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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.

Read More At KTLA

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Do You Think This Was A Case Of Excessive Force?

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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“Now that it is clear that Mumia should never have been on death row in the first place, justice will not be served by relegating him to prison for the rest of his life—yet another form of death sentence,” he said in a statement released by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC).

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Dr. Cornel West is participating in a forum at the National Constitution Center this Friday, thirty years to the day that police officer Daniel Faulkner was murdered and Abu-Jamal was arrested as the accused perpetrator. A full day of fundraising and organizing is scheduled for December 10 at the Germantown Event Center.

Abu-Jamal, an activist and journalist born Wesley Cook, was in his taxi in Philadelphia just before 4 a.m. December 9, 1981, when Faulkner conducted a traffic stop of a light blue Volkswagen. His brother, William “Billy” Cook, was the driver. Abu-Jamal, parked just across the street, approached the scene. Within minutes he had been shot in the chest and Faulkner had been shot dead.

The details of precisely how those minutes unfold remain one of the most debated accounts in recent case history. However, since his 1982 conviction, there has been enough evidence stacking on the side of those who maintain Abu-Jamal’s innocence that entire books, movies, and fashions have been dedicated to the Free Mumia cause. Five top reasonings for his innocence are:

Faulty Evidence

1. There was never a “blow-back” test conducted to show gun residue on Abu-Jamal, and the original medical examiner’s report, which not seen by the 1982 jury that convicted him, stated that the fatal bullet was a .44 caliber. A police ballistician reported that the bullet was actually a .38 caliber. Abu-Jamal was said to have been carrying a legally registered .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver.

2. Pedro P. Polakoff, a Philadelphia freelance photographer who reports he arrived at least 10 minutes before the arrival of the Mobile Crime Detection Unit, took photos that show that officer James Forbes was handling the guns retrieved from the crime scene with his bare hands, which is not the appropriate protocol.

3. At the time of the trial the police and the District Attorney’s office failed to notify Abu-Jamal’s defense about a driver’s license application for Arnold Howard found in the front pocket of Officer Faulkner’s shirt, which may prove that a fourth person was involved. Later Howard said that he loaned his temporary, non-license ID to Kenneth Freeman, a business associate of Billy Cook, whom Cook said confessed. Freeman was found dead in 1985, reportedly naked and gagged.

Witness Tampering

4. After the 1982 trial, Veronica Jones, a police informant who was working as a prostitute at the crime scene, revealed that police had coerced her and Cynthia White, another informant who was called as a witness to testify to Abu-Jamal’s guilt. A third woman, Yvette Williams, submitted an affidavit in 2002 declaring that while she was in jail with White, White told her about the coercion.

Official Corruption

5. In the late 90’s, an investigation of the Philadelphia Police Department exposed many corrupt officers who violated civil rights and stole from suspects. Nearly 1,400 cases were reviewed and more than 100 people released. One of the officers investigated agreed that he and his girlfriend would cooperate in further efforts. His girlfriend was Pamela Jenkins, the informant who said she was coerced into testifying to Abu-Jamal’s guilt.

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1. MEANING BEHIND THE NAME

Abu-Jamal was born Wesley Cook. He was named “Mumia” by his high school teacher in 1968 after his African cultures class took on African class names. According to Abu-Jamal, Mumia means “Prince” and was the name of the anti-colonial African nationalists conducting warfare against the British in Kenya at the time of its independence movement. He adopted the surname Abu-Jamal (meaning “father of Jamal” in Arabic) after the birth of his son Jamal.

2. REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVIST

Abu-Jamal was an active member of the Black Panther Party. He dropped out of high school to work at the party’s Philadelphia headquarters. He worked as the organization’s “Lieutenant of Information,” handling news communications.

3. RENOWNED JOURNALIST

After getting his GED, Abu-Jamal pursued a career in journalism as a radio broadcast journalist, interviewing the likes of Alex Hailey and Bob Marley. He was also elected president of the Philadelphia National Association of Black Journalists.

4. HARD WORKER

In addition to working as a part-time journalist, Abu-Jamal was a taxi driver two nights a week to supplement his income.

5. WORK FROM THE INSIDE

While in prison, Abu-Jamal published an essay in the Yale Law Review on the death penalty and his experiences on death row. He was supposed to get a segment on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” where he would provide monthly three-minute commentaries on crime and punishment, but it was later canceled after criticism from the Fraternal Order of Police. His commentaries were later published in print in 1995. He became a regular commentator for an online broadcast sponsored by Prison Radio.

6. SUPPORT FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Due to his international appeal, Abu-Jamal was made an honorary citizen of about 25 cities around the world, including Paris, Montreal and Copenhagan.

7. HONORARY ROAD

In 2006, a new road in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis was named after Abu-Jamal, named “Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal.” The executive committee of the U.S. Republican Party filed two criminal complaints within the French legal system in opposition to the street naming.

8.  SKETCHY EVIDENCE

In 2010, investigative journalists performed a series of test that concluded substantial inconsistencies with the evidence used against Abu-Jamal during trial. The Philadelphia Police Department and district attorney’s office were also accused of knowingly presenting false testimony.

The officer was asked to speak to Davis at Rio Calaveras Elementary of Stockton after Davis was caught fighting with other children.

KCRA reports:

Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

Michael Davis is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD. His mother says it has led to fights at school. But when the school district said it had a plan to change Michael’s behavior, his mother says things went wrong.

Read More At KCRA

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Police Sgt. Jose Valle said the woman who allegedly caused minor injuries to 20 shoppers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart turned herself in Friday night.

She is currently not in custody but could face battery charges, Valle said. The woman’s identity was not released, but police said they plan to release more details Saturday morning.

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The attack took place about 10:20 p.m. Thursday shortly after doors opened for the sale. The store had brought out a crate of discounted Xbox video game players, and a crowd had formed to wait for the unwrapping. Valle says the woman began spraying people in order to get an advantage.

The incident was among those nationwide in which violence marred the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

In the most serious case, a robber shot a shopper who refused to give up his purchases outside a San Leandro, Calif., Walmart store, leaving the victim hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

Police in San Leandro, about 15 miles east of San Francisco, said the victim and his family were walking to their car around 1:45 a.m. Friday when they were confronted by a group of men who demanded their shopping items. When the family refused, a fight broke out, and one of the robbers pulled a gun and shot the man, said Sgt. Mike Sobek.

Meanwhile, police in suburban Phoenix came under fire when a video was posted online showing a 54-year-old grandfather on the floor of a Walmart store with a bloody face, after police said he was subdued Thursday night trying to shoplift during a chaotic rush for discounted video games.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows Jerald Allen Newman unconscious and bloodied as outraged customers yell expletives and say “that’s police brutality” and “he wasn’t doing anything.”

