The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
We are a society bathed in sadism and brutality - and this is just one of many examples of parents behaving badly along with police again misusing a Taser to enforce compliance rather than a substitute for a gun. What mother would gladly give consent for her 65 lb, 4'6" daughter to receive a 50K shock!? (The Smoking Gun):
An Arkansas cop tasered an unruly 10-year-old girl after her mother called police to report that the child was crying, screaming, and refusing to go to bed. The tased girl, Kiara Medlock, is about 65 pounds and 4' 6", according to her father. Anthony Medlock, a truck driver who does not live with the fifth grader and her mother, provided TSG with a recent photo of his daughter, which can be seen at right. According to the below Ozark Police Department report, when Officer Dustin Bradshaw arrived at the residence last Thursday, he found the girl "screaming, kicking, and resisting every time her mother tried to touch her." Bradshaw added that, "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to." After Kiara continued to refuse her mother's instructions, the cop concluded that "there was not going to be a peaceful resolution of the issue." Bradshaw warned the girl that she was "going to jail," but the child continued kicking and crying and resisted his attempt to handcuff her. During the tussle, Kiara "struck me with her legs and feet in the groin, reported Bradshaw, who countered with a brief "stun to her back" with his Taser.
Here is the police report. Her father said: "If you can't pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don't think you need to be an officer."
Oh really, now -- how long have I been blogging about this "electrical shock device" and the deaths, maimings and abuse heaped upon the guilty and the innocent, the elderly, the mentally disabled, the bedridden and wheelchair bound, as well as humans minding their own business on bicycles and at a child's baptism party? Never mind the story of a Taser being used to sodomize a suspect.
Law enforcement officials around the country have been on a mission to prove that face-to-face negotiations are passe, and compliance should be achieved by physical assault, even in cases where there is no threat to the officer. Occasionally (well in too many cases), the Taser "negotiation" ended up with the Tasee DOA.
Now the company has decided to issue this hilarious-if-it-wasn't enraging advisory to police that there might be a bit of a problem if you unleash the 50K blast directly into someone's chest. Did someone need to consult Mr. Wizard to figure out this "problem?" (Raw Story):
Taser International stressed that suffering an "adverse cardiac event" after being zapped was "extremely unlikely," but human rights groups say hundreds of people have been killed by the electroshock weapons.
In a bulletin dated October 12, the Arizona-based company issued new guidelines saying it had "lowered the recommended point of aim from center of mass to lower-center of mass for front shots."
"When possible, avoiding chest shots with ECDs (Electronic Control Devices) avoids the controversy about whether ECDs do or do not affect the human heart," it explained.
"Researchers have concluded that a close distance between the ECD dart and the heart is the primary factor in determining whether an ECD will affect the heart. The risk is judged to be extremely low in field use," it said.
Read that carefully - Taser International still doesn't take responsibility for the danger and outcomes we've seen of its "non-lethal device."
"We have not stated that the Taser causes (cardiac) events in this bulletin, only that the refined target zones avoid any potential controversy on this topic."
Taser's training bulletin states that "the risk of an adverse cardiac event related to a Taser. .. discharge is deemed to be extremely low." However, the bulletin says, it is impossible to predict human reactions when a combination of drug use or underlying cardiac or other medical conditions are involved.
"Should sudden cardiac arrest occur in a scenario involving a Taser discharge to the chest area, it would place the law-enforcement agency, the officer and Taser International in the difficult situation of trying to ascertain what role, if any, the Taser. .. could have played," the bulletin says.
The bulletin recommends that when aiming at the front of a suspect, the best target for officers is the major muscles of the pelvic area or thigh region. "Back shots remain the preferred area when practical," it says.
Meanwhile the devices are being handed out to guards at schools, and proliferating without any standardized training to law enforcement departments all over the world. And of course, this bit of business from Taser International shows a buff black brother getting it right in the target zone.
I point you over to Electronic Village, where Villager is keeping track of some sobering stats -- the number of deaths due to the misuse or abuse of the Taser. We're up to 36 deaths this year, with 39% of the pre-trial, extra-judicial electrocutions and executions were perpetrated against black men, who represent only 6% of the population in the U.S.
