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The high court on Tuesday refused to hear appeals from police in Hawaii and Washington, or people who got stun-gunned by officers.

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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said officers could not be sued in federal court. But judges also said officers used excessive force by using stun guns.

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Malaika Brooks was driving her son to school in 2004 when she was stopped for speeding. Officers used a Taser three times when the woman, who was seven months pregnant, refused to get out of her car.

Jayzel Mattos was stun-gunned in 2006 in her house by police who said she interfered with the arrest of her husband, Troy.

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Brittany and her friend were in the same location where two teens fitting their description–two female black teens, dark hair, one had a ponytail–were caught on camera stealing from a clothing store in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope on Friday.

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Brittany says she and her friend were walking down a busy avenue when two men–who were actually plainclothes police officers–allegedly said “get them.” (The Daily News reports the cops as saying, “Excuse me ladies,” with their badges out)

The officers were Sgt. Jonathan Catanzaro and Officer Stephen Nakao of the 78th Precinct.

Brittany says she and her friend did not know the two men were cops and felt that they were being set up to be kidnapped. The 15-year-old teen says she and her friend both ran, but the cop caught her. Brittany claims that the cop slammed her to the ground and threw his keys at her.

Here is what Brittany says happened next and the poor justification the NYPD gave for the cops behavior:

Catanzaro tackled Rowley and threw her to the ground. He threw his keys, she said, hitting her leg. She recalled him saying, “Why did you f—— run? I should punch you.”

She claims Catanzaro yanked her up, whipsawing her neck. She says police also snapped on cuffs, causing bruises. Her friend returned and was collared too.

An NYPD official insists the incident was good police work, noting that Catanzaro obtained surveillance tape from the clothing boutique that exonerated Rowley, even after the store manager identified her as the suspect.

Brittany was handcuffed to a bench in a police stationhouse for three hours before the cops realized she nor her friend were not the black, shoplifting teens they suspected that they were. They were released, but Brittany says it was the worst experience she’s ever endured.

“It was terrifying,” Rowley, 15, said in an exclusive interview to The Daily News. “It is the most horrible thing I have ever experienced.”

Brittany’s father, Delmus Rowley, hired an attorney and has filed a $5.5 million lawsuit against the city and Sgt. Jonathan Catanzaro and Officer Stephen Nakao. According to court papers obtained by the Daily News, the suit alleges false arrest and excessive force.

“I feel my daughter was racially profiled,”  Rowley said. “They had no proof, just a description of a black young lady with braids,” he added. “It wasn’t necessary to tackle a 15-year-old girl. It was excessive.”

The NYPD has not been a friend of minorities. NewsOne recently reported a case in which a Black NYPD sergeant was caught on tape spewing expletives at young, Black males for apparently no reason. Before that, we reported on the NYPD’s insistence that “Stop And Frisk” is a great program, while being tone deaf to the concerns of the city’s minority population that the program’s tactics are particularly aggressive. But, no matter how many Brittany’s are roughed up after being falsely accused of crimes, the NYPD will find a way to rationalize it as “good police work.”

It is a very perplexing issue that detracts attention from the good, honest officers in the NYPD. Just the other day during a casual walk in South Bronx, I entered a bodega (New York talk for a corner store) and saw the store owner, who is Black, taking down the contact information of a cop who had stepped in for a cup of coffee. Indeed, the neighborhood is a very high crime location and no one is safe from the criminals who often pray on hard-working citizens trying to make an honest buck.

This Black owner actually appreciated the cop’s willingness to give his cellphone number to call in case he has problems with youths who have been committing crimes recently. I see the same interactions between officers and Black property owners in other neighborhoods where crime is an issue.

This is the way it always should be. Officers and citizens working together.

NYPD police officers, in my view, are fine law enforcement professionals–especially those who understand the importance of developing relationships with locals on their beats.

But, as long as there are 15-year-old Brittanys who are flung to the ground by grown men with guns, New York’s minority community will never fully appreciate the “good police work” that the Black store owner experienced and the rest of our community truly needs.

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The Post has more:

A short time later, Charles followed the group into the nearby No. 1 Chinese Food restaurant, flanked by two plainclothes cops.

“I have the long d–k. You don’t,” the cop bragged.

“Your pretty face — I like it very much. My d–k will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don’t f–k with me. All right?”

After the target of his tirade insisted, “I didn’t do anything,” Charles retorted, “Listen to me. When you see me, you look the other way. Tell your boys, I don’t f–k around. All right?”

“I’ll take my gun and put it up your a– and then I’ll call your mother afterwards. You understand that?”

For good measure, the sergeant added: “And I’ll put your s–t in your own mouth.”

Charles added, “I’m here every f–king day. I don’t go home. I have no life. No kids. I do what I do.’’

WATCH SGT. Charles Tell Man ‘My D–k Will Go In Your Mouth And Come Out Your Ear. Don’t F–k With Me’

When The Post reached Charles at his home to ask about his profanity-laced rant against the young, the foul-mouthed cop all of a sudden became Holy.

“I’m just doing God’s work. You know I can’t comment . . . Have a blessed day.”

Seriously? If Charles is not charged with anything else, he should be put on trial for blasphemy!

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Ask any Black person native to the D.C. area about Prince George’s (PG) cops, and you will see a collective tension come over their faces. The PG cops were notorious for targeting Black boys and men in my neighborhood, often beating us senseless and daring us to say something to a higher-up. It’s no wonder, then, that one of my good friends snatched a gun and shot two officers in retaliation many years ago.

I am not condoning violence against police officers — many perform their duties with dignity. However, the truth remains that many police officers nationwide abuse their power. To those officers who dare to target African Americans incorrectly, here are some things you should know the next time you consider targeting another Black man.

1) I am NOT your living target practice. Do not take aim at me when I am clearly unarmed and stationary — much like the body silhouettes you take aim at in gun ranges with your service weapon. If my hands are raised, it is NOT an invitation to shoot me. If I turn around with my hands on my head, I am NOT offering my back for you to place a bullet there. In short, do not be spineless and shoot a person in a submissive, non-threatening position.

2) A large group of Black males does not mean we are up to no good. Why is it that a gathering of three or more Black men bring about such worry in police officers? What if the men are strong supporters of the community having a conversation about improving their surroundings? Why must you assume the worst about us? If loitering is that much of a nuisance, apply that same scrutiny with large gatherings of Whites.

Unfortunately, we know that isn’t going to happen.

