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Saturday, April 12, 2014

DOJ Investigation Confirms: Albuquerque Police 'Executing' Citizens




 

Following release of report, rights groups calling for removal of mayor and police chief

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer 
 

Protesting against systemic abuse by the Albuquerque Police Department on Sunday April 6, demonstrators encountered officers in riot gear. (Photo: Cole L. Howard)



Residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico are marching on the police department Saturday to demand retribution against the city's mayor and police chief for their role in the police force's documented "execution" of citizens.

The march comes after the Department of Justice slammed the Albuquerque Police Department for their frequent use of excessive and lethal force in a damning report released on Thursday.

Though, according to advocates, abuse by local law enforcement has been systemic for years, calls for increased scrutiny of the APD were amplified following the police shooting death of James Boyd, a homeless man suffering from mental illness, on March 16.

Advocates welcomed the DOJ's findings, saying the report was "spot on" in terms of identifying the root causes of this behavior, such as the "aggressive culture of the department" and the way in which "force is prioritized in training."

However, according to David Correia, an organizer with the Task Force for Public Safety who has been working with families of victims of APD violence, the DOJ's inclusion of Mayor Richard J. Berry and police chief Gorden Eden in the negotiations for the consent decree, which will dictate how those recommendations will be implemented, is a "non-starter" for the community groups.

The systemic deficiencies identified by the DOJ are "all produced and reinforced through leadership," Correia told Common Dreams. "To say those people should be involved to us is 'no go.' We don't want them to be a part of it."

Further, Correia noted that the report did not go so far as to address some of the larger issues including laws around homelessness, access for people suffering from mental illness and access for veterans, which he says are also major contributors to the police violence in the city.

The Saturday evening protest will begin at 5 PM MST at Civic Plaza from where demonstrators will march to the APD. During another recent protest against the department, police assaulted demonstrators with tear gas.

Activists are calling for the removal of those officials, including Berry and Eden, who oversaw the frequent "execution" of citizens and for a federal monitor to be appointed. Correia said that they need to "interrupt the idea that this is somehow resolved," now that the DOJ has released their report.

"Our fear is that people will now think that the sheriff has come down in his white hat and we can all sit back and relax," Correia continued.

The Justice Department investigation, launched in November 2012, found:
APD officers too frequently use deadly force against people who pose a minimal threat and in situations where the conduct of the officers heightens the danger and contributes to the need to use force;
APD officers use less lethal force, including electronic controlled weapons, on people who are passively resisting, non-threatening, observably unable to comply with orders or pose only a minimal threat to the officers; and
Encounters between APD officers and persons with mental illness and in crisis too frequently result in a use of force or a higher level of force than necessary.
The DOJ also cited "systemic deficiencies" which contribute to these patterns which include deficient policies, failed accountability, inadequate training and supervision, ineffective systems of investigation and adjudication, the absence of a culture of community policing and a lack of sufficient civilian oversight.

This leaked video taken from a police helmet camera depicts APD officers killing unarmed homeless man, James Boyd:


Wednesday, April 2, 2014

United States Is Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading to Poor, UN Report Charges

  News & Politics  

 

The UN Human Rights Committee says the U.S. should stop criminalizing homeless people for being homeless.



Photo Credit: CBS New York; Screenshot / YouTube.com

 
 
 
Jerome Murdough, 56, a mentally ill homeless veteran, was just trying to stay alive during a New York City cold snap when he thought he found his spot: a stairwell leading to a roof in a Harlem public housing project. But that desperate act set in motion a nightmare ride through New York's criminal justice system that would end with Murdough dying of heat stroke in a Riker's Island jail cell. New York officials now say the system failed Murdough every which way.

When he was discovered, he should have been offered shelter. When he was arraigned, he should not have been slapped with $2,500 bail. When, unable to make bail, he ended up in jail, Murdough, because he was on medication for a mental condition, should have been monitored every 15 minutes, not left unwatched for at least four hours. It was during that untended time that Murdough, as an official told the Associated Press, "basically baked to death."
Now, as New York officials discuss the "tragedy" of last month and scapegoat one Riker's Island guard for Murdough's death — suspending him for 20 days — the United Nations has taken notice. Murdough is just the latest statistic in a series of needless deaths of homeless people while under arrest for "crimes" related to being unhoused, such as loitering or trespassing.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva on Thursday condemned the United States for criminalizing homelessness, calling it "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" that violates international human rights treaty obligations. It also called upon the U.S. government to take corrective action, following a two-day review of U.S. government compliance with a human rights treaty ratified in 1992.

"I'm just simply baffled by the idea that people can be without shelter in a country, and then be treated as criminals for being without shelter," said Sir Nigel Rodley, chairman of the committee in closing statements on the U.S. review. "The idea of criminalizing people who don't have shelter is something that I think many of my colleagues might find as difficult as I do to even begin to comprehend."

The Committee called on the U.S. to abolish criminalization of homelessness laws and policies at state and local levels, intensify efforts to find solutions for homeless people in accordance with human rights standards and offer incentives for decriminalization, including giving local authorities funding for implementing alternatives and withholding funding for criminalizing the homeless.

Those recommendations run counter to the current trends in the nation. Laws targeting the homeless—loitering laws that ban sleeping or sitting too long in one public spot, or camping in parks overnight—have become increasingly common in communities throughout the country as homelessness has skyrocketed.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP), a D.C.-based advocacy organization which monitors laws that criminalize homeless people and litigates on behalf of poor people regularly conducts reviews of cities criminalizing homelessness and finds more and more laws banning such activities as sitting or lying in public places with each new survey.

"We welcome the Committee's Concluding Observations and call on our government to take swift action to solve homelessness with homes, not jails and prisons,” said Maria Foscarinis, the NLCHP executive director, in a statement. The NLCHP had submitted a report to the U.N. Committee for review.

Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, an umbrella organization of advocacy groups in the Western U.S. that is hoping states will sign onto a Bill of Rights for homeless people, said that more and more homeless people are being arrested, prosecuted and killed for actions relating to their poverty.

"The U.S. seems to talk a much bigger rhetoric than it practices," he said. "At the U.N. level, we have a horrible growing record of supporting repressive regimes, and as we bring our neo-liberal policies to America, we're doing the same thing here."

On March 16, a homeless man in Albuquerquewas shot and killed by police who were attempting to arrest him for illegal camping. James Boyd, 38 years old with a history of mental illness, was shot dead by Albuquerque police while his back was turned after a three-hour stand-off. Boyd, armed with a small knife, appeared to be surrendering when he was gunned down. The incident was caught on one of the officer's helmet-cams and has been posted on YouTube by at least half a dozen news outlets.

Albuquerque police officials had concluded that the shooting was justified, but the FBI has since announced it is launching an investigation into the incident and said it is already probing 23 officer-involved shootings in Albuquerque since 2010. On Sunday, hundreds of people marched through Albuquerque to protest the number of police shootings in the city, a day-long event that ended when police fired tear gas into the crowd.


Evelyn Nieves is a senior contributing writer and editor at AlterNet, living in San Francisco. She has been a reporter for both the New York Times and the Washington Post.