'The Phrase, “The Science,” Contradicts the Whole Notion of Science, which is a Mode of Inquiry Not a Mode of Authority, two Very Different Things.’ Ivy League Scientists Expose Climate Change Fraud

Don’t believe the fake media’s lies! In this compilation of powerful interviews conducted by investigative journalist Alex Newman, astrophysicists, atmospheric physicists, geophysicists, climate scientists, meteorologists, and other leading experts from around the world come together to share a simple message: the “climate change” movement is not about “saving the environment.” It is about control. 

From Harvard and Princeton to MIT and Stockholm University and even reviewers for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Newman asked some of the world’s most respected scientists REAL questions about global warming, the planet, and freedom. Their answers are incredible and powerful.  

Trigger warning: If you have only consumed information about the climate from the legacy media, what you hear might shock you.

Israelien Terrorcrats are Manufacturing Famine: Committing the War Crime of Starvation in the Gaza Strip

From [HERE] In early April 2024, an Israeli airstrike on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy that was on its way to deliver humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip killed seven of the organization’s workers. WCK, a key agency in humanitarian relief efforts in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, halted operations following the incident. Several other organizations also announced they would be suspending operations in the Gaza Strip due to fear for their workers’ lives. The killing of the aid workers, six of whom were foreign nationals, drew sharp criticism of Israel from senior officials in the international community, chiefly, US President Joe Biden. In a special statement released by the White House, President Biden asserted that Israel was not doing enough to avoid harming civilians and aid workers trying to deliver “desperately needed” help to the hungry population in Gaza Strip, and that this was not a “stand-alone incident.” All of this comes in the wake of the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice at the end of January, instructing Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Responding to international pressure, Israeli officials, including the IDF Spokesperson and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) pledged to work towards improving humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, released figures on this subject and even announced Erez Crossing would reopen and the numbers of trucks permitted to enter Gaza increase. The IDF Spokesperson went so far as announcing “expansion of efforts to facilitate humanitarian aid into Gaza” to the foreign press.

It is too soon to determine how the shift in Israel’s policy will affect reality on the ground. Yet it is clearly too little, too late, and attests to Israel being chiefly responsible for the humanitarian crisis that has, since the war began about six months ago, spiraled into the catastrophe we are witnessing now. For months, Israel refused to let humanitarian aid in through the land crossings in its territory, thereby limiting the amount of aid that could enter. Even when, following international pressure, Israel did agree to allow aid in through its territory, the amounts were a far cry from the needs of the population, and Israel even stooped so low as to try and present a false image that there was no serious nutritional crisis in Gaza. The current change in policy cannot absolve Israel of its responsibility for the hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip, and it is doubtful whether the “new measures” it recently announced – whose effect on the ground, to the extent they actually exist, it is to early to analyze – can meet the current needs of the civilian population there.

In this document, we review the current scale of the hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip, its short and long term impacts, Israel’s conduct with respect to this issue and the legal implications of this conduct. We rely on the most recent figures and data available.

Based on various reports from international bodies about the situation in Gaza and on testimonies gathered by B'Tselem's field researchers, we unfortunately conclude that for months, Israel has been committing the crime of starvation under international law in the Gaza Strip. [MORE]

Who’s “Weird?” Massa’ Media Ignores Mounting Evidence that Barbaric IsrAliens are Torturing and Raping Palestinian Prisoners in a Network of Torture Camps. Video Shows Soldiers Raping Palestinian Man

From [HERE] AS EARLY AS the first month of Israel’s war on Gaza, Sde Teiman, a secretive Israeli military prison in the Negev desert, had been raising alarm bells for Israeli human rights attorney Roni Pelli and other rights advocates.

Pelli and her colleagues started to hear reports from whistleblowers about poor conditions for Palestinians imprisoned inside Sde Teiman. They heard of instances of violence committed by soldiers against detained Palestinians, and, in one case, a Palestinian who died there. 

Since then, media reports about the prison have mounted, quoting formerly detained Palestinians and Israeli whistleblowers, who spoke in more detail of the harrowing conditions inside the prison. A CNN investigation in May revealed that Palestinian detainees were restrained and blindfolded, forced to sit and sometimes stand throughout the night beneath flood lights; wounded Palestinians were strapped down onto beds, forced to wear diapers, and fed through straws; soldiers beat detainees motivated by revenge for the October 7 attacks; and prisoners’ limbs were amputated due to untreated wounds from restraints, and such operations took place without anesthesia. 

Later in May, an Intercept investigation found that hundreds of Palestinian doctors have disappeared into Israeli detention, and included the testimony of one surgeon who was beaten and abused at Sde Teiman. A month later, a separate report from Haaretz revealed the Israel Defense Forces were investigating 48 deaths of Palestinians from Gaza who were in Israeli custody, among them 36 who were detained at Sde Teiman. Israeli media began to refer to the prison as “Israel’s Guantánamo Bay.” [MORE]

“Welcome to Hell” is a report on the abuse and inhuman treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023. B’Tselem collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians held during that time and released, almost all with no charges. Their testimonies reveal the outcomes of the rushed transformation of more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, military and civilian, into a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates as a matter of policy. Facilities in which every inmate is deliberately subjected to harsh, relentless pain and suffering operate as de-facto torture camps.

The testimonies clearly indicate a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel:

Frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation, prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment – these descriptions appear time and again in the testimonies, in horrifying detail and with chilling similarities.

Over the years, Israel has incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in its prisons, which have always served, above all, as a tool for oppressing and controlling the Palestinian population. The stories presented in this report are the story of thousands of Palestinians, residents of the Occupied Territories and citizens of Israel, who have been arrested since the beginning of the war, as well as Palestinians already incarcerated on 7 October who experienced the massive increase in hostility from prison authorities since that day. 2

In early July 2024, there were 9,623 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention facilities almost double the number just before the war began. Of these, 4,781 were detained without trial, without being presented with the allegations against them, and without access to the right to defend themselves, in what Israel terms "administrative detention."3 Some were jailed simply for expressing sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians. Others were taken into custody during military activity in the Gaza Strip, on the sole grounds that they came under the vague definition of "men of fighting age." Some were imprisoned over suspicions, substantiated or not, that they were operatives or supporters of Palestinian armed groups. The prisoners form a wide spectrum of people from different areas, with varying political opinions and only thing in common – being Palestinian.

The prisoners’ testimonies lay bare the outcomes of a rushed process in which more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, both military and civilian, were converted into a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates. Such spaces, in which every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering, operate as de-facto torture camps.

The abuse consistently described in the testimonies of dozens of individuals held in different facilities was so systematic, that there is no room to doubt an organized, declared4 policy of the Israeli prison authorities. This policy is implemented under the direction of the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, whose office oversees the Israel Prison Service (IPS), with the full support of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The heinous attack by Hamas and other armed Palestinian organizations on 7 October and the widespread targeting of civilians deeply traumatized Israeli society, evoking deep-seated fears and an instinct for revenge among many. For the government and Minister Ben Gvir, this provided an opportunity to press harder with applying their racist ideology, using the oppressive mechanisms at their disposal. These include the prison system, for which they designed a policy aimed at trampling the basic rights of Palestinian prisoners underfoot.

