Ontario police shot anti-masker at his home (video)

OPP shoot man dead hours after mask dispute leads to alleged assault | CBC News:

July 15, 2020 - "Ontario's police watchdog is investigating after officers fatally shot a 73-year-old man in Haliburton County on Wednesday morning. The man had refused to wear a mask and allegedly assaulted a grocery store employee before driving away, Ontario Provincial Police say. Police were called to a Valu-Mart in Minden, Ont., just after 8 a.m., OPP Sgt. Jason Folz said. Officers tried to stop the suspect's car, but they refrained 'in the interest of public safety' before doing a follow-up investigation....

"Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said the man drove away, and an officer saw the car and started following it for a short while. Based on the licence plate, officers made their way to a home on Indian Point Road.... Outside the home there was an "interaction," and two police officers fired their guns, the SIU said....The man was shot and taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:47 a.m....

"Tianna Frances, a worker at the Valu-Mart in Minden, said she arrived for her shift at the grocery store shortly after the police were called.... Frances was told that the man didn't want to wear a mask and she and other employees had to explain politely to other customers that an incident had happened earlier.... 'I guess he just got angry and didn't want to. We couldn't really deal with that ourselves because it's really against the rules. So we had to call the police and everything,' Frances said....

"Frances said workers shouldn't have to enforce the mandatory mask policy issued by the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit. The policy ... took effect on 12:01 am on Monday. It's causing chaos, she said. 'If we didn't have to force him and ... tell him that he couldn't come into the store, nothing would have happened, really. He would have got his groceries and went along with his day.'"

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/fatal-haliburton-shooting-siu-1.5650761

Amash introduces bill to end qualified immunity

Rep. Justin Amash Wants To End Qualified Immunity. Where Are the Republicans? | Reason - Billy Binton:

June 6, 2020 - "Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) wants to end qualified immunity. The insidious legal doctrine allows police officers to violate your civil rights with absolute impunity if those rights have not been spelled out with near-identical precision in preexisting case law. Theoretically, it protects public officials from bogus civil suits, but practically it often allows egregious misconduct.

"George Floyd's death at the hands of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin forced new life into the debate, shining light on a doctrine that many people say has contributed to an environment of police abuse. Amash announced late Sunday that he would introduce the End Qualified Immunity Act, with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D–Mass.) signing on as a cosponsor Thursday.

"'It is the sense of the Congress that we must correct the erroneous interpretation of section 1983 which provides for qualified immunity,' the bill reads, 'and reiterate the standard found on the face of the statute, which does not limit liability on the basis of the defendant's good faith beliefs or on the basis that the right was not "clearly established" at the time of the violation.'

"That 'clearly established' bit is what's most important, as the standard has become increasingly impossible to meet. Two cops in Fresno, California, were afforded qualified immunity after allegedly stealing $225,000 while executing a search warrant because it had not been 'clearly established' in case law that stealing is wrong. An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department was given qualified immunity after shooting, without warning, an unarmed 15-year-old boy who was on his way to school, because the boy's friend was holding a plastic airsoft gun replica. A sheriff's deputy in Coffee County, Georgia, received qualified immunity after shooting a 10-year-old boy while aiming at a nonthreatening dog.... The courts' decisions in those cases mean that each appellant had no legal recourse to seek compensation for lost assets or medical bills.

"As of Friday, 16 additional legislators had signed on to Amash's proposal. Not a single one of them is a Republican. The dissonance is mind-boggling.... Republicans rightly criticize public sector monopolies that inevitably hurt the people the government is supposed to serve. Take teachers unions, for instance, which the GOP has historically railed against for propping up teachers at the expense of students. They're not wrong: Unions wield enormous political power that can be weaponized to skirt responsibility and accountability.

"But why, then, are they so slow to apply that very same logic to the institutions emboldening the police? 'In case after case, police unions have defended deadly misdeeds committed by law enforcement," writes Reason's Peter Suderman. Consider the case of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 after New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold for selling loose cigarettes. 'I can't breathe' were his last words, captured on video.

