead and a police officer wounded. Over the course of roughly four hours, eight people were shot in Brooklyn. The violence persisted into the wee hours of the morning, when NYPD officer Brian Groves was shot in the chest in a Lower East Side stairwell. The officer was saved by his bulletproof vest, and the gunman escaped.

"There are just bullets flying all over the place," said New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg at press conference, as he implored citizens to "stop this craziness."

Gee, I thought your stop-and-frisk polices were putting an end to violence as we know it, Mayor Mike?

Guess not. But Chicago has suffered by far the worst violence:

Indeed Chicago's shootings were an unfortunate reminder of the violence that has gripped the city as of late, where the murder rate has outpaced death tolls in active US war zones. While roughly 2,000 Americans have died since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gunfire in Chicago over the same period. As the nation's third largest city, Chicago's murders have spiked 35% since this time last year, with the number of homicides topping the number of US troops killed in Afghanistan in 2012.

The violence in Chicago on Wednesday followed a tragically similar day on Tuesday, that resulted in 16 people shot over a six-hour period, including a 14-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl who was gunned down while playing at an open fire hydrant.

Responding to the shooting of the young girl, Nakita Collins, a resident of her neighborhood, described the area to the Chicago Sun-Times: "It's become infested with drugs and gang activity."

"We pay taxes and they don't take care of us," she said. "They don't patrol … I just don't think they care."

Of course they don't care.

This is Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, Second City in Barack Obama's America.

Unless you're a banker, a hedge fund manager, or otherwise part of the 1%, they do not give a shit about you.

Not at all.

Rahm is of course blaming all this on the previous mayor.

But the reality is, that's just a scapegoat excuse.

The real reason is, no one in power cares to fix the inequity the country is facing that causes so many (more and more every day) to fall into despair and hopelessness.

That's what happens when you only listen to your hedge fund and bankster buddies and promote their "austerity policies" (i.e., tax breaks and bailouts for corporations and banskters, austerity measures for everybody else.)

Neo-liberals like Rahm just don't know (or seem to care) how bad things are out there for people.

Don't be surprised as the summer goes on if we don't see riots and other outbreaks of violence like the one's Britain saw last summer.

Perhaps that will get there attention.

Unfortunately I imagine they'll just use all of their "anti-terrorism toys" to deal with the problems instead of facing the real problem - the increasing feudalization of the nation.

Bloodshed Across City

A bloody night in New York:

Bullets flew across New York City late Saturday and early Sunday, as vicious gunfire left two men dead and 15 people injured in Brooklyn, Queens and Harlem.

Seven separate shootings bloodied Brooklyn alone, including fatal fights in Brownsville and East New York, where a 22-year-old Queens father died.

Anthony McRae, 22, was gunned down about 4:45 a.m. Sunday in front of the Hamzah Deli and Grocery on Rockaway Ave., police said.

He was shot at least four times and cops are reviewing deli surveillance tapes, but do not have any suspects in custody yet.

McRea lived in Far Rockaway and worked two jobs at AT&T and Foot Locker to support his 2-year-old son, Carter, family said.

...

Around midnight, three young teens were also shot in Marine Park, Brooklyn during a spat over a 16-year-old's bike. Three people were injured, one critically.

Less than half an hour later, a shooting at a Prospect-Lefferts Gardens house party left five people wounded. Two men who were denied entrance to the gathering, unloaded about 12:15 a.m. into the crowd of revelers gathered outside 349 Fenimore Street, an eye witness said.

In Brownsville, a 45-year-old man was shot multiple times and died near his home late Saturday night.

Jerry Armstrong, 45, was found with several gun shot wounds on 95th Street about 11 p.m. Saturday.

Two additional shootings left two men wounded in Brooklyn, as did a pair of shootings in Queens. One person was also wounded in Harlem.

Of course none of this happened in the parts of the city where Bloomberg and his cronies live, so it'll be like it never happened.

And of course the city's crime stats are about as reliable as the NYCDOE test score stats and graduation rate data, so when Bloomberg says this city's safer than ever, he's full of shit.

Make no mistake, the city is growing more dangerous by the month.

I Bet Obama Will Say Some Teachers Need To Be Fired For This

Just another day at a downtown Jersey City school:

Jersey City police today responded to a large disturbance at Ferris High School in which students were throwing desks, chairs, food, bottles, cans, garbage cans, and book bags at students, staff, security guards and cops, officials said.

One 16-year-old boy was charged with assaulting a police detective during the incident at the Downtown school that required a response from all "available units citywide" in order to "disperse over 350 to 500 unruly students," reports said.

Security guards and school police officers at the Montgomery Street school were called to the cafeteria shortly after noon where they found students throwing food, chairs, and overturning tables, reports said.

Additional police officers were called to the school to help clear the cafeteria, but fighting then broke out first in the main lobby and then "all over the school" and more radio cars were called to the scene, reports said.

Students who were outside the school "violently pushed their way inside" to join the fighting and began assaulting numerous people and throwing all manner of objects at each other and at the adults, reports said.

That's when a 17-year-old was seen pushing a security guard. The teen was tackled by police and handcuffed after a struggle, reports said, adding that the guard later declined to press charges. A 16-year-old student was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a police detective, reports said.

A school security guard suffered a lower back injury when he was assaulted by multiple students, and a second guard said she suffered several injuries at the hands of a group of students who ran away, reports said.

Superintendent of Schools Charles T. Epps Jr. said the disturbance began when one student threw bread at another in the lunchroom. "With that, someone got annoyed, picked up a chair, and threw a chair," Epps said.

"It was just a handful of kids (involved in the dispute)," Epps insisted.

...

Police reports note earlier in the day there was a fight, which may have provoked the cafeteria incident and Board of Education President William DeRosa said tonight the district is investigating the possibility that the fight that precipitated the melee was "gang-related."

"It did sound very serious," DeRosa about today's fracas. "This is going to have to be halted...We need to instill in our students ... that there are better ways to resolve things."

Hey, I know what would make this better.

Fire some teachers.

Really make a statement, you know?

How dare those teachers allow this to happen to "the children"?

POSTSCRIPT: The superintendent is moron - since when is "350 to 500 unruly students" fighting "all over the school" just a "handful of kids"?