Sweet land of liberty

Not every day you see a claim for Third Amendment violations in a police misconduct suit. Well deserved in this case against the City of Henderson, Nevada's finest. You have to read it all to appreciate the full scope of this intentional breach of civil rights but here's some highlights:

The complaint continues: "Defendant Officer David Cawthorn outlined the defendants' plan in his official report: 'It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.'"

At a few minutes before noon, at least five defendant officers "arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's house and prepared to execute their plan," the complaint states. [...]

"Seconds later, officers, including Officer Rockwell, smashed open plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's front door with a metal ram as plaintiff stood in his living room.

As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor.

This happened because the Mitchell refused their "request" to use his home a lookout point in response to a domestic violence report about his next door neighbor. These local cops then proceeded to subject Mitchell's elderly parents, who also live nearby to much the same abuse. They also shot his terrified dog, who was cowering in a corner, with pepperballs. Eventually the whole family was arrested on several trumped up charges. And the punch line:

None of the officers were ever subjected to official discipline or even inquiry, the complaint states.

Thanks to the militarization of local law enforcement, this sort of police misconduct is becoming all too common in our country. Good to see people daring to fight back. Wishing the Mitchells every success in their lawsuit. [photo via]

Scalia's surprising dissent

This is bad news for civil rights advocates. In a dismal 5-4 decision Breyer jumped in with the cons and Scalia joined the liberals in opposing this breach against our bedrock right to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure.

Scalia said it "taxes the credulity of the credulous" to argue that DNA testing is simply a means of identification. It's a way to gather evidence — and thus Maryland's law doesn't pass constitutional muster, he wrote.

"The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence," Scalia said. "That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment."

This is a horrifying decision. It may look harmless to some because in this case it's confined to violent crime but you give the authoritarians an inch and they'll keep chipping away. Before you know it they could be taking random swabs at traffic stops.

Oh baby, Ohio

[photo via Kent State 1970]

A lot of scary things happened at the 60s protests. People were killed more than once, in many places, but for some reason the deaths of the Kent State Four always felt the most tragic. Maybe it's because those kids were peaceful and innocent bystanders died at the hand of panicked law enforcement.

Will Bunch wrote the best Kent State retrospective today. Not sure I agree with him that it marked the spiritual end of the era. Think its demise was more gradual and ongoing. Like most movements, the hippie peace era was slowly strangled by grifters and opportunists who co-opted it for their own ends. For myself, it was the violent methodology eventually adopted by the SSD SDS and the Weathermen that killed what was then called flower power.

But Will is surely right about this:

The question of why the 1960s matter to me is one thing, but what's important is, should the events of 50 years ago matter to the rest of us? Is what happened on May 4, 1970 - and in the tumultuous years leading up to it -- still relevant on May 4, 2013? OK, I've clearly revealed my bias, but I think the answer is undeniably yes -- because there is a straight line between the skirmishes people fought then and the all-too-real war for the future of America that is taking place today.

Much of what's happening today feels like the 60s revisited to me. We're fighting the same battles all over again.

On the scene at Rosa Parks dedication

The photos from the Rosa Parks statute dedication are rolling in now. This is a great capture from the pre-ceremony mingling on the floor. Would love to know what was said in this conversation.


[Pete Souza/White House photo]

It appears our hapless Speaker John Boehner can throw some shade of his own, but he has nothing on Obama in that department. Meanwhile, no photo-op is complete without the requisite "kissing babies" shot.


[photo via HuffPo]

The little guy is a 3-year-old relative of Rosa Parks. Lot of subtext to that moment.

Many long years ago

Going to be a slow news weekend with the entire Village having fled for the holiday. Including POTUS and FLOTUS on -- gasp -- separate vacations. So how about a little US history for a Saturday afternoon? The Atlantic posts a fabulous gallery of 50 iconic photographs from 1963. (Added bonus -- all on one page). This one still brings a tear to my eye ever time I see it.



Definitely click through to view the whole gallery. Good reminder that as bad as it seems now, back then it was actually worse.

That's how we deal with it around here folks

Mother of God. This guy doesn't live all that far from my home. This is what my local "independent conservatives" consider to be civil disagreement.



But, you know, it's the gay people who are the threat...