3) Stop applying illegal chokeholds on non-violent suspects. If you have cause to make an arrest and the subject is not exhibiting any violence toward you, you do not have the right to choke and bully the person into fear. Save your pro-wrestling dreams for your video games or roughhousing with your children. Even though the practice is supposedly banned, the cowards among you still apply this illegal and abusive tactic.

4) Everyone who is Black isn’t a suspect. If I haven’t committed a crime that I can be formally charged with, I should be free to go about my day. Why does it take four police cars, K-9 dogs, and cops surrounding my vehicle for a busted tail light? Your excessive show of force draws a clear line in the sand that you perceive me as a potential threat. This same show of force you’re applying for a traffic violation could be readily applied to the dope boys — that you categorically avoid — down the street slinging.

5) Do not single out the young. Not every Black teen, even in the roughest of neighborhoods, is out in the streets doing bad things. Unarmed Pasadena 19-year-old Kendrec McDade didn’t have to be shot seven times to be apprehended. The police had the power and the ability to question him legally as a suspect in a recent robbery and instead hastily shot the young man dead. Kendrec should be alive today, but the officers on the scene decided his fate far too soon.

I don’t deny that being a police officer is a difficult job. I used to see my father come home with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I can even remember when he came home, bleeding from a gunshot. I looked up to my dad as a hero, a savior in the streets fighting for justice.

Sadly, I’ve come to learn the other side of the coin.

Police officers in large cities and small towns have committed acts against African Americans that would put ordinary Joe Citizens like me behind bars for many years. Mr. Officer, I’ll say it again: I am NOT your living target practice. My brothers are not here to lay down when we’ve done nothing wrong. We will respect you, most certainly, but that has to go both ways.

It’s fine time that police officers stop profiling and start policing.

Sound off!

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On the videotape, Holley is seen laying face down on the ground, while several officers kick and stomp him. Still, Blomberg testified that Holley was resisting arrest — and while it may have looked as though he was abusing the teen — he was actually using his foot to move Holley’s arm.

Watch the police beating of Holley here:

Even Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland Jr. testified that he believed that Blomberg assaulted the teen.

The Associated Press reports:

Prosecutors told jurors that Blomberg kicked the teenager several times and Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland Jr. testified that he believed Blomberg kicked and stomped on the teen.

Not surprisingly, the all-White jurors still came to the decision that Blomberg was not guilty of abusing Holley. If Blomberg was found guilty of his misdemeanor charge, he would have faced up to a year in prison. Three other police officers will stand trial for the offense. Relieved that he had gotten off, Blomberg contemplated whether he would consider going back in to law enforcement:

“This is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do in my entire life,” Blomberg said referring to being a police officer. “And I’m just glad this part is finally over.”

Obviously, our community wasn’t happy with the outcome of this trial. Rev. James Dixon of Community Faith Church said amid chants of “racism!” and “injustice!” “It is pathetic. It is unacceptable. This kind of expression says to me, to my children and to every Black child in the city, `Your life is not worth manure.’”

Of his client, attorney Dick DeGuerin said, “Andrew Blomberg is truly a hero in what he did that day. I believe that.”

In March 2010, Holley and his three friends stole a piano keyboard and some alcohol from a Houston townhome. When authorities stopped their truck, Holley ran from the vehicle. On trial, Holley said that after police knocked him over with a patrol car, he put his hands up in surrender.

This, and the beating that followed, would be caught on tape.

According to the Associated Press:

That was when “the kicks started coming,” said Holley, who is Black.

“I started feeling people on my back. I felt one hard blow,” he said. “It felt like knees and I don’t know kicks … I lay there,” not fighting back. Holley said he briefly lost consciousness and the next thing he remembers is waking up in the back of a patrol vehicle.

Still, Blomberg gets off scot-free.

Putting aside the fact that you can get off beating someone even when it is caught on tape a la Rodney King style, does anyone else find it intriguing that in 2012 we are still having all-White juries? According to DeGuerin, the reason there were no Black and minority jurors on the jury is because the Black jurors appeared to be biased out the gate.

When asked why there weren’t any blacks or minorities on the jury, DeGuerin said that most of the African-Americans in the jury pool had already made up their minds on his guilt.

I find it intriguing that White people, in this country and world, are consistently seen as impartial and somehow unbiased no matter the situation. Is it not biased that most — if not all — of these jurors likely thought that the White cop was not guilty before the trial took place?

Just the other day, NewsOne covered the story of 19-year-old Kendrec McDade, who was a college student and football star. McDade was shot seven times by police, who erroneously thought that he was armed, and then handcuffed afterward as he waited for the paramedics. McDade died a little more than an hour later.

I said it then, and I’ll say it now: Police in this country are out of control.

While Holley was beaten, he lost consciousness. He could have died. And he would have just been yet another name on the endless list of Black males who are killed by “law enforcement.” The idea that Blomberg is seriously considering being a police officer again is chilling.

Sound off!

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Jeffery S. Adler, professor of History and Criminology, researched race and police homicide in New Orleans between the years of 1925 to 1945, alleging that a practice of “fear conditioning” exists even now.

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(In the picture above, a retired school teacher is bleeding after being beaten for allegedly resisting arrest in 2005. In the video below, you can see their savage beating caught on camera. They were criminally charged. Click here to learn the outcome of the charges.)

WATCH NOLA Cops Beat Former School Teacher Robert Davis Below

The research was done using police and newspaper reports between the 20-year time period, focusing solely on the deaths of civilians at the hands of the police. During this time, New Orleans was notoriously crime-ridden and violent, and violent offenders, Black and White, were dealt swift justice that often resulted in death. Blacks were killed at four times the rate of White suspects, with Professor Adler pointing out some facts that possibly contributed to the high numbers.

Adler’s report suggests that cops at the time saw themselves as leaders of a racial hierarchy and that any perceived threat to their superior position had to be snuffed out. Cops were also products of their environment and were often pushed by elected officials and other citizens to be tougher on suspects. Blacks were also a target of the police force after being painted as unruly and volatile. Lastly, Adler says that because of the high number of homicides by police, African-Americans would flee crime scenes to avoid similar fates, often resulting in them being shot after cops gave chase.

Professor Adler shared, “New Orleans patrolmen feared resistance and responded with violence, whereas African-American residents, in turn, feared police violence and responded by increasingly resisting ‘the killer behind the badge’.”

To view Professor Adler’s article, click here.

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The 28-year-old disgraced officer will be 103 years old when he is eligible for parole. Pena was convicted of terrorizing and sexually assaulting the teacher, but, oddly enough, was not guilty of raping her.