Jan 9, 2009: Derrick Jones, 17, Black, Martinsville, Virginia
Jan 11, 2009: Rodolfo Lepe, 31, Hispanic, Bakersfield, California
Jan 22, 2009: Roger Redden, 52, Caucasian, Soddy Daisy, Tennessee
Feb 2, 2009: Garrett Jones, 45, Caucasian, Stockton, California
Feb 11, 2009: Richard Lua, 28, Hispanic, San Jose, California
Feb 13, 2009: Rudolph Byrd, Age Unknown, Race Unknown, Quincy, Florida
Feb 13, 2009: Michael Jones, 43, Black, Iberia, Louisiana
Feb 14, 2009: Chenard Kierre Winfield, 32, Black, Los Angeles, California
Feb 28, 2009: Robert Lee Welch, 40, Caucasian, Conroe, Texas
Mar 22, 2009: Brett Elder, 15, Caucasian, Bay City, Michigan
Mar 26, 2009: Marcus D. Moore, 40, Black, Freeport, Illinois
Apr 1, 2009: John J. Meier Jr., 48, Caucasian, Tamarac, Florida
Apr 6, 2009: Ricardo Varela, 41, Hispanic, Fresno, California
In the above video, Stanley Harlen was pulled over for allegedly speeding; he stopped in front of his house. As his mother came out in her robe, she watched as officers wrestled with him. One officer fired the Taser three times for 31 seconds. For 14 minutes he received no medical attention; when paramedics arrived it was too late. He was dead. The Moberly city manager's response is hardly reassuring. Andy Morris: Harlen's death is "unanticipated and unintentional. Police officers must often make split-second decisions in tense, rapidly-evolving situations."
Ken Burton, the Police Chief of nearby Columbia, MO's PD also has officers who use Tasers but he strictly limits their use -- no fleeing subjects are allowed to be tased, and when deployed, only for 5 seconds at at time.
This CBS report showed a graph of statistics, compiled by Taser International itself, and the growth in the use of these "non-lethal" devices has skyrocketed from 500 law enforcement agencies in 2000 to 14,201 in 2009. And there are no mandatory standards or training for Taser usage. Taser International has actually put out a disingenuous statement that defies reality, considering the rising body count.
The electrical output of a taser device is incapable of causing death.
Sure, the voltage alone in one blast itself may not kill, but what about the medical condition of the tasing victim? What about shocking someone for 31 seconds? What about repeated blasts to an elderly or disabled individual? This is a situation out of control.
The NAACP is renewing a push for federal standards on police use of force after the shooting of an unarmed Black man by two White police officers inside a church while day care children watched, the Associated Press reported.
According to witnesses, the man was surrendering but officials in Rockford, Ill., deny this description of events, saying Mark Anthony Barmore attempted to grab an officer's gun after they cornered him in the church.
However, both sides agree Barmore ran when officers approached him in the church parking lot, highlighting the suspicion and fear that can poison relationships between police and minority communities across the country.
"There are no national standards for the use of force (or) training for use of force," Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, said Sept. 11.
The issue "is not primarily about racism," Jealous said, citing the recent case of a 72-year-old White woman tasered by a White Texas officer during a traffic stop. "We want to make sure the standards are the most modern and appropriate ones possible."
The level of sadism we've seen time and again; here's yet another -- a woman blasted in the back by an officer in Cincinnati -- while she was on her knees. It became a serious problem for the PD because she is the daughter of a city councilman:
While heightened security might be a necessity in an age where kids smuggle deadly weapons to school, this fact alone should give parents and school officials pause. Even as school administrators and local law enforcement accept and incorporate Tasers as disciplinary measures, deploying them on school grounds is putting students at risk.
Last September, police officers in Hawthorne, Calif., tased an autistic 12-year-old boy at his middle school after he became "violent," launching a misconduct investigation by the police department.
In June, at Penn Hills High School in Pennsylvania, a student was tased in the hallway after ignoring a police officer's orders to put away his cell phone. ("The kid refused to listen," Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton explained, saying the student then "pushed the officer.")
In 2006, an 11th-grader named Angel Debnam was tased at her high school in Bunn, N.C., just outside Raleigh. "Something sticks in you, and it's like a wire," Debnam described to local ABC affiliate WTVD. "When I was on the ground crying and shaking, he asked me, 'Was that enough? Are you calmed down now?' and he did it again."
In March, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the number of law enforcement agencies that have given Tasers to officers who work on school campuses has grown to well over 4,000," according to Steve Tuttle, vice president of communications at Taser International. That's up from 1,700 in 2005.
This is a lengthy article with many more incidents of childrent being brought into submission by a 50,000-volt shock. Are these truly situations where a gun was necessary (the designed purpose for the substitution with a Taser)? In case you were wondering, the state with the most recorded Taser deaths was California, with 55. Florida ranked second, with 52.
It's 2009 and we still have the cops raiding gay bars where patrons are minding their own business. This time, it's in Hotlanta, where eight employees of the Eagle, a leather bar, were arrested when the police came in and charged crimes were being committed. And then they started searching all of the customers and allegedly rough-handling and harassing them.
Here's one account by employee Tadareius Johnson, 24, who was a dancer arrested for "providing adult entertainment without a permit." The flimsy reasoning for the raid sounds an awful lot like the incident in Fort Worth at the Rainbow Lounge. (Southern Voice):
"I'm dancing [in underwear] and what I think is a SWAT team comes in. Some are telling me to stand still, some are telling me to get down. It was big confusion," he said Friday at the bar.