In a police report that redacted the names of officers and witnesses, Newman’s wife and other witnesses said he was just trying to help his grandson after the boy was trampled by shoppers, and only put a video game in his waistband to free his hands to help the boy.

Larry Hall, assistant chief of Buckeye police, said Newman was resisting arrest and it appeared the officer acted within reason.

Hall said the officer decided to do a leg sweep and take him to the ground but the man unfortunately hit his head.

“The store was incredibly crowded, and I was concerned about other customers’ safety,” the officer wrote in his police report.

Hall said Newman, who had a bloody nose and received four stitches on his forehead, was booked on suspicion of shoplifting and resisting arrest.

In Sacramento, Calif., a man was stabbed outside a mall Friday in an apparent gang-related incident as shoppers were hitting the stores.

The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The stabbing stemmed from a fight between two groups around 3 a.m. in front of a Macy’s department store at the Arden Fair Mall.

No arrests have been made. Police were hoping surveillance video will help identify the suspects.

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In the early morning hours of Nov. 25, 2006, Sean Bell, a 23-year-old New York City man due to be married later that day, walked out of a Queens strip club, climbed into a gray Nissan Altima with two friends who had been celebrating with him — and died in a hail of 50 bullets fired by a group of five police officers.

For more of the history of the shooting and its aftermath, click here.

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Today, NY1News is reporting on gatherings being held in Sean Bell’s memory:

A candlelight vigil was held overnight on “Sean Bell Way” in Jamaica, Queens.

Family members placed candles where Bell was killed and rang a bell 50 times to mark the number of shots that were fired the night he died.

Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, plans to keep holding the vigil every year to honor his legacy.

“What we’re hoping is that five years later we can have some change and that no other families have to suffer the way my family does. So every day is a struggle for us. My daughters, they miss their dad, and we have been here from day one and we’re going to continue to stand up,” said Bell.

See NY1 video here.

Two police officers involved in the shooting are awaiting a verdict in a departmental hearing. If found guilty, the officers may be fired.

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The heaviest financial burden has fallen upon law enforcement agencies tasked with monitoring marches and evicting protesters from outdoor camps. And the steepest costs by far piled up in New York City and Oakland, Calif., where police clashed with protesters on several occasions.

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The AP gathered figures from government agencies in 18 cities with active protests and focused on costs through Nov. 15, the day protesters were evicted from New York City’s Zuccotti Park, where the protests began Sept. 17 before spreading nationwide. The survey did not attempt to tally the price of all protests but provides a glimpse into costs to cities large and small.

Broken down city by city, the numbers are more or less in line with the cost of policing major public events and emergencies. In Los Angeles, for example, the Michael Jackson memorial concert cost the city $1.4 million. And Atlanta spent several million dollars after a major snow and ice storm this year.

But the price of the protests is rising by the day – along with taxpayer ire in some places.

“What is their real agenda?” asked Rodger Mawhinney as he watched police remove an encampment outside his apartment complex in downtown Oakland. “I’ve gone up and asked them, `What are you truly trying to accomplish?’ I’m still waiting for an answer.”

The Occupy movement has intentionally never clarified its policy objectives, relying instead on a broad message opposing corporate excess and income inequality. Aside from policing, cleaning and repairing property at dozens of 24-hour encampments, cities have had to monitor frequent rallies and protests.

The spending comes as cash-strapped police departments have cut overtime budgets, travel and training to respond to the recession. Nonetheless, city officials say they have no choice but to bring in extra officers or hold officers past their shifts to handle gatherings and marches in a way that protects free speech rights and public safety. In some cities, officials say the spending is eating into their overtime budgets and leaving less money for other public services.

Protesters blame excessive police presence for the high costs in some places. And they note the cost has been minimal in other cities, and worth the spending because they have raised awareness about what they say is corporate greed and the growing inequality between rich and poor.

“We’re here fighting corporate greed and they’re worried about a lawn?” said Clark Davis of Occupy Los Angeles, where the city estimates that property damage to a park has been $200,000.

In Oakland, where protesters temporarily forced the shutdown of a major port, the city has spent more than $2.4 million responding to the protests. The cash-strapped city, which had to close a $58 million budget gap this year, was already facing an uphill battle when Occupy Oakland began Oct. 10.

“The cost of the encampments is growing and putting a strain on our already fragile resources – police, public works, and other city staff,” said Mayor Jean Quan. “We will continue to be vigilant and ensure that public safety remains our first priority and that our downtown businesses are protected from vandalism. We will not tolerate lodging on public property, whether in parks or open space. It is illegal.”

Sgt. Dom Arotzarena, president of the Oakland Police Officers Association, said Occupy-related costs will soar past $3 million when it’s all said and done. The city, he said, had to pay more for mutual aid when police removed the encampment at City Hall for a second time on Nov. 14, nearly three weeks after its first early morning raid, leading to dozens of arrests.

“A lot of this could’ve been avoided if we stood our ground when we went in there in the first place,” Arotzarena said. “I know we would’ve saved the city a significant amount of money.”

Portland, Ore., has spent a total of about $785,000 – much of that in police overtime when officers enforced the mayor’s order to evict protesters from two downtown parks because of concerns about sanitation and public safety. Randy Leonard, a city commissioner and former firefighter, said he thinks the protest could have cost the city much more if not for a restrained police response.

“The amount of money we’re saving by (our) very strategic response versus sending police out en masse to arrest people and cause confrontations dwarfs whatever we’ve spent so far,” Leonard said.

In New York City, the police department has spent $7 million in overtime on the protests. But that’s small change given the department’s $4.5 billion budget, which allots money for emergency overtime. Last year, the NYPD spent about $550 million on overtime.

“Public safety and providing essential services is what we do. So the first thing we’re going to do is handle the situation, and any situation that comes up,” Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said. “So yes, this has been significant and it’s been going on for many days, but really in the broad scheme of things, it’s not something that we aren’t prepared to deal with.”

Pete Dutro, a protester in charge of finances in New York City, called the NYPD’s response “completely unnecessary.”

“It’s $7 million of taxpayers’ money that’s being spent to stifle our First Amendment rights,” he said. “You know, they’ve consistently overreacted.”

In Seattle, where the National Guard was deployed during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests, the mayor has publicly supported the Occupy protesters. But that doesn’t mean taxpayers won’t feel the pinch later on; the city has already spent at least $625,000 on the protests, with the police department taking the bulk of the costs.

“These costs are currently being absorbed by the departments and may result in reduced service levels in other areas in the future,” said Julie Moore, a spokeswoman for Mayor Mike McGinn. She did not specify which public services might suffer.

