2011-12-02 "Johannes Mehserle, 4 other BART officers cleared; Case alleging excessive force by 5 officers was unrelated to Grant killing" by Bob Egelko from "San Francisco Chronicle"
[http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-12-02/bay-area/30470584_1_bart-police-officers-oscar-grant-officers-and-two-station]
(12-02) 10:55 PST SAN FRANCISCO — (12-02) 10:55 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal court jury on Thursday cleared five BART police officers, including Johannes Mehserle, of using excessive force against a passenger who was thrown to the ground and injured after an angry confrontation at an Oakland transit station in November 2008.
Kenneth Carrethers, 43, of Oakland accused the officers of beating him, then hog-tying him and taking him to jail on bogus charges in retaliation for his profanity-laced tirade against the police for failing to prevent burglaries of his car in the Coliseum Station parking lot.
The officers said they held and subdued Carrethers after he approached one of them from behind with his fists clenched and raised.
After about five hours of deliberations, the seven-member jury found unanimously that Carrethers had failed to prove the officers used excessive force or punished him for exercising his right of free speech.
The incident occurred less than seven weeks before Mehserle fatally shot Oscar Grant of Hayward, who was lying facedown on the platform at BART's Fruitvale Station in Oakland after a disturbance on a train.
Mehserle, who said he thought he was firing his Taser stun gun instead of his pistol, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served about half of a two-year prison sentence. He quit the BART force six days after the shooting.
Lawyers were not allowed to mention Grant's case in the trial of Carrethers' civil suit.
No video presented -
Carrethers' attorney, Christopher Dolan, said Thursday that a crucial difference between the two cases was video evidence - jurors in the Grant case saw other passengers' cell-phone videos of the shooting, but neither side in Carrethers' case offered any evidence from bystanders, and BART did not preserve videos from a camera at the station.
"Had a video been there (for Carrethers), justice would have been served," Dolan told reporters.
Mehserle testified that he saw no need to obtain videos or contact passers-by because the officers and two station agents all agreed on what had happened. BART now requires its officers to get videos from station cameras after such incidents, said Dale Allen, the lawyer for BART and the five officers.
"This case emphasized the need to change procedures in the department," Allen said.
Carrethers was returning from his job at a San Francisco hotel on the night of Nov. 15, 2008, when he saw a group of officers in the Coliseum Station and started telling another passenger how lazy and worthless they were.
Mehserle spoke up - telling him to mind his own business, according to Carrethers, or trying to calm him down, according to Mehserle. Carrethers then cursed at the officers and said he would fight them if they were civilians.
2 versions of incident -
After a confrontation with another officer, Frederick Guanzon, outside the fare gates, Carrethers said he was walking away when Mehserle grabbed him from behind and swept his legs from under him.
The other officers then piled on and beat and kicked him, he said.
But Mehserle, the other officers and a station agent said Carrethers was following Guanzon from behind and about to hit him when Mehserle intervened. They denied punching or kicking Carrethers and said he was kicking and flailing, which he denied.
The officers also disputed Carrethers' allegation that they hog-tied Carrethers, linking his cuffed wrists and ankles behind him, and carried him to the police car by the fastening strap.
Allen, their lawyer, noted that Carrethers had no injuries or marks on his wrists, evidence supporting the officers' testimony that they lifted him from below.
Carrethers was treated for facial bruises and jailed for two days on suspicion of assault and resisting arrest, but the charges were dismissed.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Justice for Tommy Carpenter!
Justice campaigns against Police Murder and Systematic Cover-Up [link]
2011-10-21 "Justice for Tommy Carpenter!"
[http://www.facebook.com/events/290345767661687/]
Friday, 9:00am until 12:00pm
In the wake of the police assassination of Kenneth Wade Harding on July 16th there has been a largely unreported continuous program of intimidation and repression directed towards Bayview residents who have had the courage to speak out. Certain people in particular have borne the brunt of this more than others. Debray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo has emerged as a prime target due to his very public and courageous presence in the fight against State abuses in the Bayview. As a result multiple members of his family have been targeted. Currently his brother Tommy is being railroaded on a bogus marijuana related charge that is obviously politically motivated. Please turn out on Friday morning in support of Tommy Clayton and send the broad and clear message to San Francisco that we support our own and will not be intimidated into silence but will continue to fight tirelessly against police terror in our communities. Do not let another one of our brothers get unjustly criminalized. Tommy needs our support now!
---
Update: Fly Benzo and Pladee Clayton arrested this afternoon. Charges not being released. Please call 415-553-0123 and demand that the police declare the charges and of course demand they be dropped and Fly and Pladee be released. We need to end the police occupation of the hood!Like · · October 18, 2011 at 11:16pm
2011-10-21 "Justice for Tommy Carpenter!"
[http://www.facebook.com/events/290345767661687/]
Friday, 9:00am until 12:00pm
In the wake of the police assassination of Kenneth Wade Harding on July 16th there has been a largely unreported continuous program of intimidation and repression directed towards Bayview residents who have had the courage to speak out. Certain people in particular have borne the brunt of this more than others. Debray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo has emerged as a prime target due to his very public and courageous presence in the fight against State abuses in the Bayview. As a result multiple members of his family have been targeted. Currently his brother Tommy is being railroaded on a bogus marijuana related charge that is obviously politically motivated. Please turn out on Friday morning in support of Tommy Clayton and send the broad and clear message to San Francisco that we support our own and will not be intimidated into silence but will continue to fight tirelessly against police terror in our communities. Do not let another one of our brothers get unjustly criminalized. Tommy needs our support now!
---
Update: Fly Benzo and Pladee Clayton arrested this afternoon. Charges not being released. Please call 415-553-0123 and demand that the police declare the charges and of course demand they be dropped and Fly and Pladee be released. We need to end the police occupation of the hood!Like · · October 18, 2011 at 11:16pm
Friday, October 7, 2011
2011-09-07 "Black and Blue Chicago: A recent spate of police shootings of African Americans underscores longstanding mutual distrust" by Salim Muwakkil
[http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11897/black_and_blue_chicago/]
Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is the host of "The Salim Muwakkil" show on WVON, Chicago's historic black radio station, and he wrote the text for the book HAROLD: Photographs from the Harold Washington Years.