"The police were really tough, especially on our older customers. I understand police have to be safe, but there was no reason for them to treat people the way they did - especially when someone is 60-65. They weren't even helping them up after making them lay on the ground."
Johnson said he was accused of exposing his penis and pulling his underwear down while dancing. He denied those charges.
"You can't do that. There's cameras in here. I've very conscious of the laws. I know men can't grope, you can't be naked. That's why we were in our underwear," he said.
Johnson then demonstrated that when men come to put money in his underwear while he is dancing, he climbs up the cage so the men have to reach up to put the cash in his underwear. That way, he said, they cannot see his genitals.
"I've been doing this since I was 18. I know the rules. I can't pull out my underwear while just standing there because they can look down and see everything. That's why I climb up," he said. "This is a defamation of character. And for them to come in here and stronghold everyone - it was disheartening. I think it's very, very shady."
Here's the ATL PD's response from Sgt. Lisa Keyes of the Public Affairs Unit:
"The Atlanta Police Department conducts routine inspections of city businesses with valid alcohol permits. The City received several complaints with descriptive information about alleged criminal conduct at the Atlanta Eagle Club located at 306 Ponce De Leon.
In an effort to ensure compliance with the law, the Police Department investigated the complaints and during the investigation police observed criminal behavior taking place at the Club on September 10, 2009. While the Police were conducting a compliance check it lead to the arrests of eight employees. The Department views all complaints of criminal conduct as serious and will utilize resources to investigate and deter criminal activity in order to create a safe environment.
While there have been allegations of improper behavior by police officers conducting the investigation, there have not been any official complaints filed with the Atlanta Police Department. "
Mayoral candidates Lisa Borders, who is president of the Atlanta City Council, and Kyle Keyser, an anti-crime activist who is gay, released statements to the media about the raid.
Keyser:
"The Eagle was raided in an apparent sting operation. Among the arrests were male dancers and staff, one of them a personal friend," he wrote. "There is obvious outrage in the gay community as the circumstances of the operation are unclear. We need to know the facts of this case. I will be reaching out to the GLBT Liasion Unit to try and find just that. "As a gay Atlantan I share in my community's concern. I will be joining them tomorrow, Saturday September 12th, to join together in asking for those answers."
An independent rally-style demonstration in protest of these actions is scheduled for Sunday, September 13, assembling at 5:00 p.m. in the Atlanta Eagle parking lot (off Argonne Ave. behind Ponce de Leon Ave.). After a short summary statement, those who were allegedly harassed during the incident will be invited to share their stories, if they wish to do so.
Following this, the group plans to conduct a short, peaceful march to the steps of City Hall East at 675 Ponce de Leon Ave., for reading of one or more additional prepared statements. A statement by a representative of GLBTATL will specifically address the conduct of Atlanta Police Department officers in this incident, and will include an open invitation to APD to address these issues in a civil and direct manner. (Candidates for municipal offices will also be invited to speak at this time.)
This piece was bumped from my day subbing for Glenn at Salon because it was quite similar to a piece by Monday subber Digby (I hadn't seen her post). However, you all get to kick it around. :)
As you all know, I frequently blog about the rollback of civil liberties, specifically when it comes to police brutality and the misuse of the Taser, an electroshock device designed as a non-lethal alternative to using a firearm. A Taser delivers 50,000 volts into its target, causing strong involuntary muscle contractions. While there is no doubt that Taser International's controversial device has resulted in calls for a ban on the use of it, the fact is we're talking about a tool, training, and misuse. It takes a human being with badge to shoot one of these things off at a suspect (um, well not anymore, but we'll get to that later).
Police officers, who put their lives on the line every day protecting and serving communities around the country, are now dealing with a host of thugs bad apples in their midst who seemingly have: 1) lost the capacity to communicate effectively with agitated unarmed people to defuse tense situations; 2) fail to understand the concept of the Taser as the last resort before using a gun; 3) an inability to judge a life-threatening situation from an annoying one; and 4) so few interpersonal skills and patience that they see the Taser as a weapon to make a person submit to their will or instantly comply as a time-saving measure. Unfortunately, the Taser has been deployed in instances that have resulted in a subject expiring, or as Electrocuted While Black refers to it, "pre-trial, extra-judicial electrocutions and executions."
The abuse of this device is disproportionately deployed against minorities (surprised, no?). In Houston, an audit found incredible statistics:
Black officers are less likely to use Tasers, but black suspects are more likely to be jolted with the weapons, according to the first city audit of Taser use by Houston Police officers, KPRC Local 2 reported.
...The audit of 2.8 million calls to police from January 2000 to June 30, 2007, found black suspects make up 66.9 percent of all people zapped with the device, despite making up 46 percent of the total incidents and comprising 24.7 percent of the Houston population.
