Wednesday, December 17, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2014

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL



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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS



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Breaking News: Cuban Five are Free!

PCJF heralds release, undertook multi-year investigation and lawsuit exposing corruption of justice 

The Cuban Five are free! After 16 years as political prisoners in the United States through a prosecution and trial that demonstrated a gross corruption of justice, the remaining three, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, and Antonio Guerrero are going home to Cuba.

This is a testament to the fight by the people in the United States and around the world demanding justice and a new day in U.S.-Cuba relations. Now is the time to turn the page. The U.S. must end the blockade against Cuba.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a federal lawsuit in addition to its multi-year investigation uncovering thousands of pages of documents related to a U.S. government operation in which it funded Miami "journalists" who presented themselves as independent reporters and who also saturated the Miami media with false, inflammatory and hostile stories during the prosecution and trial of the Cuban Five. This conduct, which would have influenced the jury pool and the un-sequestered jury, violated the fundamental right to a fair trial.

The presence of Miami journalists on the U.S. government payroll, who purported to report as “independent” press, goes to the heart of the unjust conviction of the Five. The Five were not only victims of a politically-motivated prosecution, but a government-funded propaganda operation as well. This corruption of justice became a central part of the pending habeas petitions. 

The PCJF carried out this work pro bono. We can continue to fight for justice and expose government misconduct only with your support. Please make an urgently needed end-of-year tax-deductible donation by following this link.

Working together, we can make a difference.

Click here for an interview with PCJF Executive Director, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, on the case of the Cuban Five from Law and Disorder.

For more on the corruption of justice in the case of the Cuban Five, follow this link.

Background on the Five:

In 1998, five Cuban men were arrested by the U.S. government and tried in Miami on charges of conspiring to commit espionage on the United States.

The five men’s mission was to stop terrorism, keeping watch on Miami’s ultra-right extremists to prevent their violent attacks against Cuba. “The Cuban Five,” as they are now known, were convicted after repeated denials by the judge to move the trial venue out of Miami. The U.S. government insisted that they be tried in Miami.

Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for Colin Powell when he was Secretary State from 2001 to 2005, commented about the inability of the Cuban Five to receive a fair trial in Miami:

When the case came to trial, a change of venue was warranted and asked for because no Miami court was going to give the Cuban Five a fair trial, since the city is largely in the hands of some of the very Cuban-Americans and their supporters who've allegedly perpetrated these atrocities on the Cuban people and are prepared to invade the island. But the change of venue motion was denied. And of course the five were convicted.

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
http://www.justiceonline.org/

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Cops vs Free Speech
How police are threatening Mumia, convicts, teachers, and all of us with censorship as well as bullets!


• The New “gag” law in Pennsylvania that seeks to silence prisoners. This law, cobbled together in days following Mumia’s recorded presentation to a commencement ceremony at Goddard College, was explicitly designed to “shut him up.” The targets of this blatantly unconstitutional law, however, include all prisoners convicted of violent crimes!

• A Law Suit has been filed to stop the “gag” law from being implemented!  Support for this effort is critical. Donations will go toward the fight against the “gag” law.

• The  suppression of the “Urban Dreams” web site by the Oakland School Board. This teacher-created site of voluntary curriculum ideas included one comparing the suppression of Mumia’s commentaries with censorship of Martin Luther King’s later writings. While the Superintendent of Schools has now promised to restore the site, we must remain vigilant!

• Both of these measures—the “gag” law in Pennsylvania, and the suppression of the Urban Dreams website—were taken at the behest of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)!  The FOP is a highly politicized organization which seeks to silence social critics such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, and dictate the curricula in schools! The FOP and Democrat/Republican politicians will continue their attempts at intimidation and suppression, unless we act!

• Ferguson shows that black and Latino youth particularly are threatened by militarized and politicized police who shoot first and ask questions later, and frame their targets for crimes they didn’t commit. Chief targets have included Native American Activists like Leonard Peltier, militant working-class activists, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Black Panthers and Martin Luther King. Mumia is currently a top target to silence.  But anyone and everyone can be on their enemies list, and in their cross-hairs!  Fight back now!

Donate Now
to fight the “gag” law!
go to:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protect-freedom-of-speech-keep-mumia-on-the-air

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222  •  Oakland CA  •  510.763.2347
www.laboractionmumia.org

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Support Prison Radio

$35 is the yearly membership.

$50 will get you a beautiful tote bag (you can special order a yoga mat bag, just call us).

$100 will get the DVD "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary"

$300 will bring one essay to the airwaves.

$1000 (or $88.83 per month) will make you a member of our Prison Radio Freedom Circle. Take a moment and Support Prison Radio

Luchando por la justicia y la libertad,

Noelle Hanrahan, Director, Prison Radio

PRISON RADIO

P.O. Box 411074 San Francisco, CA 94141

www.prisonradio.org
info@prisonradio.org 415-706-5222

Pennsylvania legislators are trying to stop prisoners from speaking about their ideas and experiences. Last week, PA Representative Mike Vereb introduced a bill (HB2533) called the “Revictimization Relief Act,” which would allow victims, District Attorneys, and the Attorney General to sue people who have been convicted of “personal injury” crimes for speaking out publicly if it causes the victim of the crime “mental anguish.”

The bill was written in response to political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s commencement speech at Goddard College, and is a clear attempt to silence Mumia and other prisoners and formerly incarcerated people. We believe that this legislation is not actually an attempt to help victims, but a cynical move by legislators to stop people in prison from speaking out against an unjust system.

While to us this seems like a clear violation of the first amendment, unfortunately the PA General Assembly doesn’t appear to agree, and they have fast-tracked the bill for approval and amended another bill (SB508) to include the same language. The legislation could be voted on as early as Wednesday.

If this bill passes, it will be a huge blow to the movement against mass incarceration. People inside prisons play a leading role in these struggles, and their perspectives, analysis, and strategies are essential to our work. Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people who write books, contribute to newspapers, or even write for our Voices from the Inside section would run the risk of legal consequences just for sharing their ideas.

That’s why we are asking you to take action TUESDAY OCTOBER 14 by calling Pennsylvania lawmakers to tell them that prisoners should not be denied the right to speak.

Please call your legislators and demand that they vote NO on HB2533 and SB508. You can look up contact information at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/.

We are also asking folks to call the following Senate leaders and ask them to stop the bill from moving forward:

Senate Majority Whip Pat Browne  (717) 787-1349

Senate Minority Whip Anthony Williams  (717) 787-5970

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi  (717) 787-4712

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (717) 787-7683

Not sure what to say on the phone? Click here for a sample call script.

Want to write a letter to your legislators, or looking for more talking points? Click here for more info!

- See more at: http://decarceratepa.info/freespeech#sthash.TtdN3AkI.dpuf


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COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org/

New Action- write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

November 24, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network
mchugh_md
Secretary of the Army John McHugh
President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning’s clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.
Please write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks’ whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea Manning’s release from military prison.
It is important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner, imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely that any of these individuals would independently move to release Manning, a reduction in Manning’s outrageous 35-year prison sentence is a possibility at this stage.
Take action TODAY – Write letters supporting Chelsea’s clemency petition to the following DoD authorities:
Secretary of the Army John McHugh
101 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0101
The Judge Advocate General
2200 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-2200
Army Clemency and Parole Board
251 18th St, Suite 385
Arlington, VA 22202-3532
Directorate of Inmate Administration
Attn: Boards Branch
U.S. Disciplinary Barracks
1301 N. Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2304
Suggestions for letters send to DoD officials:
  • The letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning’s sentence is reduced.  The letter should NOT be anti-military as this will be unlikely to help
  • A suggested message: “Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military regulations in the course of being true to her conscience.  I urge you to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning’s sentence to time served.”  Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.
  • Consider composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).
  • A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above
This clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning’s upcoming appeal before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning’s new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the prosecution’s—and the trial judge’s—misconduct during last year’s trial at Ft. Meade, Maryland.
Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea’s legal fees at this critical stage!
> > > Please donate today! < < <



Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
 Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org

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Update on the legal fight to #FreeRasmeaNow
Rasmea Defense Committee 

Out of jail!
Rasmea is with her family and returning home to Chicago.

Members of the Rasmea Defense Committee from Chicago and Detroit / Dearborn just welcomed Rasmea back from 5 weeks in a Port Huron, Michigan, jail. She arrived at the U.S. Marshal's office in Detroit for processing at approximately noon today, Dec. 11, and was greeted shortly thereafter by friends and family, who are bringing her home to Chicago now.