On 18 October, the minister in charge declared a "prison state of emergency" as part of emergency legislation,5 producing a serious, substantive violation of the most basic human rights of Palestinian prisoners. Koby Yaakobi, a close associate of Minister Ben Gvir appointed by him as IPS Commissioner in the height of the war, declared his intent to "revolutionize" the IPS in keeping with the minister’s policies as soon as he took office, naming the downgrading of prison conditions a top priority.6

As the testimonies reveal, the new policy is applied across all prison facilities and to all Palestinian prisoners. Among its main tenets are unrelenting physical and psychological violence, denial of medical treatment, starvation, withholding of water, sleep deprivation and confiscation of all personal belongings. The overall picture indicates abuse and torture carried out under orders, in utter defiance of Israel’s obligations both under domestic law and under international law.

A clear indicator of the severity of the situation and the moral degradation of the Israeli prison system can be seen in the number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody – no less than 60. The report includes testimonies given to B’Tselem regarding three of these deaths. Thaer Abu ‘Asab, a 38-year-old from Qalqiliyah held in the Negev (Ketziot) Prison, was found dead in his cell on 18 November 2023. On his body were severe signs of violence.7 ‘Arafat Hamdan, a 24-year old diabetic from Beit Beit Sira who relied on insulin treatments, was found dead in his cell on 24 October 2023, two days after his arrest. The testimonies reveal he was denied proper medical treatment. Muhammad a-Sabbar, a 20-year-old from the town of a-Dhahiriyah who had an intestinal disease requiring a special diet, died at Ofer Prison on 8 February, according to testimonies due to lack of proper nutrition, poor medical care and brazen disregard for his condition.

The transition from what appears to have initially been spontaneous acts of vengeance to a permanent, systematic regime stripping away all protections designed to uphold and ensure the most basic rights of Palestinian prisoners was made possible when the government exploited its powers to enact draconian, injurious "emergency regulations" and applied them in a brazen, gross violation of multiple norms and obligations under Israeli law, international human rights law, the laws of war and humanitarian law. The violations included the widespread, systematic and prolonged commission of the crime of torture.8 Equally important, in these actions, Israel is trampling basic human morality underfoot along with the most protected human rights of prisoners held in state custody.

The legal gatekeepers, such as the High Court of Justice and the State Attorney’s Office, ostensibly entrusted with upholding the rule of law and protecting human rights, have bowed their heads in submission to Ben Gvir’s agenda, and allowed abuses and the total dehumanization of these prisoners to become the premise for the entire system’s operation. The result is a system that specializes in torture and abuse, where, at any given moment, many thousands of Palestinians are kept behind bars, most without trial, and all in inhuman conditions.

Testimonies from inside: The reality in Israel’s torture camps

The testimonies given to B’Tselem reveal the following prevalent, consistent and widespread conditions.

Overpopulation and crowding in cells: The testimonies indicate that cell occupancy more than doubled. Cells intended for six prisoners held 12 to 14 prisoners at a time, with "excess" inmates forced to sleep on the floor, sometimes with no mattress or blanket.

After 7 October 2023, [...] the prison administration collectively punished us on a regular basis. The first thing was increasing the number of prisoners in each cell from six to 14. This meant reduced privacy and a much longer wait to use the toilet in the cell. In addition, the new detainees who came to the cell had to sleep on the floor, because there were only three bunk beds.

From the testimony of S.B., a resident of East Jerusalem. Read the full testimony here

No sunlight and no air to breathe: Some prisoners found themselves locked in their cells throughout the entire day; others were allowed out for an hour once every few days in order to shower. Some never saw daylight during their time in prison.

We were also forbidden to go outside to the yard, unlike before. For 191 days, I didn’t see the sun.

From the testimony of Thaer Halahleh, 45, a father of four and resident of Kharas in Hebron District, who was held in the Ofer and Nafha prisons. Read the full testimony here

Violent roll calls, increased frequency: According to the testimonies, roll calls and/or cell searches occur three to five times a day. In most cases, inmates were forced to crowd together, facing the wall, with their heads bowed down to the floor and their hands interlocked on the back of their necks, in some cases kneeling in prostration as during prayer. These practices no longer serve their original purpose, and have become an opportunity for prison guards to unleash severe violence and another tool for humiliating and degrading prisoners.

We were counted three times a day. It was done in a humiliating way, with the guards shouting. The unit would come in heavily armed with gas and batons. [...] There was also a policy of collective punishment and random searches of the cells about once a week. They would force us to undress and then search us, take us out of the cells into the corridor and do a thorough search of the room. It could take an hour or even several hours, and included shouting, assaults and beatings with batons.

Withholding access to the courts, aid agencies and legal counsel: As the Emergency Regulations permit,9 the vast majority of the witnesses went days, weeks, and in some cases, months before being brought before a judge for the first time, and even then, the hearings took place remotely via Zoom. The menacing presence of the prison guards inhibited prisoners from complaining to the judges or reporting the torture they underwent.

They took us one by one to a room where we attended our hearings via Zoom. On the way there, IRF members punched me very hard in the chest. An Arabic- speaking guard was in the room, and he listened to the entire conversation between me, the judge, and the lawyer. He threatened that if I complained to the judge, I would pay. The lawyer told me before the hearing that the judges already knew about everything that was going on in the prison, so there was no point talking about it. Still, in the hearing he asked me, "Have you been exposed to violence in prison?" I didn’t dare answer, because I was afraid the guards would retaliate and beat me even more brutally. [...] Every time they took me to the room where we attended our court hearings on Zoom, I endured the same path of torture, beating and humiliation. All the inmates in the prison went through that.

From the testimony of Firas Hassan, 50, a father of four and resident of Hindaza in Bethlehem District, who was held in the Negev Prison (Ketziot). Read the full testimony here.

Meetings with legal counsel were denied for increasingly long durations, reaching as much as 180 days, on the pretext of "dynamic needs on the ground."10 Most of the witnesses interviewed for this report did not see their lawyers once during their entire incarceration. They were also prevented from meeting with representatives of the ICRC, aid and human rights organizations, the Public Defender’s Office,11 or other official oversight bodies.12 [MORE]

Judge Sentences White NY Cop Convicted for Raping 13 Year Old to Only 10 Weekends in Jail

From [HERE] A disgraced Rochester cop who raped a 13-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to just 10 weekends in jail for his disturbing crime — a punishment activists decried as “the epitome of injustice.”

Shawn Jordan, 40, admitted in March to assaulting the teen in the summer of 2022, marking one of at least two alleged sexually predatory crimes he committed while serving on the Rochester Police Department force.

“This is an ultimate tragedy, because these parents trusted him,” Kelly Wolford, assistant district attorney of Ontario County, told ABC 3340.

“He’s a police officer, and if we can’t trust the police, then who can we trust? It’s a very difficult situation … Because this was a child who trusted somebody, and he was an adult who knew better.”

The sex pest previously pleaded guilty to second-degree rape and forcible touching in connection to an incident that occurred in his home in South Bristol, a community in Ontario County.

He was arrested a year later — six months after he was charged in a separate case for allegedly exposing himself to another teenager in an online video chat.

The sentence of 10 weekends in jail followed by 10 years of probation came as part of a plea agreement.

According to prosecutors, Jordan was desperately trying to avoid spending time in jail and facing the violence targeted at both child predators and police officers. The prosecution was hoping to keep the young victim from testifying about her trauma.