...The report spells out that most officers have only used their Taser one time, but one officer has used his on 13 people, another used it on 12 people. Two officers had shocked nine people each, and four officers had eight Taser incidents each.
• Over 7,000 law enforcement employ more than 140,000 Tasers in the United States • In a 6-year period, Amnesty International reports over 290 deaths from police Taser usage in the USA and Canada • Use-of-force policies provide guidance for police officers to follow during specific scenarios • Two Department of Homeland divisions rejected its use altogether.
Questionable Taser usage on suspects, such as non-violent or previously restrained suspects, damages community perception of law enforcement personnel. Shocking and provocative videos circulate at rapid speed on Youtube depicting questionable Taser usage and are seen not just by members of a single community, but are viewed by millions around the world.
We call on our Congress to speak out and organize public hearings on the systemic human rights violations occurring with Federal funding against black, Latino, Native American and other Americans.
While there continues to be considerable media and congressional attention to torture in Guantanamo, there is comparatively little attention to the mounting evidence of human rights violations in the streets of America by a number of police departments across America, including torture and killings of black children, women and men through-out the United States through the use and abuse of Tasers.
...We believe most Americans would favor Congressional hearings as to whether our own U.S. police, policing policies and actions violate Federal and International laws prohibiting human rights violators. Evidence of widespread police abuse of tasers is more than enough to warrant our concern and justify a congressional inquiry.
One has to walk away from that thinking that a few of those officers are, to be charitable, electro-trigger happy against minorities. The natural follow up question is what, aside from bias, motivated those officers to Taser first more often than their colleagues and what training might have reduced those numbers.
Honestly, from the numerous Taser abuse stories I monitor each month, the buckwild brutes with badges seem to leave no demographic untouched. Witness these incidents:
* In Manassas, Virginia, a 55-year-old Bible study teacher and a mother were Tased three times in rapid succession, on his own property where a child's baptism party was being held, seen by a yard full of children and family members. The police were called because of a noise complaint. Video.
God dammit, WTF is wrong with people!? This is an outrage; what does it take to stop the madness of police brutality and abuse of the 50K volt Taser -- now used as a compliance device instead of social skills and training? This case involved only a complaint of excessive noise that brought the police to a home. Again, the police violence occurred in a private residence in front of a yard full of children.
A Latino family in Manassas, Virginia, is celebrating the baptism of their two young boys, at a party held in their grandfather’s backyard. The police arrive in response to a noise complaint, and ask to see the grandfather’s ID. The family’s account says that he provided it, but the police report say that he refused; both accounts agree that the grandfather was then Tasered three times in rapid succession, on his own property, and then charged with ‘public intoxication.’ The pregnant mother of the two boys ran to help him as he lay on the ground — and was also Tasered, then charged with assaulting a police officer.
I’ll say it again — all parties agree that county police officers arrived at a children’s baptism party being held at a private residence, then Tasered a 55-year-old Bible study teacher three times and Tasered a pregnant woman once, in front of a yard full of kids, including her kids, and family members. Then they read rights. To the grandfather and the pregnant woman. For ‘public intoxication’ and ‘assaulting a police officer,’ respectively. As they lay temporarily paralyzed on the ground.
Can you imagine being one of those two boys, and watching as your own mother, pregnant with your sibling-to-be, is electrocuted by police officers and arrested, for rushing to the side of your grandfather as lay paralyzed on the ground? How would that make you feel about your relationship to the police, as a young Latino man about to grow up in the astonishingly xenophobic state of Virginia?
God almighty, it makes me sick to keep reporting on this bullsh*t police brutality state because we all know there are so many good law enforcement officers putting their lives on the line every day. But they are working alongside some seriously disturbed/power-mad sadists with a badge who clearly have no skills, training or desire to properly subdue or communicate with civilians -- they reach for the Taser, which is meant as a substitute for a GUN, and blast people into submission.
Officers who used pepper spray and a Taser to remove a man from a store bathroom found out only later he was deaf and mentally disabled and didn't understand they wanted him to open the door, police said Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Mobile Police Department said the officers' actions were justified because the man was armed with a potential weapon - an umbrella.
The man, Antonio Love, has, according to his mother Phyllis Love, the mental capacity of a 10-year-old and didn't realize the police were trying enter the bathroom.
Police spokesman Christopher Levy said Tuesday store workers called officers complaining that a man had been in the bathroom for more than an hour with the door locked. Officers knocked on the door and identified themselves, but the person didn't respond.
Officers used a tire iron to open the door, but the man pushed back to keep it shut. Officers saw the umbrella and sprayed pepper spray through a crack trying to subdue the man, Levy said. They shot the man with a Taser when they finally got inside, he said.
Officers didn't realize Love was deaf or had mental problems until he showed them a card he carries in his wallet, Levy said. He was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, but officers released him and took him home after a magistrate refused to issue a warrant.
