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dixiegrrrrl
dixiegrrrrl's Journal
dixiegrrrrl's Journal
August 30, 2014
No, "it" did not fall thru the cracks...the NOPD chief tried to cover it up.
New Orleans PD has a horrific record of violence and abuse towards blacks in the city.
Edited to add:
Far down the article is this crucial info:
THAT's why they tried to cover it up.
Cop shoots (black ) man; NOPD chief apologizes for keeping it secret
NOW we are hearing about this.
Aug. 13th pub. date
After a NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune story revealed on Wednesday that a man was shot in the head by an officer during a traffic stop more than two days earlier, NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas apologized to the public, calling the failure to disclose the shooting "a complete snafu."
Serpas said at a news conference that he "personally authorized" a news release at noon Monday, about eight hours after the officer-involved shooting injured a man wanted on non-violent felony warrants. But the release was never sent, and the chief didn't mention the incident to reporters at two news conferences since the shooting, on Monday and Tuesday. "Clearly, it fell through the cracks," he said.
Armand Bennett, 26, remained in the hospital Wednesday with a serious but not life-threatening wound to his forehead that required seven staples, his lawyer said. Officer Lisa Lewis fired two bullets while trying to arrest Bennett around 1:20 a.m. Monday in Algiers, Serpas said. One bullet struck him. The officer suffered a minor hand injury, police said.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/08/nopd_shooting_not_disclosed.html
Serpas said at a news conference that he "personally authorized" a news release at noon Monday, about eight hours after the officer-involved shooting injured a man wanted on non-violent felony warrants. But the release was never sent, and the chief didn't mention the incident to reporters at two news conferences since the shooting, on Monday and Tuesday. "Clearly, it fell through the cracks," he said.
Armand Bennett, 26, remained in the hospital Wednesday with a serious but not life-threatening wound to his forehead that required seven staples, his lawyer said. Officer Lisa Lewis fired two bullets while trying to arrest Bennett around 1:20 a.m. Monday in Algiers, Serpas said. One bullet struck him. The officer suffered a minor hand injury, police said.
No, "it" did not fall thru the cracks...the NOPD chief tried to cover it up.
New Orleans PD has a horrific record of violence and abuse towards blacks in the city.
Edited to add:
Far down the article is this crucial info:
Despite the delay in the public disclosure of the shooting, there will be a heightened level of official scrutiny over the investigation into it than in past years.
Serpas said the department's Force Investigative Unit and FBI agents within NOPD's internal affairs would oversee the investigation. He pledged a thorough inquiry, that once complete, would become public.
In the meantime, the investigation will be monitored by federal court-appointed policing experts who report to a federal judge overseeing
a consent decree aimed at bringing the department up to constitutional standards.
Serpas said the department's Force Investigative Unit and FBI agents within NOPD's internal affairs would oversee the investigation. He pledged a thorough inquiry, that once complete, would become public.
In the meantime, the investigation will be monitored by federal court-appointed policing experts who report to a federal judge overseeing
a consent decree aimed at bringing the department up to constitutional standards.
THAT's why they tried to cover it up.
August 28, 2014
Police officials in Missouri are sued for $40 million by protesters in Ferguson
(Reuters) - A group of people caught up in unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after a white officer killed a black teenager, sued local officials on Thursday, alleging civil rights violations through arrests and police assaults with rubber bullets and tear gas.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, says law enforcement met a broad public outcry over the Aug. 9 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown with "militaristic displays of force and weaponry," (and) engaged U.S. citizens "as if they were war combatants."
The lawsuit seeks a total of $40 million on behalf of six plaintiffs, including a 17-year-old boy who was with his mother in a fast-food restaurant when they were arrested. Each of the plaintiffs was caught up in interactions with police over a period from Aug. 11 to 13, the suit allege.
Named as defendants are the city of Ferguson, St. Louis County, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Delmar, Ferguson police officer Justin Cosmo, and other unnamed police officers from Ferguson and St. Louis County.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/us-usa-missouri-shooting-idUSKBN0GS2KD20140828?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, says law enforcement met a broad public outcry over the Aug. 9 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown with "militaristic displays of force and weaponry," (and) engaged U.S. citizens "as if they were war combatants."
The lawsuit seeks a total of $40 million on behalf of six plaintiffs, including a 17-year-old boy who was with his mother in a fast-food restaurant when they were arrested. Each of the plaintiffs was caught up in interactions with police over a period from Aug. 11 to 13, the suit allege.
Named as defendants are the city of Ferguson, St. Louis County, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Delmar, Ferguson police officer Justin Cosmo, and other unnamed police officers from Ferguson and St. Louis County.
August 28, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/27/cops-employee-shot/14669517/
WTF???
TV COPS crew member WAS shot by police.
A police officer fired the bullet that killed a crewmember of the long-running TV show Cops when officers responded to a robbery call, Omaha police said Wednesday.