The victim’s family, however, desperately pleaded that Jordan be sent to prison — with her mother testifying in court that he had “ruined” her daughter’s life and “doesn’t deserve to be out on the street.”

Activists also voiced their criticism of the plea deal, which the judge approved after telling Jordan, “I hope you feel shame.”

The judge accepted the plea deal, telling Jordan she hopes he feels “shame.”ABC 13

“This sentence is the epitome of injustice and a dangerous nod to child sexual predators letting them know, ‘No worries, we won’t go too hard on you,’” Kathryn Robb, the national director of the Children’s Justice Campaign at the Enough Abuse organization, told The Guardian.

“This little girl will be imprisoned by her memories for life, while [the rapist] loses a mere 20 days of his liberty.”

Jordan — who will register as a sex offender — could still face prison time for his second sexual offense, which triggered his suspension and subsequent resignation from the Rochester Police Department.

A court date has not yet been scheduled for that case.

Can Super Slow Appellate Courts Still Provide "Justice?" Innocent Death-Sentenced Prisoners Wait Longer than Ever for Exoneration

From [HERE] On July 1, after waiting 41 years for his name to be cleared, Larry Roberts became the 200th person exonerated from death row. A new Death Penalty Information Center analysis finds that Mr. Roberts’ experience illustrates a troubling trend: for innocent death-sentenced prisoners, the length of time between wrongful conviction and exoneration is increasing. In the past twenty years, the average length of time before exoneration has roughly tripled, and 2024 has the highest-ever average wait before exoneration, at 38.7 years. Our research suggests that two of the factors contributing to this phenomenon are procedural rules restricting prisoner appeals and resistance by state officials to credible claims of innocence.

Our Innocence Database tracks people who were exonerated since 1973, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia invalidated the nation’s death penalty statutes and commuted the sentences of everyone on death row. The earliest death sentence in our database was in 1963. As a result, it makes sense that the average length of time before exoneration would increase to some degree since the beginning of our dataset; a person exonerated in 1973 would have spent a maximum of 10 years on death row, while a person exonerated today could have spent over 50 years. However, one would expect that with a functioning legal system that properly identifies wrongful convictions, the number would plateau regardless of the maximum time spent on death row. For example, if the appeals process consistently identified wrongful convictions within 15 years, the average time on death row would increase until the late 1970s, at which point the data would show a relatively stable horizontal line around the 15-year mark through today. Instead, the average length of time has skyrocketed, especially since the early 2000s. As the years pass, people continue to be exonerated who were sentenced to death at the very beginning of the modern death penalty era. Last year, Oklahoma released Glynn Simmons, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1975. He endured more than 48 years of appeals in which courts ignored and turned away his pleas of innocence. [MORE]

Was Remixed Video of Anchorage Cops Shooting Kris Handy Full Transparency from Gov Servants or a PR Piece to Cover Up Murder by Public Masters? No Cops Charged, Suit Filed, Unedited Video Kept Secret

The family of Kristopher Handy has filed a federal lawsuit against the four police officers who shot and killed the 34-year-old outside his West Anchorage apartment in May, claiming wrongful death and excessive use of deadly force.The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Anchorage’s U.S. District Court by an attorney representing Handy’s parents, Monte and Ardell Handy, and on behalf of three of his children. It claims that the shooting wasn’t justified because Handy didn’t point a weapon at officers.

Anchorage Police Department released a video on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 containing body worn camera footage from the fatal shooting of Kristopher Handy. The family is mainly seeking accountability and justice through the lawsuit, Roberts said. They have not yet determined how much money they are seeking in the suit, he said. [MORE]

Surveillance Video Shows LAPD Cop in Unmarked Car Fatally Shoot Ricardo Ramirez (18 yrs). Witnesses Say Unarmed Latino Boy Had Arms Extended and Palms Up as He Walked Toward the Car. Suit Filed

From [HERE] The LAPD has released new video in connection with the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old by a plainclothes officer in the Figueroa Corridor.

Ricardo Ramirez Jr., 18, of Richmond, Calif. was fatally shot on the night of July 13 by a vice sergeant.

His family is planning to sue the department, saying the teen was unarmed and did not even know he was approaching an armed police officer that evening.

LAPD says the teen was wearing a ski mask and was shot after the car he was in pulled over and blocked off lanes and two occupants got out and approached the other vehicle.

The sergeant who shot the teen was not wearing a body camera but the new footage includes surveillance video from nearby cameras as well as bodycam footage from officers who responded afterward.

The incident started as LAPD officers were conducting a prostitution enforcement operation in the Figueroa Corridor. They saw a silver Cadillac pull up in front of a Toyota Camry and the masked occupants get into a heated exchange with those in the other vehicle. The Toyota took off.

As the Cadillac also left the scene, a vice sergeant in an unmarked vehicle followed.

An officer's voice on radio traffic can be heard stating: "Follow that car because they were all masked up. Follow that car."

However, no police officer had witnessed any crime - arguing isn’t unlawful, yet.

The Cadillac soon pulled over in a residential neighborhood near 66th and Flower streets in South Los Angeles. It turned around and partially blocked the roadway and the occupants got out.

One occupant approached the passenger side while another - later identified as Ramirez and described as wearing a mask ran towards the unmarked police vehicle. Ramirez can be seen immediately falling to the ground as he was shot once in the chest from the police vehicle.

The second man returned to the Cadillac, which fled from the scene. Other officers arrived at the scene and they attempted to render medical aid to Ramirez until paramedics arrived. He was brought to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead there.

Other LAPD officers and the CHP engaged in a lengthy chase of the Cadillac, which eventually ended in a surrender on the northbound 15 near the 138 in San Bernardino County. The driver, Israel Dezama, 26, of Pittsburg, Calif. was arrested for felony evading. The other two occupants were questioned and released.

No weapons were recovered from the Cadillac or Ramirez.

The family's attorney says Ramirez and the others in the vehicle had been driving near the Figueroa Corridor when they noticed a dark unmarked vehicle with tinted windows following them. They say Ramirez got out of the car and had his palms up, intending to ask why they were being followed, when he was shot in the chest.

"It's very disturbing. It's hard to see my son... he got shot and he tried crawling for his life, and just to see him do that it was just really hard," Ramirez's mother Renee Villalobos said.

"This shot came from within the car, through glass - meaning that Ricky didn't even have an opportunity to see someone in the car pointing a gun at him, much less somebody he would identify as a police officer," attorney Christopher Dolan, who represents the family, said last week.

Officer Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Degrade Man Frozen to Death in Alabama Jail: Cops Put Him in a Cement Box w/No Access to Toilet, Sink, Running Water or a Bed and Denied Medical Treatment

From [HERE] Joshua Conner Jones, a former correctional officer with the Walker County Sheriff’s Office in Jasper, Alabama, pleaded guilty last week to federal charges stemming from the hypothermia death of Anthony “Tony” Mitchell in 2023.

Federal prosecutors charged Mr. Jones for conspiring with other Walker County Jail staff to violate Mr. Mitchell’s constitutional rights by “depriving him of humane conditions of confinement including, but not limited to, adequate food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, and medical and mental health care,” which resulted in his death.