This story continues "The Other Chicago," an In These Times series investigating the lives of African-American youth who have borne the brunt of the Great Recession. The five-part series documents the struggles of young African-American men, whose rate of unemployment dwarfs that of their white counterparts, in de-industrializing Chicago, a highly segregated city that is one-third black. The first story in the series is here [http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11604/black_chicago_divided/].
“The Other Chicago” is supported by the Local Reporting Initiative of Community News Matters, underwritten by The Chicago Community Trust with help from the McCormick, MacArthur, Knight and Driehaus Foundations, and administered by The Community Media Workshop and The Chicago Reporter.
---
Just a few hours apart on July 25, Chicago police officers shot and critically wounded 21-year-old Joe Banks Jr. and 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon. Witnesses at the scenes say the victims were unarmed, while police claim they both wielded guns. (Cannon, who was shot six times, is said to have had a BB gun.) This blanket justification is often absurd on its face: How many fleeing suspects are likely to stop, turn around and point a gun at well-armed cops?
Despite the implausibility of this story, the Chicago Police Department has invoked it repeatedly this year. As of August 30, Chicago police have shot 45 people, killing 16 — 3 more than the total number shot to death in all of 2010. Eighty-seven percent of those shot by police (as of June 30) were black, according to the Independent Police Review Authority, in a city that is 36 percent African-American. No police officer has been charged with criminal wrongdoing in any of these cases, and many in the black community are furious.
“If I have my hands in my pockets when police stop me — and they stop me all the time — I freeze until they take my hands out of my pockets,” says Jermaine Pearson, a 26-year-old resident of Chicago’s Grand Boulevard neighborhood. “I don’t move ‘cause I knew a dude who took his hands out of his pocket when he got stopped and police shot him.”
Pearson was one of five young African-American men I talked to about their relationship to the CPD. All five had contempt for the police, even though two had relatives in the department. “I see the police as a bunch of folks who are trained to abuse us,” said Anthony White, 24. “All they do is harass you.”
Black youth continue to be arrested at astronomical rates. In 2010, Chicago police arrested 20,930 black youth 17 or younger, while arresting 936 Caucasian youth. The ratio of black to white arrests for marijuana possession was 15 to 1, The Chicago Reader reports. And, a study by the Disproportionate Justice Impact Study Commission found that an African American convicted of a low-level drug crime in Cook County is eight times more likely than his white counterpart to go to prison.
The CPD frequently cites gangs as a core factor driving street violence, but the men I spoke to challenge that theory. “Gangbanging in Chicago is dead and it’s bogus for the police to keep pushing that issue,” said Derrick Wheatley, 25. All five men agreed that the customary notion of a gang as a hierarchical group is anachronistic.
“Gang chiefs have no power whatsoever to stop anything on today’s streets,” said Lance Williams, associate director of Jacob H. Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. “Most of this violence is interpersonal and fueled by distressed economic conditions—the same effects of poverty you’d find all over the world.”
Tales of brutal police officers have been common in Chicago’s black neighborhoods for more than a century. From July 1919’s “Red Summer” riot, when black Chicagoans met with the police chief over racist patterns of police misconduct, to Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge’s reign of terror from 1972 to 1991, when he and his torture corps victimized more than 100 black men, relations between black citizens and the CPD have never been cordial.
Now, as the Great Recession wreaks disproportionate damage on African Americans, further curtailing their options for economic success, relations between the two are facing new pressures. Labor department statistics show that Chicago has the highest black unemployment rate (21.4 percent) of large U.S. cities. In the city’s most distressed African-American communities, the rate is considerably higher.
Community policing -
Although violent crime rates have decreased in Chicago during the last decade, relations between police and the black community show little change.
Patricia Hill is acutely aware of the problem. A 21-year-veteran of the CPD who is now retired, she’s the executive director of the African-American Police League (AAPL). One major purpose of her group, founded in 1968, is for the city to recruit black cops who have a close relationship to the black community.
Hill is troubled that the black cops being hired seem to lack a sense of connection to the black community. But she is also concerned that the department has been lax in its commitment to hire black cops. “We are about 24 percent of the police department now, but our numbers are going down. And I see no effort to stop the decline.”
Harold Saffold, 70, a sage observer of the relationship between the black community and the CPD, spent 26 years on the force during two of its most tumultuous periods: the turmoil of the Black Panther era, when two of its members were gunned down by police, and again during the contentious days of Harold Washington, who was elected the city’s first black mayor in 1983. As the appointed head of Mayor Washington’s security detail, he witnessed firsthand the police department’s animosity. “I saw just how deeply racism was embedded in the CPD. I see little evidence that much has changed since then.”
He is now president and CEO of The Positive Anti-Crime Thrust, an organization designed to promote police and community cooperation. Convinced that the paradigm of paramilitary policing long favored by the CPD (and responsible for the slayings of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark) is counterproductive, Saffold has no doubt that more community focus is the key to more effective policing. But he is “ambivalent” about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed community-oriented strategy.
Emanuel, intent on salvaging the spirit of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program — a police/community cooperation that started in 1993 but has been waning in recent years — is trying to shift away from the paramilitary-styled strategy with new initiatives: redeploying 750 cops onto the streets (and promising 250 additional new hires), creating a novel community-based program called “A Force For Good” and revitalizing the position of Ronald Holt, the popular CAPS director whose son was a fatal victim of street violence in 2007.
“Reassigning officers to beats where they get to know the communities is a good thing, if they come in with the right attitude,” Saffold says. “But if they come in indignant because they were reassigned from more favorable posts, then it will just compound the problem.”
The real challenge, he thinks, is officers who are much more comfortable with a hard-line, gun-focused approach — an attitude, he says, that was forged during a period of overt racial antagonism. “Many police officers feel they are making some kind of weak concession if they show too much respect to the black community.”
