Stephan: The first thing to note about this report is that it was published in The Guardian, the leading English language newspaper in Great Britain, and arguably the world. This is how America is now being portrayed, even by people who are our allies.
The second thing to note, is that this is yet another story about the gangland bullies who make up much of American law enforcement. These stories appear almost daily, I just don't have room to cover them every day in SR.
And, finally, let me say that it is my view that the entire Sheriff system in the U.S. should be eliminated. It is the only elected law enforcement office in the country, and a significant percentage of sheriffs are notable mostly for their corruption and bullying -- remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona? Now there was an upstanding example of the type.
Sheriff's have always been bullies, in fact, the post was designed for that purpose. The office was created by the Normans when they conquered England in the 10th century and appointed thugs as sheriffs to keep the peasants controlled. Remember the story of Robin Hood?
Between 10 and 20 L.A. Sheriff’s deputies at the Compton station had tattoos like Samuel Aldama’s Credit: John Sweeney
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — John Sweeney knew from his four decades as a civil rights lawyer that something about the police shooting of Donta Taylor was off.
Taylor, a 31-year-old African American, had been walking from a friend’s house in Compton to a nearby grocery store one summer night when members of the county sheriff’s department challenged him, gave chase and ended up firing more than a dozen shots at him along a lonely concrete pathway alongside a canal.‘This is huge’: black liberationist speaks out after her 40 years in prisonRead more
To Sweeney, who had cut his teeth as an associate of the legendary civil rights lawyer Johnnie Cochran, the 2016 killing smacked of an execution, the work of renegade police officers reveling in violence for the sake of it. It was no more than a hunch, at first.
The police claimed that Taylor had been wearing gang colors – Compton is the birthplace of the notorious Crips and […]