"Pantaleo was fired after a police administrative judge ruled that he had violated official NYPD protocol. Although the officer broke those rules with fatal consequences, the union ... chose to continue defending him. As Suderman notes, 'Patrick Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, Pantaleo's union, criticized the city for giving in to "anti-police extremists" and warned that such decisions threatened the ability of city police to do their jobs'.... That police unions have taken that road shouldn't be surprising. But it also reminds us why it's time for them to go, since they enable behavior that threatens the very people they are supposedly protecting and serving.

"So, too, is the story with qualified immunity — a doctrine that has allowed a collection of rogue cops to throw civil rights to the wind without any fear of comeuppance. Shielding the police from accountability at all costs does not advance freedom."

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/06/06/justin-amash-ayanna-pressley-end-police-qualified-immunity-where-are-the-republicans/

Lockdowns enforced with brutality in Africa

COVID-19: Security forces in Africa brutalizing civilians under lockdown | Deutsche Welle:

April 20, 2020 - "Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya are some of the countries that security agencies have used brutal means to keep people off the streets. The brutality contradicts some of the measures put in place that allow people to go out only for essential purposes, such as buying food and medication....

"According to Nigeria's Human Rights Commission, security operatives have killed at least eighteen civilians while trying to enforce the state-imposed lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. The rights group added that those killed by security forces so far outnumber patients who have died from the coronavirus in the country....

"Nigerian police denied any wrongdoing and directed all complaints to its communications department.... 'We ensure that the police we deploy adheres strictly to the police code of conduct and respect for the rights of Nigerian citizens,' Mohammed Adamu, Nigeria's Inspector General of Police (IGP), said....

"But Ryan Cummings, a security analyst at Signal Risk, a political and security risk management consultancy, disputes the IGP's defense line.... According to Cummings, the brutality of police and security forces against civilians in the northeast has also been documented by rights groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. He says security forces often mistreat civilians with impunity under the pretext of fighting Boko Haram and authorities turn a blind eye....

"In South Africa, videos of police brutality against violators of the lockdown that was imposed on March 26 went viral on social media platforms. Several reports of torture and murder of citizens accused of breaching the lockdown regulations are now under investigation. Some of the videos show soldiers kicking people and forcing them to roll on the ground. Others were forced to frog-march until they reach their homes.

"But perhaps the death of Collins Koza, a resident of Alexandra Township, [most] angered many South Africans. DW correspondent in Johannesburg Thuso Khumalo reports that soldiers entered his house and beat him for drinking beer and having some bottles in his fridge.... [Koza] died three hours later after the beating.... In a separate incident, an entire family was assaulted for having a get-together outside their house.... So far, eight people have been killed as a result, and at least 200 cases of police brutality recorded....

"Cummings partly blames the police minister Bheki Cele's recent comments that urged his force to use highhandedness while enforcing the lockdown. 'Do not be nice to suspects' he urged on his men and women and gave the green light to destroy private property if they were selling alcohol, according to local reports.

"Cummings also believes that there's a deep mistrust between South Africans and the security organs that stems back in the apartheid era. 'There are indicators that the brutal enforcement might keep the people off the streets but further dent the relationship and social contract between the security organs and the people they are meant to serve.'"

Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-security-forces-in-africa-brutalizing-civilians-under-lockdown/a-53192163

NL man arrested for criticizing police shooting has rights upheld by provincial court

N.L. court defends political dissent in case of man hospitalized involuntarily - Newfoundland & Labrador - CBC News - Canadian Press:

April 18, 2017 - "The Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal has issued a ringing defence of political dissent, in the case of a man held involuntarily at a psychiatric hospital after he sent a series of angry tweets about a police shooting.

"Andrew Abbass was detained and taken to the psychiatric unit at Western Memorial Hospital in Corner Brook, N.L., on April 7, 2015, two days after the fatal shooting of Don Dunphy in Mitchells Brook, N.L.

"Abbass had expressed anger about the death on social media, prompting Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers to go to his home....