She looks strong, and is upbeat and excited to see more of her friends, family, and supporters soon. The defense committee wants to again thank everyone for their phone calls, letters, rallies, protests, and all the other activism that helped us get Rasmea released. She sends her love and appreciation to all, and graciously asks us to be ready for the next stage--winning the appeal and exonerating her fully.

Rasmea will be meeting with her attorneys in the next few days, and they will begin establishing strategies for the sentencing on March 10th and the appeal, respectively. We will reach out to everyone soon, and call on defense committees and supporters across the country to gear up for another intense #Justice4Rasmea campaign.

But for now, let's celebrate knowing that Rasmea will be back home safe, and ready to get back to her work with the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) and its Arab Women's Committee.

We will be welcoming her home publicly for the first time next Wednesday, December 17th, at the AAAN's event showcasing the Wishah popular dance troupe directly from Ramallah in Palestine. Join us to celebrate her, and Palestinian culture and resilience, by purchasing your tickets here!

Stay updated at uspcn.org and stopfbi.net.

Rasmea Defense Committee

Keep updated at uspcn.org and stopfbi.net.


Rasmea Defense Committee

www.uspcn.org
www.stopfbi.net


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Copyright © 2014 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414



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RH Reality Check
RHRealityCheck.org

Two weeks ago, Cleveland police killed Tanisha Anderson in front of her family's home when they'd been called by her family to help her, after she panicked as they were taking her to a local hospital for a psychological evaluation. Her 16-year-old daughter was watching from a window [1] as an officer used a takedown move on her mother, forcing Anderson face down on the icy pavement and then pressing his knee into her back until she stopped moving.

The police told concerned family members that Tanisha Anderson was sleeping and left her there on the ground. When the ambulance finally arrived 20 minutes later, she was dead. Once again, an African American family was reminded that no level of government in the United States is set up to protect and serve the well-being of their loved ones, no matter where they choose to live.

Tanisha Anderson's family can't afford her funeral expenses, and as of now, they've only raised $1,501 of their $7,000 goal. Can you help them today?

http://www.gofundme.com/hbeun4?&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reality&utm_content=2+-+Tanisha+Andersons+family+cant+afford+her&utm_campaign=rhrc&source=rhrc

Natasha Chart,
Campaign Director, RHRealityCheck.org

[1] - "Daughter of mentally ill Cleveland woman who died in police custody hopes for change," by Brandon Blackwell, Cleveland.com, November 18, 2014

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/daughter_of_mentally_ill_cleve.html?&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reality&utm_content=3+-+Daughter+of+mentally+ill+Cleveland+woman&utm_campaign=rhrc&source=rhrc



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 B. ARTICLES IN FULL




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1) Thousands March in Washington to Protest Police Violence
By and ELENA SCHNEIDER




2) Supreme Court Revisits Life Sentences for Juveniles
By

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/supreme-court-revisits-life-sentences-for-juveniles/?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region




3) Woman Tapes Police Arresting Someone and Ends Up Being Tasered and Called 'a Dumb B!†@h' on Video
Police allegedly tried to delete the video but the woman's phone had stored it in a cloud service.
By weinenkel
December 13, 2014  
http://www.alternet.org/woman-tapes-police-arresting-someone-and-ends-being-tasered-and-called-dumb-bh-video?akid=12575.229473.svHkb_&rd=1&src=newsletter1028645&t=18




4) A Shooter, His Victim and Race
By




5) More Files Are Released in Shooting in Ferguson
By




6) Grisly Execution in Oklahoma Detailed in Court Brief
By




7) I.R.S. Asset Seizure Case Is Dropped by Prosecutors
By




8) 25,000 March in New York to Protest Police Violence
By BENJAMIN MUELLER and ASHLEY SOUTHALL





9) Police Patrols in New York Public Housing Draw Scrutiny
By




10) U.A.W. Pledges to Pursue Higher Wages Next Year
By





11) U.S. and Cuba, in Breakthrough, Will Resume Diplomatic Relations
By




12) End Solitary Confinement for Teenagers
By IAN M. KYSEL




13) U.S. Wealth Gap Is Widest in at Least 30 Years, Study Finds
By

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/business/economy/us-wealth-gap-widest-in-at-least-30-years-pew-study-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news




14) Panel to Set Terms to End Abusive Reign at Los Angeles County Jail System
By















































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1) Thousands March in Washington to Protest Police Violence
By and ELENA SCHNEIDER

WASHINGTON — They came to the nation’s capital on buses and planes and minivans and trains, from Florida, Detroit and Staten Island, led as much by the families, friends and supporters of African-American men and boys killed at the hands of the police as by civil rights leaders.

Thousands of people marched along the National Mall to protest the deaths. It was one of numerous protests held around the nation on Saturday, including hikes in canyons in the West and marches down the streets of the nation’s urban centers. The demonstrators here — many of them wearing T-shirts that read “Black Lives Matter” and chanting “I can’t breathe” — filed in from the blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, evoking memories of civil rights marches of past decades as they moved toward the Capitol.“It’s a matter of honoring the lives we’ve lost,” said Jackeline Stewart, 30, of the District of Columbia, who came out in the chill to march. “It’s a double-edged sword. I’m proud that we are coming together, but on the other hand, I’m sad that we are here, marching for the right to breathe.” She added, “This is not a localized issue; this is our country’s issue.”

Here and around the nation, from California to Kentucky to New York and to Boston, activists came together for what was billed as a National Day of Resistance.

Tens of thousands of marchers on Saturday coursed through Manhattan while chanting “hands up, don’t shoot” and “justice now” in the largest demonstration New York City has seen since a grand jury on Staten Island decided on Dec. 3 not to indict the police officer who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold. In Boston, where protests were mostly peaceful, the police said they had arrested more than 20 people who had tried to block a highway.

The Washington march — known for years as the National March Against Police Violence — was led by the National Action Network, the organization run by the Rev. Al Sharpton, and was attended by the families of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley and Tamir Rice, all killed by police officers while unarmed.This march led by Mr. Sharpton — who has engaged in perpetual protest over several decades — did not have some of the spontaneity of the social media-driven “die-ins” that have erupted around the country. Some here also complained of a commercial element.

“I didn’t like the fact that people were profiting off T-shirts, flags and hats,” said Jay Bad Heart Bull, 36, who runs a nonprofit in Minneapolis. “I even saw a dog with a shirt that said, ‘I can’t breathe.’ I respect the hustle, but I want it to be for a purpose. How does that help our community?”

The police would not estimate how many marched in Washington, but at midday a plaza that could hold 5,000 people overflowed with demonstrators. As the march moved toward the Capitol, thousands more poured in to form a mobile mass of puffy coats, strollers, posters and spontaneous prayer groups.

Family members of some of those who have been killed were in attendance.

“My son was 12, just a baby,” said Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, who was shot to death in Cleveland after the police saw him with what turned out to be a toy gun that fired plastic pellets. “He is here with me right now, and this is what he would want me to do,” she added. “He had a promising future. All the families, we share the same pain.”

“I’m marching for everyone’s sons and daughters,” said Esaw Garner, the widow of Mr. Garner.

The march follows protests around the country over recent grand jury decisions not to indict the officer who shot Mr. Brown in Ferguson, Mo., or the one who placed Mr. Garner in a fatal hold on Staten Island. Scores of protesters on Saturday came from Ferguson.

On Friday, the death of Tamir Rice was formally ruled a homicide, according to a county autopsy report; he died in November when an officer shot him within seconds of arriving on the scene.

Protesters in recent weeks have occupied parks, city streets, train stations and retail stores to draw attention to the use of force by the police. In New York, thousands of people have tried to close major roads, bridges and tunnels, disrupting the rhythms of the city. In Berkeley, Calif., an Amtrak train was forced to stop, a central freeway was closed for hours and regional commuter trains were halted.

“For me to come out from my comfortable cocoon in this stage of my existence is something,” said Cynthia Pace, a consultant from Baltimore who was marching here on Saturday. “We have enough money, our children are highly educated, all of these things. But I can’t imagine how we in the American public can see something on TV and 12 people see it differently. There is something wrong with this picture.”

The National Park Service said sponsors of Saturday’s march in Washington, which this year was called Justice for All, had sought a permit for 5,000 protesters, but the crowd appeared quite a bit larger. Many protesters were organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, branches of the N.A.A.C.P. and various labor, civil rights and religious groups. Just steps from the end of the protest, senators worked to complete a budget bill and vote on other measures.