Other cities were not too concerned about mounting costs, with officials saying they budget for events like these.

“Our view is that unexpected things happen,” said Sonji Jacobs, spokeswoman for Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. “Occupy Atlanta is something that folks didn’t necessarily see coming, but the good news is that we have flexibility in our budget.”

Overall, the city spent nearly $652,000 on the protests, paying for everything from overtime for police officers and firefighters to running its mobile command center. The city has $56 million in its reserve fund.

Costs were far lower in Boston than City Council President Stephen Murphy initially predicted last month, when he said police costs for providing security at Occupy Boston for October would be as high as $2 million, based on what a police commander at the scene of mass arrests told him.

The city of Boston has spent $575,000 in overtime through mid-November to pay officers policing Occupy Boston. That’s about 2 percent of this year’s $30 million police overtime budget.

“We have a history of starting, as well as managing, historic demonstrations,” said City Councilor Michael Ross. “We’ve done it well and we’ve managed it well, and that’s not going to stop anytime soon, and that doesn’t cease to exist after it hits a certain budget threshold.”

St. Louis; Des Moines, Iowa; Providence, R.I.; and Burlington, Vt., were among the cities surveyed by AP that reported costs of less than $10,000.

Don Tripp, the parks director in Des Moines, said protesters camped out in a city park have arguably saved money by taking their garbage out of the park in barrels and shoveling the sidewalk after the first snow, tasks city employees normally handle.

Unlike some other cities, protesters also agreed to pay the full cost of their electricity usage. Tripp noted the protests did come with an intangible “social cost” – discouraging other residents from using the park that they pay to maintain, too.

“But at the end of the day, the thing that has been in the back of my mind is that during times of public discourse in our country parks are noted for being places where people have the chance to demonstrate their First Amendment rights,” he said. “I think their use has been consistent with that.”

But not all protesters have been the best neighbors. In Tennessee, where protesters have been camped outside the Capitol, a State General Services spokeswoman said two cleaning crew members have spent about three hours every morning pressure-washing entrances to the building using household cleaners to deodorize them.

And in Los Angeles, property damage to the park surrounding City Hall – where nearly 500 tents are jammed in – is estimated to be at least $200,000, including the destroyed lawn, sprinklers, graffiti on a fountain and damage to trees and shrubs. City Hall spokesman Peter Sanders says there’s not a definite estimate on damage yet because workers have not been able to properly inspect the site.

For police officers, the longer hours mean bigger paychecks but come at a cost, driving up their stress levels and potentially leaving less money for other initiatives in the long-term.

Unlike a parade or a one-day march, the Occupy protests are in their third month in some cities and show no signs of easing up, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank for police chiefs.

“You’re dealing with 50 to 75 cities where this is going on. In some cities it’s a minimal expense. In some cities, it’s considerable,” he said. “For a city that has slashed overtime, this has an impact. And that means they are going to have to cut back in other ways.”

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“Free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history,” UC President Mark G. Yudof said in a statement Sunday in response to the spraying of students sitting passively at UC Davis. “It is a value we must protect with vigilance.”

Yudof said it was not his intention to “micromanage our campus police forces,” but he said all 10 chancellors would convene soon for a discussion “about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest.”

Protesters from Occupy Sacramento planned to travel to nearby Davis on Monday for a noon rally in solidarity with the students, the group said in a statement.

UC Davis said early Monday in a news release that it was necessary to place police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave to restore trust and calm tensions. The school refused to identify the two officers who were place on administrative leave but one was a veteran of many years on the force and the other “fairly new” to the department, Spicuzza earlier told The Associated Press. She would not elaborate further because of the pending probe.

Videos posted online of the incident clearly show one riot-gear clad officer dousing the line of protesters with spray as they sit with their arms intertwined. Spicuzza told the AP that the second officer was identified during an intense review of several videos.

“We really wanted to be diligent in our research, and during our viewing of multiple videos we discovered the second officer,” Spicuzza said. “This is the right thing to do.”

Both officers were trained in the use of pepper spray as department policy dictates, and both had been sprayed with it themselves during training, the chief noted.

Meanwhile, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said she has been inundated with reaction from alumni, students and faculty and would speed up an investigation that was to have taken three months.

“I spoke with students this weekend and I feel their outrage,” Katehi said in a statement Sunday.

Katehi also set a 30-day deadline for her school’s task force investigating the incident to issue its report. The task force, comprised of students, staff and faculty, will be chosen this week. She earlier had set a 90-day timetable.

She also plans to meet with demonstrators Monday at their general assembly, said her spokeswoman, Claudia Morain.

The UC Davis faculty association called for Katehi’s resignation, saying in a Saturday letter there had been a “gross failure of leadership.” Katehi has resisted calls for her to quit.

“I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident,” Katehi said Sunday. “However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again. I feel very sorry for the harm our students were subjected to and I vow to work tirelessly to make the campus a more welcoming and safe place.”

The incident reverberated well beyond the university, with condemnations and defenses of police from elected officials and from the wider public on Facebook and Twitter.

“On its face, this is an outrageous action for police to methodically pepper spray passive demonstrators who were exercising their right to peacefully protest at UC Davis,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said in a statement Sunday. “Chancellor Katehi needs to immediately investigate, publically explain how this could happen and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”

The protest Friday was held in support of the overall Occupy Wall Street movement and in solidarity with protesters at the University of California, Berkeley who were jabbed by police with batons on Nov. 9.

Nine students hit by pepper spray were treated at the scene, two were taken to hospitals and later released, university officials said. Ten people were arrested.

Meanwhile Sunday, police in San Francisco, about 80 miles south of Davis, arrested six anti-Wall Street protesters and cleared about 12 tents erected in front of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Across the bay in Oakland, police made no arrests after protesters peacefully left a new encampment set up in defiance of city orders.

Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, and Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said the probe will focus on whether there was a “pattern or practice” within the Miami Police Department that led to violations of constitutional rights. The investigation is not criminal in nature.

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The shootings in inner-city Miami, from July 2010 to February 2011, sparked outrage in the Africa-American community and led to protests at City Hall. The NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union, among others, demanded a federal investigation.

The former police chief, Miguel Exposito, defended the shootings as justified and said they resulted from confrontations caused by more aggressive police tactics in high-crime areas plagued by gangs.

Exposito was fired in September for disobeying orders from the city manager. The current interim chief, Manuel Orosa, welcomes the investigation and has already ordered a top-to-bottom review of all practices within the department, said his spokesman, Maj. Delrish Moss.

“The more people looking at what we do, the more it makes us more capable of serving the community,” Moss said.

The question of whether the shootings were justified has been under review for months by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

Earlier this decade, the Justice Department launched a broad investigation into Miami Police Department tactics after several controversial police shootings. But that probe in 2003 reached no conclusion about whether department policies caused civil rights violations.

