Mike Brennan, Black Expat in Vienna, Brutalized by the Police

Here is a disturbing message I received from Angela Shaw in Toulouse:

I just got off the phone with a friend in Vienna about our meeting in April in Utrecht and she tells me about this. What is not mentioned in the news coverage is that almost exactly 10 years ago the Austrian police brutalized and "killed" another black man, again on some "mistaken" identity excuse like they used for the Brazilian guy in London. It is high time that we get ECIS and NAIS to address the issue of "visible difference" and the peculiar implications of the spread of "white supremacy" especially in the aftermath of the election of Obama.

This story made the US news:

An American teacher who was attacked by Austrian police who mistook him for a drug dealer said Monday he believes he was singled out because he was black and that he is taking legal action against the police for assault.

Read the full story.

It appears that not only was he brutalized by the police, but also treated poorly in the hospital.

Read the details for yourself.

Black Girl Beat By Police For Riding Bike - Is this post racial?

Original Posted: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 at African American Political Pundit blog

Source: NewsOne.BlackPlanet

My man Casey Gane-McCalla over at Newsone.blackplanet.com is reporting on another attack on blacks, young and old throughout America by some out of control police. This time it's a beat down of a teenage black girl for riding-bike.

Police Beat Teenage Black Girl For Riding Bike

By Casey Gane-McCalla, Assistant Editor

In this video, police beat a teenage black girl for riding her bike on the sidewalk in Millvillle, PA. Apparently one of the officers, Carlos Drogo, maced himself while trying to take in the girl for riding her bike on the sidewalk and became angry and started punching her. More HERE

Black Girl Beat By Police For Riding Bike

Black man shot in the back... 12 times

Another black man shot in the back, this time 12 times in New Orleans. "American cities are becoming color aroused powder keg's on the eve of a black man becoming President of the United States. More HERE

Video of Police Shooting Black Youth In Back

H/T One Black Man from the blog, Black TalkRadio, who reports:
Whether or not the police officer meant to shoot this young man in the back as some are claiming is irrelevant, there was no reason to pull a gun out on a person lying face down on the ground being pinned by other officers.

Mecury News writes:

OAKLAND — A BART police officer struggling to handcuff a 22-year-old man, stood up over the facedown Hayward resident and fired a single shot into his back while a handful of officers watched, a video taken by a train passenger apparently shows.

The attorney for the family of Oscar Grant III, fatally shot by an unidentified BART officer early New Year's Day, said Sunday he plans to file a $25 million lawsuit against the department and asked prosecutors to consider filing murder charges against the officer.

The shooting occurred shortly before 2 a.m. Thursday after five officers responded to the Fruitvale station to reports of a fight on a train, officials said, though they have not confirmed whether Grant was involved in the fight. Read More




Read More HERE

Fear of Taser Abuse In Dekalb County, Georgia

Who can forget this horrible video of a black man getting Electrocuted While Black in a Georgia police station a few years ago. Well, this may be become common place throughout Georgia if rogue police have their way.

Visit the Blog Tasered While Black

David Simpson of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports about the gradual trend toward the use of Tasers by metro Atlanta police could dramatically surge soon with a plan to give the controversial stun guns to more than 1,000 DeKalb County police officers.

He reports that three suburban city police departments — Sandy Springs, Marietta and Alpharetta — have issued Tasers to patrol officers in the last year or so, but the area’s largest departments have either not used the devices or limited them to special squads.

Now DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton has a plan to issue Tasers to every cop on the street. Bolton will ask county commissioners next Tuesday to use $1 million from a fund of confiscated drug assets to give Tasers to 1,011 patrol officers, detectives and sergeants.

With speedy approval and after officer training, DeKalb’s Tasers could be in wide use in six or seven months, Bolton said.

Previously, commissioners have not funded Bolton’s requests for Tasers and other equipment, but their objections focused on how to pay for them. Bolton had resisted using money confiscated from drug dealers because that revenue source won’t necessarily pay for the cartridges that serve as ammunition for Tasers or for replacement weapons.