“I’m surprised to see so many ethnicities here today. It’s not just black people, like I thought it would be. Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, everyone cares about this,” said Peyton Hawkins, 18, a high school senior from Voorhees, N.J., who joined the Washington march. “We are making history.”

Mr. Sharpton followed several other speakers, invoking the history of the civil rights movement while calling on lawmakers to change how police shootings are investigated and adjudicated.

“We are here today because we must have this nation deal with the fact that, just like 50 years ago, the states have taken a position to rob the human rights and civil rights of citizens,” he said. “You can castigate the leaders; you can try and divide us by generation,” he said. “You may bury us, but you didn’t know you were burying seeds. We’ll grow stronger and last longer.”

Mr. Sharpton said that the Justice Department needed special funds and that special prosecutors must be appointed when civilians are killed by the police.

Isabel Martes, 42, a receptionist, drove to Washington from Harlem, N.Y., on Saturday morning with her sister. “I have three sons, and I have a husband,” she said. “Their lives matter. I’ve never been to a protest before, but things are getting out of control for our people, so I needed to come. After today, I’ll be at more protests. I’m hopeful now; I’m hopeful. I’m happy to see so much unity.”




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2) Supreme Court Revisits Life Sentences for Juveniles
By

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/supreme-court-revisits-life-sentences-for-juveniles/?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region

The life-without-parole sentences of thousands of juveniles convicted of murder nationwide may be up for reconsideration after the Supreme Court announced Friday that it would, at last, resolve a major uncertainty lingering in a landmark 2012 ruling.

In that decision, Miller v. Alabama, the court held that the Eighth Amendment bars mandatory sentences of life without parole for those who were under 18 at the time of their crime.


Since young people are “constitutionally different” from adults, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court, the law must treat them differently. She pointed specifically to the “hallmark features” of youth, including “immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences.”

A court may impose a sentence of life without parole, but only after considering the mitigating factors of youth and making an “individualized sentencing decision.” Going forward, Justice Kagan wrote, “we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.”

But going backward is the more immediate concern, because the Court did not address whether the ruling applied retroactively — a key ambiguity for the more than 2,000 juveniles sentenced to life without parole before Miller.

Since the Miller decision, state courts around the country have come to opposite conclusions on this question. Nine have held that it is retroactive, while four — Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota — have ruled that it isn’t. (Already this term, the U.S. Supreme Court has let stand rulings that Miller is retroactive by state supreme courts in Nebraska and Illinois.)

On Friday, the court announced that it would resolve the issue by agreeing to hear an appeal from George Toca. Mr. Toca, who has been imprisoned for 30 years, was 17 when he was arrested after his best friend was accidentally shot and killed during a 1984 robbery. He has maintained he is innocent, and has presented evidence that someone else was the shooter. After the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the Miller decision was not retroactive in that state, Mr. Toca petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court.

Given the unqualified language of the Miller opinion, it is hard to see how the court could prevent thousands of young prisoners from even a chance at release somewhere down the road — simply because they had the bad luck to be convicted before Miller was decided.

The legal arguments over retroactivity will be heard by the justices most likely in late March 2015 and resolved by the end of June.

But one claim that often comes up — that retroactivity will somehow lead to a flood of dangerous criminals stalking the streets — is nonsense. No one would be released automatically. Rather, if the court applies Miller retroactively, each inmate who petitions for resentencing will receive careful individualized consideration — just as he should have in the first place.

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3) Woman Tapes Police Arresting Someone and Ends Up Being Tasered and Called 'a Dumb B!†@h' on Video
Police allegedly tried to delete the video but the woman's phone had stored it in a cloud service.
By weinenkel
December 13, 2014  
http://www.alternet.org/woman-tapes-police-arresting-someone-and-ends-being-tasered-and-called-dumb-bh-video?akid=12575.229473.svHkb_&rd=1&src=newsletter1028645&t=18



Police allegedly tried to delete the video but the woman's phone had stored it in a cloud service.
As places like Illinois try to make it illegal to tape record police officers doing their "work", video of police "working" has emerged . Kianga Mwamba says she was heading home from family gathering when she stopped her car to film Baltimore police allegedly beating up a man they had in custody. According to the Baltimore Sun:
Mwamba, 36, flicked on the video recorder on her cell phone, telling officers she was allowed to record. But the situation quickly devolved into Mwamba's being hauled from her Toyota, tasered and charged with assaulting two police officers.
The police said Mwamba tried to run over officers with her car. Mwamba showed them the video.
Also according to the Baltimore Sun:
And when Mwamba was bailed out of jail that Monday morning, she said the video she made appeared to have been deleted from her phone. It was only when she checked another app that backed up her images and videos to the cloud that she found she still had a copy, she said.
Prosecutors dropped all the charges against Mwamba in September, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to move forward, and last week she filed a $7 million lawsuit against a number of officers she says were involved in her arrest and what she says was an attempt by police to destroy the footage.
The police department, having now "officially" seen the video had this to say:
The video does not capture enough information to draw definitive conclusions about what transpired before, during, and after the arrest," the department said. "What is clear is that the language used is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Also, Kianga Mwamba's dad? He's a veteran of the Maryland Capitol police.
 

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4) A Shooter, His Victim and Race
By

TAMPA, Fla. — IAN MANUEL is a black man who has spent most of his life in prison. Yet he still has a most unusual advocate calling for his release: a white woman whom he met when he shot her in the face.

Manuel fired the bullet when he was barely 13, and he fit all too neatly into racial stereotypes, especially that of the black predator who had to be locked away forever. One of the greatest racial disparities in America is in the justice system, and fear of young black criminals like Manuel helped lead to mass incarceration policies that resulted in a sixfold increase in the number of Americans in prison after 1970. Yet, as his one-time victim points out (speaking with a reconstructed jaw), it’s complicated.

Manuel grew up in a housing project here in Tampa to a mom with drug problems, without a dad at home, and he drifted early to crime. By the time he was 13, he had had 16 arrests. He desperately needed help, but instead the authorities kept returning him to a dysfunctional home.

Then, as part of a gang initiation, he was handed a gun, and he joined a couple of other teenagers on July 27, 1990. They confronted Debbie Baigrie, a stay-at-home mom who had gone out with friends for the first time since the birth of her second child.

“Give it up!” Manuel remembers shouting, as he pulled the gun. Baigrie screamed and Manuel fired wildly and repeatedly. One .32-caliber bullet entered Baigrie’s mouth, ripped through her jaw and teeth and went out her cheek. She began running away, awkwardly on high heels, blood pouring down her face and drenching her shirt.

Manuel fired after her, missing, and then he ran away with his friends. Later, arrested in an unrelated case, he confided to a cop without realizing the trouble he could face. “You know that lady that got shot downtown the other night?” he said he told the officer. “I’m the one who did it.”

Although he had just turned 13, prosecutors charged him as an adult, and the judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, the lawyer now representing him, says that every single child 13 or 14 years old sentenced to life without parole for a nonhomicide has been a person of color.

Manuel found himself the youngest, tiniest person in a men’s prison — by his account, abused and fearful. One day as his second Christmas behind bars approached, he placed a collect phone call to Baigrie.

Baigrie debated whether to accept the charges. She said her dentist had wept when he had seen her jaw, for the bullet had torn out five teeth and much of her gum. She faced 10 years of repeated, excruciating surgeries, requiring tissue from her palate to rebuild her gum.

Still, she was curious, so she accepted the charges. Manuel said he wanted to apologize for the shooting. Awkwardly, he wished her and her family a Merry Christmas.

“Ian,” she asked bluntly, “why did you shoot me?”

“It was a mistake,” he answered timidly.

Later he sent her a card showing a hand reaching through prison bars to offer a red rose. Baigrie didn’t know whether to be moved or revolted. “I was in such pain,” Baigrie remembers. “I couldn’t eat. I was angry. But I’d go back and forth. He was just a kid.”

Thus began a correspondence that has lasted through the decades. “You are about one in a million who would write to a person that’s tried to take their life,” he wrote in one letter.

“I wish I was free,” he wrote in another. “To protect you from that evil world out there.”

Over time, Baigrie became friendly with Manuel’s brother and mother. Baigrie began to feel sympathetic because, as she says: “When you’re 13, you do stupid stuff.”Baigrie was also troubled by the racial dimensions of the case. “If he was a cute white boy at 13, with little dimples and blue eyes, there’s no way this would have happened,” she says.

