Police Brutality Plagues Our World, The Epidemic Has Spread Into Our Communities : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

The Indymedia Network has documented cases of police brutality following the resistance and fight against murderous and criminal police officers. To Serve and Protect, in 2005 the public can interpret this to mean our tax paid officers are there to serve and protect their fellow brotherhood of blue. Citizens are being murdered, beaten, sexually assaulted, hospitalized, all by the officers we were taught to trust and respect. To say that all officers of the law are bad is to say all white people are racist. That would be an unfair and unrealistic statement.
However, if you were to take a few moments to search "police brutality" on the internet you will come across information databases that document police brutality, racism, and murder. For example The BrownWatch has an extensive national archive of cases. The Stolen Lives Project documents victims killed by law enforcement. Many groups and organizations have formed in past years mainly due to the continuing rise of reported police misconduct. The October 22 Coalition puts out a call to action yearly on October 22nd known as The National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation.
The above examples of national organization for the end to police brutality show the victims, families, and allies, are joining forces to seek justice. A group known as Copwatch started in one city in 1990 and has taken hold in many cities across the nation, takes to the street armed with a video camera to police the police in their community. It's history reveals that a rise in police harassment, brutality, and corruption began over 15 years ago.
Ohio is not immune. Recently a protest occured in Warren Ohio against police brutality, listen to a few interviews from the days events voicing the communities concerns. Cleveland Indymedia Center will continue to document and report on the abuse of authority our community police officers have committed.

Saturday, October 22
National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality

Across from Tower City, Public Square in downtown Cleveland
3:30 pm Gather
4:00 pm March to the Justice Center

With the increased police state measures implemented by the Bush Regime since
9-11, the epidemic of police murder, the repression against activists, and the criminalization of our youth has increased and increased. It only took two days after William Bennett made the genocidal comment that "aborting Black babies" would decrease crime that Cleveland police chased down Laray Renshaw, an unarmed Black man, and then murdered him in a hallway. This killing happened on Friday September 30th, 1 month after Brandon McCloud was legally lynched in his bedroom by two Cleveland police at 5 in the morning after his grandmother and uncle were forced out of the house as these cops went in to kill him.

As the mayor and the police chief are calling for calm and caution in the process of "investigating" the cops, Laray and Brandon are deemed as criminal elements in this society that somehow had it coming to them. Otherwise why bring up anything about their past? Of course, Emmett Till got lynched and he did something too: he whistled at a white woman in Money, Mississippi. And what did the Bush regime call the Black youth helping others to get food? They called them "looters." We the people call them youth that were helping save lives.

We the people must resist Bush's police state measures to enforce white supremacy and male supremacy.

Bring your posters, pictures of loves ones killed, your voice, your outrage and your hurt speak out.

Join the Struggle! Fight Back! On October 22, WEAR BLACK!

info: Alvin Brooks at 451-1968 or Revolution Books at 932-2543

Call for October 22, 2005: Tenth Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

In July 2005, an 18-month old baby is killed in her father’s arms by Los Angeles police. Police justification of this – that they were trying to “save” the baby – reminds people of the famous Vietnam era military quote – “We had to destroy the village in order to save the village.” In Compton, police surround a truck where a man gave them the finger and fire 100 shots. In the last two years since Cau Bich Tran (a young Vietnamese mother of two) was killed while holding a vegetable peeler, there have been about a dozen police-involved killings in the San Jose area alone. Rudy Cardenas was one of those stolen lives, and state drug agent Walker who shot him in the back is going to trial for manslaughter in September. Amnesty International released a report last November documenting over 70 deaths by tasers since 2001. The Stolen Lives Project has documented an alarming escalation nationwide in the numbers of people killed by law enforcement agents. These killings march hand in hand with the repression, searches and seizures legalized by today’s USA PATRIOT Act, which evoke remembrances of the COINTELPRO days of the 1960s and 70s.

Around the country, thousands of Muslim, Arab and South Asian immigrants are arrested, detained, and/or deported without legal recourse. Two New York city officials openly call for racial profiling to be used in the bag searches in the subways, a councilman asserting, "Plain and simply, young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror” and that they are “[a] particular group of people who are engaging in these terrorist activities. And they're not skinny, balding Italian-Americans from Staten Island."

In Minneapolis, a police consultant, proposing a racial profiling program, brands youth of color as “domestic terrorists.” Seattle’s ex-police chief goes on a speaking tour to promote his new book in which he lies about police “restraint” in handling the 1999 WTO protests and justifies the use of lethal force against protesters “when necessary.” The North Carolina October 22nd Coalition website asks, “Notice how today’s police look like a member of an urban military? They use military weapons against you, the civilian.”