The panel making the decision on whether to convict on rape was deadlocked on whether or not the teacher was penetrated.

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The 25-year-old teacher said Pena destroyed her sense of security and independence. The assault took place on the morning of August 19 when she was heading to school when a drunken Pena asked her for directions to a local train stop. Soon after, Pena dragged her into an alley at gun point and sexually assaulted her.

That morning was suppose to be the teacher’s first day of work.

Pena, with all of the nerve and unmitigated gal of a pure scumbag, asked for forgiveness:

In a last-ditch plea for mercy on Monday, Pena — looking a bit dishevelled with his hair sticking out on the left side of his head — apologized to the victim for what he called “the incident.”

“I’m deeply sorry for my conduct last August and the pain it caused,” he said.

Pena, 28, paused for a moment and then resumed speaking.

“I deserve my punishment,” he said. “I will always carry the shame and burden of my actions. I have no explanation for what happened that day.”
Pena’s lawyer said he was a good cop who did an awful thing. He pleaded for a 10-year sentence, saying he had never been in trouble before.

Cops tend not to have to pay for their abuse of power against the citizens they are responsible for protecting. But, on Monday, Pena got his just deserts. It’s about time a cop was punished for abusing their authority!

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When a local TV station in Stockton, California was out taping a routine story, their camaras caught officers chasing down and beating an unarmed Black man who seemed set to be yet another victim of police brutality.

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But a cellphone recording of the man, Bariki Wiltz, tussling with an officer moments before paint the man in a very different light: A criminal. And a dumb one at that.

While the police caught on tape beating Wiltz, Stockton store owner Cynthia Guerra captured footage on her cellphone of him trying to grab for an officer’s gun during a struggle moments before, NBC News10 reports.

Here is more on the story:

Guerra’s cell phone video shows the suspect reaching behind the officer’s back near his holster.

“My sister screamed that he was getting the gun and there were so many patrons out here and we were nervous for that,” Guerra said.

“I said, ‘He’s trying to get your gun,’ and then the officer reached back then forward and I saw him put his hand on the man’s hand,” Teresa Guerra said.

Wiltz then fled the scene.

News 10 cameras caught the end of the chase as two officers with batons beat Wiltz, attempting to arrest him.

Stockton police officers met Wednesday to review their use of force; the department is conducting an internal investigation.

“Videos don’t lie,” Guerra said. ”What it shows is what actually happened, it is what it is.”

Wiltz was sitting on a public bench intoxicated when officers approached him and requested that he leave. That is when the scuffle began and the man grabbed for the cop’s piece. What was Wiltz thinking grabbing a cop’s gun? He is fortunate deadly force was not used against him. Black men have died at the hands of officers for far less brazen offenses.

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The child allegedly was tearing items off of school walls and throwing furniture, according to police. The  principal was reportedly injured during the child’s alleged tantrum.

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The 6-year-old was sitting in the principal’s office at Creekside Elementary when police arrived to deal with the situation. When an officer tried to calm the child, she refused and was subsequently handcuffed. When asked why such a young child was handcuffed, police had this to say:

“Our policy is that any detainee transported to our station in a patrol vehicle is to be handcuffed in the back. There is no age discrimination on that rule,” said Milledgeville Chief of Police Dray Swicord.

Really?

Obviously, little Salecia’s parents were very upset.

“A 6-year-old in kindergarten. They don’t have no business calling the police and handcuffing my child,” said Earnest Johnson, Salecia’s father.

“Call the police? Is that the first step? Or is there any other kind of intervention that can be taken to help that child?” asked Candace Ruff.

Go to  TV station 13WMAZ to watch the video version of this story.

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The roundtable discussion, entitled “Measuring the Movement,” was hosted by Rev. Al Sharpton and taped live for TV One. Panelists included youth members and representatives from the Congressional Black Caucus.

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Sharpton began the program by showing segments of his one-on-one interview with Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, parents of Trayvon Martin, conducted on April 11, right after George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder.

Audience members cheered as Martin’s parents spoke in measured tones about continuing the struggle despite Zimmerman’s arrest in working to repeal Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.  Their lawyer, Benjamin Crump, expressed confidence in State’s Attorney Angela Corey toughness.

She will be indefatigable in her efforts,” Crump said.

As part of the taping, Sharpton conducted impassioned interviews with family members of slain victims, including Amadou Diallo’s mother, Kadiatou Diallo, who recently released her book about her son’s tragic murder, “My Heart Will Cross this Ocean”; and Nicole Paultre Bell, Sean Bell’s fiancée. Both have continued to work with Sharpton on police brutality issues around the nation.

Members from NAN chapters from around the nation spoke to panelists about other victims of police violence that have occurred in the same time frame as Trayvon Martin. Some of those victims included an unarmed 19-year-old named Ramarley Graham, who was fatally shot by police officers in the Bronx; Chicago’s Howard Morgan, who was shot 28 times by police officers; and Kenneth Chamberlain, 68, who was shot twice in the chest last November by police in Westchester County, New York, after he called them for medical assistance.

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In a report released Wednesday, a UC Davis task force said the decision to douse seated Occupy protesters with the eye-stinging chemical was “objectively unreasonable” and not authorized by campus policy.

“The pepper-spraying incident that took place on Nov. 18, 2011, should and could have been prevented,” concluded the task force created to investigate the confrontation.

The chemical crackdown prompted widespread condemnation, campus protests and calls for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi after videos shot by witnesses were widely played online. Images of an officer casually spraying orange pepper-spray in the faces of nonviolent protesters became a rallying point for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Assembly Speaker John Perez, who sits on the UC Board of Regents, said in a statement that the report “shows the systemic and administrative problems that led up to an outrageous and excessive use of force against peaceful student demonstrators.”

Perez, D-Los Angeles, said he would work with the UC board and state Legislature to make sure UC Davis officials are held accountable in addressing the report’s “very troubling revelations.”

Perez’s spokesman, John Vigna, said it was too soon to say what form the legislation would take, but it would likely focus on police oversight at UC campuses.

Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, a Democrat whose district includes UC Berkeley, also said she would pursue legislation based on the report’s recommendations to improve the training, organization and operation of campus police departments.

The task force blamed the the incident on poor planning, communication and decision-making at all levels of the school administration, from Katehi to Police Chief Annette Spicuzza to Lt. John Pike, the main officer seen in the online videos.

Pike and other officers said they needed to use pepper-spray to break through a hostile crowd, but the investigation determined police were able to step over the seated protesters and walk through the throng of onlookers, according to the report.

