The Human Rights Watch Reports…..

Turkey’s persistent failure to penalize police brutality has led to an increase in cases of violence by officers, including fatal shootings, since 2007, a leading US-based human rights group said Friday.

“Historically, law enforcement officials were rarely if ever held to account … Today, despite increased legal safeguards, law enforcement officers who flout them can still enjoy effective impunity when they are alleged to have abused or even unlawfully killed victims”

The findings came in an 80-page report that examines 28 cases of police abuse in Istanbul. The cases include fatal and nonfatal shootings, ill-treatment and excessive use of force against demonstrators, and ill-treatment during or following identity checks.

HRW said the problem was exacerbated by changes made to the law on police powers in June 2007, which give police excessively broad discretion to use lethal force and encourage arbitrary stops and searches by police.

“It has become a routine occurrence for those who file complaints against the police to be put on trial for having forcibly resisted the police”.

Investigations into allegations of police abuse were mired in difficulties and lacked independence, thoroughness, and effectiveness, the report said, adding that police often attempted to conceal, contaminate or plant evidence.

In many cases, prosecutors fail to initiate proceedings despite ample public evidence and even if they do, the probes proceed very slowly, generally taking many months and even years.

More on this story here

The Rev. With Mineo at a press conference

The incoming attorney general in the Obama administration must make investigating police brutality a top priority, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Saturday.

The minute we get a new attorney general, we must go to that attorney general and deal with the issue of police misconduct,” Sharpton said in a fiery address at his Harlem headquarters.

Sharpton said that federal investigations in the Abner Louima and Rodney King cases led to convictions, while state prosecutions in the cases of Bell and Amadou Diallo did not.

We must bring the case of Sean Bell and other cases that haven’t been handled well in the states to the federal level. We want a society where the police are not above the law.

more on this story here

The “martial law”-like police control that Ma Ying-Jeou’s government imposes on Taiwanese, especially that during the visit of Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), the chairman of Association for Relations Across the taiwan Strait (ARATS), has triggered widespread anger among Taiwanese. Students all over the island are organizing protests to demand the government with the following appeals:

1) President Ma Ying-Jeou and Premier Liu to apologize to the public;
2) Director of National Security Bureau and that of National Police Agency to step down;
3) Revise the unconstitutional Parade And Assembly Act (the current Act requires all demonstrations to be pre-approved, which often used as a political tool to screen protests);

The protest organizers insist the protest to be peaceful and non-partisan. The participation of any political figure is denied. No banner, flag, slogan are allowed, except the only one provided by the organizer, which reads: “The Police Violates the Law.”

Live broadcasts are setup for people around the world to witness and participate:

Protest started this morning 1 pm Taipei time. It’s in Guang-Fu Campus of Cheng Kung University.

Click here to watch live

Info provided by Taiwan Matters

video of the NYPD at the Barack Obama celebration on Bedford Avenue on Tuesday

Police hauled detained protesters to jail by the busload after using smoke and concussion grenades to disperse groups of roving protesters in St. Paul on the final day of the Republican National Convention. more

The question being asked, even by some Republican National Convention officials, is “What are the St. Paul police thinking?” While McCain and Palin have been holding one spotlight, police in riot gear have tear gassed crowds within the “protest” lot, far from the convention center and under permit, have jailed more than 300 people in the first three-days of the RNC including accredited journalists and been accused of multiple beatings.

Since protesters are expected, allowed and given their own space at every Convention or major gathering from the Oscars to the Superbowl, no alleged police brutality like this has happened in four decades. Police detained, and in some cases clubbed according to videos, reporters from PBS to the local colleges. Sometimes the protesters were charged, other times just held in jail for 48 hours and released. The comparison just became inevitable to Chicago Mayor Daley’s notoriously violent police actions at the ‘68 Democratic Convention, where the tear gas and clubbing of activists became part of history as well as every 60s montage ever seen on the decade. more

This is an interesting policy question: Should cities be allowed to insure themselves against claims of police brutality? The City of St. Paul agreed to host the Republican National Convention on the condition that Republican Party arranged “to buy insurance covering up to $10 million in damages and unlimited legal costs for law enforcement officials accused of brutality, violating civil rights and other misconduct.” Private donations were used to purchase the insurance.

The plus side of the agreement is obvious: taxpayers won’t have to pay damages resulting from police misconduct. But the downside, while less obvious, is troubling more

Even those who have been watching the vanishing freedoms in America were amazed at the level of brutal, violent, criminal, inhuman police action during the RNC.

The reason has been revealed:

http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S565925.shtml?cat=10151

Before the convention, $10 million dollars worth of illegal, violent police brutality was actually ORDERED and paid for in advance by the convention itself.  They actually paid an insurance company for insurance to cover the law suits of up to $10 million worth of police brutality.

One of the causes for the growing police brutality in the U.S. is that almost all jurisdictions have passed laws making individual police officers immune from law suit for even the most illegal and heinous crimes committed while on duty.  This obviously encourages police officers to be reckless and violate the law.  They literally have a license to kill and anything less than killing.  They can’t be sued and very few district attorneys would ever prosecute a police officer no matter how horrendous the crime.

Still, there was pressure from the employers of police departments.  They could still be sued.  City and county budgets forced a limited amount of feedback to police officers by firing police officers when their actions were so blatant that they potentially cost the city or county too much money.

When the convention purchased this insurance (which is actually unlawful itself since you can not insure the penalties of a criminal action), they removed the last check and balance.  The city didn’t care about illegal actions by it’s police officers.  The insurance company was footing the bill for future law suits and the convention was footing the insurance company bill. more