Her husband and friends thought Baigrie was perhaps suffering from some bizarre form of Stockholm syndrome. “People were saying, ‘you’re an idiot,’ ” Baigrie recalls.

Yet she persevered and advocated for his early release. When the Supreme Court threw out life-without-parole sentences for juveniles who had not committed murder, she testified at his resentencing and urged mercy. It didn’t work: Manuel was sentenced to 65 years. He is now scheduled to be released in 2031.

Manuel, now 37, did not adjust well to prison, and his prison disciplinary record covers four pages of single-spaced entries. He was placed in solitary confinement at age 15 and remained there almost continually until he was 33. For a time, he cut himself to relieve the numbness. He repeatedly attempted suicide.

Returned to the general prison population, Manuel did better. He earned his G.E.D. with exceptional marks, including many perfect scores. He drafts poems and wrote an autobiographical essay, which Baigrie posted on her Facebook page. His mother, father and brother are now all dead; the only “family” he has left is Baigrie, who sometimes regards him as a wayward foster son.

Race in America is a dispiriting topic, a prism to confirm our own biases. Some will emphasize the unarguable brutality of Manuel’s crime, while others, myself included, will focus on the harshness of a sentence that probably would not have been given to a white 13-year-old. In other columns, I’ve focused on racism that holds back perfectly innocent people because of their skin color; those are the easiest cases, while Ian is a reminder that racial injustice also affects those who made horrific mistakes or committed brutal crimes. It’s still injustice.

There’s a tragic symmetry here. We as a society failed Manuel early on, and he, in turn, failed us. When you can predict that an infant boy of color in a particular ZIP code is more likely to go to prison than to college, it’s our fault more than his. The losers aren’t just those kids but also crime victims like Baigrie — and, in a larger sense, all of us. Manuel never had a chance to contribute to society and is costing us $47.50 each day he is in prison. That’s a waste of money, of human talent, of life itself.

Overcoming the racial gulf in this country will be a long and painful task, but maybe we can learn something from Baigrie’s empathy.

“Walk a mile in his shoes,” she says. And if Debbie Baigrie and Ian Manuel can unite and make common cause, linked by a bond of humanity that transcends the faint scar on her cheek, then maybe there’s hope for us all.



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5) More Files Are Released in Shooting in Ferguson
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St. Louis County’s prosecutor on Saturday apologized for failing to immediately make public all documents tied to a grand jury’s decision last month not to indict a white police officer in the death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and released a new set of records — the third such release — since the grand jury’s return.

In a case that set off a national debate over race and policing, Robert P. McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, had taken the unusual step of pledging to release to the public all evidence, testimony, autopsies and forensic reports examined by the grand jury as it considered charges against the former Ferguson officer, Darren Wilson. Thousands of pages of such documents were released as Mr. McCulloch announced the grand jury’s decision last month and then additional materials including audio of gunshots and police radio calls were released last week.“Clearly, I inadvertently omitted some material from the November 24, 2014, release and I apologize for any confusion this may have caused,” Mr. McCulloch said in a news release that was issued Saturday morning. “At this time, I believe I have released all evidence presented to the grand jury. However, as I promised throughout the investigation and again on November 24, if I later find anything that was omitted, it will be released as soon as possible thereafter.”Included in the latest release from the prosecutor were transcripts of interviews with people who witnessed the shooting of Michael Brown in August by F.B.I. agents, St. Louis County detectives, and by officials from the Justice Department. The Justice Department is still conducting a separate investigation into the shooting. Distinct from that, federal officials are conducting a civil rights investigation into the practices of the Ferguson Police Department.

Witnesses like Dorian Johnson, a friend of Mr. Brown’s who was with him when the shooting occurred, appeared before the grand jury in person. But jurors also heard recordings of interviews that law enforcement authorities had already conducted with them.

Released on Saturday, for example, was Mr. Johnson’s interview from just days after the shooting with federal agents and local detectives. While some details varied, Mr. Johnson told largely the same story during that more than two-hour interview, the newly released transcript showed, as he would, nearly a month later, provide directly to the jurors.

Mr. Johnson, who was walking with Mr. Brown down the middle of a Ferguson street before noon on Aug. 9, told the authorities four days later that the officer had ordered them to walk on the sidewalk, then backed up his police vehicle and got into an altercation with Mr. Brown. “His left arm came out the window and he placed it directly on my friend’s throat,” Mr. Johnson said of Mr. Wilson during his Aug. 13 interview with the authorities. He described a struggle in which Mr. Brown, he said, was trying to pull away from the officer and Mr. Wilson was trying to pull Mr. Brown into the car.

After Mr. Brown was shot and started running away, he turned around, Mr. Johnson said, and was raising his arms when the officer fired again. Mr. Johnson said that Mr. Brown started to say something like: “I’m unarmed” or “I don’t have a gun.”

Mr. Johnson’s testimony conflicted with accounts by some other witnesses and with that of Mr. Wilson, who said he shot Mr. Brown because the teenager was charging at him in a threatening way. Mr. Wilson said that Mr. Brown’s hands were not raised, and that Mr. Brown had one hand in his waistband.

Witnesses have given conflicting accounts of what happened during the 90-second encounter.

Among the newly released interviews with witnesses by the federal authorities was a witness who used the nickname “Ears” in what appears to be a reference to Mr. Wilson, saying in an interview on Aug. 26: “ ‘Ears’ is what we call him around here, he be the one messing with people around here, pulling people over.” That witness’s description of the events conflicted with those of others who were present. The witness said that four police officers in two vehicles were on the scene, rather than only Mr. Wilson as numerous others said.


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6) Grisly Execution in Oklahoma Detailed in Court Brief
By

The Oklahoma doctor involved in the bungled execution of Clayton D. Lockett in April made one last frantic attempt to insert an intravenous line in the prisoner’s groin but struck an artery by accident and was sprayed with blood, according to a document filed in Federal District Court.

“It was a bloody mess,” the document quotes Anita Trammell, the warden of the Oklahoma state prison where the execution took place, as saying in an interview with state investigators.

The court document, filed late Friday, includes gruesome details about Mr. Lockett’s final moments after he seemed to regain consciousness on the execution table, writhing in pain. The brief, filed in a lawsuit seeking to stop the executions of four prisoners in early 2015, also provides new evidence of the poor training and disarray among state officials, the paramedic who failed in numerous attempts to place a catheter and the doctor who tried to complete the task.The prolonged and apparently agonizing death of Mr. Lockett, who was convicted of shooting a 19-year-old woman in 1999 and burying her alive, prompted new debate about the reliability of lethal injection and over questions about the drug combinations that states have tried as alternatives when the traditionally used barbiturates became scarce.

State officials had previously revealed that during the April 29 execution the doctor had, without realizing it, failed to place the catheter needle properly in Mr. Lockett’s femoral vein, causing the three drugs in the injection to diffuse locally rather than enter the bloodstream. When Mr. Lockett began to fight against his restraints and moan, officials closed the blinds on public witnesses.

At that point, according to the new document, the doctor tried again to insert a needle through Mr. Lockett’s groin. He did not realize at the time, he testified, that there were no drugs left for the injection. In keeping with state law, the doctor and others directly involved in the execution are not identified in the brief.

The doctor, working with a needle that he described as “kind of marginal” because it was shorter than those normally used to reach the femoral vein, punctured an artery. “Blood squirted up and got all over his jacket then,” Ms. Trammell testified. And the doctor, she told investigators, said he had to “get enough money out of this to go buy a new jacket.”

Minutes later, officials formally called off the execution, but Mr. Lockett’s heart soon stopped anyway and no efforts were made to resuscitate him.

Several officials acknowledged, according to the court brief, that they had no contingency plans in case Mr. Lockett failed to die according to plan.

Originally, Mr. Lockett’s execution was supposed to be followed two hours later by that of Charles F. Warner, who was convicted of raping and murdering an infant in 1997.

But Oklahoma immediately suspended his execution and others, pending a state investigation of what went wrong. Corrections officials say they have improved training and procedures, and Mr. Warner is now scheduled to die on Jan. 15, followed by three other convicts on Jan. 29, Feb. 19 and March 5.

Officials have said they plan to use a three-drug combination similar to that used for Mr. Lockett: a sedative, midazolam, but at ten times the dose used in his case, followed by a paralyzing agent and one that stops the heart.