“There was really no reason, we conclude, to have used the pepper spray,” Cruz Reynoso, a retired California Supreme Court justice who chaired the task force, said at a campus forum where the panel presented its findings and recommendations.

The report also said Pike used a pepper-spray canister that was larger than the one campus police officers are authorized and trained to use.

John Bakhit, an attorney for the campus police officers union, said the pepper-spraying was justified after protesters disobeyed orders to disperse and said they wouldn’t allow the officers to leave until several detained demonstrators were released.

“I believe all the officers exercised quite a bit of restraint under the circumstances,” Bakhit said.

All the officers involved are under orders not to discuss the incident because an internal department investigation is ongoing, Bhakit said.

The attorney said the task force was wrong to conclude that Pike’s use of pepper-spray was unreasonable because investigators did not interview him.

The task force blamed the chancellor for not clearly communicating to her subordinates that police should avoid physical force on the protesters. It also said she was responsible for the decision to deploy police on a Friday afternoon, rather than wait until early morning as Spicuzza recommended.

The report chided the police chief for failing to challenge the timing of the operation and not providing clear instructions to the responding officers.

In its recommendations, the task force called on UC Davis to develop a school policy detailing how administrators and campus police should respond to student protests and civil disobedience. The panel did not recommend disciplinary actions for specific university employees.

Katehi said school administrators would study the report’s recommendations and develop a detailed response and action plan “that will ensure that students’ safety and free speech rights are paramount.”

Mark Yudof, who heads the 10-campus system, said he planned to meet with Katehi to discuss the recommendations. A separate university task force is working on a report on how school officials should respond to student protests at all 10 UC campuses, he said.

“Free speech, including nonviolent protest, is part of the DNA of this university, and it must be protected with vigilance,” the UC president said in a statement.

Fatima Sbeih, one of the pepper-sprayed students who are suing the administrators over the incident, said she was pleased by the report’s thoroughness.

“The university was acting on assumption and fear rather than following policy and procedure,” Sbeih said. “Students do have a right to protest, and the university needs to respect that.”

London

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Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey said on Thursday that the allegations are being treated as a serious matter. “I want to reiterate – there is no room for racism in the Met,” said Mackey. The “Met” is a common shortened name for the London police force. This week, seven complaints of racism were filed with Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), adding to three other pending cases under review. Racism charges have dogged the Met in the past, but a recent article from British daily newspaper the Guardian has reignited the debate.

An older case involving the murder of a black teenager over 20 years gave the department a dubious distinction of being known as “institutionally racist” and the Met worked to correct the issue. According to the Associated Press, a commissioned report conducted in the wake of the teenager’s death concluded “that Scotland Yard was “institutionally racist” and had failed to properly investigate the killing because of its hostility to London’s black community.”

The most recent claims stem from a rash of reports of racism, including an arrest that took place at the London riots last year. Another case involved three suspended officers over concerns they made a series of racist comments.

The Met was slow to act on some of the cases, despite the IPCC and their reassurances that measures were taken to discipline the accused officers. The National Black Police Association spoke against the inaction from the Met to suspend some officers by saying in a statement that they were, “deeply concerned that this issue undermines efforts to build and maintain trust and confidence of communities grappling with the impact of serious violent crime and escalating hate crimes.”

Commissioner Mackey said that other officers have come forth to support the public claims of racist behavior, firmly asserting that the Met and the IPCC will work in tandem. “The Met does not tolerate racism,” Mackey said.

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Hunter took to Twitter yesterday to give his account of events that lead to his encounter with California’s finest. First, he admits that he mistakenly switched off his alarm. But Hunter did feel that the cops took their investigation too far.

Here are a few of the tweets on the incident:

6:21 P.M., April 4th, Hunter tweeted: My alarm went off in my house while I was in it. 20mins later I saw cops checking out the scene. Went outside and they drew there guns on me.

6:25 P.M., April 4th: They didn’t believe I lived here in Newport coast so they walked me upstairs at gunpoint to get my ID.

6:27 P.M., April 4th: When I showed him my ID, he said I’m an angel fan hope u guys have a great season. ARE U KIDDING ME!!!!!! Lol

Hunter, it seems, had a right to feel miffed at the officers’ attitude towards him. Think about it; If the cop was really an Angels fan, wouldn’t he have known that Hunter was the team’s superstar center fielder?!? Or was it that he saw a black man in an expensive house and figured the worse that blinded his thinking? What is really bad about this incident is Hunter’s backtracking. His follow-up tweets are below:

7:58 P.M., April 4th: Hey Twitterland! I’m not upset that the cops did their job today. I’m actually glad they were protecting home.

OK. Hunter, perhaps prompted by the suits in the Angels organization, decided to tamper down the twitter talk. But he didn’t stop there.

8:02 P.M., April 4th: It was my fault that the alarm went off anyways. I just thought it was cool to let u guys know my awkward moment for today.

8:17 P.M., April 4th: The cops that were here today had there guns drawn but pointed downward in for safety. Those guys handled the situation like trained cops.

Did they really, Mr. Hunter? First, he expressed his anger over the incident. Most all black folks can relate to it. Remember Henry Louis Gates? Well, Hunter didn’t outright say he was racially profiled. But, I think we all got that from his tweets. Then, all of a sudden, he backs off completely. One has to wonder whether Hunter was forced to swallow his true feelings to placate the establishment he works for?

In any case, Hunter took his backtracking too far. His follow-up tweets give the impression that he lacks the fortitude to stand by his word. Here is his Twitter page. Read the tweets from April 4th and let us know what you think.

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Raw video posted Tuesday evening on the Internet showed students chanting, “Let us in, let us in” and “No cuts, no fees, education should be free.”

Students were angry because only a handful were allowed into the meeting, and when their request to move the meeting to a larger venue was denied, they began to enter the room, said David Steinman, an environmental advocate who is running for Congress as a Green Party candidate.

Two officers were apparently backed up against a wall, and began using force to keep the students out of the room. Steinman said both officers used pepper spray.

“People were gasping and choking,” Steinman said.

Marioly Gomez, 21, said she was standing in a hallway outside the meeting with several hundred other students who wanted to get into the meeting.

“I got pepper-sprayed without warning,” she said.

Santa Monica College spokesman Bruce Smith said he believed it was the first time pepper spray had been used to subdue students on campus.

“It was the judgment of police that the crowd was getting out of hand and it was a safety issue,” he said.

Trustee David Finkel called on campus officials to look into Tuesday evening’s events.

“I think it gave the college a black eye which I know it didn’t deserve and certainly didn’t need,” he said.