Levy said officers were justified in using force against Love since he had an umbrella.
"The officers really worked within the limits of our level-of-force policy," he said. "We had no information about who this guy was."
BTW, Love said that the officers laughed at him after they found out he was deaf. The officer has since been placed on administrative leave. I don't know if it's a training issue, a lack of humanity or what, but these weapons are being abused all around the country by the police -- and the abuse is being affirmed by their superiors in many of these cases -- it's frightening. How can we stop the madness?
Here we go again. A cop is caught using a Taser not in the place of a gun, but as a device to ensure compliance from a belligerent person who is not a threat to the law enforcement officer.
Dash cam video has been released to FOX 7 showing exactly what happened between a Constable's deputy and a 72-yaer-old woman, before she was tasered last month. The officer says says Kathryn Winkfein mouthed off, and was physically non-compliant. Winkfein told us that wasn't true. Precinct 3 Sgt. Maj. Gary Griffin says he's reviewed the dash cam footage and he's standing by his deputy--he says followed policy.
Just after two in the afternoon on May 11, the video shows Deputy Chris Bieze stopping Kathryn Winkfein for speeding on a notoriously dangerous strip of Highway 71. After completing the paperwork, the officer returns to Winkfein's truck, but she refuses to sign the speeding ticket.
"Take me to jail," Winkfein demands on the tape, "I'm a 72-year-old woman." That's when the deputy opens the driverside door to arrest the great-grandmother. "Give me the ******* ticket now," Winkfein curses. The deputy shoves her. "You're gonna push me? A 72-year-old woman?"
The shove, the Constable's office says, served to get the two out of oncoming traffic. Then, the deputy warns her one of five times.
"Stand back, " Bieze says. "I'm gonna tase you." She responds by saying, "I dare you."
The deputy announces he's going to taser Winkfein, and the woman hits the ground as the taser is deployed.
I do not see how the police could view this as a proper use of a taser. Bieze threatens to taser her again if she does not put her hands behind her back. He then tasers her again. He then charges her with resisting arrest.
The video is a textbook example of how tasers have served to escalate the level of force in such encounters. While Bieze might have called for back up or physically restrained Winkfein, he moves almost immediately to the use of the taser. The fact that Constable McCain would watch this video and find (here) that Bieze acted properly raises serious questions of his own judgment.
Henry Louis Gates and I are very different people. He is a Harvard Professor. The closest I got to the Ivy League was a weekend visit to Yale. He is a successful author. I am a blogger whose aspirations may outstrip his abilities. He is world renowned. I am, well, not. He is, most definitely, far more knowledgeable about a great many things than I am. Of that I'm sure.
However, we have two things in common. We are both black men. As such, though he's a college professor and I'm long out of college, we are both perpetually enrolled in the same course.
Okay. It sure looks like the Fort Worth, Texas Mayor Mike Moncrief made an apology for the Rainbow Lounge incident in this video (and reported in this article), but apparently looks apparently can be deceiving. The Mayor said the following in response to a specific question in a city council meeting regarding the Rainbow Lounge incident:
"The mayor and council are always sorry if anyone is hurt ever in our city," Begley said Wednesday. "The mayor has asked for a thorough investigation of what happened in the Rainbow Lounge to the point that he's asked for the U.S. attorney to get involved ...They want to make sure that all voices are heard ... but the apology is that anyone is ever hurt in any incident."
Well, with that clarification, whether an actual apology was issued is so much more...well, unclear.
Engh, it's politics. Apparently no politician ever really apologizes, even when it appears clear that he or she is actually apologizing.
A major paper has pick up on this story, and capture the outrage over the Stonewall weekend police raid at the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas. In "A Raid at a Club in Texas Leaves a Man in the Hospital and Gay Advocates Angry," James McKinley, Jr. of the NYT captures the major issues at play and added a few more details about the event.
So many questions have been raised about the police account that on Friday afternoon, Mayor Mike Moncrief asked the United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas, James T. Jacks, to review the Police Department’s investigation.
Tom Anable, a 55-year-old accountant who said he was in the bar during the raid, said that for more than a half-hour the officers entered the bar repeatedly in groups of three and escorted people out. Then around 1:40 a.m., he said, the officers started to get rougher, throwing one young man down hard on a pool table.
Minutes later, one of the state agents approached Mr. Gibson, who was standing on steps to a lounge at the back of the bar with a bottle of water in his hands, and tapped him on the shoulder, Mr. Anable said. Mr. Gibson turned and said, “Why?”
Then the officer, who has not been identified, twisted Mr. [Chad] Gibson’s right arm behind his back, grabbed his neck, swung him off the steps and slammed his head into the wall of a hallway leading to the restrooms, Mr. Anable said. The agent then forced Mr. Gibson to the floor, Mr. Anable said.