In New York, Juanita Young (mother of Malcolm Ferguson, killed by NYPD in March 2000) is persecuted by the DA on a bogus charge of criminal trespass for the “crime” of speaking out against police brutality. Her lawyer, Lynne Stewart, another outspoken activist, is subject to 45 years in prison for defending one of her clients’ rights to lawyer-client confidentiality. In Mississippi, people’s lawyer Chokwe Lumumba is suspended for demanding equal justice for poor Blacks and using his 1st Amendment right to criticize judges and the legal system. On May 2nd, the U.S. and New Jersey State governments raise the bounty on the head of the former Black Panther currently exiled in Cuba, Assata Shakur. Attorney General Gonzales, author of the torture memo justifying Abu Ghraib prison, announces the $1 million reward and lists her as “a domestic terrorist.”

What can we do about all this increased repression and brutality?
Nicholas Heyward, Sr. (father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr., killed by NYC housing police in 1994) says,

“Police brutality has always existed in poor and oppressed neighborhoods. But since September 11, 2001, it has gotten much worse. In order for any justice to be done, it takes a mass number of people coming together for a common cause. Police brutality affects everyone and has to stop. We need as many people as possible to come out this year on October 22nd to support the families of victims of police brutality.”
Juanita Young adds that resistance is critical:
“You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit. If you don’t resist and keep on fighting, they will be able to get away with what they’re trying to do to us."
Norma Martinez (mother of Gonzalo Martinez, killed with 31 shots by LAPD in 2001), writes:
“Since Gonzalo died, more than 25 people have died at the hands of police. Not too long ago, young Devin Brown (13) was killed by LAPD. David Viera was killed by the city of El Monte, shot 11 times. Twenty-two year old Javier Quezada was killed, shot 11 times, right in front of his mother when he was suffering an anxiety attack. No police are in jail. We need justice.”
October 22nd is the day when people all over the country come together to STOP police violence, repression, and the criminalization of a generation. Across the country, in different cities and through different means of expression, we raise a resounding “NO” to their steadily increasing moves towards a police state. We resist so that we will not be crushed. Link up to the nationwide protests through the October 22nd website, temporarily located at http://october22-ny.org/national. Email information on your plans to office@october22.org. Endorse this call, give financially, and spread the word. Join the struggle! Fight back! On October 22nd, wear black!

Posted on Fri, Oct. 07, 2005

Diabetic man sues over arrest
Police mistook illness for defiance, shocked and beat him, suit says
By Phil Trexler
Beacon Journal staff writer

An Akron man is suing police alleging officers mistook his diabetic coma for defiance and sprayed him with Mace before beating him and shooting him with a Taser gun.

Merle Belford, 56, says in his lawsuit that he suffered two broken ribs and a punctured lung in a confrontation with Akron police following a traffic stop last May. He spent nine days in the hospital and incurred medical bills of more than $23,000, according to the lawsuit.

Belford is seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Summit County Common Pleas Court and was assigned to Judge Judy Hunter.

City Law Director Max Rothal declined comment.

Belford is suing the city and officers Shea Flaherty and Scott Thomas. The suit also alleges the officers were improperly trained on how to recognize symptoms of diabetic comas.

According to his lawsuit: Belford's car was stopped at a traffic light at East and Carey avenues and he was slumped over the steering wheel in a diabetic coma because of low blood sugar. Officer Lauri Natko arrived, believed he was drunk and tried to remove him from the car.

The officer called for backup and Flaherty and Thomas arrived. Flaherty used pepper Mace on Belford and dragged him from the car, trying to handcuff him. During the struggle, Flaherty struck him on the ribs and thigh and Thomas shot him four times with a Taser gun trying to subdue him.

After the arrest, Natko found Belford's medication in his car and paramedics tested his blood sugar and discovered it was low, the suit states.

Belford was charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle. He was convicted in Akron Municipal Court last week of failure to control, but is appealing Judge John Holcomb's verdict.

Belford's attorney, Kim Hoover, says police negotiated over what charges to bring. Transcripts included in the lawsuit show officers settled on less serious charges because of Belford's medical condition.

Natko testified last month that officers felt Belford had to be charged with something because he was ``irresponsible in doing what he did in not having some type of medical bracelet or something that would alert us sooner to what the problems may have been.''
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com

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