But with the county budget tightening and recent drug seizures adding to the confiscation fund, Bolton said he changed his mind after he attended a ceremony recently naming a county park for slain DeKalb officers Eric Barker and Ricky Bryant Jr. Each officer left behind four children.

“I don’t want any more children on my watch without a father,” he said.

Bolton was not suggesting that a Taser could have prevented Barker and Bryant’s shooting deaths last January. But he said he fears an officer trying to avoid using a gun could be killed by a knife-wielding suspect who might have been stopped by a Taser.

Bolton and a special county grand jury also have argued Tasers can reduce police shootings — a potent issue in DeKalb, where officers shot to death 12 suspects in 2006.

One of the fatal 2006 cases and an additional fatal shooting in 2007 fit a scenario often described as ideal for using a Taser to save lives: a knife-wielding suspect confronting multiple officers.

Taser critics such as Georgia NAACP president Edward DuBose cite other cases in which suspects who were stunned with a Taser have died — including two Gwinnett County jail inmates and another man who scuffled with Gwinnett deputies.

DuBose said Wednesday his organization “completely” opposes Tasers. READ More HERE

Cross posted on the blogs African American Political Pundit and Electrocuted While Black

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Police Electrically Shock 16 Year-Old Girl While Arresting 74 Year-Old Relative in Traffic Stop

Every time the Chicago Police arrest a 74 year-old man for speeding and an expired license and then electrically shock his 16 year old relative for allegedly interfering, then people like me and African American Political Pundit want to second-guess the police. Here are the details, as reported to the Chicago Tribune by the police department, and below is my second-guessing:

A 16-year-old Aurora girl was Tasered Monday by a police officer during a traffic stop after she interfered with an arrest, police said.

The teen and the officer who used the Taser were treated for cuts and scrapes to their faces. The teen was taken to the Kane County Youth Home after being charged with aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting arrest in connection with the incident that happened about 4:15 p.m. near McCoy Drive and Kautz Road.

The girl was a passenger in a vehicle driven by a 74-year-old relative that was pulled over by police for speeding. The driver was in the process of being arrested for attempting to obstruct justice and not having a valid license when the teen allegedly left the vehicle and physically interfered with the arrest, police said.

The arresting officer Tasered the girl allegedly after she got into a physical altercation with him. The situation was brought under control after backup officers were called to the scene, police said.

The driver was charged with resisting arrest and speeding. Police are not releasing the driver's name in order to protect the identity of the juvenile.

The teen was treated at Rush Copley and released, and the officer was treated at the scene.
When things like this happen, we ask questions like:

Why didn't they just give a ticket for these civil infractions?
If not, why not just tow the car and let "gramps" go?
Wasn't it the police determination to arrest (and handcuff?) this 74 year-old person that provoked and precipitated this incident?

And we Black people always suspect the worst of police. We suspect, for example, that the police's victims are Black; that the police profiled them and then invented a pretext in order to stop the car; that the police roughly tried to arrest an elderly man in a way that risked breaking both of his arms; and the police beat up and electrocuted the sixteen year-old; and then arrested and charged her with assault on an officer simply to provide an excuse for having beaten the minor girl up, electrocuted her, and sent her to the hospital.

At this point, I don't even know if this girl and her elderly relative are Black. I just suspect they are.

Police Beat Diabetic Senseless for Swerving on Highway During Insulin Attack

Elderly Man's Insulin Pump Could Have Been a Weapon, Police Say

The Associated Press
Monday, September 22, 2008; 9:24 PM

DETROIT -- Police officers in two Detroit suburbs are accused of beating a motorist who was suffering a diabetic episode on a freeway.

Lawyer Arnold Reed says 59-year-old Ernest Griglen had brain surgery after the June 15 encounter with police and has been clinging to life with help from a ventilator.

Reed filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court seeking at least $20 million from Allen Park and Dearborn police. He says officers mistakenly believed Griglen was resisting arrest when he was having a major medical problem.

An Allen Park police report says Griglen's car was swerving.

Allen Park police wouldn't comment on the lawsuit. Dearborn police released a report saying an officer feared Griglen's insulin pump was a weapon. The Associated Press