The family says that Austin police officers Nathan Wagner and Jeffery Rodriguez followed Byron Carter Jr. and a friend to their car after they left a social function in downtown Austin. In the court documents, the family claims that the officer shot Carter to death and wounded his friend “simply because they were young, African-American males in a gentrified part of downtown Austin.”

“My clients deserve to know why their son was killed, and we are confident this lawsuit will provide answers,” the Carter family’s attorney, Adam Loewy, said Tuesday.

Read more at BET News

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Henry was parked in a fire lane when a police officer knocked on the driver’s side window. Police say Henry sped off, but his family says he moved away at an appropriate speed, believing the officer was instructing him to move.

Henry’s car hit an officer who ended up on its hood, firing through the windshield.

About three dozen relatives and friends gathered Monday outside a sports complex in his hometown of Easton to dedicate an athletic field in Henry’s name.

Police corruption happens in New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and every major U.S. city and is conducted by officers of all races, creeds and colors.

Here is our list of the top 5 most corrupt U.S. police officers of all-time.

5. Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa

Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa worked for the NYPD but in reality, they worked for the mafia. Caracappa was a member of the Organized Crime Homicide Unit investigating the very people he was working for.

The two former partners were taking orders for the Lucchese crime family and served as hitmen as well as moles in the NYPD. In 2006,  Eppolito and Caracappa were convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice, extortion and eight counts of murder and conspiracy.

4.  Joseph Miedzianowski

Joseph Miedzianowski was a Chicago police officer labeled as the most corrupt cop. Miedzianowski served as both police officer and drug kingpin using his knowledge of the streets and gangs to shake down drug dealers.

For most of his 22-year career, Miedzianowski would run the Chicago Gangs Unit, while running his own drug gang at the same time. Miedzianowski would be convicted of 10 counts including drug conspiracy and racketeering in 2001.

3. David Mack And Rafael Perez

David Mack and Rafael Perez worked together for the LAPD Rampart division, but also worked for Death Row Records and were members of the Bloods gang.

Mack would receive the LAPD Medal Of Honor for killing a drug dealer who allegedly pulled a gun on him. But he would also later be  convicted of robbing a bank and be implicated in the murder of rapper, Notorious BIG.

Perez shot and framed an unarmed gang member during his tenure, and stole eight pounds of cocaine from an LAPD evidence locker.

2. Jon Burge

Jon Burge is a former Chicago Police Department detective who oversaw the torture of hundreds of Black men resulting in false confessions between 1972 and 1991.

Burge would burn suspects with radiators and cigarettes, and electrocute their testicles.

Although Burge was protected by the statute of limitations for his crimes, he was convicted for lying about the torture in January of this year.

1. Robert Gisevius, Kenneth Bowen, and Anthony Villavaso

Robert Gisevius, Kenneth Bowen, and Anthony Villavaso were members of the New Orleans police department during Hurricane Katrina. They were charged with first degree murder for killing seventeen-year-old James Brissette who was innocent and unarmed during Hurricane Katrina on the Danzinger bridge. Brisette was simply looking for shelter in the Hurricane and cops pounced on him.

Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon, Villavaso were found guilty of falsifying reports and false prosecution in the conspiracy to cover-up the shooting and may face the death penalty.

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According to police reports, a violent confrontation ensued after officers tried to handcuff Gilberto Powell to investigate a bulge they spotted in his pants.

After he was detained they realized the bulge in his waistband was a colostomy bag.

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A Brooklyn councilman was arrested after a dustup with the NYPD at the West Indian Day Parade yesterday afternoon.

The councilman, Jumaane Williams, was detained by police after walking in a “frozen zone” near the Brooklyn Museum.

An argument ensued and fists started flying when a police captain was punched by an unknown bystander.

An aide to councilman Bill De Blasio was reportedly thrown to the ground by police.

Both Williams and De Blasio’s aide were released.

“Before their identities were established, Council member Williams and Mr. Foy were stopped from entering a frozen zone near the Brooklyn Museum,” NYPD brass said in a statement.

“A crowd formed and an unknown individual punched a police captain on the scene. In order to separate them from the crowd, Mr. Williams and Mr. Foy, who were handcuffed, were brought across the street and detained there until their identities were established and then released.”

Here are 5 of the most deadly barbecue shootings we rounded up on the web.

5. Providence, Rhode Island

Lamarr Trisvane was shot dead at a family barbecue in Providence, Rhode Island by hooded gunmen in 2010.

4. The Bronx.

A 16-year-old, 18-year-old and a pregnant woman were shot at a barbecue in the Bronx when gunmen open-fired on the gathering in 2011.

3. Greenfield, California.

A 19-year-old and a 20-year-old were killed in Greenfield, California when gunmen open fired on a family gathering.

2. Harlem

Police claim that Angel Alvarez shot and killed Luis Soto at a barbecue in Harlem. Alvarez was then shot by the police 23 times and survived. Alvarez was later found not guilty.

1. Homer, Louisiana.

Police killed 73-year-old cancer survivor, Bernard Monroe at a barbecue when they were looking to arrest his son. Police claim that Monroe pulled a pistol on them.

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While shootouts used to be only accessible in movie theaters, surveillance and cell phone cameras allow us to see the real thing: dangerous shootings without the Hollywood gloss. Here are just five infamous shootings that have been caught on camera.

5. Las Vegas, 2010. A deranged 66-year-old man, Johnny Wicks opened fire at the Lloyd George Federal Courthouse, killing a 66-year-old guard and injuring another.

Wicks was allegedly mad at a reduction in his social security payments.

4. Toledo, 2009. After a fistfight at the Route 66 Bar in Toledo, Ohio, two groups of men engaged in a shootout that was caught by surveillance cameras.

Despite the fact that more than 20 shots were fired, no one was hurt.

3. Orlando, 2011. A security guard shot a man who was attempting to rob an Internet cafe in Orlando, Florida.

Video surveillance cameras captured the incident.

Gary Bryant, was killed by a security guard in the shoot-out, and his accomplice, Shawn Richardson, was later charged with felony murder.

2. Miami Beach, 2011. Raymond Herisse was killed by police and four bystanders were injured after a chase and shoot out.

Police claim that Herrisse fired at them but no evidence of that was found. Police also tried to destroy cell phone footage of the shooting.

1. Los Angeles, 1997. After two heavily armored men robbed a bank in North Hollywood, they had a shootout with over 150 police officers.

The men injured eleven officers and seven civilians before finally being killed by police.

