Examples of police brutality?

[Broletariat]

I'd love to see a thread like this get filled to the brim with such examples as a quick resource, could possibly warrant a sticky. Unfortunately I don't really have any examples off the top of my head

[MooseCracker]

G8/ G20 Summit in Toronto - Does police brutality include stuffing people into a space intended for half of the detainees count? or Preemptive arrests of potential trouble makers the night before the protests started?

[Broletariat]

G8/ G20 Summit in Toronto - Does police brutality include stuffing people into a space intended for half of the detainees count? or Preemptive arrests of potential trouble makers the night before the protests started?
I'd say so, and I'll come back and edit my post later with relevant links detailing such events for quick reference.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Oscar Grant and Rodney King are the first ones that come to mind right now. Also that little girl who was killed a few months ago when the cops invaded a house looking for a murder suspect(Who, if I remember correctly, was actually in the house next door). I think that happened in Chicago but I'm not completely sure and I forgot her name. Either way it was horrible :crying:.

[Quail]

Ian Tomlinson?

[¿Que?]

http://www.athousandandone.com/photos/0/448a07d7cb24f_s.jpg

I don't know, looks pretty brutal...

[Vendetta]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Bell_shooting_incident

http://advancethestruggle.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ogstrike.jpg?w=500&h=370

[MooseCracker]

There was the case of Robert Dziekanski, You can see Eldon Dahl's story on YouTube -
Sorry, my examples are all from Canada
I'd give links but haven't done 25 posts yet

[Os Cangaceiros]

The police entered: the media and the politicians were kept out. And they beat people. They beat people who had been sleeping, who held up their hands in a gesture of innocence and cried out, ‘Pacifisti!Pacifisti!’


They beat the men and the women. They broke bones, smashed teeth, shattered skulls. They left blood on the walls, on the windows, a pool of it in every spot where people had been sleeping. When they have finished their work, they brought in the ambulances …

This really happened. Not back in the nineteen thirties, but on the night of July 21 and the morning of July 22, 2001. Not in some third world country, but in Italy: prosperous, civilized, sunny Italy.

-an account of a night-raid by the Italian police, during Genoa G8.

[RedScare]

http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/18/americas-most-successful-stop


It's an interesting article on the topic.

[Os Cangaceiros]

A lot of right-wing libertarian websites like Reason and The Agitator are actually really good if one wants to find stories of police brutality and/or misconduct.

[Martin Blank]

www.october22.org (http://www.october22.org/)

Go to the Stolen Lives page.

[Red Commissar]

Not sure if it's Police brutality, but it's definitely an example of Police overstepping their boundaries (apologies in advance for wiki)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE


In 1981, MOVE relocated to a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue in the Cobbs Creek area of West Philadelphia. On May 13, 1985, allegedly responding to months of complaints by neighbors that MOVE members broadcast political messages by bullhorn at all hours and also about the health hazards posed by the piles of compost, the police department claimed that they attempted to clear the building. The police lobbed tear gas canisters at the building and the fire department battered the roof of the house with two water cannons. The police fired 10,000 rounds at the house in two hours. A police helicopter then dropped a four-pound bomb made of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex, a dynamite substitute, onto the roof of the house without any prior warning. The resulting explosion caused the house to catch fire, igniting a massive blaze which eventually destroyed 65 houses. Eleven people, including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died in the resulting fire. The firefighters were stopped from putting out the fire based on allegations that firefighters were being shot at, a claim that was contested by the lone adult survivor Ramona Africa, who says that the firefighters had earlier battered the house with two deluge pumps when there was no fire. Ramona Africa and one child, Birdie Africa, were the only survivors.

Mayor W. Wilson Goode soon appointed an investigative commission called the PSIC or MOVE commission. It issued its report on March 6, 1986. The report denounced the actions of the city government, stating that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable."

In a 1996 civil suit in US federal court, a jury ordered the City of Philadelphia to pay $1.5 million to a survivor and relatives of two people killed in the incident. The jury found that the city used excessive force and violated the members' constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Philadelphia was given the sobriquet "The City that Bombed Itself."

[Manic Impressive]

A woman found asleep in her car who refused a breathalyzer test assaulted by police.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-11190561
Although what you see in the video doesn't look that bad notice the blood all over the floor and the pictures of her injuries were horrendous.

seems like this sort of thing is international I came across this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB_Hl4bcQNc

The two incidents seem almost identical

[Fulanito de Tal]

http://www.athousandandone.com/photos/0/448a07d7cb24f_s.jpg

I don't know, looks pretty brutal...

What's the context?

[El Rojo]

this may be what yr looking for

http://fitwatch.org.uk/

[MooseCracker]

Krazy! I almost forgot a bunch of cases -
There was the Republican National Convention where there were mass arrests etc. in 2008 just before the election. The Democracy Now crew etc. were busted just for being there...
There was Saint Francis street (I don't remember the year, quite a while ago though). A bunch of anarchists etc. had been squatting in the area (due to massive increases in rent etc.) in BC at the time there wasn't much choice for some people. Police/ ERT/SWAT ended up coming in with tear gas, automatic rifles, shot guns etc. against unarmed people - bulldozers destroyed a number the the houses while they were at it ('You don't get to live here and we'll fully admit that nobody else can either, so there's no reason that you can't live here but we don't want you to').
Around the same time Friends of mine were asleep in another Canadian city when ERT/ SWAT busted into their house with weapons drawn masks on etc. They had 2 young daughters who were sleeping and the popo just went right on through - this was all just to get to the neighbours (in a duplex) that were suspected criminals, and again the 'criminals' weren't committing violence at the time - they could have moved at another time. The youngest daughter ended up with anxiety disorders and chronic nightmares/ insomnia etc. They had to move to a small town where they ended up divorced... We lost contact after that.
Another friend was working at a Money Mart (the devil, I'm well aware). One of the co-workers bumped a security button on the way out. Police came to the door with weapons drawn, forced him to the floor and cuffed him because he was acting confused (which he was). He said that he thought that one of them was actually going to shoot him when he asked what was going on. - of course the cops are really there to protect money and property above all else.
My mother's friend needed the cops because she thought that her husband was going to kill her and harm the kids but that could wait a lot longer than the money-mart.

Of course police brutality is a question of the levels of violence. Some of the cases I gave weren't particularly violent compared with others. That was kind of intentional. We live in a system based on police brutality to at least some degree. If you don't pay your rent/ mortgage, it doesn't matter how nice you are to the landlord or bank, eventually somebody is going to come and tell you to leave. That person will have a gun with them. If they think you might have a gun, they'll bring more people with more/ better guns. They may not use the guns, they might even smile and be polite, but the gun is there and you know what it means. If you steal some food and get away, security might let you off the hook once - they'll ban you... That's all good. Do it again and you know damn well that somebody with a gun is going to take you somewhere. Smoke some weed, go to a peaceful protest, whatever, maybe they won't even come but you know in the back of your head that there is somebody who might come and visit you, and he's got a badge - the badge is just there to tell you that he's got a gun and you already know what that means...