Video of a similar incident at UC Davis in November, in which an officer doused a row of student protesters with pepper spray as they sat passively, drew worldwide attention. It became a rallying point for the Occupy movement.

Firefighters were called to the campus at about 7:20 p.m. Five people were evaluated at the scene and two were taken to a hospital, Santa Monica Fire Department Capt. Judah Mitchell said. Their conditions were not known, but the injuries were not believed to be serious, Mitchell said.

Students have been upset over a new plan that involves the formation of a nonprofit foundation which would offer core courses for about $600 each, or about $200 per unit – about four times the current price. The program is designed to cope with rising student demand as state funds dwindle.

The move has raised questions about whether it would create two tiers of students in a system designed to make education accessible to everyone and whether it’s even legal under state education law.

Community colleges statewide have lost $809 million in state funding over the past three years, causing schools to turn away about 200,000 students and drastically cut the number of classes offered.

Trustee Louise Jaffe said during the meeting that she doesn’t believe the students want to listen.

“We spoke for four hours and we weren’t understood,” she said.

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Detectives Andrea Penoya Tianga, who is a cast member of the TLC reality show “Police Women of Broward County,” and her partner, Ron Miller, stated in an affidavit that they were patrolling Pompano Beach in their unmarked Chevy SUV when they happened upon Johnson in his parked vehicle.  The pair stated that they saw Johnson in the driver’s seat and that he seemed to slide down in an effort to hide himself from their view.

Miller admitted to turning on his police lights and pulling in front of Johnson’s vehicle in order to block him in.  They approached the young man from the driver’s side of his vehicle.  Both Tianga and Miller attest to the fact that Johnson accelerated his car, targeting them for a hit.  Tianga and Miller said they fired at Johnson only after he tried to run them down.  Tianga was struck in the leg by Johnson’s Toyota Echo and ricochet into a parked car.  She was not seriously injured.

The 21-year-old man tells a different story stating that he was sleeping in his car because he had a disagreement with a roommate.  Johnson insists that neither Tianga or Miller told him to get out of the car:

As soon as [Tianga] shot through the windshield and popped me in my mouth, I figured I didn’t have to stay there no more anyways. I put the thing in reverse and went over the speed bump and then I drove off with my head down. That’s when the glass started popping everywhere,” he told the Sun Sentinel.

Johnson was struck in the mouth by the bullets, lost three teeth and the bullet wound up exiting through his chin.  He also had chest and shoulder bullet wounds.

Not only is Johnson up in arms about the senseless shooting, but so is his family who are demanding answers. Johnson’s uncle, Willie Green, 60, claims that his nephew was a target for violence:

The truth of the matter is, they were trying to kill him,” Green told the Sun-Sentinel.

According to Johnson’s legal guardian and aunt, Rosetta Green, they would never enable their nephew’s criminality, but, this time, he was doing nothing wrong:

We’re not trying to justify anything,” she said. “When Brandon is wrong, Brandon is wrong. We know Brandon wouldn’t attack the police. He was trying to get out of the line of fire.”

Johnson’s family members are  disturbed by the fact that deputies had to resort to using firearms in a situation where Johnson was unarmed.

According to police, Johnson has a record that includes three cocaine possession convictions, one resisting arrest offense as a minor, and a recent cocaine possession charge where he was released on bail.

Johnson faces arraignment on April 17 for the incident involving Tianga and Miller and could receive 35 years in prison if convicted.

The state of Florida has recently come under increased scrutiny for racial bias, abuse of power by law enforcement and infringement of civil liberties.  The clear racism in the Trayvon Martin case has placed the state on everyone’s radar.  Martin, 17, was targeted by volunteer neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, 28, as he returned to his father’s gated community from the convenience store.  The unarmed teen was brutally gunned down by Zimmerman because he thought the boy looked suspicious and claimed he felt threatened.

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Most recently, 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin (pictured below)was ruthlessly shot dead by George Zimmerman, a so-called neighborhood safety captain, in his gated community in Sanford, Fla. For now, Zimmerman is a free man because he has been neither charged nor arrested for the killing.

Unfortunately, this incident isn’t rarity.

There are many other stories of White-on-Black murder. For example, the New York Times ran a story about seven Black men killed by Miami Police within an eight-month time span in 2011.

The Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) investigated 385 cases in 2009, in which law enforcement officials were accused of abusing their authority.

NewsOne has complied a list of video stories of Black men who have died at the hands of cops or men pretending to be them.  It is rare for a police officer to be convicted of killing an innocent victim, and sadly enough, these victims are almost always Black or Latino men.

Warning: Some of the videos show the actually killing of Black men.

1) Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman several weeks ago for apparently no real reason. (we are still trying to determine Zimmerman’s ethnicity)

2) Aaron Campbell was shot dead by police in January of 2010. Mother Jones magazine has more:

The Oregonian reports that police say Campbell ignored their orders to put his hands up. At which point one officer fired six bean bag shots at his back. Witnesses say they saw Campbell reach his arm around his back, where the beanbag struck him. Officer Ronald Frashour says he saw Campbell reach both hands around his waistband to get a gun, and so he shot Campbell in the back with an assault rifle. “We feel that his death resulted from flawed police policies, incomplete or inappropriate training, incomplete communication and other issues with the police effort,” a jury wrote after charging the police officer with no criminal wrongdoing.

3) Victor Steen was tazed and killed by a Pensacola police officer in October of 2009. Below is the video of the officer tazing and running over Steen with his car.

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4) Los Angeles police shoot and kill 27-year-old Steven Eugene Washington in March of 2010. Family members say he is autistic, and it was confirmed that the young man was unarmed.

5) Oscar Grant was shot to death by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer on January 1st of 2009. Mother Jones has more:

On New Years morning, three Bay Area Rapid Transit officers pull 22-year-old Oscar Grant and four other black men off a train in Oakland. You can view what happened afterwards in this Youtube video. In it, now former-transit officer Johannes Mehserle can be seen shooting Grant in the back. During the trial, Mehserle argued that he thought Grant was reaching for a gun near his waistband. To stop this from happening, Mehserle said he intended to Tase him, but shot him with a pistol instead. He sentenced to two years of prison for the killing. Below is the actual video of the killing.

6) In January of 2012, Monterey Park, Calif., police shoot to death a man walking out of Carl J’s restaurant with a pipe. First, they taze him, but when that doesn’t work, they shoot him repeatedly, killing him instantly. Had this gentleman been a White man in a “well-to-do community,” would the officers have even drawn their weapons? Below is video of the killing.

