Tag Archives: Protesters

Wave of anti-police protests strains U.S. law enforcement

People hold their hands in the air as they yell "hands up, don't shoot!" during a protest for the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in the Manhattan borough of New York

By Curtis Skinner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A wave of anti-police protests since the 2014 killing of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, is creating strains at law enforcement agencies across the United States, forcing out some police chiefs and top prosecutors.

A driving force behind the change has been Black Lives Matter, a national organization whose name is a potent symbol for demonstrators railing against police violence, according to law enforcement officials and academics.

“What Black Lives Matter has been able to do is to maintain a focus on this issue and a persistence that has lasted for over two years now,” said Jody Armour, a professor at University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law.

Armour, who has expertise in police and racial profiling, called the movement “the power of democracy unleashed.”

“Black Lives Matter” has again been used as a rallying cry in the cases of two unarmed black men shot dead by police this week in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, and organizers have begun mobilizing.

Formed in 2012 after the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida, Black Lives Matter’s national profile exploded in mid-2014 after white police officer Darren Wilson shot dead unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Angry protests have roiled the country since, and police chiefs and top prosecutors in big and small cities have been ousted.

In San Francisco, the police killing of 26-year-old Mario Woods in December sparked months of protests and demands for the ouster of police chief Greg Suhr. In May, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee asked him to step down, saying tensions between police and people of color had “come into full view.”

In Chicago, two-term Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez lost her Democratic primary bid by a landslide in March, after activists dogged her campaign over her handling of the 2014 police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Her loss came just months after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ousted then-police superintendent Garry McCarthy, saying it was an “undeniable fact” that public trust in police had eroded. As evidence, he cited Black Lives Matter protests organized after a video of the killing was released.

BATON ROUGE AND MINNEAPOLIS

The group has used demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience to pressure police chiefs and elected officials. At times their lead has been followed by more established groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and local clergy, as was the case in Chicago.

Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said local politicians were much more responsible for the string of departures and firings than protesters.

“I know from being involved in this work for around 50 years, that (since Ferguson) we’ve seen more of these political terminations than we’ve seen in years past,” he said.

Hundreds of demonstrators converged on a convenience store in Baton Rouge on Wednesday where two police officers fatally shot 37-year-old Alton Sterling, an unarmed black man who was selling CDs, early on Tuesday morning.

Protesters on Thursday also gathered at the mansion of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton in St. Paul, about 10 miles (15 km) southeast of where 32-year-old Philando Castile was shot by a police officer after a traffic stop on Wednesday.

Both of the killings were captured on video.

Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said heightened media attention and the ubiquity of cell phones have fueled recent firings and resignations.

“There’s a far greater public awareness that’s going on and it’s increased (protesters’) ability to affect the process,” Pasco said.

He said the attention has made police chiefs an easy scapegoat for politicians aiming to quell unrest.

“Whenever there is a problem, is Rahm Emanuel going to resign or is he going to fire the police chief?” Pasco said, referring to the Chicago mayor. “Is the mayor of San Francisco going to resign, or is he going to fire the police chief? That’s the question.”

Melina Abdullah, professor and chair of pan-African studies at California State University Los Angeles, said keeping the heat on elected officials has been critical to the movement’s success.

“With sustained pressure there, we can make sure there is a response,” said Abdullah, an organizer of the local Black Lives Matter chapter. “We know another murder is going to happen.”

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Jason Szep and Richard Chang)

California police probe violent clash at white supremacist rally

Anti-fascist counter-protestors parade through Sacramento after multiple people were stabbed during a clash between neo-Nazis holding a permitted rally and counter-protestors on Sunday at the state capitol in Sacramento, California, United States, June 26,

By Eric M. Johnson and Justin Madden

(Reuters) – At least 10 people were injured at a rally outside the California state capitol in Sacramento on Sunday as members of a white supremacist group clashed with counter-protesters, authorities said.

The melee erupted during a rally staged by the Traditionalist Worker Party, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist extremist group.

One of its leaders, Matt Parrott, said the party had called the demonstration in part to protest against violence that has broken out outside recent rallies by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

The incident may fuel concerns about the potential for violent protests outside the major party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia this summer and in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election.

“With the eyes of the world’s media on both Philadelphia and Cleveland, no doubt there will be significant protests,” said Democratic strategist Steve Schale. “The extreme rhetoric, combined with the nonstop media attention, does encourage these kinds of events.”

In Sacramento, when the white supremacists arrived at the capitol building at about noon on Sunday, “counter-protesters immediately ran in – hundreds of people – and they engaged in a fight,” said George Granada, a spokesman for the Capitol Protection Service division of the California Highway Patrol.

In announcing the counter-protest, a group called Anti-Fascist Action Sacramento said on its website that it had a “moral duty” to deny a platform for “Nazis from all over the West Coast” to voice their views.

“We have a right to self defense. That is why we have to shut them down,” Yvette Felarca, a counter-protester wearing a white bandage on her head, told reporters after the clash.

The Sacramento Fire Department said 10 patients were treated at area hospitals for multiple stabbing and laceration wounds.

None of the injuries were life-threatening and there were no immediate reports of arrests, Granada said. The building was placed on lockdown.

Matthew Heimbach, chairman of Traditionalist Worker Party, said his group had expected violence even though it planned a peaceful rally and had a permit.

“We were there to support nationalism. We are white nationalists,” Heimbach told Reuters. “We were there to take a stand.”

Representatives of the Sacramento police could not be reached immediately for further comment.

Video footage on social media showed dozens of people, some of them wearing masks and wielding what appeared to be wooden bats, racing across the capitol grounds and attacking others.

Photos on social media showed emergency officials treating a victim on the grass in the area as police officers stood guard.

The melee comes about four months after four people were stabbed during a scuffle between members of the Ku Klux Klan and counter-protesters near a KKK rally in Anaheim, California.

In recent months Trump has blamed “professional agitators” and “thugs” for violence that has broken out at many of the Republican candidate’s rallies.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, last month, anti-Trump protesters threw rocks and bottles at police officers who responded with pepper spray. A month earlier, some 20 demonstrators were arrested outside a Trump rally in Costa Mesa, California.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Fiona Ortiz and Justin Madden in Chicago; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Chris Reese)

Mississippi Court Rejects Injunction Over Police Harassment of Christians

A federal judge in Mississippi has denied a request against the Jackson, Mississippi police department, which has been harassing pro-life Christians.

Police have been targeting Christians who are protesting outside the state’s last abortion facility for harassment.

“[Our] request that pro-life advocates receive injunctive relief from harassment by the City of Jackson, Mississippi Police Department was denied by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Jackson Division,” wrote Tom Ciesielka of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. “Despite hours of supportive testimony and a long and well documented history of police misconduct, Judge Carlton Reeves denied a preliminary injunction prohibiting the city police from further persecution of peaceful pro-life protesters.”

The police have been arresting the Christians for the most minor of accusations.  For example, Christians have been arrested if a sign they were carrying touched the ground, with the police claiming that because it touched the ground they were “obstructing a public sidewalk.”

“We are very concerned about the potential for police mistreatment of our clients as this case awaits its day in court,” added Life Legal Defense Foundation Executive Director and President Dana Cody in response to the court’s denial of a preliminary injunction. “It is very disappointing that the district court did not acknowledge that a police department that is already behaving with impunity might perceive this as an opportunity to continue illegal harassment of private citizens exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms.”