The crewmember was identified as Bryce Dion, 38, who was working as the sound technician when he was killed Tuesday night by what Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer called "friendly fire." The other member of the Cops crew, cameraman Michael Lee, was unharmed.
Dion and Lee had followed police officers to a Wendy's restaurant where a robbery was reported to be in progress. When police confronted the suspect he fired twice, according to witnesses cited by Schmaderer. Officers returned fire, striking the suspect, 32-year-old Cortez Washington, multiple times. One shot also hit Dion.
It turned out that shot could not have come from Washington, because the suspect was only armed with an Airsoft pistol, which fires plastic pellets.
The crewmember was identified as Bryce Dion, 38, who was working as the sound technician when he was killed Tuesday night by what Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer called "friendly fire." The other member of the Cops crew, cameraman Michael Lee, was unharmed.
Dion and Lee had followed police officers to a Wendy's restaurant where a robbery was reported to be in progress. When police confronted the suspect he fired twice, according to witnesses cited by Schmaderer. Officers returned fire, striking the suspect, 32-year-old Cortez Washington, multiple times. One shot also hit Dion.
It turned out that shot could not have come from Washington, because the suspect was only armed with an Airsoft pistol, which fires plastic pellets.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/27/cops-employee-shot/14669517/
WTF???
August 27, 2014
How many here have cut the cord on tv?
I keep reading different stats on the # of folks who have cut the cord and use no mainstream tv.
Mainstream tv meaning cable/satellite/antenna to get tv channels from stations, not Hulu or streaming.
A 2013 study from GfK estimated that 19 percent of U.S. TV households had broadcast-only reception, up from 14 percent in 2010. Those figures include people who have dropped cable and those who never had it, something common for younger adults.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/08/25/5128087/tivo-to-make-version-for-those.html#emlnl=Top_Stories%3A_Business_Review
August 27, 2014
Tea Time Might Be Over, Once World Wakes Up to Amount of Pesticides Inside Each Cup
AAAcccckkk!
Tea time is supposed to be a time to relax and regroup, but it could be one of the riskiest moments of the day. At least, that’s according to a new study released by Greenpeace earlier this month that found a number of popular tea brands contain high doses of pesticide residues. Some teas even tested positive for the long-banned DDT.
Greenpeace published two reports looking at tea in China and in India. In both accounts, the levels of pesticide residues found in tea samples were disturbingly above the safe limits set by the World Health Organization.
http://www.alternet.org/food/tea-pesticides-3?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark
August 25, 2014
What are the best alternative news publications in your city and/or state?
Trying to gather a list.
I know that in Seattle The Stranger is a must read.
And embarrassed to say I forgot the name of the one for SF.
Whatcha got, guys?
August 24, 2014
Houston police ticket rigging scheme has been uncovered.
I gotta think that if ONE police force is doing this, others are.
Here's how it works:
Cop pulls you over, gives you a ticket, writes on the ticket that another cop is present as a witness, but.....
"cops listed on tickets were not actually present at the time of the offense, but were cashing in on overtime when they appeared in court later."
The scheme was discovered when an off duty police officer was given a ticket and read it, seeing the name of another cop as a witness, who was not at the stop.
News team investigated and found ..." the alleged ticket-rigging scheme took place mostly on highways
In one case in May, Officer Manzalnaes put Officer Farias down as a witness at 11:24 p.m. at I-10 and Westcott Street.
But at the same exact time, records show Farias was writing a ticket nine miles away at I-10 and Wilcrest."
Farias, who was also being investigated, committed suicide earlier this week in a police parking garage.
http://www.khou.com/story/news/crime/2014/08/21/motorist-caught-in-alleged-hpd-ticket-rigging-scheme/14375177/
August 23, 2014
got it?
The US bombing its own guns perfectly sums up America’s total failure in Iraq
Warning...this may cause your brain to hurt.....
The absurdity runs deep: America is using American military equipment to bomb other pieces of American military equipment halfway around the world. The reason the American military equipment got there in the first place was because, in 2003, the US had to use its military to rebuild the Iraqi army, which it just finished destroying with the American military. The American weapons the US gave the Iraqi army totally failed at making Iraq secure and have become tools of terror used by an offshoot of al-Qaeda to terrorize the Iraqis that the US supposedly liberated a decade ago. And so now the US has to use American weaponry to destroy the American weaponry it gave Iraqis to make Iraqis safer, in order to make Iraqis safer.
It keeps going: the US is intervening on behalf of Iraqi Kurds, our ally, because their military has old Russian-made weapons, whereas ISIS, which is America's enemy, has higher-quality American weapons. "[Kurdish forces] are literally outgunned by an ISIS that is fighting with hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. military equipment seized from the Iraqi Army who abandoned it," Ali Khedery, a former American official in Iraq, told the New York Times.