A couple of my neighbors have this sign on their lawn too. I have a nodding acquaintance with them, but I'm pretty sure most of my neighbors wouldn't find this over the top. I'm sure you can see why I haven't made a whole lot of friends in this state.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

A change is gonna come

Someday. Feels like I've been waiting for a very long time.

Since I'm getting a late start -- again -- and it's already a holiday weekend, I'm going to post this via Greg Mitchell on the twitter. Always did love Sam Cooke and the video here seems especially appropriate for these times.



[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Zimmerman standing on shaky ground - Updated

If this is the police video of George Zimmerman on the night of Trayvon Martin's death, his story and the police statements, just fell apart. I don't see any blood on the guy at all and it's possible you couldn't see grass stains on the dark jacket, but it doesn't even look rumbled. I'd also think if he had to shoot Trayvon while he was lying on the ground, he would have been sprayed with blood himself. That surely would have shown up on the lighter part of the jacket and his shirt. But watch for yourself.



No apparent injury to the back of his head either. If you can't see the embed, here's the direct link to the police tape video.

I would assume, if ABC could get this footage, then the new special prosecutor investigating Trayvon's case must have it too. Wonder if that's why she floated the idea she might be able to bypass a Grand Jury to bring charges?

Update: More evidence that refutes Zimmerman's statement.

The funeral director who prepared Trayvon Martin’s body for burial told HLN’s Nancy Grace Wednesday that he did not see any cuts or bruises on the teen’s hands that would have been indicative of a struggle with George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed the Florida teen.

Yes. I know. Nancy Grace? But just because she's crazy doesn't mean it's not true. I suppose the autopsy photos would prove that one way or the other if it comes to trial.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Why they let Zimmerman walk

Well, the story of Trayvon's murder has become a war of the leaks. This latest twist in the law enforcement angle is troubling.

The lead homicide investigator in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin recommended that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting, multiple sources told ABC News.

But Sanford, Fla., Investigator Chris Serino was instructed to not press charges against Zimmerman because the state attorney's office headed by Norman Wolfinger determined there wasn't enough evidence to lead to a conviction, the sources told ABC News.

An unarmed dead kid, shot by a known neighborhood vigilante with a history of multiple overwrought reports of "suspicious" activity isn't enough evidence? You might think they would have at least held him long enough to go look for more evidence. Hard not to think they wrote it off because it was a young black kid in a white neighborhood.

As an aside, this story shows the power of twitter. The current version is significantly different from the original I read first, which was listed as being 44 minutes old. It cited an alleged photo of Trayvon, which depicted a black kid with a gold dental grill, flipping the bird at the camera. This photo made the rounds of the wingnut sites yesterday but by the time I went to bed last night, it had been widely debunked and even the nuttiest sites had retracted. Which I immediately tweeted to ABC. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

To their credit, ABC responded and corrected the post nearly immediately. So there's that...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Trayvon Martin: Mourning in America

I haven't posted about the killing of Trayvon because so much has already been said and I can't seem to write anything coherent myself. Every time I think about it, I'm overcome with rage and grief. But, Charlie Pierce captures my emotions in a fine rant. Don't want to excerpt a lot of it, because it needs to be read in full, but these few sentences resonate with me.

Well I certainly don't feel calm and measured, and it's not because my kids "could have been Trayvon." No, they could not have. My kids are white. ....nobody would have looked askance at them, let alone blown them away with a handgun.

I am sick to death of people who celebrate "the family" making excuses about why other people's children are expendable. I am sick to death of politicians who are more concerned about protecting zygotes than about the teenagers on whom they seek to balance their budgets and advance their careers. ...I am sick to death about how we can argue about anything simply to argue about it, and then move along to the next argument, as though anything at all has been settled.

Never mind the obvious inherent racism, I despair for the human race when I read the vicious reaction coming from Zimmerman's apologists. I feel like we're witnessing the final breakdown of civil society. And so much of the reaction feels like a simple transference of anger by people who just can't stand that a black man is our president. You know the ones I mean. They can prove they're not racists. Shee-it, they have black friends. It's just those other shiftless niggers they can't stand.

I've seen dozens of images in the last few days as people try to express their response to this travesty. This is one that moved me the most because it rings so very true.