In the recording, officer Jason Deal jumps out of his patrol car and runs toward Melvin Williams, who has gotten out of his vehicle. The two begin fighting. Williams punches the officer in the head and takes a couple of steps toward Deal, who draws his gun and fires, killing the unarmed Williams.

Police encounter similar split-second decisions each day and rely on their intensive training and “shoot or don’t shoot” scenarios to guide them. Yet in this case, Deal had gone more than a year without a mandatory training on the use of deadly force. He should have lost his arrest powers several months before the May 2010 shooting, according to a report from state investigators.

“Shooting him in the stomach should have been the last resort. But it was the first thing he did,” said Williams’ mother, Lena. “And that tells you he hadn’t been trained.”

Williams’ family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer, the police department and the town of East Dublin, seeking unspecified damages. They claim East Dublin didn’t have a written use of force policy.

Town attorney Ted Freeman has disputed the excessive force allegations and said the 26-year-old Deal was properly trained. The state investigation, however, found that more than half of the eight-man force in East Dublin, including the chief, missed the training in 2009. Freeman declined further comment.

State investigators are looking into the shooting a second time and the district attorney said he will launch a grand jury investigation next month.

“There’s a lot of controversy about the arrests powers, I can tell you that,” District Attorney Craig Fraser said.

It’s not clear exactly why Deal pulled Williams, 33, over at a friend’s house in a neighborhood filled with ramshackle cinderblock houses and overgrown lawns on the edge of town. Authorities have refused to talk about the traffic stop.

Williams also seems initially confused about why he was pulled over.

“What is wrong with you? Man, what is wrong with you?” Williams said to the officer in the video. Much of the scuffle takes place outside of the camera’s view, but the audio makes clear there is a struggle. After a few more seconds of fighting, Deal fires and Williams crumples to the ground.

“I just shot one,” Deal, struggling to catch his breath, said to a dispatcher. “… I had one try to take my gun.”

Williams was no stranger to law enforcement. He served a few stints in prison in the 1990s on cocaine and shoplifting charges and was sentenced to more than eight years in 1999 for a robbery. He was released in March 2008.

The dash-cam video was provided to The Associated Press by the Williams family. Their attorney, Mario Williams, verified the recording was the same as the one he received from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The attorney, who is not related to the Williams family, declined comment on the case.

States require extensive use of force training, though it is not uniformly administered. In Georgia, officers must complete an annual course that teaches them when to draw their weapons and how to defuse dangerous situations. Courses vary by instructor, but officials said many require officers to go through case studies and scenarios where decisions are made in an instant.

Officers in Georgia who don’t complete the training each year or obtain a waiver lose their power of arrest, said Mitch Jones, the director of the training division of the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.

An initial Georgia Bureau of Investigation report concluded that Deal didn’t do either in 2009 and should have lost his arrest power in January 2010. Deal, who became an officer in 2007, did complete the annual course in 2008, records show.

In a brief interview, Chief Bill Luecke said the department has changed its training protocol, but did not elaborate. He also said officers who had failed to meet the requirement have either made up the course or are doing so.

“Everything’s cool,” he said, before declining to answer additional questions.

East Dublin is a town of about 2,800 people perhaps best known for hosting the Summer Redneck Games, an annual competition that involves watermelon-seed spitting, bobbing for pigs’ feet and the ever-popular mud pit belly flop contest. There’s no city center, but a handful of restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores line the main drag. The police station and mayor’s office share a building that was formerly a bank at one of the town’s main intersections.

The shooting, in a rundown neighborhood within a mile of the police station, incensed activists and others.

“It is so appalling to me that some law enforcement will not uphold the law,” said Kenneth Glasgow, who directs the human rights group The Ordinary People Society. “The hypocrisy is unbearable.”

Experts said an officer is generally allowed to fire a weapon if there’s an immediate threat of death or serious injury to him or others. But they differ on whether Deal should have been allowed to carry a firearm without the training.

Fred G. Robinette III, a retired FBI agent who now works as a consultant on use of force, said the officer should have been required by the department to give up his weapon until he had the proper training.

“When he lost his lawful certification, he should have been placed on administrative duty, the same as officers who are similarly taken out of active service while shootings involving those officers are being investigated,” said Robinette, a 26-year FBI veteran. “This not a new concept. It is done routinely, all of the time.”

He said both the department and the officer could be liable.

“If he had been minding his own business, and was accosted, he would have been as justified as any citizen to defend himself,” he said. “However, it appears that he was acting assertively in his official law enforcement capacity here, and created the confrontation that ultimately resulted in his use of deadly force.”

Others said Deal could have fired his weapon regardless as long as he felt he was in serious danger.

“A police officer does not lose his inherent right to self-defense just because he didn’t attend an annual refresher training course on his department’s use of force policy,” said Gregory D. Lee, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who has written three textbooks on criminal justice procedure.

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The action by a hacker group known as Anonymous was the latest showdown between anarchists angry at perceived attempts to limit free speech and officials trying to control protests that grow out of social networking and have the potential to become violent.

Anonymous posted people’s names, phone numbers, and street and email addresses on its own website, while also calling for a disruption of the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s evening commute Monday.

BART officials said Sunday that they were working a strategy to try to block any efforts by protesters to try to disrupt the service.

“We have been planning for the protests that are said to be shaping up for tomorrow,” BART spokesman Jim Allison said. He did not provide specifics, but said BART police will be staffing stations and trains and that the agency had already contacted San Francisco police.

The transit agency disabled the effected website, myBART.org, Sunday night after it also had been altered by apparent hackers who posted images of the so-called Guy Fawkes masks that anarchists have previously worn when showing up to physical protests.

The cyber attack came in response to the BART’s decision to block wireless service in several of its San Francisco stations Thursday night as the agency aimed to thwart a planned protest over a transit police shooting. Officials said the protest had been designed to disrupt the evening commute.

“We are Anonymous, we are your citizens, we are the people, we do not tolerate oppression from any government agency,” the hackers wrote on their own website. “BART has proved multiple times that they have no problem exploiting and abusing the people.”

Allison described myBART.org as a “satellite site” used for marketing purposes. It’s operated by an outside company and sends BART alerts and other information to customers, Allison said.

The names and contact info published by Sunday came from a database of 55,000 subscribers, he said. He did not know if the group had obtained information from all the subscribers, he said, adding that no bank account or credit card information was listed.

The BART computer problem was the latest hack the loosely organized group claimed credit for this year. Last month, the FBI and British and Dutch officials made 21 arrests, many of them related to the group’s attacks on Internet payment provider PayPal Inc., which has been targeted over its refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks. The group also claims credit for disrupting the websites of Visa and MasterCard in December when the credit card companies stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

BART’s decision to shut down wireless access was criticized by many as heavy handed, and some raised questions about whether the move violated free speech.