The plea agreement does not identify Mr. Mitchell by name, but Mr. Jones’s lawyer confirmed it relates to Mr. Mitchell’s death.

Tony Mitchell, 33, was arrested and taken to the Walker County Jail by sheriff’s deputies responding to a request for a mental health welfare check on January 12, 2023. In a detailed plea agreement entered last week, Mr. Jones says he and other correctional officers were told that Mr. Mitchell had shot at deputies.

Mr. Mitchell “could not walk or stand on his own” when he arrived at the jail, according to the plea. He was “disoriented, non-combative, and could not follow instructions,” so “helpless that he was not capable of undressing or dressing himself,” and it was “obvious to everyone” that he needed to be taken to a hospital. 

Instead, Mr. Jones said officers put him in the drunk tank—“a cement box with a small grate on the floor” that “did not have a sink, a toilet, access to any running water, or a raised platform to be used as a bed” and was “notoriously cold during winter months and the temperature on the bare cement floor was even colder”—and denied him medical attention until the day he died two weeks later.

The jail was fully capable of providing medical help to Mr. Mitchell—who “was frailer than most other inmates”—but Mr. Jones admitted that he conspired with other officers to deny Mr. Mitchell medical help by falsely telling medical staff he was too “combative” to be treated. They called him “combative” as “an excuse to mistreat him,” Mr. Jones said.

Mr. Jones admitted that he and his co-conspirators continued to actively deny care to Mr. Mitchell “despite his obvious need for mental health and medical services.” He was exhibiting severe mental health symptoms, “talking incoherently about ‘demons’ and ‘portals’” and “was often covered in feces, which was an indication that he could not care for himself,” and his condition deteriorated over the next two weeks. Mr. Jones observed:

As the time passed [Mr. Mitchell] was almost always naked, wet, cold, and covered in feces while lying on the cement floor without a mat or blanket. By the second week of incarceration, [Mr. Mitchell] was largely listless and mostly unresponsive to questions from officers. 

Mr. Jones admitted that he and other officers “actively chose not to provide care” to Mr. Mitchell despite his “obvious suffering” because they said “he gets what he gets since he shot at cops” and should have been killed rather than brought to the jail where they had to deal with him.

On the morning of January 26, 2023, a nurse repeatedly told Mr. Jones and jail supervisors that Mr. Mitchell urgently needed to be taken to a hospital or he could die. They did not call an ambulance and instead waited more than three hours before taking him to the hospital in the back of a patrol car. When he arrived at the hospital, Mr. Mitchell’s internal body temperature was reportedly 72 degrees. Doctors tried for three hours to resuscitate him before he was declared dead at 1:15 pm.

Mr. Mitchell’s death was ruled a homicide, according to a death certificate obtained by ABC3340 News. The cause of death was listed as hypothermia with underlying cause of “sepsis resulting from infected injuries obtained during incarceration and medical neglect.”

Mr. Jones admitted that “collectively we did it. We killed him.” He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for the federal conspiracy offense.

Mr. Jones also pleaded guilty to hitting a pretrial detainee in the face repeatedly with a can of pepper spray, resulting in bodily injury, and writing a false report to cover it up. That crime carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The plea agreement describes five unnamed staff members as co-conspirators in the death of Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Jones’s attorney said, “I expect this is the tip of the iceberg and in the coming weeks you will see multiple other individuals charged for the death of Mr. Mitchell as a result of the actions or inaction of employees of the Walker County Sheriff’s office.”

UNICEF Official: Suffering, Destruction in Gaza ‘Beyond Description’

Uncivilized Israelien Authorities Have Made the Gaza Strip an Incubator of disease. Ten months into Israel's relentless onslaught, the war-torn Gaza Strip has become an incubator of disease amid a humanitarian and epidemiological crisis that Israel is closely following. Food shortages, crumbling infrastructure, a failing medical system, flowing sewage, waste buildup, and summer heat have turned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza into a serious epidemiological threat. [MORE]

From [HERE] Salim Oweis, a UNICEF official who recently returned from the Gaza Strip, said the reality in the Palestinian enclave is much worse than what people see in the media as Israel’s aggression on Gaza continues for the 311th day. 

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Oweis, a communications officer at UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa office, said, “We don’t see on the screens the depth of the deaths and destruction, the depths of people suffering and their daily struggles for the basics of the basics.”

“I was based in Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis and also north of Gaza, and to be honest, the more you move, the more suffering and destruction you see. The situation is really beyond description,” he said.

He described the impact of repeated attacks on schools as devastating.

“Those schools are not schools anymore. They are very basic shelters for so many families, and we have unfortunately seen in the last 10 months so many of those attacks on schools, on hospitals, on civilian infrastructure that children and families rely on, which makes life even more miserable.”

The Dependent Media Downplays and Conceals the International Court of Justice Ruling Declaring IsrAlien Occupation illegal

From [HERE] The International Court of Justice’s landmark opinion that Israel’s “settlements” in the occupied Palestine West Bank violate international law should have been on the front page of the New York Times. Prominently.

But no. Instead, the Times, along with the rest of the U.S. mainstream media, downplayed, covered up, and even ignored the historic July 19 decision. 

Let’s start with the Times. The print edition the day after ran the story at the bottom of page 5. Two days later, the report has already disappeared from the paper’s online home page. 

This site has long and regularly explained how the New York Times tried to finesse its reporting about Israel’s illegal settlements. Here’s what we said last year: the paper’s tactic has been to “insinuate that there are ‘two sides’ about whether Israel was legally allowed to move hundreds of thousands of Jewish-only ‘settlers’ into the occupied territory.” The paper’s favorite word was “disputed;” some say yes, some say no, you decide. 

No longer. The Times can certainly report that Israel disagrees with the Court’s decision and will not respect it. But “disputed” is over.

Here’s another suggestion. In a triumph of Orwellian language, Israel and its supporters have successfully labeled those 700,000 people as “settlers.” We have long argued that the word “colonists” is more accurate. But the court decision suggests a third possibility: “illegal settlers.” The phrase is not an insult, or an example of bias. After July 19, 2024, it’s just a fact.

Other news outlets

By contrast, the Washington Post was the only outlet that did an acceptable job on the news. Here was its headline: ‘Israel should evacuate settlements, pay reparations, ICJ [International Court of Justice] says.’

National Public Radio is notoriously biased in favor of Israel, and its coverage did not disappoint. Here’s the headline to NPR’s 3-minute on-air report: “Drone attack hits Tel Aviv; ICJ rules West Bank Israeli settlements are unlawful.” That drone attack, apparently carried out by Ansar Allah from Yemen, was certainly news — but in what universe is it more important than the World Court’s finding that Israel has been violating international law for nearly five decades, and that the 700,000 Jewish-only “settlers” are living in Palestine illegally, and should evacuate the territory? (NPR did produce a slightly longer report, but it only appeared on its online website.)

What about CNN? Not much there either — so far, a single online report that apparently did not appear on the air. MSNBC? Its site has a 1:37 report, with no indication of how often it was broadcast. 

CBS News was the worst. The network, which once employed genuine journalists like Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, has so far not aired a single report on the court’s decision. [MORE]

RichCraft: Venezuela has the World’s Largest Oil Reserves. If You Know This, You Need Know Little Else About Why Elites are Using US Authorities and It’s Mass Media to Try to Overthrow an Election

HONKEY KONG FAR WORSE THAN JAN 6. From [HERE] With upcoming elections scheduled for July 28, the United States is working overtime to dislodge the socialist government of Nicolás Maduro. Ten individuals are vying for the position, including nine in opposition to Maduro, who heads a coalition of 13 leftist groups.