This is the reality for this child simply because his skin is dark. No child should have to grow up with the certain knowledge this, in fact, could easily happen to him. [Original photo]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Unexpected allies

Knock me over with a feather, but credit for good behavior where it's due. Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein:



I welcome the support for my LGBT friends but admit suspecting some trickery or at least an ulterior motive. Still, one should be gracious, so thanks Lloyd. [via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Must be the season of the bitch

Ah, the holiday season. When the news cycle gets slow and everybody gets cranky and starts fighting with each other. Just like at the family gatherings. Today, this defense of President Obama is what's causing a ruckus on the internets.

I'm not going to get into the particulars other than this. I think we can all stipulate the indefinite detention thing sucks. Just like every expansion of the national security appartus since 9/11 has sucked pond scum. Hell, I'm still royally pissed off about the Patriot Act. Every expansion has further eroded the "freedoms" the terrorists supposedly hate that we have.

As for the instant post, I'm somewhat amused the author accuses emo-progs of hysteria even as he makes his case with rather equally hysterical and accusatory rhetoric. But this point is well taken:

Don't blame Obama for signing it. Blame Congress for passing it.

Obama didn’t place this odious amendment into the bill; Republicans did, even if they didn't place the exact language into the bill, they created the impetus for including crap like this in an irrelevant bill in the first place. Go after them!

It is useful to remember Obama doesn't have line item veto power. He would have to kill the entire bill to make a symbolic point, which was probably worth making. However, the practical effect of a veto would have had an undeniably adverse effect on thousands of innocent bystanders whose survival and well being depend on the spending authorizations. Not to mention, the de facto spending freeze it would cause for at least a couple of months. Is that really better?

It's a tough choice and it's no more fair or principled for lefty activists to judge Obama's motives in making that choice, than it is for their critics to accuse them of having sinister motives in criticizing Obama. For myself, I tire of the outrage addiction on all sides.

Everybody bitches about Obama's choices and his failure to prevent unwanted outcomes but outside of Atrios who routinely suggests sensible solutions, I don't see a whole lot of alternate courses of action being proffered by the professional critics. Anybody who thinks they can do better than Obama, step up and run for office. I don't think I could do better with what he has to work with. You think you could? Go ahead. Show him, and me, how it's done. I'd love better choices. You have my total support.

Via ABL at Balloon Juice where there's a righteous row going in comments. And where John Cole just poked a stick into the hornet's nest again.

Drones over North Dakota

It started when gun-toting homeowners chased off the local Sheriff who was investigating some missing cows.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

This is apparently the "first known arrests of U.S. citizens involving the spy planes in domestic cases". Emphasis on the known.

The larger question is, did Congress actually authorize this use when they gave U.S. Customs and Border Protection permission to buy unarmed Predators? The idea was they would use them to "search for illegal immigrants and smugglers on the country's northern and southwestern borders." Last I looked, North Dakota was not a entry point for either illegal immigration or drug smuggling.

Disturbingly, "officials in charge of the fleet said they have authority to perform such missions through congressional budget requests that cite 'interior law enforcement support.'" Note the use of the word "fleet." Who knows how many of these drones are already deployed, invisibly spying on US citizens?

This is unlikely to cause nearly enough alarm among ordinary Americans. In the instant case, the perps seem kind of crazy and violent and you know, thank God no one was hurt in their capture. But ordinary Americans would do well to remember the militarization of every local podunk police force in America was justified under fighting the war on drugs. So even when local police arrived in tanks, dressed in SWAT gear and busted down doors to serve warrants on minor drug dealers, no one cared. Hell, they were just drug thugs. But sometimes they busted down the wrong door. And innocent people died. And now those same tactics are being used against unarmed, peaceful protesters, seeking redress of their grievances with the government.

A police state doesn't happen overnight. Big changes happen in just such tiny incremental infringements. If we wait to express our concern until, like the Geneva Conventions, Posse Comitatus is rendered quaint, it will be too late.

You have the right to remain silent

Good old Miranda Rights aren't what they used to be and neither, apparently is this one.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Granted, despite the current rumors in some circles about federal co-ordination, these explosive responses to the Occupy demonstrations are vested in local ordinances. Nonetheless, this stuff surely feels like a violation of the spirit of our First Amendment.

In Portland, Oregon, a 15 year old kid gets hit in the face with a "riot stick" or as we used to call them back in the day, a billy club.