The lawyers seeking to delay the planned executions contend, among other objections, that the use of midazolam is inherently flawed and that this regime amounts to unconstitutional experimentation on humans.

In hearings on the suit this week, the lawyers plan to call medical experts who say that midazolam cannot reliably achieve a level of sedation needed for a painless execution and that multiplying the dosage does not necessarily cause deeper sedation. The same agent was used in an execution in Arizona in July that dragged on for nearly two hours, as the prisoner gasped and officials repeatedly injected more drugs.


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7) I.R.S. Asset Seizure Case Is Dropped by Prosecutors
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Federal prosecutors have agreed to dismiss a case against Carole Hinders, an Iowa restaurant owner whose bank account was seized by the I.R.S. based solely on a pattern of cash deposits, Ms. Hinders’ lawyer said Friday.

“After her deposition, at which it became overwhelmingly clear that Carole was an innocent and hardworking restaurateur, the assistant United States attorney on the case told us that he informed the I.R.S. that they should not go forward with the case,” said Larry Salzman, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm representing Ms. Hinders.

A spokesman for the United States attorney of Iowa’s Northern District did not return a call or email on Friday.

Ms. Hinders was never accused of any crime. The Mexican restaurant she owned, Mrs. Lady’s, did not accept credit cards, and she regularly deposited earnings in a bank branch a block away.

After doing business this way for nearly four decades, Ms. Hinders was told that the I.R.S. had seized $33,000 from her bank account after agents detected a pattern of deposits under $10,000. Under a law designed to catch terrorists, money launderers and drug lords, depositing less than $10,000 is illegal if it is done to evade a federal bank reporting requirement, but Ms. Hinders, 67, said she never knew about the requirement.

Critics say the I.R.S. rarely investigates such cases to see if the business owner has legitimate reasons for making small deposits, such as an insurance policy that covers only a limited amount of cash.

Seizing assets without criminal charges is legal under a controversial body of law that allows law enforcement agents to seize cars, cash and other valuables they believe are tied to criminal activity. The burden of proof falls on owners seeking the return of their property. This week, the two high-ranking members on the House Ways and Means committee filed bipartisan legislation to curb abuses of the practice, known as civil asset forfeiture. Civil forfeiture has become an issue in the confirmation of President Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who as United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York presided over a case involving more than $440,000 seized from a family-run business on Long Island.

The I.R.S. recently announced that it was sharply curtailing seizures in cases like Ms. Hinders’s, where there is no suspicion that the money involved came from an illegal source. But officials said they would not drop cases that were already underway.

Mr. Salzman said that early last week, he agreed to halt depositions in Ms. Hinders’s case when prosecutors said they would drop it, return her money, and clear the way for her to recover interest, expenses and legal fees. He wanted a “stipulated” dismissal, signed by both parties, but was unable to reach an agreement with prosecutors to include language that would declare Ms. Hinders innocent.

Still at issue was whether prosecutors would drop the case with prejudice, clearing the way for Ms. Hinders to recover interest and legal costs, or without prejudice, reserving the right to reopen the case at some time, Mr. Salzman said.


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8) 25,000 March in New York to Protest Police Violence
By BENJAMIN MUELLER and ASHLEY SOUTHALL

More than 25,000 people marched through Manhattan on Saturday, police officials said, in the largest protest in New York City since a grand jury declined this month to indict an officer in the death of an unarmed black man on Staten Island.

Just before 2 p.m. they began spilling out of Washington Square Park, and after an hour and a half, the park still had not emptied. Walking north toward 34th Street, the protesters filled the cold air by chanting “I can’t breathe,” the last words of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man, who died from a chokehold after an officer dragged him to the ground on a hot day in July.

The protest, which at times stretched for over a mile, highlighted growing anger nationwide over recent police deaths, including that of Mr. Garner, 43, who officers accused of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.

Though the march was largely peaceful, after it had run its scheduled course, some demonstrators continued on over the Brooklyn Bridge, where two officers were assaulted, the police said. They were recovering in the hospital. The police also said they found a bag of hammers on the bridge.

As of late Saturday, the police said they had not made any arrests. In a statement, Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attacks on the officers an “ugly and unacceptable departure from the demonstrations thus far.”

“Those who reject peaceful protest and provoke violence can expect immediate arrest and prosecution,” he added. “Such acts are beneath the dignity of New York City, they undermine the very values these protests are working to advance, and they simply will not be tolerated.”

The march was led by the families of a number of unarmed black men who died at the hands of police officers, including Ramarley Graham and Sean Bell, who were both killed in the city. But protesters insisted that the movement was as much about those deaths as it was about the daily indignity of being confronted by the police for, they said, little to no reason.

Denise Mayer, 64, of Montclair, N.J., said she had marched in protests over the Vietnam War, but that this movement was different. “This is more of an everyday frustration that the violence seems to be escalating,” she said, holding a poster of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

They moved through the streets, pushing children in strollers, waving black liberation flags and carrying signs. They also chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” the rallying cry in Ferguson, Mo., over the police shooting death in August of another unarmed black man, Michael Brown, 18.

“A young black man in America shouldn’t be scared to interact with the police or talk with the police,” another protester, Jelanie Deshong, 22, said.

In some places, revelers participating in SantaCon, an annual pub crawl in which people dress as Santa Claus, crossed paths with the march.

As dusk descended and the march moved south toward New York Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan, around 100 protesters, many of whom wore scarfs and bandannas over their faces, slipped away from the crowd on 32nd Street. They hurled traffic cones and trash cans at police cars, and beat their fists against the cars’ windows. “Whose streets? Our streets!” they shouted.

As officers tried to pen them in, the group rejoined the crowd on Broadway.

The march stopped in front of Police Headquarters, with protesters screaming at the assembled officers and beating on drums. Several relatives of those who had been killed by officers spoke. Among them was Constance Malcolm, the mother of Ramarley Graham, who was unarmed when he was killed in the bathroom of his Bronx apartment in 2012. “We must get justice for our loved ones,” she said.

Some protesters who broke away from the crowd sought to stop traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, but they were countered by hundreds of police officers, who tried to divert them.

In a call-and-response with the demonstrators, an organizer shouted, “Are we done yet? No! Shut this city down.”

Later, they brought bridge traffic from Manhattan to a stop, and unfurled a banner reading, “When we breathe, we breathe together.” They locked arms and formed a chain across the lanes.

The protesters then continued slowly into Brooklyn, chanting “You serve us” in front of the 75th Precinct station house before arriving around midnight at the Louis H. Pink Houses, where Akai Gurley, 28, an unarmed black man, was killed by an officer on Nov. 20.

Invoking his memory, they observed a moment of silence.


John Corrales, Dan Glaun and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.




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9) Police Patrols in New York Public Housing Draw Scrutiny
By

In New York housing projects, police officers can demand identification from people who are hanging out in a public space, like a building lobby. Even if they prove that they live in the building, officers may cite them for “lingering.”

It is not a crime, but it is a violation of the New York City Housing Authority’s rules.

There are many such rules that govern life in the projects, like no playing in the hallways and no barbecuing without a permit. Breaking any of them can put a tenant at risk of eviction from a system that offers some of the city’s most affordable housing.

Simply waiting outside for a pizza delivery can draw the attention of the police, said Ronald Thomas, 24, who described being approached by two officers recently in the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn. Only the deliveryman’s arrival spared Mr. Thomas a citation, he said.Amid broader calls to ratchet down the pressure on low-level crimes, little scrutiny has been paid to a routine patrol tactic used by the Police Department: In public housing, officers walking a beat are watching not only for offenses big and small but also for behavior that is not illegal at all.

“If you’re standing in front of the building, you can’t do that,” Mr. Thomas said. “You can’t sit in the park after dusk. They don’t let you do much around here.”

The deaths of two unarmed black men at the hands of police officers — Eric Garner in July and Akai Gurley in November — have prompted criticism of a host of law enforcement practices in New York, such as the zealous enforcement of minor crimes in minority neighborhoods and the aggressive patrolling of the city’s public housing complexes.

The Justice Department opened an investigation this month into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Garner’s death after a grand jury on Staten Island declined to bring charges in the case. In Brooklyn, the district attorney plans to impanel a grand jury to hear evidence in the case involving Mr. Gurley, who was fatally shot in a public housing stairwell in what officials have labeled an accident.