Washington, though, has made clear that its preferred candidate is 74-year-old retired diplomat Edmundo González, and is spending big, bankrolling a myriad of opposition organizations, from political parties to NGOs and media outlets, all with the same goal in mind: ousting Maduro and returning Venezuela into the U.S. sphere of influence.

The U.S. is also continuing its campaign of economic warfare against the country, with crushing sanctions designed to make the economy scream and foster domestic resentment towards the Maduro administration. Its reason for doing so is that, since 1998, Venezuela has offered a different political and development model and has been a leading anti-imperialist force, opposing U.S. actions and serving as one of the loudest critics of Israel, who Maduro recently accused of carrying out one of the worst genocides since the Second World War.

RUNNING INTERFERENCE IN VENEZUELA

The primary vehicle through which the U.S. supports overseas groups is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Since President Hugo Chavez’s election in 1998, the United States has spent tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars on “democracy promotion” in the country.

For example, the NED’s latest published country report notes that it spent over $100,000 sponsoring a program called “Food Security and the Transition to Democracy,” which consisted of “foster[ing] a network of activists, intellectuals and citizens” who could act as leaders for a “democratic transition.” Since the United States is one of only a handful of countries that fails to recognize the legitimacy of the government of Venezuela, it is clear that this would involve regime change.

A second grant, this time for over $180,000, is designed to “enhance the leadership, organizational, and networking capacity of youth to engage in the recovery of democracy; and to foster international solidarity by raising the profiles and voices of youth leaders” – in other words, to train a generation of pro-U.S. political leaders to challenge and overthrow the government.

Much of the local Venezuelan media is also financed by Washington, and the NED report details numerous projects promoting pro-U.S. anti-government messaging. From schemes “disseminating independent information to citizens and activists” to “strengthen[ing] independent media and overcom[ing] government censorship” and “expanding independent news coverage,” Washington’s money has bolstered and promoted oppositional groups for more than twenty years. The NED, however, refuses to divulge any of the names of the Venezuelan groups it funds.

Founded in 1983 after a series of public scandals that seriously undermined the image of the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy was explicitly designed as a cutout organization that could do much of the agency’s most controversial work. This includes overthrowing foreign governments. “It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” NED President Carl Gershman explained. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” NED co-founder Allen Weinstein added. Recently, NED projects have included channeling money to the leaders of the Hong Kong Protest movement, fomenting a nationwide protest campaign against the Cuban government, and attempting to overthrow the Lukashenko administration in Belarus. [MORE]

Did Chicago Cops Wearing Hoodies in Unmarked Car Stop Dexter Reed b/c of a Seatbelt, Tints or b/c He was Black? Liar Cops Change Their Story, None Charged So Far in Massacre of Black Man, Shot at 96X

From [HERE] There was a hearing Wednesday on the civil lawsuit filed in the Chicago police shooting death of Dexter Reed during a traffic stop.

Plainclothes officers wearing hoodies shot and killed Reed, 26, on March 21 after a traffic stop in the 3800 block of West Ferdinand Street by police in an unmarked vehicle without sirens or lights.

Authorities and their media claim Reed shot fired a bullet that grazed one of the officers but the lawsuit does not clearly say Reed fired the bullet, saying the officer was hit "at some point either before or after" the other officers began shooting. Then four officers shot about 96 times in 41 seconds, according the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. On video officers are seen firing at Reed even as he laid on the ground.[MORE]

The city originally said officers pulled Reed over because he wasn't wearing a seat belt. Now they claim he was pulled over for tinted windows.

"Why are the lawyers now saying, 'Oh, it wasn't for a seatbelt. It was for tinted windows,'" said Shelia Bedi with the Northwestern School of Law and Community Justice Civil Rights Clinic.

Reed's white SUV did have tinted side windows in the front, which is why Andrea Kersten, Chief Administrator for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, sharply questioned during her initial investigation how officers were able to see a seat belt violation through the tinted windows.

"The fact that these officers are now changing their story and and are now offering a justification for the stop doesn't change anything about the core of this civil rights lawsuit," Bedi said.

According to the complaint:

II. DEFENDANT OFFICERS CONDUCTED AN UNLA WFUL, PRETEXTUAL STOP OF DEXTER REED.

29. On the evening of March 21, 2024, at approximately 6:00 PM, Dexter drove his recently purchased white SUV on Ferdinand Street, in the City of Chicago. The weather was clear and it was still daylight. Dexter stopped his vehicle at a red light at the intersection of Hamlin and Ferdinand, facing westbound. When the light turned green, Dexter drove through the intersection and traveled westbound onto the 3800 block of West Ferdinand. Another vehicle traveled westbound, immediately behind Dexter. Dexter traveled within the speed limit and complied with the stop sign at the next intersection, Ferdinand and Avers Ave.

30. On the same date and time, Defendants CPD Officers and Tact Team members Alexandra Giampapa, Thomas Spanos, Victor Pacheco, Gregory Saint Louis, and Aubrey Webb patrolled District 11 in an unmarked, silver SUV. Defendant Officer Webb drove the vehicle.

31. While Dexter drove onto the 3800 west block of Ferdinand, Defendant Officers’ vehicle was south of Dexter, stopped at a red light.

32. After both Dexter and the vehicle traveling immediately behind Dexter traveled through the intersection of Hamlin and Ferdinand, Defendant Officer Webb approached and ran through a red light at the intersection of Hamlin and Ferdinand, turning left onto Hamlin. Video footage demonstrates Defendant Officers made the decision to target Dexter merely three seconds after his vehicle came in their line of sight.

33. Defendant Officer Webb accelerated his unmarked car to pass the vehicle traveling immediately behind Dexter. Defendant Webb then pulled the unmarked CPD vehicle alongside Dexter’s vehicle and angled it as if to sideswipe Dexter’s car. This maneuver forced Dexter to stop his car just past the northwest corner of Ferdinand and Avers Ave. Defendant Webb used this vehicle maneuver to unlawfully detain Dexter.

34. West Ferdinand Street, between Hamlin and Avers—where Defendant Officers stopped Dexter’s car—is a residential area, populated by numerous single and multiunit family dwellings, with green space and wide sidewalks for community members to enjoy.

35. Each named Defendant Officer completed a Tactical Response Report documenting Defendant Officers’ initial justification for engaging with Dexter. Those reports state Defendant Officers pulled Dexter over incident to a “traffic stop.” Defendant Officer’s reports affirms that, at the time they targeted Dexter, Defendant Officers had no information to suggest Dexter had committed any serious or violent offense. The reports further affirm Defendant Officers targeted Dexter pursuant to CPD’s Mass Traffic Stop Program.

36. Surveillance camera footage reflects that Defendants lacked reasonable suspicion to suspect Dexter of any traffic violation. Defendant Officers had no legal justification to target, stop, and detain Dexter.

