There are a 300 million stories in Gulag America, from Reason here are four of them:
Peretz Partensky, 80-Year-Old Eugene Mallory, 13-year-old Andy Lopez and 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston
Another Grim Reminder Why It Is Always Dangerous to Call the Cops
Brian Doherty
Feb. 14, 2014 8:56 pm
It’s a crummy lesson, alas crummy police officers keep teaching it. Circulating around social networks this week–the first person account was written by a friend of a friend of mine–is this grim (and long) tale from Medium.com.
It’s about how when Peretz Partensky called 911 when he stumbled across an injured biker on a San Francisco street, it led to him being shoved, tackled, kneed in the temple, having an existing elbow injury exacerbated, cuffed face down on the street, his hands stomped on, arrested, told he “was going to be a problem,” denied medical attention, stripped and shoved into solitary confinement, then let out the next day. When he went to court he had his charges summarily dismissed.
Police Shoot, Kill 80-Year-Old Man In His Own Bed,
Don’t Find the Drugs They Were Looking For
Zach Weissmueller
February 13, 2014
In the early morning hours of June 27, 2013, a team of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies pulled up to the home of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired engineer living in the rural outskirts of Los Angeles county with his wife Tonya Pate and stepson Adrian Lamos.
California Pols Blame BB Guns, Not Militarized Cops
Steven Greenhut
Feb. 14, 2014 12:00 pm
SACRAMENTO — One of last year’s heartbreaking stories involved 13-year-old Andy Lopez, who was shot to death by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff in October after the deputy spotted him carrying a realistic-looking pellet gun. Deputy Erick Gelhaus said he called on Lopez to drop the gun, and shot him seven times as the boy turned toward the officer with the barrel of the gun rising.
The shooting continues to spark discussions about the proper use of force by police officers — especially after Lopez’s parents filed a lawsuit alleging that county officials “were long aware of the propensity of defendant Gelhaus to recklessly draw his firearm and to use excessive force.”
And the ever popular classic. . .
Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later
92-year-old woman’s death has done little to curb
the use of paramilitary police tactics around the country.
Radley Balko
November 23, 2007
It was one year ago this week that narcotics officers in Atlanta, Georgia broke into the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston.
They had earlier arrested a man with a long rap sheet on drug charges. That man told the police officers that they’d find a large stash of cocaine in Johnston’s home. When police forced their way into Johnston’s home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she was about to be robbed. The police opened fire, and killed her.
Shortly after the shooting, the police alleged that they had paid an informant to buy drugs from Ms. Johnston’s home. They said she fired at them first, and wounded two officers. And they alleged they found marijuana in her home.
We now know that these were all lies. In fact, everything about the Kathryn Johnston murder was corrupt. The initial arrest of the ex-con came via trumped-up charges. The police then invented an informant for the search warrant, and lied about overseeing a drug buy from Johnston’s home.
Ciao,
Dennis