The City Council Public Housing Committee, prompted by the death of Mr. Gurley, was scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday on safety in buildings operated by the Housing Authority, which is also known as Nycha.

Attention from the police to noncriminal rule-breaking — recorded on forms known as field reports — is growing, frustrating some public housing tenants as well as elected officials who say the police should be focusing on crime, not acting as what amounts to armed hall monitors.

At the same time, for many of the more than 400,000 people who live in Housing Authority properties, clearing smokers from lobbies or raucous teenagers from hallways is a welcome step toward ensuring a level of order expected by tenants anywhere.

The Police Department has defended its practices, saying officers are responding to complaints from residents.

As the number of recorded stop-and-frisk encounters involving the police has fallen precipitously in recent years, the tally of field reports — which are also used to flag needed building repairs — has soared, to more than 32,500 last year, from about 19,400 just two years before.

So far this year, the number has remained high.On Staten Island alone, the number of field reports filled out through the end of October had jumped to 1,935, from 182, over the comparable period last year, department statistics show. In all of 2012, just 40 such reports were filed.

“Most of the field reports then were based on needs for repair in the building,” Assistant Chief Edward Delatorre, a former top housing police commander who now leads officers on Staten Island, said in August after Mr. Garner’s death drew attention to police practices. “This year,” he said, “most of them are for violations of rules.”

In many ways, the focus on rules represents a return to an earlier era of community policing. The reports date back more than a half-century to when public housing was policed by its own force that was separate from the Police Department, and stops for rule-breaking were routine.

Juanita Brown, 52, a resident of the Bushwick Houses, welcomed the heavy presence of officers in her Brooklyn development, where crime is up 40 percent this year. Those who do not want them around, she said, “have something to hide.”

Just as the police have had to take on roles in safeguarding schools and dealing with people with mental illness, officers in public housing have been asked to broaden their mission well beyond law enforcement. But critics say petty matters that might have been overlooked or otherwise addressed short of criminal prosecution can lead to arrests.

“It’s one thing to police minor offenses, which is problematic enough,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat who leads the Public Housing Committee. “But if you’re also aggressively policing rules, that strikes me as beyond the confines of what the police should be doing. You’re creating more opportunity for escalating tensions between communities of color and the police.”

Arrests for trespassing on public housing grounds, the subject of a current federal lawsuit against the Police Department, are often the product of officers’ first observing what they believe to be a noncriminal violation of the authority’s rules. Jeffrey A. Fagan, a Columbia Law School professor who has analyzed stop-and-frisk encounters in public housing for the plaintiffs in the federal case, said that “lingering” was frequently listed as the reason for the initial stop.

Reasonable suspicion of a crime is necessary for officers to make a legal stop of a person on the street. But for an interaction in a housing project stairwell that may feel every bit like a stop to the person being questioned, officers often have no basis beyond the authority’s rules.

“If you’re standing in the staircase with a few friends, they write you up,” said Anthony Wallace, 27, who lives in the Bushwick Houses. “Or if you’re standing in the hallway for a certain amount of time. I think they’re trying to treat this like a prison.”

The practice raises constitutional questions about the routine interactions between the police and public housing residents. “To me, it has all the problems of stop-and-frisk, plus the problem of officers doing stops without even the pretense of unlawful activity,” said Christopher T. Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

After Mr. Gurley’s death in a stairwell darkened because of a broken light, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton noted that officers helped get broken locks or windows fixed in public housing. They do so with the same form used to record rule-breaking.

While the Police Department tracks the number of field reports filed, because the same small handwritten form is used to note both damage to buildings observed by officers and rule violations, a spokeswoman said, a count of how many rule-breakers had been cited in recent years was not readily available.

The department’s patrol guide instructs officers to be on the lookout for rules violations. That begins a chain of actions — asking for identification, conducting a stop if reasonable suspicion of a crime develops — that can end in an arrest.

“Getting your mail, that’s not lingering,” said a housing commander who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. “But if you’re hanging out with your friends, or sitting in the stairways for a period of time, that’s lingering.” (A Housing Authority tenant cannot legally be accused of loitering, a penal law violation, in his or her own building, though many, including officers, use the two terms interchangeably.)

At that point, officers can request identification. “If they’re not a resident of the building, then they’re trespassing,” the commander said. “That’s an arrest.”

While a single rule violation rarely leads to eviction, several can contribute to a tenant’s ouster, said Rebecca Greenberg, a lawyer with South Brooklyn Legal Services who handles eviction cases involving housing authority residents.

All field reports are sent to the authority, the police said. But the agency does not track how many of each type — damage or rule-breaking — it receives, said Joan Lebow, its chief spokeswoman.

In general, Ms. Lebow said, a violation results in a tenant’s being told to meet with management to put a stop to the behavior. Few, if any, reports of rule-breaking appeared to directly lead to evictions, she said.

Fritz Umbach, an associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said: “You could argue, no harm, no foul, because Nycha is not doing much with them.” But, he added, “They are pretexts for contraband discoveries” and could create constitutional problems.

For residents, interactions over rules have the look and feel of police stops. Many recalled giving officers their information for noncriminal transgressions; most said they never heard back.

Trevor Forde, 32, said an officer wrote him up for being in a playground after dark two months ago. “We can’t even walk in our own parks,” he said. “It makes no sense.”

Benjamin Mueller and Mireya Navarro contributed reporting.




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10) U.A.W. Pledges to Pursue Higher Wages Next Year
By

DETROIT — With auto sales booming and domestic carmakers earning healthy profits, the United Automobile Workers union will be seeking wage increases for its members in contract talks in 2015.

Dennis Williams, the U.A.W.’s new president, said on Monday that workers at General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler deserve a larger share in the success of the companies, particularly after the union has held the line on wages in previous contracts and agreed to lower pay for entry-level jobs.

“Our members have sacrificed a great deal over time,” said Mr. Williams, who was elected to the union’s top job in June. “The companies need to realize it’s time for our membership to be rewarded.”

Mr. Williams made his comments at a media round table that previewed some of the issues percolating for next year’s critical contract talks.

About 130,000 U.A.W. members work for the Detroit carmakers in the United States. Union locals are currently making proposals to Mr. Williams for the coming contract, which will then be discussed at a bargaining convention in March.

And while actual negotiations on a new labor agreement will not kick off until next summer, Mr. Williams is already beating the drum for pay increases for longtime workers and more parity for new employees.

In 2007, the union agreed to the creation of entry-level jobs that paid considerably less than the average of $27 an hour for longtime employees known as “legacy” workers.

In the current contract negotiated four years ago, the union accepted larger profit-sharing payments in lieu of a wage increase for the legacy workers. It also won an increase in entry-level pay from $15 an hour to $19 an hour for new workers, starting next year.

But Mr. Williams said both the new and older workers deserve wage increases in the next contract with the Detroit auto companies.

“The legacy employees have not had a general wage increase in many years, and we’re going to address that,” he said.

As far as newer workers are concerned, he stopped short of saying the two-tier wage system should be eliminated. Yet he said their current wage scale was not enough to allow them to buy the new cars they were making in assembly plants across the United States.

“Are hourly wages currently in the second tier acceptable to me?” Mr. Williams asked. “No.”

The U.A.W.’s tough stance comes after tens of thousands of union jobs were cut during the recession, when both G.M. and Chrysler went bankrupt and were bailed out by the federal government.

“For both sides, this upcoming contract has high stakes,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor specializing in labor issues at the University of California, Berkeley.

He said that the bankruptcies at G.M. and Chrysler forced the union to accept plant closings and job reductions, as well as wage concessions in the current contract.

But times have changed in the American auto industry. Annual sales of new vehicles will exceed 16 million this year for the first time since 2007, and all three domestic manufacturers are reporting strong profits.

“The union is intent on gaining a larger share in the success that they have played an integral part in,” Mr. Shaiken said. “But they are also acutely aware of the competitive issues that the Detroit companies still face.”

The Detroit companies have so far generally avoided talking about the scheduled negotiations, preferring to focus on the addition of new jobs and billions of dollars in investments in their United States facilities since the recession.

“We’re looking forward to continuing our strong U.A.W. partnership as well as negotiating a fair and competitive labor agreement,” said a Ford spokeswoman, Kristina Adamski, in a statement similar to comments that G.M. and Chrysler have made.

Industry analysts say that the gap in labor costs has shrunk between the domestic automakers and foreign companies that employ lower-paid nonunion workers at their American factories.