37. After evaluating available video evidence regarding this traffic stop, Andrea Kersten, the Chief Administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (“COPA”) wrote to CPD Superintendent Snelling documenting concerns with the Defendant Officers’ credibility and justification for stopping Dexter. Specifically, “COPA is uncertain how the officers could have seen this seat belt violation given their location relative to (Reed’s) vehicle and the dark tints on (his) vehicle windows. . .This evidence raises serious concerns about the validity of the traffic stop that led to the officers’ encounter with (Reed).

III. DEFENDANT OFFICERS UNLAWFULLY POINT FIREARMS AT DEXTER AND ENGAGE IN ESCALATORY CONDUCT DURING THE UNLAWFUL STOP.

38. After Defendant Officers unlawfully curbed Dexter’s vehicle, they engaged in a number of violent, threatening, and ultra-aggressive policing tactics intended to confuse and to create chaos. Defendant Officers screamed conflicting commands at Dexter, brandished batons in a threatening manner, used disrespectful and profane language, unlawfully attempted to enter his vehicle, and pointed their weapons at Dexter’s face without legal justification.

39. Defendant Officer Giampapa exited the unmarked CPD SUV from the back passenger side. She was un-uniformed and wore a hoodie and blue jeans. Defendant Officer Giampapa did not announce herself as a police officer, nor did she advise Dexter why he had been stopped.

40. Instead, Defendant Giampapa aggressively demanded “Roll the window down, roll the window down. What are you doing?” Dexter complied and completely rolled down his front driver’s side window. In response to Defendant Officer Giampapa’s question, Dexter stated that he was doing “nothing.”

41. Defendant Officer Giampapa then ordered Dexter to roll down his other windows. Body camera footage suggests Dexter became flustered and, in an effort to comply with Defendant Officer Giampapa’s commands, mistakenly partially rolled up the driver's side window instead of rolling down the vehicles’ other windows. The fact that Dexter had committed no violation, but was still subject to Defendant Officers’ aggressive threats undoubtedly created confusion and panic for Dexter.

42. After Dexter’s window rolled partially up, Defendant Officer Giampapa commanded Dexter “do not roll the window up.” At the same time, Defendant Officer Giampapa unholstered her firearm and pointed it at Dexter’s face. While she pointed her gun at Dexter, she attempted to open the driver’s side door of Dexter’s vehicle. Defendant Officer Giampapa unreasonably pointed her gun at Dexter within seconds after she approached his vehicle

43. With her gun pointed at Dexter’s face, Defendant Officer Giampapa continued yelling, screaming repeatedly “Open the doors now!” Dexter replied “Okay, Okay I’m trying.” Defendant Giampapa never acknowledged Dexter’s words and never inquired whether his window had malfunctioned or if his door was jammed. Instead, she continued screaming at him with her gun aimed at him.

44. Defendant Officer Saint Louis, who was un-uniformed wore a hoodie pulled up over his head and jeans. Defendant Officer Saint Louis did not announce himself as a police officer nor did he advise Dexter why he had been stopped.

45. Defendant Officer Saint Louis exited the unmarked CPD vehicle from the front passenger’s seat and approached the front passenger side of Dexter’s vehicle at the same time Defendant Giampapa approached Dexter on the driver’s side. Defendant Officer Saint Louis approached Dexter with an extended baton in his raised hand and immediately ordered Dexter to roll down his passenger side window and commanded “Put your ... put your window down, man,” “Hey roll this one down too... Hey, unlock it!” Seconds after he approached the vehicle, Defendant Officer Saint Louis pointed his gun at Dexter, cocking his wrist and aiming the weapon at Dexter through the windshield.

46. Defendant Officer Pacheco was un-uniformed, wearing khaki pants and a baseball cap. Defendant Officer Pacheco did not announce himself as a police officer nor did he advise Dexter why he had been stopped and curbed.

47. Defendant Officer Pacheco exited the unmarked SUV from the back passenger side and approached the driver’s side of Dexter’s vehicle. Immediately after exiting CPD’s vehicle, Defendant Officer Pacheco pointed his firearm at Dexter and began screaming "Do not f---'g roll it up. . .Unlock the f---'g door.”

48. Defendant Officer Spanos was un-uniformed, and dressed in a hoodie, khakis, and a knit cap. Defendant Officer Spanos did not announce himself as a police officer nor did he advise Dexter why he had been stopped and curbed.

49. Defendant Officer Spanos exited the unmarked SUV from the back driver’s side and approached the driver’s side of Dexter’s vehicle. Standing just a few feet from Dexter’s vehicle. Defendant Officer Spanos immediately unholstered and pointed his gun at Dexter and yelled “Put both hands up!”

50. CPD policy prohibits officers from pointing their firearms at a person unless objectively reasonable to do so.24

51. CPD’s Use of Force Policy General Order 03-02 provides that officers will “use de-escalation techniques to prevent or reduce the need for force. . .” The Policy further provides de-escalation techniques include providing a “warning and exercising persuasion and advice prior to the use of force” and determining whether the situation could be “stabilized through the use of time, distance and positioning.” The Policy also requires that CPD officers “treat all persons with courtesy and dignity which is inherently due every person and will act, speak, and conduct themselves in a courteous, respectful, and professional manner.” Finally, the Policy prohibits officers from using force unless it is the “minimum amount of force needed to provide for the safety of any person.”

52. Defendant Officers surrounded Dexter and failed to identify themselves as police officers or to explain why they conducted the aggressive, pretextual stop and trapped him in between the curb and a parked car. Defendant Officers then each unholstered and pointed their guns at Dexter at close range and screamed various and conflicting commands at him, with several of them repeatedly and forcefully pulling on his car doors and trying to get inside his vehicle. Defendant Officers’ actions created a confusing and chaotic environment and placed Dexter in objective fear for his safety, and at risk of great bodily harm. None of the Defendant Officers engaged in any type of de-escalation. Instead, they pointed their weapons at Dexter and used profane language in clear violation of CPD policy.

53. CPD’s Use of Force Policy General Order 03-02 imposes on CPD officers an affirmative obligation to intervene when they observe a use of force that is “excessive or otherwise in violation” of CPD policy. The Policy instructs officers to “verbally intervene” to stop a violation.

54. From the driver’s side of the CDP vehicle, Defendant Officer Webb observed Defendant Officers Giampapa, Saint Louis, Pacheco, and Spanos engage in the escalatory and unlawful conduct described above. In clear violation of CPD policy, Defendant Officer Webb took no action to intervene or deescalate.

55. By pointing their firearms at Dexter during a minor traffic stop and otherwise escalating this encounter as detailed above, Defendant Officers Giampapa, Saint Louis, Pacheco and Spanos engaged in an unreasonable use of force. By observing these unlawful actions and failing to take action, Defendant Officer Webb violated his duty to intervene.

IV. DEFENDANT OFFICERS DEMONSTRATED A GROSS DISREGARD FOR THE SANCITY OF HUMAN LIFE WHEN THEY SHOT DEXTER REED 96 TIMES IN 41 SECONDS AND FIRED BULLETS INTO DEXTER’S MOTIONLESS BODY.