The problems began Thursday night when BART officials blocked wireless access to disrupt organization of a demonstration protesting the July 3 shooting death by BART police who said the 45-year-old victim was wielding a knife.

Activists also remain upset by the 2009 death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black passenger who was shot by a white officer on an Oakland train platform. The officer quit the force and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after the shooting.

Facing backlash from civil rights advocates and one of its own board members, BART has defended the decision to block cell phone use, with Allison saying the cell phone disruptions were legal because the agency owns the property and infrastructure.

“I’m just shocked that they didn’t think about the implications of this. We really don’t have the right to be this type of censor,” Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART’s board of directors, said previously. “In my opinion, we’ve let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that’s not fair.”

Laura Eichman was among those whose email and home phone number were published by the hackers Sunday.

“I think what they (the hackers) did was illegal and wrong. I work in IT myself, and I think that this was not ethical hacking. I think this was completely unjustified,” Eichman said.

She said she doesn’t blame BART and feels its action earlier in the week of blocking cell phone service was reasonable.

“It doesn’t necessarily keep me from taking BART in the future but I will certainly have to review where I set up accounts and what kind of data I’m going to keep online,” Eichman said.

Michael Beekman of San Francisco told the AP that he didn’t approve of BART’s move to cut cell phone service or the Anonymous posting.

“I’m not paranoid but i feel like it was an invasion of privacy,” he said. “I thought I would never personally be involved in any of their (Anonymous’) shenanigans.”

The group Anonymous, according to its website, does “not tolerate oppression from any government agency,” and it said it was releasing the User Info Database of MyBart.gov as one of many actions to come.

“We apologize to any citizen that has his information published, but you should go to BART and ask them why your information wasn’t secure with them,” the statement said.

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The New York Daily News reports:

Officer Daniel Hernandez claims that as a result of being kept off the street since July 2008, he’s been “damaged in his employment, and has suffered economically, humiliated, emotional distress and conscious pain and suffering,” according to his complaint in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Because of his negligence and lack of training he shot a human being in the back and paralyzed him, and he says the Police Department is treating him unfairly?” Evans lawyer fumed. “He’s somebody who shouldn’t be a cop.”

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CINCINNATI — Everette Howard, a student from Cincinnati was killed at the University Of Cincinati by campus police who used a taser on him after a confrontation.

WLWT Cincinnati reports:

Everette Howard, 18, died early Saturday morning. Friends said Howard was trying to break up a fight in front of Turner Hall when campus police responded.

Police said Howard appeared angry and didn’t follow orders. Witnesses said Howard collapsed after a UC officer stunned him with a Taser.

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LONDON — The gritty north London neighborhood of Tottenham exploded in anger Saturday night after a young Black man was shot to death by police.

Two patrol cars, a building and a double-decker bus were torched as rioters clashed with officers in front of the Tottenham Police Station, where people had gathered to demand “justice” for the death of a 29-year-old killed in an apparent gunfight.

“It’s really bad,” said local resident David Akinsanya, 46. “There are two police cars on fire. I’m feeling unsafe.”

Sirens could be heard across the city as authorities rushed reinforcements to the scene. In Tottenham shop windows were smashed as residents looted the stores, pushing shopping carts full of stolen goods down the street.

Officers in riot gear and on horseback pushed up against the demonstrators. Akinsanya put the number of demonstrators at between 400 and 500. Police said there were about 300 people gathered.

Miles from the tourist hotspots of central London, Tottenham is one of the most deprived areas in all of England, with nearly half of all children living in poverty, according to campaigners.

In 1985, Tottenham was the scene of a deadly riot after a local woman suffered heart failure when her home was raided by the police. The Tottenham riots were among the most violent in the country’s history, with one officer stabbed to death as he tried to protect firefighters and nearly 60 others were hospitalized.

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Former officer Robert Faulcon, Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso and retired Sgt. Arthur Kaufman were convicted of charges stemming from the cover-up of the shootings. All but Kaufman were convicted of civil rights violations stemming from the shootings. Kaufman, who investigated the shootings, was charged only in the cover-up.

The trial was a high-profile test of the Justice Department’s effort to clean up a police department marred by a reputation for corruption and brutality. A total of 20 current or former New Orleans police officers were charged last year in a series of federal probes. Most of the cases center on actions during the aftermath of the Aug. 29, 2005, storm, which plunged the flooded city into a state of lawlessness and desperation.

The mother of 17-year-old James Brissette, one of the people killed on the bridge, said she was relieved by the verdict after “a long, hard six years.”

His mother, Sherrel Johnson, said she would now try to move on but lamented what her son would miss out on.

“For him there will be no prom, no baby, no nothing. My child will never have nothing,” she said.

The family of Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old disabled man fatally shot on the bridge, said in a statement the family had waited six years to “find out what really happened on that bridge.”

Madison’s sister Jackie Madison Brown read the statement, which also said that after an event like Katrina, “all citizens, no matter what color or what class, deserve protection.”

After the verdict was read, Justice Department prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein became emotional, hugging the families of Madison and Brissette and holding hands with two of Madison’s sisters.

Sentencing was tentatively scheduled for Dec. 14. Kaufman remains free on bond until he is sentenced. The other four officers already are jailed and face possible life prison sentences.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the verdict was critical to the city’s efforts to root out corruption. He said it sends a message that “public officials, and especially law enforcement officers, that they will be held accountable and that any abuse of power will have serious consequences.”

Defense attorney Roger Kitchens, who represented Villavaso, said he believed negative media coverage of the case tainted jurors.

“At this point, I don’t think it’s possible for a New Orleans police officer to get a fair trial in the city of New Orleans. And I don’t think they got one today,” he said.

Prosecutors contended during the five-week federal trial that officers shot unarmed people without justification and without warning, killing two and wounding four others on Sept. 4, 2005, then embarked on a cover-up involving made-up witnesses, falsified reports and a planted gun.

Defense attorneys countered that the officers were returning fire and reasonably believed their lives were in danger as they rushed to respond to another officer’s distress call less than a week after Katrina struck.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Theodore Carter said in closing arguments Tuesday that police had no justification for shooting unarmed, defenseless people trying to cross the bridge in search of food and help mere days after Katrina struck.

“It was unreasonable for these officers to fire even one shot, let alone dozens,” he had said.

Defense attorneys argued, however, that police were shot at on the bridge before they returned fire.

“None of these people intentionally decided to go out there and cause people harm,” said Timothy Meche, Villavaso’s lawyer. He said they did their best, operating under “terrible, horrible circumstances” after Katrina.

Faulcon, the only defendant to testify, said he was “paralyzed with fear” when he shot and killed Madison, as he chased him and his brother, Lance Madison. Faulcon didn’t dispute that he shot an unarmed man in the back, but he testified that he had believed Ronald Madison was armed and posed a threat.