“Gibson didn’t touch the officer,” Mr. Anable said. “He didn’t grope him.”
Angry allies and members of the LGBT community there have created a new organization, Fairness Fort Worth, to track the investigations and inquiries regarding the raid and plans a benefit concert to help those injured.
The Stonewall weekend police raid at Fort Worth's Rainbow Lounge, which resulted in a man, Chad Gibson, receiving a brain injury from the brutality exacted by "law enforcement" has turned into a perfect example of homophobia as a defense. The police chief, Jeff Halstead, has not only bought into the officer's questionable reasons for the violence -- allegations that a bar patron fondled them or made sexual gestures at them, something witnesses deny strongly, but he's proud to release a statement like this:
Monday, police chief Jeff Halstead said the officers' actions are being investigated. However, he also said that officers that entered the bar during the scheduled inspection were touched inappropriately.
"You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that."
News 8 talked with council member Joel Burns shortly after he visited Gibson in the hospital Monday afternoon.
"It's my hope that the fact that this is a gay bar and the violence that happened there are not in any way tied - obviously as someone who loves Fort Worth [and] as someone who is gay - I don't want those two things to be connected," he said.
Neither the TABC nor Fort Worth police revealed why the bar was selected for what police called a bar check. But, Halstead said the checks always result from either citizen or law enforcement concerns. The bar's owner questioned that and pointed out the Rainbow Lounge has been open for less than two weeks.
Meanwhile, Gibson is suffering from brain injury.
Gibson's mother, Kelly Carter, called it heartbreaking."He's got bruises here on his head," Carter said. "He's got [them] all down his shoulder. He's got a ring around his wrist where they had tied him."
Allow me to translate the chief's comments: "Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they're complainin' about some rough stuff and one little ol' faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they're alive."
This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, "He made a pass at me!", and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off. The Gay Panic Defense doesn't fly in many courts of law these days but it still has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence-to ignore photographic evidence and credible eyewitness accounts-and let his officers off.
Police say seven people were arrested for public intoxication and at least a dozen more were restrained. The incident was captured on camera and posted on local blogs. The scene was topic of conversation at Sunday's Million Gay March in Dallas, and the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas released a statement following its Sunday morning worship services.
"After more than a generation of progress, this action shows that there is still much work to be done to ensure that all Americans enjoy 'equal protection under the law.' It is tragic that lesbian and gay taxpayers are still abused by the very people who are paid by our taxes."
..."I've worked in gay bars in four different counties in Texas, I've never seen anything this aggressive," club bouncer Justin McCarty said.
Fort Worth police arrested seven people for reported public intoxication, and for reportedly inappropriately groping an officer. It's an allegation witness Chuck Potter disputes.
"I can guarantee there wasn't a man in this bar that would've touched one of those officers, knowing they were arresting people."
Is this what the police in Fort Worth, TX call "Stonewall Commemoration"? A gay club called the Rainbow Lounge opened in the city and Todd Camp, the founder of Q Cinema and former reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was celebrating his birthday at the club and two Stonewall docs were being screened.
That evening the Fort Worth Police decided to pay a visit and re-enact good-old-fashioned "law enforcement." Camp told the local LGBT news outlet The Dallas Voice about the incident:Photo of police pinning a patron to the ground. (by Chuck Potter via The Dallas Voice).
The not awesome thing was the paddy wagon of homophobic police that showed up ... looking for trouble. My group and I were sitting on the back patio at a picnic table. Nobody was being wild out there. [The police] came through with flashlights, being loud asking what was going on out here, then asked why everyone was all the sudden being quiet. When one group started up their conversations again, they took one guy away. I left shortly after and as I walked through the front bar there were numerous cops with plastic handcuffs all ready to go. I [left] the bar and they [had] a big van in the parking lot and numerous cars on the street. And just so you know, it wasn't fire hazard crowded or seedy wild in there. ... The worst part is [friends later told me] that [the police] had numerous people face down on the ground outside. I just moved to Fort Worth from Dallas, so this is such a shock to me. I know Dallas would not put up with this. ... I am still so shocked it is 2009 and this just happened.
An eyewitness said that she was initially pleased to see the police, thinking they were there to protect patrons since the bar was in a rough part of town. That quickly changed.
She asked why they were there and he said a disgruntled employee had said that the bar was overserving people. She told him she had been drinking but that she had a designated driver. He told her that she was fine. She said they only arrested men and seemed to be targeting effeminate men.
Another patron, Chad Gibson, was slammed to the floor by the cops and his sister reported to the Voice that he was hospitalized and has bleeding in his brain. And what does the police department have to say about this incident?
The statement also said that "an extremely intoxicated patron made sexually explicit movements toward the police supervisor" and that person was arrested for public intoxication.