7) On June 26th of 2011, James Craig Anderson is run over by white teenagers in Mississippi for no reason. CNN has more on the story:

On a recent Sunday morning just before dawn, two carloads of white teenagers drove to Jackson, Mississippi, on what the county district attorney says was a mission of hate: to find and hurt a black person. In a parking lot on the western side of town they found their victim. James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot, near his car. The teens allegedly beat Anderson repeatedly, yelled racial epithets, including “White Power!” according to witnesses. Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says a group of the teens then climbed into their large Ford F250 green pickup truck, floored the gas, and drove the truck right over Anderson, killing him instantly.

Below is video of the murder.

Of course, black-on-black violence is also unacceptable. But the problem with so many black men dying at the hands of police officers and white men is that it gives the impression that black life has no value. It is as if the police officers and white people who carry out these violent acts against black people feel they are living in Jim Crow-era Alabama, a time when whites felt free to enforce their own system of “justice.”

NewsOne is committed to bringing this senseless to the limelight. We are currently researching statistics and instances of black men being unjustly handled by law enforcement and by white men who feel their skintone is, in fact, the law.

Please stay tuned!

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An officer was called out to an apartment where a child was refusing to go to school. The situation reportedly became so hostile that the officer used a taser to subdue the child. The chief of police department has been suspended for allegedly hiding the incident from town leadership.

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The Huffington Post has more:

City officials suspended Mount Sterling Police Chief Mike McCoy for three days, leaving the village without a police department. Meanwhile, the office’s computers and weapons were seized, and state investigators are probing the incident, 10-TV reported.

The county sheriff’s office will take over police operations in the area until city officials determine what to do next.

The closure isn’t the first for the Mount Sterling police force. The village laid off all its officers except for the chief in September due to budget cuts, the station reported.

It’s yet unclear when the department will be reformed.

Mount Sterling had a population of just under 2,000 in 2010, according to Census data.

Go to the Huffington Post for the rest of the story.

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Reuters has more:

The officer shot Tony Jones, 24, in the back as he fled from a police car at about 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, according to Jones’ attorney, Waukeen McCoy.

“He made a mistake running, but that didn’t give them the right to shoot him in the back,” McCoy said. Jones is the son of Oscar Grant’s aunt, he added.

Oakland police have said that officers shot at Jones when he ran from them carrying a firearm after leaving a car they believed was involved in a robbery.

Many outraged citizens wanted Mehserle to be imprisoned for murder over Oscar Grant’s death. But a jury convicted him of involuntary manslaughter, sparking mass protests in Oakland and neighboring Bay Area cities.

Read More At Reuters

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The Post has more:

Stephanie Adams claimed in a lawsuit that officers threw her on the ground at gunpoint after she got into an argument with the cabbie. She says the driver refused to help carry her bags into her apartment then called 911 and falsely told police she had a gun and was going to shoot him.

For more on this story, go to The Washington Post.

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The two suspects, Josh Lawson and Christopher Franklin, filed a lawsuit against the city of Seattle for wrongful arrest and excessive force, claiming that an officer kicked Lawson in the face. For some mysterious reason, dashcam footage of the the assault disappeared.

KOMONEWS reports:

Both men said they suffered facial bruises and swelling after one was kicked and the other man-handled into the pavement while being arrested. But then listen to what an officer says on an audio recording after he takes the two to holding cells: “Well, you’re going to jail for robbery that’s all.”

You then hear Franklin ask, “for robbery?” And the officer responds, “Yeah, I’m gonna make stuff up.”

“These guys are guilty of being black in Seattle,” said attorney Lizanne Padula, who represents Lawson and Franklin. She believes if they’d been white “I think the most that would have happened with those kids police officer would have rolled down his window and said, ‘hey, were you guys over in this area?’”

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But when the cops came, one of them raped the woman, The Daily Beast reports. Below is part of The Daily Beast story with some paragraphs slightly reorganized.

“I only drink bottled water,” Cates said

Her boyfriend has a pronounced limp and set off with no promise of returning soon.  Cates asked to see the broken window and she led him down a narrow hallway to a bathroom in the back. She felt sure that jealous neighbors had attacked her happy home because she dared to defy what seemed surely to be her fate as an inner-city teenage single mom.

She now stood on a floor littered with broken glass and pointed to the brick. The cop she had summoned to protect her instead chose this moment to grab the back of her head by her hair and sodomize her. Then he raped her.

Her revulsion in the aftermath was so visceral that she vomited as she ran outside. The cop’s partner had become concerned when he did not immediately see Cates and called for back-up. Other cops began arriving and saw a woman screaming incoherently about being raped.

Cates appeared and grabbed her by the waist, spinning her around. Her swinging feet may or may not have struck the partner. She was handcuffed and taken in, told at the stationhouse that she was being charged with assaulting a police officer.

But justice was served in this horrible story. Check out the full story at The Daily Beast.

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In the video, police can be seen pointing a gun at a resident and another resident claims the police didn’t identify themselves. After the police broke into the apartment, the 18-year-old Graham was shot and killed in his bathroom.

WPIX reports:

The video clearly shows Graham walking into his home on East 229th Street in the Bronx Thursday, shortly after 3:00p.m. The NYPD then jump into the screen seconds later. Two officers rush toward the door, with one trying to kick down a locked door. He had no search warrant. Seconds later another officer holds up his gun and aims it at one of the residents who — coincidentally — was on the side of the home. A total of four officers are seen on the video.

PIX11 spoke to one resident who, was cooking during the forced entry and said that the NYPD did not identify themselves “…they did not scream police.”

Read More At WPIX

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Graham, 19, was pursued by a team of police who had attempted to stop and question him.  Reportedly, police witnessed the youth adjusting the waistband of his pants on the street and immediately assumed he had a gun.  The youth, who had a prior arrest record for marijuana possession and burglary, ran from the officers who then gave chase.

The unarmed boy was tracked down by police in his residential second-floor apartment.  When Graham managed to make it inside his apartment, he reportedly ran inside the bathroom with two officers in hot pursuit.  A tussle ensued and one of the policeman fired a bullet from his .9 mm gun, hitting Graham in chest.  The name of the officer who did the shooting has not been released, but reports state that he is a 30-year-old, two-year veteran who has never been involved in a prior shooting.

According to sources, Graham was unarmed:

“He had some weed on with him,” a family friend told the Daily News. “It wasn’t a big deal. They shot him inside the house. … He didn’t have a gun.”

Police reports state that a small amount of marijuana was found in the bathroom and speculate that perhaps the teen had been trying to flush it down the toilet to avoid further arrest.