Young people in Bronzeville, a neighborhood on the city’s South Side, concur. “The police are like the monsters I used to dream about,” Pearson said. “They can do whatever they want to you, but you can’t do anything to them.”
“I know that sometimes the police try to do the best they can,” says Courtney Scott, a teenage volunteer for Chicago Defender Charities, the group that puts on the Bud Billiken Parade, the nation’s oldest and largest African-American parade. “But that’s usually not good enough. They seldom come fast enough when you call, but then when they do come, they tend to aggravate the problem rather than solve it.”
Real change from new top cop?
A 2007 University of Chicago study, titled “The Chicago Police Department’s Broken System,” makes clear the reason for the enduring divide between the CPD and Black Chicago. The report revealed evidence of systemic abuse, which included brutality, illegal searches, false arrests and what the report’s authors termed “apartheid justice.”
Craig Futterman, the lead author of the report, says, “We found that the odds were about two in a thousand that a Chicago cop would receive any meaningful discipline for abusing a civilian. And that lack of accountability tainted the entire CPD.”
Some believe that CPD’s new police superintendent Garry McCarthy — the former police director of Newark, N.J. and a veteran of the NYPD — will be a force for reform. In the months following his appointment by Emanuel in May, he spoke about decriminalizing marijuana arrests and focusing on improving relations with the black community. In a recent interview on WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR affiliate, McCarthy acknowledged the history of police promoting racist policies, saying, “[R]ecognition is the first step toward finding a cure towards what is ailing us.”
Those are powerful words. But the AAPL’s Hill cautions that McCarthy’s critics in Newark said he knew all the right words but did very little to actually change police culture. Futterman also predicts little change. “The primary problem is that being young and black in a low-income community is still considered probable cause to most white police officers.” Until that changes, he says, little else will.
[http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11897/black_and_blue_chicago/]
Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is the host of "The Salim Muwakkil" show on WVON, Chicago's historic black radio station, and he wrote the text for the book HAROLD: Photographs from the Harold Washington Years.
This story continues "The Other Chicago," an In These Times series investigating the lives of African-American youth who have borne the brunt of the Great Recession. The five-part series documents the struggles of young African-American men, whose rate of unemployment dwarfs that of their white counterparts, in de-industrializing Chicago, a highly segregated city that is one-third black. The first story in the series is here [http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11604/black_chicago_divided/].
“The Other Chicago” is supported by the Local Reporting Initiative of Community News Matters, underwritten by The Chicago Community Trust with help from the McCormick, MacArthur, Knight and Driehaus Foundations, and administered by The Community Media Workshop and The Chicago Reporter.
---
Just a few hours apart on July 25, Chicago police officers shot and critically wounded 21-year-old Joe Banks Jr. and 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon. Witnesses at the scenes say the victims were unarmed, while police claim they both wielded guns. (Cannon, who was shot six times, is said to have had a BB gun.) This blanket justification is often absurd on its face: How many fleeing suspects are likely to stop, turn around and point a gun at well-armed cops?
Despite the implausibility of this story, the Chicago Police Department has invoked it repeatedly this year. As of August 30, Chicago police have shot 45 people, killing 16 — 3 more than the total number shot to death in all of 2010. Eighty-seven percent of those shot by police (as of June 30) were black, according to the Independent Police Review Authority, in a city that is 36 percent African-American. No police officer has been charged with criminal wrongdoing in any of these cases, and many in the black community are furious.
“If I have my hands in my pockets when police stop me — and they stop me all the time — I freeze until they take my hands out of my pockets,” says Jermaine Pearson, a 26-year-old resident of Chicago’s Grand Boulevard neighborhood. “I don’t move ‘cause I knew a dude who took his hands out of his pocket when he got stopped and police shot him.”
Pearson was one of five young African-American men I talked to about their relationship to the CPD. All five had contempt for the police, even though two had relatives in the department. “I see the police as a bunch of folks who are trained to abuse us,” said Anthony White, 24. “All they do is harass you.”
Black youth continue to be arrested at astronomical rates. In 2010, Chicago police arrested 20,930 black youth 17 or younger, while arresting 936 Caucasian youth. The ratio of black to white arrests for marijuana possession was 15 to 1, The Chicago Reader reports. And, a study by the Disproportionate Justice Impact Study Commission found that an African American convicted of a low-level drug crime in Cook County is eight times more likely than his white counterpart to go to prison.
The CPD frequently cites gangs as a core factor driving street violence, but the men I spoke to challenge that theory. “Gangbanging in Chicago is dead and it’s bogus for the police to keep pushing that issue,” said Derrick Wheatley, 25. All five men agreed that the customary notion of a gang as a hierarchical group is anachronistic.
“Gang chiefs have no power whatsoever to stop anything on today’s streets,” said Lance Williams, associate director of Jacob H. Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. “Most of this violence is interpersonal and fueled by distressed economic conditions—the same effects of poverty you’d find all over the world.”
Tales of brutal police officers have been common in Chicago’s black neighborhoods for more than a century. From July 1919’s “Red Summer” riot, when black Chicagoans met with the police chief over racist patterns of police misconduct, to Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge’s reign of terror from 1972 to 1991, when he and his torture corps victimized more than 100 black men, relations between black citizens and the CPD have never been cordial.
Now, as the Great Recession wreaks disproportionate damage on African Americans, further curtailing their options for economic success, relations between the two are facing new pressures. Labor department statistics show that Chicago has the highest black unemployment rate (21.4 percent) of large U.S. cities. In the city’s most distressed African-American communities, the rate is considerably higher.
Community policing -
Although violent crime rates have decreased in Chicago during the last decade, relations between police and the black community show little change.
Patricia Hill is acutely aware of the problem. A 21-year-veteran of the CPD who is now retired, she’s the executive director of the African-American Police League (AAPL). One major purpose of her group, founded in 1968, is for the city to recruit black cops who have a close relationship to the black community.
Hill is troubled that the black cops being hired seem to lack a sense of connection to the black community. But she is also concerned that the department has been lax in its commitment to hire black cops. “We are about 24 percent of the police department now, but our numbers are going down. And I see no effort to stop the decline.”