"Abbass, who has since been released, challenged his detention in provincial Supreme Court, claiming he was not suffering from a mental disorder and that the doctors' certificates of involuntary admission did not cite grounds for his detention. But the judge declined jurisdiction, and dismissed his application....

"The appeal court said the lower-court judge should not have declined jurisdiction.... 'The courts must always be there for the vindication of the citizen with what he or she views as the wrongful exercise of authority. Mr. Abbass was denied his day in court. He should have had it.'

"In its ruling, the appeal court said the first psychiatric assessment of Abbass took 19 minutes. before a doctor certified a certificate of involuntary admission.... The second certificate was completed five minutes later, and noted Abbass had expressed anger about the shooting.... The appeal court said both certificates appeared to rely on second-hand facts and made no attempt to identify the mental disorder in question.....

"'If anger about political events and words of defiance to authorities are dealt with as signs of mental illness … warranting involuntary committal, then our society is in a dangerous place,' it said.... 'As the history of authoritarian societies has taught us, confinement in a mental institution is a particularly insidious way of stifling dissent, directly and through intimidation'...

An RNC constable shot Dunphy on Easter Sunday 2015. Const. Joe Smyth, a member of then-premier Paul Davis's security detail, has testified he shot Dunphy, 58, once in the left chest and twice in the head in self defence.... Smyth has said he went to Dunphy's home to check out political comments Dunphy had made on Twitter."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/andrew-abbass-appeal-court-1.4073410
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Johnson: Drug war root cause of police shootings

Libertarian Johnson: Drug war 'root cause' of police shootings - POLITICO - Burgess Everett:

July 8, 2016 - "Gary Johnson believes the tensions between police and minorities that led to two high-profile police shootings and the deaths of five Dallas police officers has a root cause: The long-running war on drugs.

"The libertarian nominee for president did not directly tie the drug war to the shooting deaths in Minnesota and Louisiana by police or the sniper killings of five officers in Texas this week. But poor relations between police and African-Americans stems from the criminalization of drug use, he said.

"'The root is the war on drugs, I believe. Police knocking down doors, shooting first,' Johnson said in an interview Friday in Washington. 'If you are (black and) arrested in a drug-related crime, there is four times more likelihood of going to prison than if you are white. And shooting is part of the same phenomenon.... Shootings are occurring with black people, black people are dying,' he added. 'This is an escalation.'

"The former Republican governor of New Mexico is pitching a complete rewrite of the nation’s drug policy as part of his underdog run for the presidency alongside his running mate, former Massachusetts GOP Gov. Bill Weld. Johnson wants to legalize marijuana and find other ways to deal with harder drugs than long periods of incarceration....

"'The focus on drugs needs to be as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue. It can be illegal but does it need to be criminal? Do you need to go to jail for drugs?' Johnson said. 'I do believe that the root of the militarization, knocking on doors, is a drug war phenomenon.'

"The laid-back libertarian, dressed in jeans and an open-collared button-down in a hotel dining room, declined to join Republicans in criticizing Obama for pointing to 'powerful weapons' this week as a cause of violence between police officers and minorities. But Johnson said the focus on assault rifles is misguided.

"'That is a category of rifle that contains 30 million rifles. If you ban those rifles tomorrow and said hand ‘em in,' only half of the weapons would actually be turned over, Johnson said. 'And we’re going to have a whole new criminal class of people.'

"Johnson said that as president he’d be open to proposals designed to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists and the mentally ill. But he said he’d seen no such workable proposals in Congress, despite unsuccessful attempts by both Democrats and Republicans."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/gary-johnson-dallas-shooting-225294
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Highlight of 2014 - Wisconsin's police-shooting law

In Wisconsin, A Decade-Old Police Shooting Leads To New Law - NPR:

December 13, 2014 - "Race is at the forefront of the current debate over the police use of deadly force. But one shooting in Wisconsin highlights another factor at play when police shoot civilians — the lack of outside investigation. And the decade-old death has led to real reform in the state.