Graham was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead.

Constance Malcolm, 39, who is Graham’s mother, witnessed the incident and is distraught over the death of her son.

“They chased him into the house.  Nobody deserves to be shot in their own home.”

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The East Haven officers assaulted individuals while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searched Latino businesses, and harassed and intimidated individuals, including advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct or abuse the officers committed, according to the federal indictment.

Federal authorities began investigating police in 2009 in East Haven, where the federal probe last month documented a pattern of abuse. Latino business owners said rough treatment by police drove many newcomers from Mexico and Ecuador to leave the blue-collar city.

The arrests were welcomed by Hispanic business owners in East Haven, including Luis Rodriguez, an immigrant from Ecuador who had complained of harassment by police at his Los Amigos Grocery store.

“They should have to pay, not with many years, but enough to make an example of them. They should not abuse their power,” Rodriguez said. “All I ever wanted was to be left in peace.”

Officers Dennis Spaulding, David Cari and Jason Zullo and Sgt. John Miller, president of the police union, are charged with conspiracy, deprivation of rights and obstruction of justice.

Federal officials say the officers denied Latino residents and their advocates the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to not be arrested and detained without probable cause and the right to not be arrested on false and misleading evidence.

Zullo allegedly described taking joy in singling out Latinos, telling Spaulding in a 2008 exchange quoted by the indictment that he liked harassing drivers and referred to “persons who have drifted to this country on rafts made of chicken wings and are now residing” in East Haven.

Miller repeatedly slapped a man handcuffed in his car, while Spaulding threw a man to the ground and repeatedly kicked him while he was handcuffed, according to the indictment. Mayor Joseph Maturo said the four men were arrested around 6 a.m. Tuesday at their homes and at the police department.

Donald Cretella, Miller’s lawyer, said his client has been honored with awards and risked his life in shootouts.

“John Miller is a hero in East Haven,” he said. “He’s decorated. He’s a wonderful family man. Hopefully, we’ll clear his name.”

Frank Riccio Jr., Spaulding’s attorney, said his client is an exemplary police officer.

“At this early stage it’s our position Mr. Spaulding is not guilty of the charges. He’s been nothing but an exemplary police officer. That’s why this is shocking.”

It wasn’t immediately clear who was representing Cari and Zullo.

The indictment says Miller reported to a police department leader described as a co-conspirator who blocked efforts by the police commission to investigate Miller’s misconduct. That is a reference to Chief Leonard Gallo, according to a person with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. A message was left for Gallo.

The indictment also accuses unnamed union leaders of intimidation and interference to protect the officers, including a depiction of a rat posted on a bulletin board and a cartoon saying “You know what we do with snitches?” in a police locker room.

The U.S. attorney for Connecticut, David Fein, said the investigation is still looking into other incidents and individuals. Officials said no more arrests were expected Tuesday.

Maturo, a Republican who took office Nov. 19, recently reinstated Gallo as police chief. Gallo had been on paid administrative leave since federal authorities began investigating in 2010. Maturo said he backs the police.

“I stand behind the police department,” he said. “We have a great police department.”

The U.S. Department of Justice, which has pledged to reach out to the police department to work on reforms, said last month that the department engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Latino residents. Investigators said their probe was complicated by efforts to interfere with witnesses and by police silence.

Nearly half or a third of the drivers pulled over by certain officers were Latino, and the number of Latinos pulled over by certain squads was “extraordinarily high,” said Roy Austin Jr., deputy assistant attorney general for the civil rights division. Latinos who were stopped for minor violations were subjected to harsher punishments, such as arrest or vehicle towing, than were non-Latinos.

The East Haven Police Department of some 50 officers has come under scrutiny previously for civil rights issues. A federal jury ruled in 2003 that a white officer used excessive force and violated the rights of a black man he fatally shot after a chase.

Some officers involved in that case kept their jobs and were promoted, and there was no evidence that anyone received training to prevent similar confrontations in the future, Austin said.

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At first, police officers tased the individual, which resulted in the unidentified man approaching a police officer with his crowbar. Then another police officer shot the man five times. When the man fell down, another officer shot him five more times. The man was rushed to the hospital where he died.

KTLA reports:

One officer shot the man five times, and a second officer shot the man five more times after he fell to the pavement.

Paramedics rushed him to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

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Browne was working installing floors and had attended pharmaceutical school. Browne’s girlfriend says the two were watching a movie together when Browne went outside after noticing a group of men trying to force themselves in the apartment.

The New York Daily News reports

“He looked through the blinds before he went downstairs,” she said. “He said he saw two people running away. It sounded like someone was trying to break in. He went downstairs to check it out. I heard one gunshot.

“He came back upstairs and he was bleeding,” she said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Baby, I’ve been shot.’”

At that point, Juanita said, cops rushed into the apartment and one officer pointed a gun at her head and refused to help Browne.

Read More At The New York Daily News

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Police asked the woman, who was carrying stroller full of pillows, to get off the bus, according to Green’s account. The officers then grabbed and punched her after she refused. Police demanded that Green hand over the cell phone that he used to record the incident.

NBA Los Angeles reports:

“They said get off the bus. She then started cursing at (the female deputy). You could tell she had special needs. After that they grab her, she curses him out, calls him a big shot, next thing you know he gives her a big shot,” Green said.

“I couldn’t believe it. He seen me taping. He looked up at the camera a few times, and he still hit her like that, and I can’t believe he didn’t try to diffuse the situation at all,” Green said.

Read More At NBC Los Angeles

View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

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Some 1,000 supporters gathered near Kinshasa’s Martyrs’ Stadium Friday morning. Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi had announced that he planned to hold the ceremony there. Police also thronged Tshisekedi’s neighborhood, possibly in an effort to keep him from reaching the stadium.

Tshisekedi declared himself the winner of the Nov. 28 poll that international and local observers say lacked credibility. President Joseph Kabila was inaugurated earlier this week.

Kabila first came to power after his father’s assassination and now has led the massive, mineral-rich Central African nation for a decade. Presidential election results showed Kabila with 49 percent, and Tshisekedi with 32 percent of the nearly 19 million votes cast. Some international observers, however, have said the turnout was impossibly high in some districts.

Kabila was declared winner following constitutional reforms he pushed through parliament limiting the election to one round. Under the old rules, any winner had to have more than 50 percent of votes.

Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that security forces have killed at least 24 people and detained dozens in attacks to quell dissent over the much-criticized vote.