Prosecutors contended at trial that Kaufman retrieved a gun from his home weeks after the shootings and turned it in as evidence, trying to pass it off as a gun belonging to Lance Madison. He also is accused of fabricating two nonexistent witnesses to the shootings.

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KABC reports:

“They kept beating him and Tasering him. I could hear zapping, and he wasn’t even moving,” said Turgeon. “He had one arm in front of him like this, he wasn’t resisting. And they kept telling him, ‘He’s resisting, quit resisting,’ and he wasn’t resisting.”

Police say they won’t talk about what force was used since it’s under investigation, but they say at least six officers were involved and two officers suffered broken bones in the fight.

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Darren Ring, a 34-year-old man from New Johnsonville, suffered a punctured lung and cracked ribs from the brutal beating.

Cops descended on Ring’s neighborhood when they heard reports of gunshots.

The incident occurred on January 23rd this year, and Ring was charged with three counts of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and a parole violation.

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While police claim the man was armed and shot at them, several witnesses reported that they did not see the man shoot at cops.

ABC 7 reports:

“We lost a life out here,” said resident Pladee Clayton. “That’s what everybody’s upset and everything, over an African-American couldn’t pay his fare.”

Police announced a break in the investigation on Sunday. After searching rooftops for a gun pointed at officers by the suspect, the answer may have come from a video posted on the website YouTube. The video shows police moments after the shooting and what appears to be a silver gun just feet from the suspect.

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The New York Daily News reports:

He said Murphy and Ocasio followed him when he was released after getting a disorderly conduct summons and led him into an alley. One punched him in the right ear, the other in the forehead, he said.

Davis said he fell and hit his head on a brick wall during the 30-second attack. “I thought I was going to die,” he said.

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After at least two dozen run-ins with the law, Turner, 56, was shot and killed in front of a convenience store Sunday by a Kern County deputy after he allegedly hit an officer with a bag holding two cans of beer.

“He was a marvelous kid,” Bakersfield College coach Gerry Collins told The Bakersfield Californian. Turner had played with the Cincinnati Bengals.

As a student-athlete, Turner thrived, shredding defenses at Shafter High School, Bakersfield College and San Diego State University. But as an adult, after playing in the NFL from 1978 to 1980, he had trouble finding his place in civilian life.

Court records show an arrest history stretching back to 1986 for the former running back and kick return specialist. The most recent, on June 17, was for driving while his license was revoked because of a conviction for driving under the influence.

On Sunday, deputies were investigating reports of teenagers asking adults to buy alcohol and cigarettes. The deputies approached Turner as he left the store with his 19-year-old son and a 16-year-old juvenile whom authorities have not identified.

The deputies detained Turner while they investigated. According to reports from the sheriff’s office, Turner initially complied with deputies but then decided to leave.

Deputies said a scuffle occurred when they tried to stop Turner. Deputy Aaron Nadal was hit on the back of the head with a bag holding two, 24-ounce cans of beer before Deputy Wesley Kraft drew his handgun and fired twice at Turner, authorities said.

Friends and family told the newspaper they have trouble believing authorities’ account of the story. Coach Collins said, “The deputy must have provoked him.” Nephew Kevin Turner called his uncle “the backbone of our family.”

Sheriff Donny Youngblood said department investigators were getting tapes from video cameras at the store to see if the incident was recorded. He said the investigation won’t be quick, and he will review the results. He said he has purposely not researched Turner’s criminal background.

“I want to look at it with an open and objective mind,” Youngblood said. “Having a record is a tiny piece of the puzzle, but not a significant piece.”

He declined to comment about the investigation directly. The department issued a release saying Nadal was treated and released at a hospital. Officials have not described the nature of his injury.

Kraft is on administrative leave while sheriff’s detectives investigate the shooting.

In 1979, Turner tied for the league lead in kick returns with 55. The same year he was second in rushing yards with 1,149.

“Pound for pound he was as strong as anyone on the time,” former teammate and radio analyst Dave Lapham told Cincinnati.com.

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Jeffrey Lehrmann, a government witness in the federal trial of five current or former officers, said he saw Sgt. Arthur “Archie” Kaufman retrieve a gun from his home several weeks after the deadly shootings on the Danziger Bridge. Kaufman later turned the gun in as evidence, claiming he found it under the bridge a day after the 2005 shootings that left two people dead and four others wounded.

Lehrmann said Kaufman instructed him to fill out paperwork that claimed the gun belonged to Lance Madison, whose mentally disabled brother, Ronald, was shot and killed on the bridge. Lance Madison was arrested on attempted murder charges and held for more than three weeks before a judge freed him.

Lehrmann said Kaufman, his supervisor, had grown concerned because the judge who freed Madison didn’t believe Kaufman’s testimony at the hearing.

“Therefore, we needed a gun,” Lehrmann said.

Lehrmann said Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen joined him and Kaufman when they drove to Kaufman’s house to retrieve a gun. Kaufman emerged from his garage carrying the gun in a brown paper bag, calling it a “ham sandwich,” Lehrmann said.

Kaufman’s attorney, Stephen London, suggested during cross-examination that Lehrmann was trying to shift blame to his client and has changed his story over time. Lehrmann accused London of “nitpicking,” while London chided Lehrmann for smiling during his testimony.

“My client is on trial. Is that funny?” London asked.

“No, it’s not funny at all,” he responded.

On Sept. 4, 2005, Lehrmann drove himself to the Danziger Bridge after a truckload of officers responded to another officer’s distress call and began shooting. He isn’t accused of firing his gun that day.

Lehrmann said he handcuffed Ronald Madison on the west side of the bridge after he was shot, then felt badly about it when another officer told him he already was dead.

Lehrmann said the officers immediately afterward started to “get their stories straight.”

“We had a lot of problems because it was a bad shoot,” he said.

“What was the goal of the cover-up?” prosecutor Cindy Chung asked.

“Protect the officers from legal ramifications,” he said.

Lehrmann said he helped Kaufman with an initial, 32-page report that was bounced back by Lt. Michael Lohman, who also has pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up.

“Lt. Lohman became irate with Archie because he thought Archie’s report was garbage,” Lehrmann recalled.

Lehrmann said the false accounts of what officers did on the bridge continually changed as they honed their cover story.

“The lies changed whenever we needed to change them,” he said.

Lehrmann said he made up the name “Lakeisha” for a phony witness to the shootings when Kaufman called out, “Hey, somebody give me a name!” He said they also fabricated a witness named “James Youngman” and reported he lived at a large, storm-damaged apartment complex where it would be hard to prove the witness didn’t exist.