Much of the reduction in costs can be attributed to the growing number of entry-level workers at the Detroit manufacturers. The number of new workers range from below 20 percent at G.M. to more than 40 percent at Chrysler, according to the companies.

Yet foreign carmakers still have lower overall labor costs in the United States, and they make greater use of temporary workers.

Mr. Williams accused foreign automakers of exploiting part-time workers to gain an advantage over the Detroit companies.

“The two-tier employees at the Big Three have a right to collective bargaining, which gives them an opportunity to increase their standard of living,” he said. “When you look at the temporaries and part-timers, they don’t have that opportunity.”

He pledged to continue efforts to organize work forces at plants operated in the United States by the Japanese automaker Nissan and the German manufacturers Volkswagen and Daimler.

He also said the union would continue to fight international trade agreements that encourage American companies to move jobs to lower-wage nations.

Mr. Williams was particularly critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he said had caused 700,000 American manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico in the last two decades.

“Nafta in my mind has been a failure,” he said. “The whole argument for it was how we are going to lift the living standard for Mexican workers, and that has not happened.”


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11) U.S. and Cuba, in Breakthrough, Will Resume Diplomatic Relations
By

WASHINGTON — The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, American officials said Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”

The contractor, Alan P. Gross, traveled on an American government plane to the United States late Wednesday morning, and the United States sent back three Cuban spies who had been in an American prison since 2001. American officials said the Cuban spies were swapped for a United States intelligence agent who had been in a Cuban prison for nearly 20 years, and said Mr. Gross was not technically part of the swap, but was released separately on “humanitarian grounds.”

In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the president called for an “honest and serious debate about lifting” it.

“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”

Addressing critics of his new approach, he said he shares their commitment to freedom. “The question is how do we uphold that commitment,” he said. “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.”

Mr. Gross’s sister, Bonnie Rubinstein, was “beyond ecstatic” at the news of his release, according to her husband, Harold. “We are extremely grateful that he’s on his way home,” Mr. Rubinstein said by telephone from Dallas. “It’s been a long ordeal.”

Mr. Obama spoke with Mr. Castro by telephone on Tuesday to finalize the agreement in a call that lasted more than 45 minutes, the first direct contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 50 years, American officials said.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were severed in January 1961 after the rise of Fidel Castro and his Communist government. Mr. Obama has instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba about re-establishing diplomatic relations and to begin the process of removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism, which it has been on since 1982, the White House said.

Officials said they would re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between the two governments within months. Mr. Obama will send an assistant secretary of state to Havana next month to lead an American delegation to the next round of talks on Cuban-American migration. The United States will also begin working with Cuba on issues like counternarcotics, environmental protection and human trafficking.

The United States will also ease travel restrictions across all 12 categories currently envisioned under limited circumstances in American law, including family visits, official visits and journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, public performances, officials said. Ordinary tourism, however, will remain prohibited.

Mr. Obama will also allow greater banking ties and raise the level of remittances allowed to be sent to Cuban nationals to $2,000 every three months from the current limit of $500. Intermediaries forwarding remittances will no longer require a specific license from the government. American travelers will also be allowed to import up to $400 worth of goods from Cuba, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products.

“This is being done because we believe the policy of the past has not worked and we believe the best way to bring democracy and prosperity to Cuba is through a different kind of policy,” a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call under White House ground rules that did not permit the official to be identified.

But the official said the shift would not diminish the American focus on human rights in Cuba. “Our emphasis on human rights will be just as strong and we believe more effective under this policy,” the official said. “We will engage directly with the Cuban government on human rights.”

Mr. Gross’s health has been failing. He has reportedly lost more than 100 pounds in prison and is losing vision in his right eye. He went on a nine-day hunger strike in April. After turning 65 in May, he told relatives that he might try to kill himself if not released soon.

Three members of Congress were on the plane that picked up Mr. Gross in Cuba on Wednesday and accompanied him back to the United States, officials said: Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

Other Democratic and Republican lawmakers were sharply critical of the deal. “Let’s be clear, this was not a ‘humanitarian’ act by the Castro regime. It was a swap of convicted spies for an innocent American,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government.”

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, considered a prospect for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, told The Associated Press: “This is going to do absolutely nothing to further human rights and democracy in Cuba. But it potentially goes a long way in providing the economic lift that the Castro regime needs to become permanent fixtures in Cuba for generations to come.”

Mr. Gross was in Cuba to deliver satellite telephone equipment that was capable of cloaking connections to the Internet when he was arrested in 2009. The Cuban authorities, who tightly control access to the Internet in their country, initially said he was a spy, and a court there convicted him of bringing in the devices without a permit as part of a subversive plot to “destroy the revolution.”

Mr. Gross’s case drew increasing attention as his health deteriorated. He grew despondent and talked of suicide, and his wife, Judy Gross, and other supporters made urgent pleas for his release, but off-and-on diplomatic talks seemed to go nowhere.

Cuba has often raised the case of three of its spies serving federal prison time in Florida, saying they had been prosecuted unjustly and urging that they be released on humanitarian grounds. State Department officials insisted that the cases were not comparable and that Mr. Gross was not an intelligence agent.

Mr. Gross worked for Development Alternatives, of Bethesda, Md., and had traveled to more than 50 countries as an international development worker. The company had a $6 million contract with the United States Agency for International Development to distribute equipment that could get around Cuba’s Internet blockade, and Mr. Gross had made four previous trips to Cuba in 2009.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the former New Mexico governor and cabinet secretary Bill Richardson and several members of Congress appealed for Mr. Gross’s release, along with Jewish advocacy groups in the United States.

After visiting Mr. Gross in November, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a longtime advocate of loosening the 50-year-old American trade embargo with Cuba, said he was optimistic that the case would be resolved.

American lawmakers who have drawn attention to Mr. Gross’s case celebrated his departure from Cuba. “Today, news of Alan’s release brings great relief to his loved ones and to every American who has called for his freedom,” said Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas. “I admire Alan’s strength and that of his wife Judy, who has worked tirelessly for years to free Alan and reunite her family.”

The American government has spent $264 million over the last 18 years, much of it through the development agency, in an effort to spur democratic change in Cuba. The agency said in November that it would cease the kinds of operations that Mr. Gross was involved in when he was arrested, as well as those, disclosed by The Associated Press, that allowed a contractor to set up a Twitter-like social network that hid its ties to the United States government.

Randal C. Archibold contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.


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12) End Solitary Confinement for Teenagers
By IAN M. KYSEL

SOLITARY confinement can be psychologically damaging for any inmate, but it is especially perverse when it is used to discipline children and teenagers. At juvenile detention centers and adult prisons and jails across the country, minors are locked in isolated cells for 22 hours or more a day. Solitary confinement is used to punish misbehavior, to protect vulnerable detainees or to isolate someone who may be violent or suicidal. But this practice does more harm than good. It should end.A major study by the Department of Justice in 2003 showed that more than 15 percent of young people in juvenile facilities, some as young as 10, had been held in solitary. My own research, for Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, suggested that the practice of putting teenagers in solitary was more widespread in adult jails and prisons. A recent Justice Department investigation found that at any given time in 2013 as many as a quarter of adolescents held at New York City’s Rikers Island were in solitary confinement. Dozens had been sentenced to more than three months in solitary. Still others were held longer, for more than six months.

Only six states have laws on the books that prohibit certain forms of isolation in juvenile facilities. No state — nor the federal government — has banned the solitary confinement of teens in adult jails and prisons.

I have interviewed scores of young people about being in solitary. Their stories haunt me. I spoke with girls who told me that the experience brought back traumatic memories of rape and abuse. Other kids talked about losing control of themselves, of banging their heads against the walls of their cell. Many teens spoke in disturbing detail about suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. One girl who spent four months in solitary confinement in a county jail at 16, ostensibly to be protected from adults there, told me that solitary was “a dark place.” Though there were lights in her cell, she said, “It is like being sunk in a hole.” A boy who had been alone for months in a county jail at 15 told me that isolation turned his thoughts to “the death-oriented side of life.”

A recent Justice Department review of suicides in juvenile facilities found that more than half of the minors who had killed themselves had done so in isolation. And in adult jails, department data released this fall identified more than 40 teenagers who had committed suicide since 2000; the suicide rate for minors in adult prisons was twice as high as that for older inmates. A recent study at Rikers Island found that adolescents there were significantly more likely to harm themselves.