"Ten years ago, 21-year-old Michael Bell Jr. pulled up to the house where he lived with his mom and sister in Kenosha, Wis., about an hour south of Milwaukee. A police officer who, according to a police report chose to follow Bell after observing his driving, arrived shortly after.... The two walked off-camera, where police tried to arrest him. A struggle ensued, and while his mom and sister watched from the house, Bell was shot, point-blank, in the head....

"The Kenosha Police Department's detective division and internal affairs division immediately conducted an investigation.... Within 48 hours, the department had determined that the shooting was justified, that the use of force was proper and that none of the officers had done anything wrong....

"As a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Michael Bell Sr. says he's been a part of mishap investigations before. He was expecting a long, drawn-out investigation into his own son's death — not a decision made by the same police department in just a couple of days.... He says he knew the police had not even talked to the witnesses or gotten the report back from the crime lab....

"The Bell family ended up filing a civil suit for wrongful death. Six years later, they received a $1.75 million settlement. But there was no admission of wrongdoing, and the police maintained that Michael Bell Jr. caused his own death.

"The family used the settlement money to fund a grassroots campaign. They took out ads in the New York Times, in USA Today and on radio and created TV commercials.... Bell bought every available billboard in Milwaukee with slogans like: 'When Police Kill, Should They Judge Themselves?'

"'After we created enough ruckus, the unions ended up sitting down with us and talking with us,' Bell says. They told him that if he wanted to take the billboards down, they would work with him in crafting the legislation he sought.

"The law they put forth would make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to mandate, on the legislative level, that if an officer was involved with a loss of life, that outside investigators must come in and collect the data and investigate that shooting.

"This past April, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker passed the bill into law."

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2014/12/13/370592433/in-wisconsin-a-decade-old-police-shooting-leads-to-new-law

Eric Garner a casualty of NYC's 'war on tobacco'

Rand Paul Is Right about Eric Garner | National Review Online - Jonah Goldberg:

December 5, 2014 - "Reasonable people can disagree on whether racism was involved in the tragic death of Eric Garner. My own suspicion is that this misfortune could have transpired just as easily with a white man resisting arrest and/or a black cop choking him.

"And even though lots of people don’t want to hear it, reasonable people can disagree on whether illegally excessive force was to blame. Personally, watching the ubiquitous video of Garner’s arrest, it looks like excessive force to me....

"But you know what reasonable people can’t dispute? New York’s cigarette taxes are partly to blame for Eric Garner’s death.

"Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky made this point Wednesday night on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, and liberals have been freaking out about it ever since.

"'I think it’s hard not to watch that video of him saying, "I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe," and not be horrified by it,' Paul said. 'But I think there’s something bigger than the individual circumstances.... I think it’s also important to know that some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so that’s driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive. But then some politician also had to direct the police to say, "Hey we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette'.... For someone to die over breaking that law, there really is no excuse for it. But I do blame the politicians. We put our police in a difficult situation with bad laws....'

"I do know that anyone with a level head should understand — and agree with — Paul’s point. When you pass a law, you authorize law enforcement to enforce it. That’s actually why they’re called 'law enforcement.' Google it.

"New York City declared war on tobacco a long time ago, and in the process City Hall has become addicted to Brobdingnagian cigarette taxes. That’s why law enforcement is enforcing the laws against bootleg smokes.

"Of course, reasonable people can debate the wisdom of such laws. But only unreasonable people can deny that those laws are partly to blame. Without laws making cigarettes more expensive, Eric Garner would be alive today, period.

"What’s so strange about the outrage over Paul’s remarks is that Paul’s point is perfectly consistent with his — and the Left’s — opposition to the drug war."

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394012/rand-paul-right-about-eric-garner-jonah-goldberg
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Rand Paul on the Ferguson tragedy

Rand Paul: We Must Demilitarize the Police | TIME:

August 14, 2014 - "The shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown is an awful tragedy that continues to send shockwaves through the community of Ferguson, Missouri and across the nation.... The outrage in Ferguson is understandable — though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.

"The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.... How did this happen?

"Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem. