Allegations of police brutality are being levelled against a covert intelligence assault team whose members allegedly shot a disarmed suspected robber moments after he was arrested.

The alleged robber, who had earlier been wielding an R4 semi-automatic rifle, along with four other suspects, armed with 9mm pistols, were caught shortly before they could attack an embassy in Pretoria last week.

While police claim the shooting was “justified”, an eyewitness, Pretoria News reporter Barry Bateman, tells a different story.

Bateman was driving past the Engen garage in Rigel Avenue when he saw police arresting the suspects.

“I watched officers use excessive and unwarranted force against the suspects, who had already been subdued and detained. A police officer shot a prone suspect in the leg moments after having detonated a stun grenade centimetres from his head”

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Evansville police fatally shot a man suspected of killing a cabdriver.

Vanderburgh County sheriff’s deputies identified the suspect as 20-year-old Christopher N. Banister. He died at a hospital after Tuesday night’s shooting.

Police said Banister was shot after a foot chase into an apartment complex. They say he fired shots at officers who were pursuing him.

Banister was a suspect in the shooting death of Garry E. Gilmore, 50, Evansville, who was found dead in his cab Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said he had been shot in the head.

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Policeman’s account of events:

It’s not clear why 17-year-old Billey Joe Johnson was stopped in Lucedale, but authorities say the junior tailback shot himself with a shotgun after the deputy walked back to the patrol car to run a license check.

“The deputy was sitting in his patrol vehicle … when he heard a gunshot and saw the victim laying on the ground by the driver’s side door of the vehicle that Johnson was driving. A shotgun was lying on the victim,” according to a statement from the George County Sheriff’s Department.

Authorities would not immediately say whether they believed the shooting was a suicide or an accident.

NCAA Football Correspondent for AOL Says:

The last portion of that quote is particularly perplexing, because it is hard to believe that Johnson would have attempted to pull a shotgun on police officers …although equally confounding is the notion that Johnson would kill himself at what, according to all current reports, appears to be a basic traffic stop.

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First hand account of the incident:

I arrived at the corner of Bank and MacLaren this afternoon as three police officers were trying to put an unconscious, handcuffed woman into the back of a van. She looked like a rag doll.

Then they changed their minds and laid her out on the sidewalk and sent for an ambulance. The female officer slid a piece of cardboard under her, so at least she wasn’t lying in the puddle.

I asked some other bystanders if they knew what had happened. Two men, who said they had witnessed the whole thing, told me that she had been walking down the street smoking a cigarette. A cruiser drove past, stopped, and an officer got out and approached her. She ran. The police caught her. She resisted. She was a tiny little thing, they said, but she put up a helluva fight. It took three officers to bring her down.

“And the big cop, he slammed her face-down into the sidewalk just like she was a huge man,” said one of the men.

Then, he said, they cuffed her and went to put her in the van. She was part-way in when suddenly she just collapsed. Unconscious. She was bleeding from the head. That’s roughly when I came along.

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A year after University of Hawaii fans complained of post-game police brutality, an officer facing criminal charges appeared in court on Monday.

Officer Joseph Lum may argue that the force he used was necessary.

As UH sealed its victory over the University of Washington last year, police ordered to keep fans off the field were quickly overwhelmed. One seemed to take out his frustration on a trespassing fan with several punches, prosecutors said.

That officer, 11-year-veteran Lum, was at Ewa District Court on Monday facing a harassment charge.

“We use it for some cases where there are punches or pushes or kicks, and so it is different than assault third,”

Deputy Prosecutor Richard Stacey said.

Harassment is a petty misdemeanor. The maximum punishment is 30 days in prison or a $500 fine. It is not serious enough to cost Lum his job.

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Two recent Maryland lawsuits have brought the topic of police brutality to the media forefront. Last week, a judge ruled that teenager Eric Bush can sue the city of Baltimore for Maryland personal injury even though he had missed the deadline for letting the city know he intended to sue. The judge said Bush showed good cause for why his notice that there would be a lawsuit was late.

Bush became a YouTube star after footage of Officer Salvatore Rivieri putting the then-14-year-old skateboarder in a headlock and chastising him for calling the cop “dude” was posted on the popular Web site. The altercation took place in 2007 at the Inner Harbor.

Bush says he never heard Rivieri give him an order about skateboarding. Rivieri, a police veteran, was suspended after the video footage of the incident was brought to the Baltimore police Department’s attention.

In another Maryland police brutality lawsuit, US District Judge William D. Quarles says the wrongful death case involving a man shocked with a Taser by a Frederick County Sheriff’s deputy can move forward against Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins and the Frederick County Board of Commissioners.

Jarrel Gray died in November 2007 after he was Tasered by Corporal Rudy Torres, who had arrived at the scene of a fight that the 20-year-old was involved in. The Frederick County deputy reportedly used the weapon to stun Gray twice in 23 seconds. The 20-year-old died several hours after the incident.

Quarles had previously dismissed all defendants from the $145 million Frederick County wrongful death case except for Torres. Following the amended complaint by Grey’s family, however, the judge decided that the claims against the other defendants can also move forward. The civil lawsuit seeks compensation based on several counts, including civil rights violations, wrongful death, police brutality, negligent supervision, and inadequate training.

The police officer who seemingly randomly picked a bicyclist out of a critical mass crowd to tackle has been indicted for falsifying records and could also soon be charged with misdemeanor assault. The YouTube video [below], which went viral soon after the incident, was instrumental in the indictment.

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Streets of Freedom was filmed in New York City in October 2008 by producer Rebecca “B FRESH” McDonald, honoring the many survivors of police brutality, those organizing for change, and mobilizing for justice through Hip-Hop.

From Rebecca McDonald:

We are in a STATE OF EMERGENCY- a police state where continual harassment, brutalization and even murder take place at the hands of the NYPD.

In a post-election 2008, Streets of Freedom is a call to action. You rallied. You door-knocked. You rapped. You voted. In fact, 23 million young people came out to vote. Now, the real work begins again.

Let’s not let this tidal wave of energy dissipate.

Organize. Organize. Organize.

Streets of Freedom features:

Kamau K.Franklin, The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Immortal Technique
Rebel Diaz
AKIR
Ashanti Alston, The National Jericho Movement
Chief Billy Tayac, The Piscataway Nation/American Indian Movement
Shaka Shakur, The New Black Panther Party
Dylcia Pagan, Former Puerto Rican political prisoner

The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office has settled out of court a 5-year-old lawsuit in which a Folsom woman claimed she was beaten by a deputy after a dispute at a Mandeville area carwash.

The suit alleged that Holly Ray Bush, now 23, was seriously injured when a detective slammed her face into a car after handcuffing her.

The case, which was set to go to trial Monday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, gained notoriety early this year when a federal appeals court ruled Bush could continue with the suit after she was found guilty of resisting arrest.

The two sides agreed on a settlement Thursday. The details are not included in the court record, but money will change hands, according to the court order dismissing the suit.

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Robert Davis was arrested for being drunk, but a police said his using force was “not appropriate”. Video recorded by an journalist cameraman clearly shows Robert Davis being punched and kicked several times by a group of police officers.Police in USA once again having their own laws.

Courtesy of PolicyBrutality.Info