Harold Saffold, 70, a sage observer of the relationship between the black community and the CPD, spent 26 years on the force during two of its most tumultuous periods: the turmoil of the Black Panther era, when two of its members were gunned down by police, and again during the contentious days of Harold Washington, who was elected the city’s first black mayor in 1983. As the appointed head of Mayor Washington’s security detail, he witnessed firsthand the police department’s animosity. “I saw just how deeply racism was embedded in the CPD. I see little evidence that much has changed since then.”
He is now president and CEO of The Positive Anti-Crime Thrust, an organization designed to promote police and community cooperation. Convinced that the paradigm of paramilitary policing long favored by the CPD (and responsible for the slayings of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark) is counterproductive, Saffold has no doubt that more community focus is the key to more effective policing. But he is “ambivalent” about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed community-oriented strategy.
Emanuel, intent on salvaging the spirit of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program — a police/community cooperation that started in 1993 but has been waning in recent years — is trying to shift away from the paramilitary-styled strategy with new initiatives: redeploying 750 cops onto the streets (and promising 250 additional new hires), creating a novel community-based program called “A Force For Good” and revitalizing the position of Ronald Holt, the popular CAPS director whose son was a fatal victim of street violence in 2007.
“Reassigning officers to beats where they get to know the communities is a good thing, if they come in with the right attitude,” Saffold says. “But if they come in indignant because they were reassigned from more favorable posts, then it will just compound the problem.”
The real challenge, he thinks, is officers who are much more comfortable with a hard-line, gun-focused approach — an attitude, he says, that was forged during a period of overt racial antagonism. “Many police officers feel they are making some kind of weak concession if they show too much respect to the black community.”
Young people in Bronzeville, a neighborhood on the city’s South Side, concur. “The police are like the monsters I used to dream about,” Pearson said. “They can do whatever they want to you, but you can’t do anything to them.”
“I know that sometimes the police try to do the best they can,” says Courtney Scott, a teenage volunteer for Chicago Defender Charities, the group that puts on the Bud Billiken Parade, the nation’s oldest and largest African-American parade. “But that’s usually not good enough. They seldom come fast enough when you call, but then when they do come, they tend to aggravate the problem rather than solve it.”
Real change from new top cop?
A 2007 University of Chicago study, titled “The Chicago Police Department’s Broken System,” makes clear the reason for the enduring divide between the CPD and Black Chicago. The report revealed evidence of systemic abuse, which included brutality, illegal searches, false arrests and what the report’s authors termed “apartheid justice.”
Craig Futterman, the lead author of the report, says, “We found that the odds were about two in a thousand that a Chicago cop would receive any meaningful discipline for abusing a civilian. And that lack of accountability tainted the entire CPD.”
Some believe that CPD’s new police superintendent Garry McCarthy — the former police director of Newark, N.J. and a veteran of the NYPD — will be a force for reform. In the months following his appointment by Emanuel in May, he spoke about decriminalizing marijuana arrests and focusing on improving relations with the black community. In a recent interview on WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR affiliate, McCarthy acknowledged the history of police promoting racist policies, saying, “[R]ecognition is the first step toward finding a cure towards what is ailing us.”
Those are powerful words. But the AAPL’s Hill cautions that McCarthy’s critics in Newark said he knew all the right words but did very little to actually change police culture. Futterman also predicts little change. “The primary problem is that being young and black in a low-income community is still considered probable cause to most white police officers.” Until that changes, he says, little else will.
Monday, September 26, 2011
2011-09-26 "Martin Cotton Family Awarded Over $4.5 Million By Jury in Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Eureka Police; Eureka Officers Viciously Beat Martin and Left Him to Die in Jail Cell"
Contact: Verbena Lea, Redwood Curtain CopWatch (707) 633-4493, copwatchrwc@gmail.com
Vicki Sarmiento, Esq. (626) 308-1171, Vsarmiento@vis-law.com
Eureka, CA: A jury delivered a resounding victory for plaintiffs in a police misconduct civil rights case by awarding the total sum of $4,575,000 against the City of Eureka and Eureka police officers Adam Laird, Justin Winkle, and Gary Whitmer for the death of Martin Cotton II. Punitive damages were assessed against the three officers. Mr. Cotton, a 26 year-old man living on the streets died of blunt force head trauma. The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys Dale K. Galipo and Vicki I. Sarmiento of Los Angeles County, were Mr. Cotton's 5 year-old daughter and his father. The jury found that Officers Laird and Winkle used excessive force, and that all three officers failed to provide medical care.
On August 9th, 2007, Eureka police officers Winkle, Laird, Whitmer, and five others were involved in beating an unarmed Martin Cotton II to death. In broad daylight, officers pummeled Mr. Cotton's head and body then brought Mr. Cotton to jail, failing to seek medical assistance for him. Expert testimony presented by the plaintiffs established that timely medical care would have saved Mr. Cotton's life. Mr. Cotton died in the jail cell within two hours. Painful video of Mr. Cotton dying in jail was presented during the trial.
The fatal beating of Mr. Cotton occurred outside the Eureka Rescue Mission. Police were dispatched to the Mission for a disturbance involving Mr. Cotton. When they arrived, Mr. Cotton was no longer in the Mission and was alone and defenseless. Laird and Winkle claim they ordered him to put his hands behind his back and he did not move. Both officers pepper sprayed him, Officer Winkle kneed him in the ribs and forced him to the ground where the officers beat him. Mr. Cotton made no moves against the police and remained prone on the concrete. Officer Whitmer (the third officer on the scene) gave a running kick to Mr. Cotton, battered him with a baton, and pepper-sprayed him. More officers arrived and joined in the beating. The trial of Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka included police readily admitting they they sat on Mr. Cotton, forced his head onto the concrete throughout the beating, kicked him, hit him with a metal baton, kneed at his vulnerable organs, deployed pepper spray three times, and did not seek medical assistance for him afterward. The officers, however, denied hitting Mr. Cotton in the head, most likely because blunt force head trauma was determined as the cause of death. Crucial testimony came from two civilian witnesses who bravely reported that they had indeed seen at least Officer Winkle pounding on Mr. Cotton's skull multiple times on the concrete. One witness said he heard “fist-to-skull”, “bone-on-bone” from those head strikes.