56. Defendant Chicago Police Officers Giampapa, Pacheco, Spanos, and Webb unloaded a barrage of bullets at Dexter while he was inside his vehicle. At some point either before or after the Defendant Officers Giampapa, Pacheco, Spanos, and Webb began shooting at Dexter, Defendant Officer Saint Louis sustained a gunshot injury when a bullet grazed his wrist.25

57. After Defendant Officers Giampapa, Pacheco, Spanos, and Webb shot their weapons at Dexter for approximately 27 seconds, firing approximately 83 shots, Dexter exited his vehicle, unarmed, with hands empty and raised in sign of surrender. At this point, Dexter posed no threat of imminent harm.

58. After observing Dexter exit his vehicle, the Defendant Officers Giampapa, Pacheco, Spanos, and Webb failed to provide Dexter with any commands or warnings. Nor did any of these Defendant Officers attempt to engage in any de-escalation. Instead, they continued to shoot at Dexter in a reckless, out-of-control manner demonstrating a complete disregard for Dexter’s humanity.

59. After Dexter exited his vehicle, unarmed and with his hands empty, Defendant Officers Giampapa, Spanos, and Pacheco moved closer to Dexter.

60. Defendant Officer Giampapa shot additional bullets at Dexter.

61. Dexter collapsed to the ground at the rear of his vehicle. His head slammed into the street and lay unmoving and face down, with his head under the rear of his vehicle.

62. At this point, Defendant Officers Giampapa, Pacheco, Spanos, and Webb took no action to determine if Dexter was alive. Nor did they make any effort to secure him medical assistance.

63. Instead, Defendant Officers Spanos and Pacheco continued to shoot at Dexter even as he lay motionless, face down in the street.

64. Even after Dexter fell to the street, Defendant Officer Spanos paused his shooting, and then fired an additional three shots at Dexter’s body as he lay face down and motionless on the street.

65. Ultimately, Defendant Officers Giampapa, Pacheco, Spanos, and Webb shot 96 bullets at Dexter 41 seconds after they first encountered him. [MORE]

Reed family attorneys said the narrative change is likely to bolster and keep alive the federal civil case filed by the Reed family against the officers and the City of Chicago since the crux of the legal action is about the 4th Amendment and the reason behind the traffic stop.

"Why did they feel empowered to racially profile to escalate and to use violence before there were any gun shots?" Bedi said. "And that's really what we are fighting right now to have the board here."

City attorneys nor COPA would comment about the latest developments of the civil case.

The Reed family's lawyers said the case is not about money, it's about stopping what they say are racist traffics stops that produce deadly outcomes.

Witnesses say a Plainclothes LAPD Cop in an Unmarked, Tinted Car Fatally Shot an Unarmed Latino Teenager who Had His Arms Extended and Palms Up as He Walked Toward the Vehicle. Cop Never ID’d Himself

From [HERE] The family of an unarmed 18-year-old fatally shot by an undercover Los Angeles police sergeant last month plans to sue the city for wrongful death and is asking state prosecutors to file criminal charges.

Ricardo “Ricky” Ramirez Jr. was shot and killed by Sgt. Michael Pounds around 10:30 p.m. July 13 while the plainclothes vice officer was conducting a prostitution enforcement detail along South L.A.’s Figueroa corridor. Pounds shot the young man from behind his car’s dark-tinted driver’s side window.

The night of the shooting, an LAPD vice unit broadcast over the police radio that the “occupants of a silver Cadillac wearing ski masks [were] in a possible dispute with the driver of another vehicle,” according to a release from the department. Pounds was alone in an unmarked car when he began following the suspect vehicle, which police said later stopped across both lanes of traffic on 66th Street. 

According to the police report, two men got out of the Cadillac and “approached the front driver and passenger sides of the vice sergeant’s vehicle” as it was stopped in the roadway. That is when Pounds opened fire through his window, striking Ramirez, who fell to the ground as the others fled.

Paramedics took Ramirez to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. 

In a legal claim filed Wednesday, attorney Christopher Dolan alleged the shooting was an unprovoked attack on an unarmed young man who was in town from Northern California after graduation. 

Although the claim alleges assault, battery and violation of civil rights and seeks compensation, Dolan said the family wants reforms, including video cameras in undercover vehicles to capture officers’ behavior.

The lawyer said that prior to the shooting, Pounds “tailgated and aggressively menaced” the Cadillac from his dark sedan with blacked-out window tinting. 

“Unarmed, Ricky and another passenger exited the Cadillac and approached the sedan, asking — arms extended, palms up — why they were being followed,” Dolan said. 

“Without hitting any lights or siren or identifying himself as a police or rolling down the window, a single shot was fired through the driver’s side tinted window directly into the heart of Ricky,” the lawyer said Wednesday at a news conference outside police headquarters while surrounded by two dozen supporters clad in T-shirts featuring the teen’s face.

Dolan said the shooting was “without justification and in violation of police policy designed to save lives. ... The police must be held accountable in order for these killings to stop.” 

He said Pounds never identified himself as a police officer

“Ricky never knew that he was approaching an officer, never made any threats or contact with the vehicle and was shot for asking why the car was harassing them,” Dolan said.

Ramirez’s mother, Renee Villalobos, cried while addressing the crowd in front of police headquarters, saying, “I will never have my son back.”

“The police sergeant was sitting in an unmarked car, and he decided to kill and shoot my son for no reason at all,” she said. “I want to know why the police officer is not handcuffed and charged for the murder of my son.”

After Ramirez was shot, the other young men fled “in fear for their lives, unaware that the shot was fired by an LAPD officer,” according to the claim.

LAPD units pursued the fleeing Cadillac, according to a release from the department, and eventually handed off to the California Highway Patrol, which stopped the vehicle on the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County. 

The three occupants of the car were taken into custody without incident, including the driver, 26-year-old Israel Dezama, who was arrested for felony evading, police said. The other two occupants were later released from custody. 

“Ricky, my only son, was a good kid, made everybody smile and feel loved. He was at the threshold of his whole life, having just graduated, and the LAPD shot him, causing him to fall through death’s door,” said the teen’s father, Ricardo Ramirez Sr. “Hiding behind tinted glass, without any warning, Ricky was killed. His only crime was being young and of color. This has to stop.”

Ramirez’s father said that said despite police reports, his son “did not have a weapon; he didn’t have a ski mask.” 

Los Angeles police said in a statement that no weapons were recovered.

Ramirez’s family and Dolan have called on Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office handles fatal police shootings on unarmed persons, to file murder charges against Pounds.

Unlike Cops, Security Guards Can’t Use Force Offensively and Can Be Held Accountable: 4 White Hyatt Hotel Guards Charged w/Murder of D’Vontaye Mitchell after Brutally Beating, Smothering Black Man

Newly released security footage - shared by the attorney for D'Vontaye Mitchell's family, shows D'Vontaye Mitchell being dragged across the floor, punched, and kicked moments before his death outside of a Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Court documents show security manager Todd Alan Erickson, front desk agent Devin W. Johnson-Carson, security guard Brandon LaDaniel Turner and bellman Herbert T. Williamson have been charged with felony murder.

From [HERE] Prosecutors charged four Hyatt hotel security guards Tuesday with being a party to felony murder in connection with D’Vontaye Mitchell’s death.

According to a criminal complaint, the four employees dragged Mitchell out of the Hyatt Hotel on June 30 after Mitchell entered a woman’s bathroom and held him on his stomach for eight or nine minutes.

One of the employees told investigators that Mitchell was having trouble breathing and repeatedly pleaded for help, according to the complaint.