A vast majority of children subjected to solitary confinement are in state facilities (where tens of thousands of children are held) and it will be up to each state to initiate reform. States should remove all minors from adult jails and prisons and ban solitary confinement. New York has led the way on the latter by pledging to end solitary for 16- and 17-year-olds held as adults in its prisons and in jail at Rikers Island.

The federal government should also set an example. There are only 65 juveniles currently held by the Department of Justice in facilities across the country, but there are indications that conditions there are also poor. Last year, following a visit to one juvenile prison with a federal contract, the A.C.L.U. of Montana reported that, when disciplined, the juvenile prisoners were put into isolated gray and white cells “with frosted windows and doors without windows,” where “they receive one hour of outdoor recreation seven days per week, but their ability to participate in out-of-cell education or other programming ceases.” The A.C.L.U. found that juvenile prisoners were sometimes kept in disciplinary isolation for up to 90 days.Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should immediately direct the Bureau of Prisons to outlaw the solitary confinement of juveniles. The federal government already prohibits the detention of juveniles with adults in federal prisons (a rule that states should emulate). Mr. Holder could also direct the bureau to develop new policies to strictly regulate any use of even short periods of isolation.

Mr. Holder could then direct the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to promote these policies as model practices, much like the national guidelines on education in juvenile facilities that Mr. Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last week.

Young inmates should be managed in a way that promotes their healthy growth and development. Their fundamental rights must be protected. The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently revised its inspection standards, calling for isolation to be used only for children who posed an immediate risk to themselves or others; after other techniques had failed; only for as long as it took for a child to regain control of himself (it should be measured in minutes, not hours or days); and never for longer than four hours or as a punishment. These standards echo statements by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

That the practice is widespread remains a disturbing indicator of how poorly we treat the hundreds of thousands of minors arrested each year in the United States. They are still maturing into adulthood. Solitary confinement can sabotage both their rehabilitation and their growth. It should be banned.

Ian M. Kysel is an adjunct professor and a fellow at the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.


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13) U.S. Wealth Gap Is Widest in at Least 30 Years, Study Finds
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/business/economy/us-wealth-gap-widest-in-at-least-30-years-pew-study-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The wealthy are getting wealthier. As for everyone else, no such luck.

A report released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that the wealth gap between the country’s top earners and the rest of America had stretched to its widest point in at least three decades.

Last year, the median net worth of upper-income families reached $639,400, nearly seven times as much of those in the middle, and nearly 70 times the level of those at the bottom of the income ladder.

There has been growing attention to the issue of income inequality, particularly the plight of those earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.Although income and wealth are related (the more you make, the more you can save), the wealth gap zeros in on a different aspect of financial well-being: how much money and other assets you have accumulated over time, including the value of your home and car plus any stocks and bonds. Think of it as “a measure of the family ‘nest egg,'” as Pew calls it — a hoard that can sustain a household during an emergency, like the loss of a job, and in the long run can see someone through retirement.

While those at the top have managed to recoup some of the wealth lost during the financial crisis, middle-income families have not made any gains.

“The Great Recession destroyed a significant amount of middle-income and lower-income families’ wealth, and the economic ‘recovery’ has yet to be felt for them,” the report concluded.

Pew, which used data from the Federal Reserve, defined middle income as $44,000 a year for a family of four, while a yearly income of $132,000 for the same-size family pushed a household into the upper ranks. About one in five families qualifies for that higher status, while 46 percent occupy the middle range.

The median household net worth last year for those in the middle was $96,500, only slightly above the $94,300 mark it hit in 1983 (after being adjusted for inflation). A poor household actually had a higher median net worth 30 years ago ($11,400 in 1983) than it counted last year ($9,300).

Compare those results with the top fifth of income earners. In 1983, when the Fed began collecting the data, that group had a median wealth of $318,000; in 2013 it owned more than twice that.

Other economists have traced the growing wealth gap to a much narrower slice of the population. In a working paper recently released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman argued, “The rise in wealth inequality is almost entirely due to the rise of the top 0.1 percent wealth share, from 7 percent in 1979 to 22 percent in 2012.” The share of wealth controlled by the bottom 90 percent of Americans, they concluded, has steadily declined since the mid-1980s.

The report on Wednesday is the second in a week from Pew detailing how different groups of Americans are faring financially more than five years after the recession ended. The earlier study found a growing racial and ethnic wealth gap, with whites registering a median wealth of nearly $142,000, 13 times the net worth of blacks and 10 times that of Hispanics.

The latest report highlights how the fortunes of the middle class have eroded. And the results, the report said, “could help explain why, by other measures, the majority of Americans are not feeling the impact of the economic recovery, despite an improvement in the unemployment rate, stock market and housing prices.”

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14) Panel to Set Terms to End Abusive Reign at Los Angeles County Jail System
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The Los Angeles County jail system, the nation’s largest, agreed Tuesday to impose sweeping changes, a year after guards were charged with regularly beating prisoners and supervisors in the Sheriff’s Department were accused of seeking to thwart a federal investigation into corruption and violence in the jails.

Under the agreement, dozens of new policies will be implemented by a panel that will hold wide sway over the administration of the jails. The three-person panel, appointed by a federal court, will be responsible for curbing a decades-old culture of violence administered by sheriff’s deputies who act as guards in the 15,000-inmate system.

During the past year, disclosures about corruption and brutality inside the jails have led to the conviction of seven sheriff’s lieutenants, sergeants and deputies on federal charges, the federal indictment of others, and a number of lawsuits won by inmates.One of the claims in the class action lawsuit that led to Tuesday’s agreement said that a group of deputies, acting as a de facto gang in the county’s jails, wore tattoos on the back of their necks and awarded one another points for breaking prisoners’ bones. That lawsuit was settled on Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to enter into a federal consent decree; the agreement involved neither financial damages nor an admission of wrongdoing by the Sheriff’s Department.

Lee Baca, a former sheriff, who oversaw the jails but denied that the system had widespread problems, resigned abruptly in January. He said his decision to step down before completing his fourth four-year term was unrelated to the jail scandal.

The current sheriff, Jim McDonnell, who was elected in November, has pledged to reform the department and the jail system. He served on the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence that in 2012 issued a scathing report, finding that jail guards resorted to force against inmates far too often. The group, made up of former federal judges and prosecutors, also concluded that Sheriff Baca had failed to monitor or control the use of force in jails.

Though the county’s jails have for decades had a reputation for violence by sheriff’s deputies, most of the complaints had come from current or former inmates, whose credibility was challenged by the Sheriff’s Department. But a 2011 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, in which a prison chaplain and others described violence at the hands of deputies, led to the appointment of the civilian commission by the Board of Supervisors.

Tuesday’s agreement gave the federal panel the authority to develop a corrective plan and to monitor compliance. Its members, who will visit county jails regularly, were chosen by lawyers for Los Angeles County and representatives of inmates and former inmates.

Under the panel’s recommendations, put into effect after the Board of Supervisors’ vote, jail guards will undergo extensive retraining. Those found to have used excessive force will be fired — or will need a written explanation from the Sheriff’s Department explaining why they were not. Each county jail will be required to establish a unit to compile and document inmate grievances and requests.

Also on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved a $350,000 payment to Derek Griscavage, a former inmate who said he had been knocked unconscious during a beating by four or five deputies on Christmas Day in 2010.

Lawsuits and various reports by watchdog groups into conditions inside the county jails paint a picture of extreme cruelty by guards and a lack of concern by their superiors.

Guards, according to the A.C.L.U. report, routinely abused handcuffed or otherwise non-resisting inmates with Tasers or pepper spray, employed chokeholds, punched and kicked prisoners and slammed their heads into walls.

Deputies also sought to provoke racial tensions to their advantage, using racial slurs against African-American inmates and encouraging gang members to assault rivals. In one case, guards punished an inmate by calling him gay and forcing him to walk naked down a jail hallway in full view of other prisoners, according to the A.C.L.U. report. The deputies then placed him in a cell with two gang members who beat him and sexually assaulted him for hours, sticking his head into a toilet while they raped him.

As the F.B.I. investigated a potential cover-up of abuses inside the jails, two sheriff’s sergeants went to the home of an F.B.I. agent and tried to intimidate her into providing them with details about the inquiry. The sergeants, Scott Craig, 50, and Maricela Long, 46, were sentenced to 33 months and 24 months, respectively, in federal prison for their part in the attempted cover-up.

Rebecca Fairley Raney contributed reporting.

 



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