The verdict was announced September 23, 2011 after a two week trial and 7 hours of jury deliberation in Federal Court in Oakland. Siehna Cotton was awarded $1,250,000 for the pain her father suffered and $2,750,000 for wrongful death damages. Marty Cotton Sr. was awarded $500,000, which required plaintiffs to show that the officers' actions "shocked the conscience." The jury also found that the officers acted with "malice, oppression, or reckless disregard" to the decedent's or plaintiffs' rights, and assessed punitive damages, $30,000 from officer Winkle, $30,000 from officer Laird, and $15,000 from officer Whitmer.
Mr. Cotton was one of many people killed by police in the Humboldt region from fall 2005 to fall 2007. Attorney Vicki Sarmiento hopes the verdict sends shockwaves to other officers who may consider committing such atrocities in the future. “We don't want this to happen to anyone else. We as a community, we as a society, cannot tolerate it.” Ms. Sarmiento speaks of the victory, “The jury's decision showed respect for Martin Cotton's life. They acknowledge the wrong that occurred and acknowledge that Martin's life had value. The issue of human dignity and humanity is what this is about, and that everyone has a right to have that.” ###
2011-09-23 "Martin Cotton Family Awarded Over $4.5 Million in Trial Against Eureka Police, Interview: Video" by dave id
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/09/23/18691150.php]
On August 9th, 2007, Eureka police officers Justin Winkle, Gary Whitmer, Adam Laird, and five others were involved in beating an unarmed Martin Cotton II to death. Eureka police pummeled Martin Cotton's body and head in broad daylight, using pepper spray repeatedly. Martin Cotton was then sent to jail without being offered medical treatment. He died in jail within about an hour. A federal civil rights trial in Oakland was filed to seek justice for Martin on behalf of his young daughter. The case, Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka, included the testimony of police readily admitting they beat Martin Cotton all over his body and did not seek medical assistance for him afterward. The police however denied that they hit Martin Cotton in the head, most likely because blows to the head were determined to be the cause of death. At about 1pm on September 23rd, the verdict was announced for the two-week trial. A seven-person jury found unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs, big time. Siehna Cotton was awarded $1,250,000 for the pain Martin Cotton suffered at the hands of Eureka police and $2,750,000 for wrongful death damages. Additionally, Marty Cotton Sr. was awarded $500,000, which required plaintiffs to meet the highest burden of proof in a civil trial, that is that the murder of Martin Cotton "shocked the conscience." A rare award of punitive damages against the three officers required a finding of "malice, oppression, or reckless disregard" to the decedent's or plaintiffs' rights, for which the jury assessed $30,000 from officer Winkle, $30,000 from officer Laird, and $15,000 from officer Whitmer, who arrived at the scene late but joined in on the beating. Crucial to the verdict was the testimony of two witnesses who bravely reported that they had indeed seen at least officer Winkle striking Martin Cotton's skull. Painful video of Martin Cotton dying in jail was presented during the trial which obviously effected jurors, four of whom wore black in solidarity with the family today as the verdict was read. In the video below, Cotton family attorney Vicki Sarmiento and Vebena Lea of Redwood Curtain CopWatch speak about the verdict re-establishing Martin Cotton's humanity and the shockwaves they hope the decision will send through the ranks of police who may consider committing such atrocities in the future.
Vebena Lea of Redwood Curtain CopWatch and Cotton family attorney Vicki Sarmiento
Contact: Verbena Lea, Redwood Curtain CopWatch (707) 633-4493, copwatchrwc@gmail.com
Vicki Sarmiento, Esq. (626) 308-1171, Vsarmiento@vis-law.com
Eureka, CA: A jury delivered a resounding victory for plaintiffs in a police misconduct civil rights case by awarding the total sum of $4,575,000 against the City of Eureka and Eureka police officers Adam Laird, Justin Winkle, and Gary Whitmer for the death of Martin Cotton II. Punitive damages were assessed against the three officers. Mr. Cotton, a 26 year-old man living on the streets died of blunt force head trauma. The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys Dale K. Galipo and Vicki I. Sarmiento of Los Angeles County, were Mr. Cotton's 5 year-old daughter and his father. The jury found that Officers Laird and Winkle used excessive force, and that all three officers failed to provide medical care.
On August 9th, 2007, Eureka police officers Winkle, Laird, Whitmer, and five others were involved in beating an unarmed Martin Cotton II to death. In broad daylight, officers pummeled Mr. Cotton's head and body then brought Mr. Cotton to jail, failing to seek medical assistance for him. Expert testimony presented by the plaintiffs established that timely medical care would have saved Mr. Cotton's life. Mr. Cotton died in the jail cell within two hours. Painful video of Mr. Cotton dying in jail was presented during the trial.
The fatal beating of Mr. Cotton occurred outside the Eureka Rescue Mission. Police were dispatched to the Mission for a disturbance involving Mr. Cotton. When they arrived, Mr. Cotton was no longer in the Mission and was alone and defenseless. Laird and Winkle claim they ordered him to put his hands behind his back and he did not move. Both officers pepper sprayed him, Officer Winkle kneed him in the ribs and forced him to the ground where the officers beat him. Mr. Cotton made no moves against the police and remained prone on the concrete. Officer Whitmer (the third officer on the scene) gave a running kick to Mr. Cotton, battered him with a baton, and pepper-sprayed him. More officers arrived and joined in the beating. The trial of Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka included police readily admitting they they sat on Mr. Cotton, forced his head onto the concrete throughout the beating, kicked him, hit him with a metal baton, kneed at his vulnerable organs, deployed pepper spray three times, and did not seek medical assistance for him afterward. The officers, however, denied hitting Mr. Cotton in the head, most likely because blunt force head trauma was determined as the cause of death. Crucial testimony came from two civilian witnesses who bravely reported that they had indeed seen at least Officer Winkle pounding on Mr. Cotton's skull multiple times on the concrete. One witness said he heard “fist-to-skull”, “bone-on-bone” from those head strikes.