The Portland cop that struck him was dressed like this.

Seriously. What have we come to when ordinary citizens peacefully protesting on a public street are attacked by LEOs dressed like Darth Vader stormtroopers? The civilian police are supposed to keep order, and prevent violence. When did it become okay for them to instigate violence against orderly crowds?

And is this riot cop without a riot the new norm in New York City?

A black rifle at the ready. Really? I'm told he's far from Zucotti Park. He's armed for an at war, military style shoot out. Granted I haven't been to the big city in the last ten years or so, but I still know a lot of people there. I'm pretty sure there's not Kabul level chaos on the streets of Manhattan. Not at Zucotti Park either.

And the beat goes on

Former poet laureate of the United States, Robert Hass tells the story of his beat down at the hands of California law enforcement:

Earlier that day a colleague had written to say that the campus police had moved in to take down the Occupy tents and that students had been “beaten viciously.” I didn’t believe it. In broad daylight? And without provocation? So when we heard that the police had returned, my wife, Brenda Hillman, and I hurried to the campus. I wanted to see what was going to happen and how the police behaved, and how the students behaved. If there was trouble, we wanted to be there to do what we could to protect the students.

Once the cordon formed, the deputy sheriffs pointed their truncheons toward the crowd. It looked like the oldest of military maneuvers, a phalanx out of the Trojan War, but with billy clubs instead of spears. The students were wearing scarves for the first time that year, their cheeks rosy with the first bite of real cold after the long Californian Indian summer. The billy clubs were about the size of a boy’s Little League baseball bat. My wife was speaking to the young deputies about the importance of nonviolence and explaining why they should be at home reading to their children, when one of the deputies reached out, shoved my wife in the chest and knocked her down.

My wife bounced nimbly to her feet. I tripped and almost fell over her trying to help her up, and at that moment the deputies in the cordon surged forward and, using their clubs as battering rams, began to hammer at the bodies of the line of students. It was stunning to see. They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both the young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines.

NONE of the police officers invited us to disperse or gave any warning. We couldn’t have dispersed if we’d wanted to because the crowd behind us was pushing forward to see what was going on. The descriptor for what I tried to do is “remonstrate.” I screamed at the deputy who had knocked down my wife, “You just knocked down my wife, for Christ’s sake!” A couple of students had pushed forward in the excitement and the deputies grabbed them, pulled them to the ground and cudgeled them, raising the clubs above their heads and swinging. The line surged. I got whacked hard in the ribs twice and once across the forearm.

Those are just excerpts. Chilling story. Read it all at the link. But a charming ending.

On Thursday afternoon when I returned toward sundown to the steps to see how the students had responded, the air was full of balloons, helium balloons to which tents had been attached, and attached to the tents was kite string. And they hovered over the plaza, large and awkward, almost lyrical, occupying the air.

[photo credit]

The silent shaming

More powerful than the loudest chanting. UC Davis Chancellor Katehi leaves the building.



[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Pepper sprayed student speaks out

This is the must read of the day. One of the UC Davis students who was savagely attacked with pepper spray gives an eyewitness account:

So, everyone removed the tents, and they were in the process of arresting more people. A collective decision was made on the fly to just sit in a circle arms linked legs crossed, with police officers and "prisoners" in the middle because we didn't want them arresting only 3 of us. It wasn't fair that 50 of us were there, and only a few arrested who hadn't volunteered to be arrested. There was still one walkway open that the police were going to use to walk the arrestees out. I saw some friends of mine sit down there, and they were my friends, so I joined them. We linked arms, legs crossed.

We were never warned that we were going to be pepper-sprayed.

Lt. Pike walked up to my friend, and I am told that he said, "Move or we're going to shoot you."

Then he went back and talked to a few of his police officer friends. A couple of other officers started to remove people who were sitting there, blocking exit. Pike could have easily removed us, just picked us up and removed us. We were just sitting there, nonviolent civil disobedience.

But Pike turned around and I am told that he said to the other officers, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to spray these kids down."

He lifts the can, spins it around in a circle to show it off to everybody.

Then he sprays us three times.

As if one time of being sprayed at point blank wasn't enough.

I was on the end of the line getting direct spray. When the second pass came, I got up crawling. I crawled away and vomited on a tree. I was yelling. It burned. Within a few minutes I was dry heaving, I couldn't breathe. Then, over the course of the next hour, I was dry heaving and vomiting.