Relatives of Mitchell and their lawyers had previously reviewed hotel surveillance video provided by the district attorney’s office. They described seeing Mitchell being chased inside the hotel by security guards and then dragged outside where he was beaten.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is part of a team of lawyers representing Mitchell’s family, has said video recorded by a bystander and circulating on social media shows security guards with their knees on Mitchell’s back and neck. Crump has also questioned why Milwaukee authorities had not filed any charges related to Mitchell’s death.

Aimbridge Hospitality, the company that manages the hotel, said previously that several employees involved in Mitchell’s death have been fired.

In reality “Defund the Police” was nothing ever more than a message on a sign, let alone being an actual crafted policy proposed to “legistraitors.” At best it is an ill conceived plan to somehow stop police brutality by giving the police smaller budgets. But having less money can have no effect on the granfalloon of “authority” or the right to forcibly control others. Police with small budgets in poor countries have no problem brutalizing citizens when they deem it necessary to do so. As such, “defund the police” was a reactionary slogan on sign that reflects real anger in the street about police authority and master servant relations between citizens and police.

The real threat to elites from “defund the police” is the fact that police services provided by the government can be summarily replaced by private security. Rather than reducing tax dollars budgeted to cops as a remedy to somehow stop police brutality, Defund the police” or replacing police could simply mean community hired and fired trained security workers who have a contractual duty to aid people in peril and a natural right to come to the defense of others but who have no right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence on people. Therefore, there would be no need for a police department.

Security workers have the same rights that people have because all persons have the natural right to defend themselves and come to the defense of others if they believe the other person is in imminent danger from an aggressor. However, in the US legal system people have no general legal duty to rescue or aid other people in danger. Thus, security workers can be contractually obliged to aid people in peril and could be held accountable directly to the people who hire and fire them.

An essential difference between private security workers and police officers is that security workers possess no government authority or right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence on other people. Unprovoked violence against others or the use of “force” is the basis of all social evils and can only be used in the sense of attack not defense. [MORE]

Sheriff Quits Amid Backlash from the Police Murder of Sonya Massey [As Long as Cops Can Use Force Offensively, They Will Continue to Kill People]

From [HERE] Jack Campbell, the Illinois sheriff whose deputy was charged with murder after fatally shooting a Black woman in her home last month, said Friday that he would leave his position by the end of the month amid calls from the public and the governor that he do so.

The sheriff said in a statement obtained by WAND, a local television news station, that the “current political climate” made it impossible for him to continue in his role leading the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office and that he would retire no later than Aug. 31.

Sheriff Campbell had previously said he would not resign as he faced criticism for having hired Sean Grayson, the white deputy who shot Sonya Massey, 36, despite knowing that Mr. Grayson, 30, had two convictions for driving under the influence on his record, including one that had led to Mr. Grayson’s premature discharge from the Army in February 2016.

Mr. Grayson fatally shot Ms. Massey at her home in Springfield, Ill., on July 6 after she had called the emergency services because she believed an intruder was in her home. [MORE]

Nothing can change with regard to police brutality so long as police have the power to use force offensively on “citizens.” In fact, despite the falling violent crime rates since 1993, police killings have increased. According to Mapping Police Violence, “Police killed more people in 2023 than any year in more than a decade. Police have continued to kill at a similar rate in 2024.Police killed at least 1,247 people in 2023. Black people were 27% of those killed by police in 2023 despite being only 13% of the population. Thus far, there have been only 9 days in 2024 where police did not kill someone. Black people are most likely to be killed by police and are three times more likely than whites to be killed by police. 33% of Black people killed by police were running away, driving away or otherwise trying to flee. Regardless of race, there is no accountability: 98.1% of killings by police from 2013-2023 did not result with officers even being charged with a crime. [MORE]

Petitioning puppeticians for reforms, or begging them to enforce the status quo by punishing police for conduct that is already illegal or begging them to defund or lower police department budgets can have no effect on the extraordinary police power to use force offensively on citizens. Said non-reformable and uncontrollable power to initiate the use of unprovoked violence on people is called “authority.” [MORE]

Judge Denies the Government’s Request to Dismiss a Disabled Black Teen’s Suit. Burlington Cops Put a Spit Bag Over His Face and Injected him with Ketamine though He Posed No Threat and Didn’t Flee

From [HERE] A Vermont judge has denied the city of Burlington’s request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that police used excessive force and discriminated against a Black teenager whose mother had called law enforcement to teach him a lesson about stealing.

When the 14-year-old, who has behavioral and intellectual disabilities, failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes on May 15, 2021, two officers physically forced him to do so, according to the lawsuit and police body camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. The teen was handcuffed and pinned to the ground in his house as he screamed and struggled, according to the lawsuit.

He was injected with the sedative ketamine and taken to a hospital, according to the lawsuit and video.

The lawsuit, filed by the teen's mother, accuses officers of treating him differently because they perceived him as aggressive due to his race. It also alleges that injecting him with ketamine was “race-based disparate treatment." Burlington officers had visited the home before and were aware of the teen’s disabilities, the lawsuit says.

“Too often, victims of police violence are denied their day in court because of an unjust legal doctrine called ‘qualified immunity,‘” Vermont ACLU attorney Harrison Stark wrote in a statement. “We are thrilled that ... the Court has agreed that this ‘get-out-of-court-free’ card is no excuse to close the courthouse doors."

The city did not immediately return an email seeking comment. A city spokesperson said in February that an investigation found that officers and fire department EMTs acted according to city and state regulations and policies.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify minors who are accused of crimes.

Body camera video shows two officers talking calmly to the teen, who is sitting on a bed. His mother tells him to cooperate; she goes through drawers and finds most of the remaining e-cigarettes and tries to get the last one from him.

Officers say if he turns the e-cigarettes over, they’ll leave and he won’t be charged. He doesn’t respond. After about 10 minutes, the officers forcibly remove the last of the e-cigarettes from his hand by pulling the 230-pound teen's arms behind his back and pinning him against the bed.

The city argued that officers conducted a reasonable search and seizure; that its police and fire departments are not subject to the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act and that they made reasonable efforts to account for the teen's disabilities; and that its police and fire departments are protected by qualified immunity, according to the judge.

"The crime was not serious, he did not pose an immediate threat, and he did not try to ‘evade arrest by flight,'” Vermont Superior Court Judge Helen Toor wrote in her ruling July 31. The officers also should have taken into account his reported mental health condition, she wrote. "That might have involved waiting more than 10 minutes before using any kind of physical force," she wrote.

Toor also wrote that “the allegations are more than sufficient to support a claim of racial discrimination." She also wrote the court “has no basis to dismiss any of the claims on qualified immunity grounds at this stage.” The city has three weeks from the judge's ruling to respond. A city spokesperson said by email on Tuesday that the city did not want to “comment on, or make predictions about, the likelihood of any particular outcome as this case moves forward through the court.”

The use of ketamine on suspects has recently come under scrutiny. At least 17 people died in Florida over a decade following encounters with police during which medical personnel injected them with sedatives, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found.

In Burlington, after the city investigated, the mayor at the time ordered the fire department to review the use of ketamine, and the state has updated protocols to require a doctor's permission, the city spokesperson said in February. Paramedics in the Burlington teen's case did get a doctor’s permission even though it wasn't required at the time, she said.