The verdict was announced September 23, 2011 after a two week trial and 7 hours of jury deliberation in Federal Court in Oakland. Siehna Cotton was awarded $1,250,000 for the pain her father suffered and $2,750,000 for wrongful death damages. Marty Cotton Sr. was awarded $500,000, which required plaintiffs to show that the officers' actions "shocked the conscience." The jury also found that the officers acted with "malice, oppression, or reckless disregard" to the decedent's or plaintiffs' rights, and assessed punitive damages, $30,000 from officer Winkle, $30,000 from officer Laird, and $15,000 from officer Whitmer.
Mr. Cotton was one of many people killed by police in the Humboldt region from fall 2005 to fall 2007. Attorney Vicki Sarmiento hopes the verdict sends shockwaves to other officers who may consider committing such atrocities in the future. “We don't want this to happen to anyone else. We as a community, we as a society, cannot tolerate it.” Ms. Sarmiento speaks of the victory, “The jury's decision showed respect for Martin Cotton's life. They acknowledge the wrong that occurred and acknowledge that Martin's life had value. The issue of human dignity and humanity is what this is about, and that everyone has a right to have that.” ###
2011-09-23 "Martin Cotton Family Awarded Over $4.5 Million in Trial Against Eureka Police, Interview: Video" by dave id
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/09/23/18691150.php]
On August 9th, 2007, Eureka police officers Justin Winkle, Gary Whitmer, Adam Laird, and five others were involved in beating an unarmed Martin Cotton II to death. Eureka police pummeled Martin Cotton's body and head in broad daylight, using pepper spray repeatedly. Martin Cotton was then sent to jail without being offered medical treatment. He died in jail within about an hour. A federal civil rights trial in Oakland was filed to seek justice for Martin on behalf of his young daughter. The case, Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka, included the testimony of police readily admitting they beat Martin Cotton all over his body and did not seek medical assistance for him afterward. The police however denied that they hit Martin Cotton in the head, most likely because blows to the head were determined to be the cause of death. At about 1pm on September 23rd, the verdict was announced for the two-week trial. A seven-person jury found unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs, big time. Siehna Cotton was awarded $1,250,000 for the pain Martin Cotton suffered at the hands of Eureka police and $2,750,000 for wrongful death damages. Additionally, Marty Cotton Sr. was awarded $500,000, which required plaintiffs to meet the highest burden of proof in a civil trial, that is that the murder of Martin Cotton "shocked the conscience." A rare award of punitive damages against the three officers required a finding of "malice, oppression, or reckless disregard" to the decedent's or plaintiffs' rights, for which the jury assessed $30,000 from officer Winkle, $30,000 from officer Laird, and $15,000 from officer Whitmer, who arrived at the scene late but joined in on the beating. Crucial to the verdict was the testimony of two witnesses who bravely reported that they had indeed seen at least officer Winkle striking Martin Cotton's skull. Painful video of Martin Cotton dying in jail was presented during the trial which obviously effected jurors, four of whom wore black in solidarity with the family today as the verdict was read. In the video below, Cotton family attorney Vicki Sarmiento and Vebena Lea of Redwood Curtain CopWatch speak about the verdict re-establishing Martin Cotton's humanity and the shockwaves they hope the decision will send through the ranks of police who may consider committing such atrocities in the future.
Vebena Lea of Redwood Curtain CopWatch and Cotton family attorney Vicki Sarmiento
Friday, September 23, 2011
2011-09-23 "More Than Half of ‘Armed’ Suspects Shot by LA Sheriff Were Not Armed" by Jorge Rivas
[http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/a_new_study_has_found.html]
A new study has found that in most shootings in which Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies fired at suspects who appeared to be reaching for a weapon, the suspect turned out to be unarmed. And in the last six years, all but two of those people shot were black and Latino, according to the study by the Police Assessment Resource Center for LA County Supervisors [http://www.parc.info/home.chtml].
Over the past six years, approximately 61 percent of all suspects shot because an officer believed they were armed were confirmed to be unarmed at the time of the shooting. A little more than half of those suspects were holding an object such as a cell phone or sunglasses that was believed by deputies to be a possible firearm.
The analysis also found that 61 percent of those shot at by deputies were Latino, 29 percent black and 10 percent white. The LA Times provides some more context [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/la-sheriff-shootings-unarmed-people.html]:
[begin extract]
“Waistband shootings” are particularly controversial because the justification for the shootings can conceivably be fabricated after the fact, according to the county monitor’s report. The monitor was careful to point out that the report wasn’t making the case deputies were being dishonest, simply that the spike in those shootings left the department vulnerable to criticism.
Merrick Bobb, special counsel to the county Board of Supervisors, also found a rise in shootings in which deputies didn’t see an actual gun before firing. In those cases, the person may have had a weapon on them, but never brandished it.
Those shootings spiked by 50% last year, according to the report. Last year also had the highest proportion of people shot by deputies who turned out to be unarmed altogether.
[end extract]
The sheriff’s department says these figures are not surprising because deputies patrol areas in south and east Los Angeles County that are home to “a plethora of black and Latino gangs,” the San Jose Mercury News reported [http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18954402?nclick_check=1].
But Bobb, the special council to county supervisors and the author of the report says training and time on the job has a lot to do with how officers react when suspects hands move. “Knowing that black and Latino men are more likely to be shot or shot at … the sheriff’s department should be doing a better job to reduce as far as possible mistaken shootings,” Bobb wrote.
His report found that in almost a third of shootings deputies had received no relevant training in the past two years.
[http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/a_new_study_has_found.html]
A new study has found that in most shootings in which Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies fired at suspects who appeared to be reaching for a weapon, the suspect turned out to be unarmed. And in the last six years, all but two of those people shot were black and Latino, according to the study by the Police Assessment Resource Center for LA County Supervisors [http://www.parc.info/home.chtml].