Weeks after the shooting, Lehrmann said he and Bowen returned to the bridge a day before crime scene technicians were to collect evidence. Lehrmann said he saw Bowen kick shell casings off the bridge where police shot several people.

Gisevius, Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon are on trial for charges stemming from the shootings. Kaufman is charged in the alleged cover-up.

Lehrmann, who already has been sentenced to three years in prison, is one of five former officers who pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up. He is the fourth of those officers to testify at the trial, now entering its third week.

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On the heels of the violent police assault at a recent Pete Rock and Smif N’ Wessun show in New York City, we decided to compile a list of the top 5 most infamous police brutality incidents ever caught on tape.

Below is the list.

5. Pete Rock, Smif N’ Wessun NYPD Police Brutality, 2011 – An album release party turned into a night of mayhem when cops attacked party-goers in a melee that was caught on tape. The police also allegedly struck the daughter of legendary Hip-Hop producer, Pete Rock.

4. Philadelphia Police Brutality, 2009 — An infamous car chase down a Philadelphia highway in which cops finally catch up with their suspect and excessively beat him into the ground.

3. Robert Davis Brutality, 2005 — The story of a New Orleans teacher who says he was attacked by four police officers (two white cops) and brutally beaten by them. Cops claims that Davis resisted arrest and was unruly, but the video taken by an Associated Press reporter shows a totally different story.

2. Oscar Grant Shooting, 2009 — The fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by BART Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California, United States, in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2009 is one of the most excessive examples of police force ever. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid Transit train returning from San Francisco, BART Police officers detained Oscar Grant and several other passengers on the platform at the Fruitvale BART Station. Officer Johannes Mehserle Officer Mehserle stood, drew his gun and shot Grant once in the back after claiming that he was resisting arrest. Grant was unarmed. He later died sparking a fury of protests and a trial.

1. Rodney King Beating, 1991  — Everyone remembers the videotape that shocked the world when a defenseless Rodney King was shown being brutally beaten by the LAPD. A bystander videotaped the whole incident in which a bunch of cops beat King with batons, while other cops just stood by and watched. The cops were later found innocent of police brutality, which in turn sparked the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.

Concerned community members, hip hop artists, local activists, grassroots organizers, and elected officials will gather at the steps of New York City Hall to do three things: To show support for those who were beaten, maced, and arrested by New York City police officers (NYPD) at an album release party for Pete Rock, Tek and General Steele (of the hip hop group Smif N Wessun); to publicly outcry yet another instance of police brutality; and to issue a call-to-action to the community-at- large. Though the individuals who were beaten and arrested last Tuesday, now collectively known as The Monumental 5, have been released until a more in-depth investigation can be launched, the calls demanding justice have grown over the past week, all fueled by the police brutality video footage that has gone viral on the Internet

The press conference will take place Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at noon at City Hall (located at City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street). The Monumental 5 are Louis Pena, Gabriel Diaz, Cynthia Rosa, James W. Ayala, and Jade Everett. Confirmed participants for Tuesday’s press conference include: Pete Rock; General Steele; Shara McHayle (one of the victims of police brutality who is also an entertainment industry professional and the wife of Pete Rock); Lisa “Cynical” Smith (one of the party’s organizers); activist and writer Kevin Powell; activist Lumumba Bandele from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Senior Community Engagement Advocate for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; NYC Council Member Charles Barron; and Kenneth Montgomery, the attorney representing The Monumental 5.

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I can’t seem to erase the conjured images of New York City Police Department officers, savagely beating patrons outside Tammany Hall from my psyche. I didn’t witness it personally, but the bit of video footage caught on camera was enough to fill me with rage.

The riot that occurred on Tuesday, June 28, in which chaos ensued between officers and a crowd from hip-hop producer Pete Rock, and rappers Tek & Steele’s (of Smif N Wessun) concert in Manhattan was nothing short of appalling.

That evening, the Hip-Hop stars were supposed to celebrate their collaborative album “Monumental,” but instead it turned into a night of melee. According to them and witnesses, a minor argument ensued and was rapidly diffused. Thirty minutes later NYPD officers arrived on the scene to shut down the event. Details thereafter are unclear, however, witnesses stated that police began to assault and spray people with mace.

From there all mayhem broke loose.

From a video provided on the Internet, officers used excessive force. The tension and menacing displayed was deplorable on all levels. From what I gathered, those fans and supporters were not there to fight anyone, let alone with the police. In fact, I did not see one single person lend a hand on an officer. What I did see were cops (White, I may add) using intimidation — but for what? I am uncertain.

Indeed, the street was filled with numerous bystanders, many of whom the cops were probably trying to disperse. However, I can imagine many of those people did not clear the street because they, too, were dismayed and appalled by the cops’ display of unprofessionalism. I imagine many of them were angered their night was ruined; a night that was intended to be celebratory and fun. All considered, I wouldn’t leave either.

By no means do I entirely rule out any possibility of wrongdoing on behalf of the crowd, however based on corroborating accounts from witnesses and the video, I would say it is unlikely. This incident like so many others highlights a high-priority issue in NYC: unjust police brutality. Whether physical or psychological intimidation, NYPD officers have an extensive track record of unjustly using their “authority” to exercise corrupt behavior.

That night was clearly enacted based off one thing: prejudice. Not in the sense of hate, but in the sense that those cops entered an event belonging to a culture that had been vilified for decades. Those cops acted on prejudice in the sense that they had preconceived notions of the type of crowd they were, based on the fact that it was a Hip-Hop concert. Whether those fans were Black, white or anything in between, they were perceived as an uniformed, violent subculture and because of it they were treated as such.

Why on earth would 15-20 officers respond to an incident that was resolved thirty minutes prior? And assuming they saw no visible sign of an altercation, which I’m sure was the case, what was the rationale of shutting the event down? Sometimes officers use their authority for the wrong reasons. Rather than officiating as servers and protectors of the community, they cast themselves in villainous roles, unjustly attacking the ones they should be safeguarding.

Police should never question why there is so much friction between the department and the community, because it’s clear the man in blue is the true issue at hand.

How can citizens not look at cops with preconceptions, if officers wrongly judge them each and everyday? Furthermore, how can cops be respected if they don’t respect the people they’re supposed to be protecting? That video clearly illustrates the police department’s lack of respect, and the reports that they assaulted women as well, only further drives my point.

Ironically on that same day 42 years ago, another riot ensued no more than 10 minutes away at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, where police unjustly raided a gay bar. In 2011, nothing much has changed. Corrupt police still exist. That night at Tammany Hall, everyone posed as a symbolism of everything bad: Black, Hip-Hop, gay, you name it. Cops were prejudice 42 years ago and they’re prejudice today.

I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

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