...A second "intoxicated individual" [referring to Chad Gibson] was arrested for public intoxication after making "sexually explicit movements towards another officer," and a third person assaulted a TABC agent by grabbing his groin. That man was escorted outside and arrested for public intoxication, but was released to paramedics because of his "extreme intoxication" and the fact that he was vomiting repeatedly.
The statement said that while some officers were outside dealing with the vomiting suspect, another officer inside requested assistance in handling an intoxicated patron who was resisting arrest, and that this person was "placed on the ground to control and apprehend him."
Eyewitnesses, not surprisingly, viewed that interpretation of events quite differently, saying Gibson weighed "maybe 160 pounds soaking wet" and didn't resist, but stumbled when one officer grabbed him by the arm. And about those sexual gestures and provocations?
Rainbow Lounge owner J.R. Schrock said claims that patrons made sexual advances to the officers and that one patron groped an officer were lies.
"The groping of the police officer - really? We're gay, but we're not dumb," Schrock said to the crowd that gathered at the bar Sunday afternoon. "That is a lie, and I am appalled by it.
A rally was held yesterday at the Tarrant County Courthouse. Click over to the Voice to see the photos. Thanks to the numerous Blenders who sent tips in about this incident.
My, my, is this what we call progress in the New World Police State? Taser International has convinced our friends across the pond to deploy the "electronic control device" in London this week, where protestors can feel the burn, as it were, if they get too out of hand. (AlterNet):
Months after the Republican National Convention in the U.S., such sweeping security measures may seem to be par for the course. But in the UK -- where police forces have traditionally not carried guns -- it was not that long ago that Tasers were new to the streets. Since their arrival in the spring of 2003, however, their popularity has skyrocketed; last fall, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a plan to spend £8 million on Tasers and Taser training for 30,000 police officers, providing some 10,000 new Tasers to police across England and Wales. "I am proud that we have one of the few police services around the world that do not regularly carry firearms," Smith said, "and I want to keep it that way." But an arms expert at Amnesty International UK called the move "a dangerous step in British policing," citing "numerous" taser deaths in North America as a cautionary example.
There are plenty of cases to review right here on the Blend. But Taser International is now offering a model with new and enhanced capabilities that is surely going to be attractive to the sadist set...
On March 31, the company's latest Taser model -- called the Shockwave -- hit the market; according to Taser International website, it "allows for both increased safety and stand-off capability during hostile situations, minimizing risk with a stand-off distance of up to 100 meters." But as Dalia Hashad, director of Amnesty International's USA Program focusing on domestic human rights, wrote about the product last falll, the Shockwave "belongs in my 'You've Got to Be Kidding' file along with Taser International's leopard-print MP3 player that doubles as a taser and their employment of Playboy Bunnies for promotion." The company's literature shows it to be a powerful crowd-control weapon:
"With the push of a button at a stand-off distance of up to 100 meters, the Shockwave unit deploys multiple standard TASER® cartridges that are oriented across an area arc. Full area coverage is provided to instantaneously incapacitate multiple personnel within that region."
En masse Tasing capability -- when law enforcement cannot even educate cops on the beat to use a single-stun device appropriately -- is unbelievable. Take a look at this device in action (via EnGadget):
The first (gulp) generation of Taser remote area denial systems consists of a Taser 6-shooter module covering a 20-degree arc at 25-feet. Best of all, they can be daisy-chained into an apparently endless array of hot neuro muscular incapacitation action.
In Peoria, a man was beaten, stomped on at least 20 times and was repeatedly Tased by two police officers last May. The officers (Andrew Smith, left, and Gerald Suelter) face multiple charges. (PJStar):
Officers Gerald W. Suelter, 39, and Andrew R. Smith, 29, each face four counts of official misconduct and one count each of battery, mob action and aggravated battery. Both men appeared in court via video from the Peoria County Jail, where they have been held since their arrests on Monday.
Assistant State's Attorney Steve Pattelli on Wednesday offered details of the May arrest, both seen and those not caught on tape from an in-car video camera, that began after Scott stopped his SUV near Abington and Perry streets after a brief chase.
"One officer punched the driver at least twice in his face, and while three officers were handcuffing the driver, Peoria police officer Gerald Suelter approached and drew his electronic Taser . . . Suelter removed the air cartridge from his Taser and began to repeatedly stun the driver," Pattelli said, noting Scott was Tasered by Suelter at least three times.
"Peoria police Officer Andrew Smith was the last of the officers to arrive . . . after (Scott) had been pulled from the vehicle and was on the pavement with five other police officers above him," Pattelli continued. "When Smith arrived, he began to kick and stomp the driver at least 20 times, at one point repositioning himself for leverage."
The defense said the officers acted because they weren't sure if Scott had a weapon. About how many Tasings and stomps into the corrective action did they actually look for the nonexistent weapon?
And in Boston, a 15-year-old dies after being Tased. More after the jump. Oh, I didn't even get to the part about Taser International looking for a stimulus handout. That's below the fold as well.