Over the past six years, approximately 61 percent of all suspects shot because an officer believed they were armed were confirmed to be unarmed at the time of the shooting. A little more than half of those suspects were holding an object such as a cell phone or sunglasses that was believed by deputies to be a possible firearm.
The analysis also found that 61 percent of those shot at by deputies were Latino, 29 percent black and 10 percent white. The LA Times provides some more context [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/la-sheriff-shootings-unarmed-people.html]:
[begin extract]
“Waistband shootings” are particularly controversial because the justification for the shootings can conceivably be fabricated after the fact, according to the county monitor’s report. The monitor was careful to point out that the report wasn’t making the case deputies were being dishonest, simply that the spike in those shootings left the department vulnerable to criticism.
Merrick Bobb, special counsel to the county Board of Supervisors, also found a rise in shootings in which deputies didn’t see an actual gun before firing. In those cases, the person may have had a weapon on them, but never brandished it.
Those shootings spiked by 50% last year, according to the report. Last year also had the highest proportion of people shot by deputies who turned out to be unarmed altogether.
[end extract]
The sheriff’s department says these figures are not surprising because deputies patrol areas in south and east Los Angeles County that are home to “a plethora of black and Latino gangs,” the San Jose Mercury News reported [http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18954402?nclick_check=1].
But Bobb, the special council to county supervisors and the author of the report says training and time on the job has a lot to do with how officers react when suspects hands move. “Knowing that black and Latino men are more likely to be shot or shot at … the sheriff’s department should be doing a better job to reduce as far as possible mistaken shootings,” Bobb wrote.
His report found that in almost a third of shootings deputies had received no relevant training in the past two years.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Justice for Martin Cotton!
Martin Cotton
2011-09-22 "Martin Cotton Civil Trial Press Conference with Verbana Lea & Marty Cotton, 9/21/11: video" by dave id
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/09/22/18691008.php]
On August 9th, 2007, Eureka police officers Justin Winkle, Gary Whitmer, Adam Laird, and five others were involved in beating an unarmed Martin Cotton to death. Eureka police pummeled Martin Cotton's body and head in broad daylight, using pepper spray repeatedly. Martin Cotton was then sent to jail without being offered medical treatment. He died in jail within about an hour. A federal civil rights trial in Oakland is attempting to seek justice for Martin on behalf of his young daughter. The case, Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka, has included the testimony of police readily admitting they beat Martin Cotton all over his body and did not seek medical assistance for him afterward. The police however deny that they hit Martin Cotton in the head, most likely because blows to the head were determined to be the cause of death. On September 21st, Marty Cotton Sr., Verbena Lea, and supporters held a press conference in front of the Federal Building in Oakland. [Full video below.] The trial is set to conclude on September 22nd with closing arguments being made by both sides. The civil rights case will then be in the hands of seven jurors who will decide if the city of Eureka and its police department are to be held accountable for the killing of Martin Cotton.
The press conference concluded with chants of "Justice for Martin Cotton! Free Troy Davis!" as Troy Davis was scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia an hour later the same afternoon. After the press conference, several supporters traveled to attend the vigil for Troy Davis in Justin Herman plaza to San Francisco. (Just as the execution was about to commence at 4pm EST, Troy Davis' execution was delayed three hours by the U.S. Supreme Court, but then proceeded when the court refused to issue a Stay of Execution.)
If you would like to attend the final day of the Martin Cotton civil trial, court starts at 8:30am in Courtroom #1 on the 4th floor of the 1301 Clay Street, Oakland Federal Building. Bring an ID to come in and be present at the trial. Supporters have been wearing blue shirts and sitting together throughout the trial.
Justice for Martin Cotton
Verbena Lea and Marty Cotton Sr.
Full video of press conference by dave idTuesday, September 20, 2011
For Immediate Release Sept. 20, 2011
CIVIL RIGHTS TRIAL ABOUT FATAL POLICE BEATING OF MARTIN COTTON CONCLUDING THIS WEEK
***PRESS CONFERENCE ON WEDNESDAY, SEPT 21 2:30PM** Federal Bldg. 1301Clay St.
CONTACT: Verbena Lea, Redwood Curtain CopWatch (707) 633.4493, copwatchrwc@gmail.com
PDF of this release HERE: [http://www.box.net/shared/q10t585ae55dj3niu4j2]
Oakland, CA: The current civil rights trial in Oakland about the Eureka police murder of Martin Frederick Cotton II resumes Wednesday, 9/21. Four years ago, Martin was 26 years old, unarmed and living on the streets when he was killed by the Eureka Police when they pummeled his body in broad daylight, in front of a homeless shelter (Eureka Rescue Mission), then brought him to the jail to die. Cotton family supporters who are deeply opposed to police violence, rallied in front of the Oakland courthouse on the first day of trial (Sept 12) and have been present in the courtroom while attorneys Vicki Sarmiento and Dale Galipo represent Martin's six year old daughter, Siehna, and her grandfather, Martin Cotton Sr. The case, Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka is being heard before U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong and a seven person jury. Martin's story has spread beyond the “Redwood Curtain”.
The fatal police beating occurred in front of many witnesses, mostly homeless people already in vulnerable situations. On August 9, 2007, two Eureka Police Department (EPD) officers responded to a call about a disturbance involving Martin at the Mission. When they arrived, Martin was no longer inside and was alone and defenseless when both officers immediately pepper-sprayed him, kneed him to the ground and brutally beat him. Martin was passive, made no moves against the police and remained prone on the concrete. More officers arrived and joined the beating. Officers admitted at trial that they sat on Martin and forced his head onto the concrete throughout the beating, hit him with a metal baton and with their knees at vulnerable organs, kicked him, and deployed pepper spray three times.. The officers deny that any of them hammerfisted Martin in the head against the cement many times. Two unrelated civilian witnesses testified that they clearly saw head blows coming from the officers. One witness said he heard “fist-to-skull”, “bone-on-bone” from very hard blows to Martin's head.
Marty Cotton, Sr. says, “We want to expose the truth, ideally, so those cops can never wear a badge and weaponry and never do this to anyone else again.”