Tshisekedi has previously proclaimed himself president and last month ordered his followers to stage jailbreaks to free detained colleagues.

Observers fear unrest if Tshisekedi – a 79-year-old longtime opposition leader who is enormously popular with the country’s impoverished masses – orders his supporters to take to the streets.

The November election was only the second democratic vote in Congo’s 51-year history, and the first to be organized by the Congolese government rather than by the international community.

Congo, which is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country, has suffered decades of dictatorship and civil war. The country’s east is still wracked by violence perpetrated by dozens of militia and rebel groups.

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RELATED: Black Males and Cops: Are We Living in a Police State

Peart initially explains that even though his mother gave him an ominous warning about the police at the precocious age of 9 — “She cautioned me to carry ID and never run away from the police or I could be shot” — he still thought police officers were “cool.” Nearly 10 years later, Peart’s perception of New York’s finest was irrevocably changed after his 18th birthday celebration, when he was brutally harassed:

… Out of nowhere, squad cars surrounded us. A policeman yelled from the window, ‘Get on the ground!’ I was stunned. And I was scared. Then I was on the ground — with a gun pointed at me. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I could feel a policeman’s hand reach in to my pocket and remove my wallet. Apparently he looked through and found the ID I kept there. ‘Happy Birthday,’ he said sarcastically.

Unfortunately for Peart — and many other blacks and Latinos — this would be the beginning of an increasingly abusive affair with the police. Peart, for his part, would be harassed at least three more times between his birthday-turned-target practice in 2006 and his most recent run-in in 2010. An officer took Peart’s keys and attempted to enter his apartment without his permission, while yet another officer forced him into a squad car, handcuffed. Naturally, Peart has become increasingly paranoid about the police:

These experiences changed the way I felt about the police. After the third incident I worried when police cars drove by; I was afraid I would be stopped and searched or that something worse would happen. I dress better if I go downtown. I don’t hang out with friends outside my neighborhood in Harlem as much as I used to. Essentially, I incorporated into my daily life the sense that I might find myself up against a wall or on the ground with an officer’s gun at my head. For a black man in his 20s like me, it’s just a fact of life in New York.

Thankfully, Peart isn’t taking this blatant discrimination and abuse lying down. He is a member of Harlem’s Brotherhood/Sister Sol, which works to empower youths about their rights while teaching them mechanisms to stay alive, and is a witness in the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit, which seeks to bring racist cops to task for racial profiling.

While it is criminal that a young black college student is STILL having to ask this question in 2011, it is yet another testament that the black and brown people of this nation are still regarded as second-class citizens.

Read the rest of Peart’s article here.

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Since then, not a lot has changed. I might mention the names of Amadou Diallo Sean Bell or Oscar Grant in any given conversation. To many people outside of the Black community these names may not even register. Almost all African American men will know more than their names. We’ll know their faces, we know where they got shot and we know what reason was given for their “justifiable homicide” by police.

The social friction between cops and young Black males reaches far back into American history. It began shortly after Abraham Lincoln signed Emancipation Proclamation.  White overseers were asked by the plantation owners to “police” the perimeter of the land, fearing newly freed Blacks would try to rob and attack them. As a result, young Black males were an instant target.

A recent article in the New York Times Nicolas K. Peart highlights the experience of his life as a 23 year old Black male in Manhattan. He shares how at 14 his mother taught him to be respectful to police, show ID and to never run- lest he be shot. It goes on to explain how many random stops he’s undergone since his 18th birthday. How the NYPD seem to almost go out of their way to harass him and humiliate him:

Here are a few other facts: last year, the N.Y.P.D. recorded more than 600,000 stops; 84 percent of those stopped were blacks or Latinos. Police are far more likely to use force when stopping blacks or Latinos than whites. In half the stops police cite the vague “furtive movements” as the reason for the stop. Maybe black and brown people just look more furtive, whatever that means.

His accounts to be honest, are not unlike many of my experiences in my youth. When I was 16 my father told me to always keep my hands on the steering wheel if I ever got pulled over. He said make sure to say what hand you are moving, where you are moving it to, why and to do it slow- because you can die failing to it.

He wasn’t wrong. Not three years later a cop much smaller than me put his 9 millimeter pistol in my face because my friend made an illegal u-turn on a street with no traffic. In my youth I fit the description for car thieves, robbers, purse snatchers, drive by shooters and a ton of other crimes so long I really can’t remember. Mr. Peart continues:

One of the officers asked which of the keys they had removed from my pocket opened my apartment door. Then he entered my building and tried to get into my apartment with my key. My 18-year-old sister was inside with two of our younger siblings; later she told me she had no idea why the police were trying to get into our apartment and was terrified. She tried to call me, but because they had confiscated my phone, I couldn’t answer.

Today I spend a lot of time working with ghetto youth crushed under the heel of American poverty. Most of them hate the police on site. However, its because I work where I do, that I have met some police officers of the highest integrity.

I’ve met cops who went out of their way to not send  kids to juvenile hall. Cops who were White, Black, Latino, Asian and Arab. These good relationships with police have altered the instinctive emotions I’ve had about cops since my youth.

But those emotions can’t cloud reality for too long. My son is almost 13. He’s almost as big as me. I am a lean 200 pounds, and stand 6 foot 3 inches. He can almost wear my shoes. The Dr. said he’s going to be 6 foot 9 inches tall when he stops growing.

While many fathers would be excited and daydream of a NBA and NFL ceremonies, I’m scared. I’m scared because I don’t know if America will let him live long enough to get that tall. I saw what happened to Oscar Grant. I ride those trains. My son will ride those same trains soon. It’s frightening to the core of my soul. The cops don’t know he’s  amazing at math and studies film. They don’t know he likes to read Hill Harper and samurai classics. They’ll only see in him  the same criminal they saw in me when I was his age.

Almost 20 years ago, my mother suggested that Black men who have perished unjustly from police officers should have a wall like Vietnam vets have a wall. As crazy as it might sound, it makes so much sense. Songs like N.W.A’s F*** The Police, Talib Kweli’s The Proud, Paris and T-KASH’s Don’t Stop The Movement and Dead Prez’s Police State don’t exist without reason. They exist simply because no constructive conversation on how we got here and how we might get out has taken place.

The question is, where and how do we have truly meaningful conversations about Black males and police? What preventative steps can we take to ensure that these conversations don’t just descend into shouting matches? What steps can the Black community take on to police themselves better? What steps will police departments across the country begin to take to change the culture of how Black men are viewed on site by officers? What needs to happen to make this situation truly progress?

Read the full story in the New York Times.

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