The police state continues. Grand Valley State University student Derek Copp was shot in the chest by an officer (serving a drug warrant) who entered through a back door, blinded the 20-year-old with his flashlight -- when Copp raised his hand in front of his face, the cop shot. Unlike many of these cases, Copp survived the shooting.
"He never even had a chance to even see who was coming at him, with a bright flashlight in his face," said Sheryl Copp, Derek's mother, in a 24 Hour News 8 report. "He had no clue. He heard someone knock on his door, and he had no clue."
Copp's parents insist their son is not a drug dealer. However, he appears to be a marijuana activist, stating on his facebook page he likes to "SMOKA DA BOLSKI" (smoke a 'bowl') and on his YouTube page, in a video titled 'Hippie Lunchtime Hour,' he makes references to baking marijuana-infused brownies. In another, he plays the fictional role of an acid dealer whose friend goes on a psychedelic journey through cliché colors.
Copp's parents were not notified of the shooting by police, reported CelebStoner. They allegedly found out six hours later.
This is outrageous. Now why would an officer open fire without any oral warning? Why not knock on the front door to serve the warrant? Why were his parents not told that he was shot? The injuries were not insignificant -- the bullet went through his upper right lung and liver and damaged two ribs There are a lot of questions about this incident that don't sound right. Here's the video, from WOOD-TV (via Raw Story):
On the last afternoon of his life, Bernard Monroe was hosting a cookout for family and friends in front of his dilapidated home on Adams Street in this small northern Louisiana town.
Throat cancer had robbed the 73-year-old retired electric utility worker of his voice years ago, but family members said Monroe was clearly enjoying the commotion of a dozen of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren cavorting around him in the dusty, grassless yard.
Then the Homer police showed up, two white officers whose arrival caused the participants at the black family gathering to quickly fall silent. Within moments, Monroe lay dead, shot by one of the officers as his family looked on.
This issue is that the U.S. Justice Dept. is investigating a series of gun-downs of blacks by police around the country. There have been four cases of police officers accused of shooting blacks allegedly without any provocation. In the case of Bernard Monroe, four witnesses came forward to describe the incident. The police had arrived to talk to Monroe's son, who had a record, but didn't have any current warrants against him. When they asked to speak to Shawn Monroe, he ran into the hous, and then the officer, Tim Cox, chased him into the house. And then...
[T]he elder Monroe had started walking toward the front door, carrying only his drink bottle, to try to intervene. When Monroe got to the first step on the front porch, the witnesses said, Cox opened fire, striking him several times as adults and children stood nearby.
"He just shot him through the screen door," said Denise Nicholson, a family friend who said she was standing a few feet from Monroe. "After [Monroe] was on the ground, we kept asking the officer to call an ambulance, but all he did was get on his radio and say, 'Officer in distress.' "
As Monroe lay dying, the witnesses said, the second police officer, who has not been publicly identified, picked up a handgun that Monroe, an avid hunter, always kept in plain sight on the porch for protection. Using a police-issue blue latex glove, the officer grasped the gun by its handle, the witnesses said, and then ordered everyone to back away from the scene. The next thing they said they saw was the gun on the ground next to Monroe's body.
I've had enough of this BS -- an elderly, unarmed man? No shouting for the person to step out of the house? More below the fold, including an interview with the Tribune's Howard Witt.
Oh really, now -- how long have I been blogging about this "electrical shock device" and the deaths, maimings and abuse heaped upon the guilty and the innocent, 
In the above video, Stanley Harlen was pulled over for allegedly speeding; he stopped in front of his house. As his mother came out in her robe, she watched as officers wrestled with him. One officer fired the Taser three times for 31 seconds. For 14 minutes he received no medical attention; when paramedics arrived it was too late. He was dead. The Moberly city manager's response is hardly reassuring. Andy Morris: Harlen's death is "unanticipated and unintentional. Police officers must often make split-second decisions in tense, rapidly-evolving situations."
God almighty,
A major paper has pick up on this story, and capture the outrage over the Stonewall weekend police raid at the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas. In "
The Stonewall weekend police raid at Fort Worth's Rainbow Lounge, which resulted in a man, Chad Gibson, receiving a brain injury from the brutality exacted by "law enforcement" has turned into a perfect example of homophobia as a defense. The police chief, Jeff Halstead, has not only bought into the officer's questionable reasons for the violence -- allegations that a bar patron fondled them or made sexual gestures at them, something witnesses deny strongly, but he's proud to release a statement like this:
This is from 
There are plenty of cases to review 
In Peoria, a man was beaten, stomped on at least 20 times and was repeatedly Tased by two police officers last May. The officers (Andrew Smith, left, and Gerald Suelter) face multiple charges. (
Post-racial America my *ss. This incident occurred in Homer, Louisiana. (