Much more and many new photos at the link. Also useful to know Officer Pike "used military grade pepper spray" at point blank range on these students. "It's supposed to be used at a minimum of 15 feet." [graphic via]

Regulating Free Speech

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi makes a statement about the horrifying attack on the peaceably assembled students at her university.

“We take this responsibility seriously,” Katehi wrote. “We are accountable for what occurs on our campus. Campus policies generously support free speech, but do included limited time, place and manner regulations to protect health, safety and the ability of students, staff and faculty to accomplish the university mission.”

This is so wrong on so many levels. Limiting free speech to "time and manner regulations" means it's not free. Restriciting dissent to only specific zones and only at specific times is not a generous policy. It's a subversion of free expression. The university must of course be concerned for the safety of all of its students and faculty, but it's impossible to see how the pitching of a few tents endangered anyone.

This didn't just happen this week, or this year. There's been a growing trend on campuses nationwide, especially since 9/11, to cage free expression in narrow, and often literally caged in, free speech zones. Absent a clear and present threat to bodily safety, this seems to me to be a direct violation of not only the spirit, but also the letter of long standing law.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Police attack passive protesters

The media insist on describing every interaction between law enforcement officers and Occupy protesters as confrontations. This was not a confrontation. This was an unprovoked attack by police against passive protesters.

Look at the videos:





It's clear the cop sprayed these kids directly in the face because he told them to move and they decided to engage in the time honored practice of passive resistance. The police were free to simply remove them physically. There was no need to spray them with a toxic substance as if they were nothing more than a swarm of pesky insects.

The police defend this needless attack, citing fear:

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said officers used force out of concern for their own safety after they were surrounded by students.

“If you look at the video you are going to see that there were 200 people in that quad,” said Chief Spicuzza. “Hindsight is 20-20 and based on the situation we were sitting in, ultimately that was the decision that was made.”

By all means, watch the long version video. The police weren't surrounded until after they pepper sprayed defenseless students. The police were armed with high powered guns. The students were not armed with anything but their voices. The students made no menacing moves towards the police. And pay special attention to the pepper spraying cop in these videos. Even as the police are leaving, he's still obviously agitated and brandishing the pepper spray can in a threatening manner. It appears to me, his fellow officers are urging him to back down.

And by the way, this is the "huge encampment" that the university considers such a threat to the learning environment. This necessitated an armed police response? Really? [Many more photos at the link.]

Meanwhile, though I didn't see it on the video, there are reports of students injured by being pepper sprayed directly into the mouth and Joshua Holland of AlterNet reports, "One of those UC Davis students, a brave young woman, was reportedly hospitalized w chemical burns."

Similar incidents are happening all over the country where concerned citizens are exercising their right to peaceably assemble in protest. This is not what democracy looks like. It does however pretty well fit the description of a police state.

The Whole World is Watching

While I found the earlier confrontations on Occupy action day a bit disturbing, the march across the Brooklyn Bridge last evening was perfect. Peacefully conducted and incredibly heartening. I'm sorry I can't find any captures of the aerial livestream done by the local Fox affiliate last night. The endless line of 99%ers with flickering votive candles was simply breathtaking. Sadly, if Fox archived it, I can't find it. Their permanent coverage seems to be all about the "stand offs" with the police earlier in the day.

But the iconic moment of the march is surely what is being widely being called the "bat signal."

Or we should say bat signals since there was a long set of projections. The back story on how they pulled the bat signals off attests to the growing strength of the movement. Every day they build solidarity as evidenced by the woman, a poor single mother of three, who let these strangers into her apartment and refused to take money she most probably needs because "this is for the people." [If you don't have time to watch the video, some stills of the projections are here.]

And by people, I don't mean just the "angry" and "ragged" protesters our US media carefully targets in their coverage. The foreign press manages to interview well dressed, working New Yorkers who braved the dark and the cold to march across the bridge. In fact, the crowd that swelled across Foley Square prior to the march appear to be largely populated by well dressed people who support the movement but aren't in the park every day because they have jobs they can't afford to lose.

May the "bat signal" be prophetic. "This is the beginning of the beginning."

[More coverage at Gothamist and photo credit.]