More: One reason that ISIS has been so successful at conquering northern Iraq is that it has a huge base of operations in Syria, where it had exploited the civil war to overtake huge swathes of Syrian territory. One reason that ISIS was so successful in Syria is that the US refused to arm moderate Syrian rebels, for fear that the weapons would fall into ISIS's hands. So that made it easier for ISIS to overpower the under-funded moderate rebels, and now ISIS has seized, in Iraq, much better versions of the weapons that we were so worried they might acquire in Syria. So now we're bombing the guns that we didn't mean to give ISIS because we didn't give guns to their enemies because then ISIS might get guns.
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5982501/the-us-is-now-bombing-its-own-military-equipment-in-iraq
It keeps going: the US is intervening on behalf of Iraqi Kurds, our ally, because their military has old Russian-made weapons, whereas ISIS, which is America's enemy, has higher-quality American weapons. "[Kurdish forces] are literally outgunned by an ISIS that is fighting with hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. military equipment seized from the Iraqi Army who abandoned it," Ali Khedery, a former American official in Iraq, told the New York Times.
More: One reason that ISIS has been so successful at conquering northern Iraq is that it has a huge base of operations in Syria, where it had exploited the civil war to overtake huge swathes of Syrian territory. One reason that ISIS was so successful in Syria is that the US refused to arm moderate Syrian rebels, for fear that the weapons would fall into ISIS's hands. So that made it easier for ISIS to overpower the under-funded moderate rebels, and now ISIS has seized, in Iraq, much better versions of the weapons that we were so worried they might acquire in Syria. So now we're bombing the guns that we didn't mean to give ISIS because we didn't give guns to their enemies because then ISIS might get guns.
got it?
August 23, 2014
Article written by Steve Coll, who knows his stuff.
2005: Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2000
Why we are bombing ISIS in Erbil....
Erbil is the capital of the oil-endowed Kurdish Regional Government, in northern Iraq.There the United States built political alliances and equipped Kurdish peshmerga militias long before the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, in 2003. Since 2003, it has been the most stable place in an unstable country. But last week, well-armed guerrillas loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, threatened Erbil’s outskirts, forcing Obama’s momentous choice. (The President also ordered air operations to deliver humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Yazidis and other non-Muslim minorities stranded on remote Mount Sinjar. A secure Kurdistan could provide sanctuary for those survivors.)
“The Kurdish region is functional in the way we would like to see,” Obama explained during a fascinating interview with Thomas Friedman published on Friday. “It is tolerant of other sects and other religions in a way that we would like to see elsewhere. So we do think it is important to make sure that that space is protected.”
All true and convincing, as far as it goes. Kurdistan is indeed one of a handful of reliable allies of the United States in the Middle East these days. Its economy has boomed in recent years, attracting investors from all over and yielding a shiny new international airport and other glistening facilities. Of course, in comparison to, say, Jordan or the United Arab Emirates, Kurdistan has one notable deficit as a staunch American ally: it is not a state. Nor is it a contented partner in the construction of Iraqi national unity, which remains the principal project of the Obama Administration in Iraq. In that light, Obama’s explanation of his casus belli seemed a little incomplete.
Obama’s advisers explained to reporters that Erbil holds an American consulate, and that “thousands” of Americans live there. The city has to be defended, they continued, lest ISIS overrun it and threaten American lives. Fair enough, but why are thousands of Americans in Erbil these days? It is not to take in clean mountain air.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/oil-erbil
“The Kurdish region is functional in the way we would like to see,” Obama explained during a fascinating interview with Thomas Friedman published on Friday. “It is tolerant of other sects and other religions in a way that we would like to see elsewhere. So we do think it is important to make sure that that space is protected.”
All true and convincing, as far as it goes. Kurdistan is indeed one of a handful of reliable allies of the United States in the Middle East these days. Its economy has boomed in recent years, attracting investors from all over and yielding a shiny new international airport and other glistening facilities. Of course, in comparison to, say, Jordan or the United Arab Emirates, Kurdistan has one notable deficit as a staunch American ally: it is not a state. Nor is it a contented partner in the construction of Iraqi national unity, which remains the principal project of the Obama Administration in Iraq. In that light, Obama’s explanation of his casus belli seemed a little incomplete.
Obama’s advisers explained to reporters that Erbil holds an American consulate, and that “thousands” of Americans live there. The city has to be defended, they continued, lest ISIS overrun it and threaten American lives. Fair enough, but why are thousands of Americans in Erbil these days? It is not to take in clean mountain air.
Article written by Steve Coll, who knows his stuff.
2005: Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2000
August 22, 2014
Right now, at 8:30 pm, it is........88 degrees.
with a heat index of 94, thanks to the humidity.
At night....did I mention this is at night?
The poor dog has flopped in front of the floor fan, blocking my air, and i do not have the heart to move him.
Weather alerts posted for 100 degrees this weekend.
The tomatoes are cooking on teh vine.
AAAAiiiieeeii
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: Washington state, for half my life
Home country: USA
Current location: SW Alabama. for the rest of my life
Member since: Wed Feb 27, 2008, 02:09 PM
Number of posts: 60,010