The names of the eight EPD officers involved in the deadly torture of Martin Cotton were never revealed by the mainstream media or local government, and only made public by Redwood Curtain CopWatch. The lawsuit is now only focused on three of the officers: EPD's Justin Winkle, Gary Whitmer, and Adam Laird (who has since been promoted to Sergeant).
The officers have testified and contradicted their attorney's arguments that Martin appeared to be a drugged up 'superman' requiring extreme force to be detained and questioned. The officers testified that they did not believe Martin was on drugs, that Martin reacted normally to the pepper spray, and that it was clear he had no weapons and was not trying to get away. One consistent observer of the trial said “The cops are claiming that they pepper-sprayed Martin, got on top of him and beat him repeatedly, even with a metal baton, just to get Martin's hands out from under him. It is absurd, or more accurately, obscene...and it killed him.” Also, the officers testified that they did not think Martin was hurt and did nothing to get him checked out or treated -after “exhausting” themselves beating and spraying him. A video of Martin dying in the jail cell was shown at trial.
Support for the Cottons has been consistent at trial from the Oscar Grant Committee, Redwood Curtain CopWatch, and the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee.
Humboldt County officials and media fabricated facts and actively covered up the police murder of Martin Cotton for four years. There was no coroner's inquest or criminal prosecution for Martin's murder. The coroner and police fed the public outrageous theories, that Martin died of an LSD overdose, banged his own head to death in the jail, or died from 'excited delirium,' while witnesses spoke of a horrendous police beating. Martin's brutal murder was part of a killing spree by police in the Humboldt region from fall 2005 to fall 2007. Verbena of CopWatch says “There can never be 'justice' for Martin Cotton, but we hope this trial brings some peace to the Cotton family and has a deterrent effect on the cops, who regularly and viciously attack homeless people, and are increasingly more blatant and brutal with all of their targets- the people.”
CIVIL RIGHTS TRIAL ABOUT FATAL POLICE BEATING OF MARTIN COTTON CONCLUDING THIS WEEK
***PRESS CONFERENCE ON WEDNESDAY, SEPT 21 2:30PM** Federal Bldg. 1301Clay St.
CONTACT: Verbena Lea, Redwood Curtain CopWatch (707) 633.4493, copwatchrwc@gmail.com
PDF of this release HERE: [http://www.box.net/shared/q10t585ae55dj3niu4j2]
Oakland, CA: The current civil rights trial in Oakland about the Eureka police murder of Martin Frederick Cotton II resumes Wednesday, 9/21. Four years ago, Martin was 26 years old, unarmed and living on the streets when he was killed by the Eureka Police when they pummeled his body in broad daylight, in front of a homeless shelter (Eureka Rescue Mission), then brought him to the jail to die. Cotton family supporters who are deeply opposed to police violence, rallied in front of the Oakland courthouse on the first day of trial (Sept 12) and have been present in the courtroom while attorneys Vicki Sarmiento and Dale Galipo represent Martin's six year old daughter, Siehna, and her grandfather, Martin Cotton Sr. The case, Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka is being heard before U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong and a seven person jury. Martin's story has spread beyond the “Redwood Curtain”.
The fatal police beating occurred in front of many witnesses, mostly homeless people already in vulnerable situations. On August 9, 2007, two Eureka Police Department (EPD) officers responded to a call about a disturbance involving Martin at the Mission. When they arrived, Martin was no longer inside and was alone and defenseless when both officers immediately pepper-sprayed him, kneed him to the ground and brutally beat him. Martin was passive, made no moves against the police and remained prone on the concrete. More officers arrived and joined the beating. Officers admitted at trial that they sat on Martin and forced his head onto the concrete throughout the beating, hit him with a metal baton and with their knees at vulnerable organs, kicked him, and deployed pepper spray three times.. The officers deny that any of them hammerfisted Martin in the head against the cement many times. Two unrelated civilian witnesses testified that they clearly saw head blows coming from the officers. One witness said he heard “fist-to-skull”, “bone-on-bone” from very hard blows to Martin's head.
Marty Cotton, Sr. says, “We want to expose the truth, ideally, so those cops can never wear a badge and weaponry and never do this to anyone else again.”
The names of the eight EPD officers involved in the deadly torture of Martin Cotton were never revealed by the mainstream media or local government, and only made public by Redwood Curtain CopWatch. The lawsuit is now only focused on three of the officers: EPD's Justin Winkle, Gary Whitmer, and Adam Laird (who has since been promoted to Sergeant).
The officers have testified and contradicted their attorney's arguments that Martin appeared to be a drugged up 'superman' requiring extreme force to be detained and questioned. The officers testified that they did not believe Martin was on drugs, that Martin reacted normally to the pepper spray, and that it was clear he had no weapons and was not trying to get away. One consistent observer of the trial said “The cops are claiming that they pepper-sprayed Martin, got on top of him and beat him repeatedly, even with a metal baton, just to get Martin's hands out from under him. It is absurd, or more accurately, obscene...and it killed him.” Also, the officers testified that they did not think Martin was hurt and did nothing to get him checked out or treated -after “exhausting” themselves beating and spraying him. A video of Martin dying in the jail cell was shown at trial.
Support for the Cottons has been consistent at trial from the Oscar Grant Committee, Redwood Curtain CopWatch, and the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee.
Humboldt County officials and media fabricated facts and actively covered up the police murder of Martin Cotton for four years. There was no coroner's inquest or criminal prosecution for Martin's murder. The coroner and police fed the public outrageous theories, that Martin died of an LSD overdose, banged his own head to death in the jail, or died from 'excited delirium,' while witnesses spoke of a horrendous police beating. Martin's brutal murder was part of a killing spree by police in the Humboldt region from fall 2005 to fall 2007. Verbena of CopWatch says “There can never be 'justice' for Martin Cotton, but we hope this trial brings some peace to the Cotton family and has a deterrent effect on the cops, who regularly and viciously attack homeless people, and are increasingly more blatant and brutal with all of their targets- the people.”
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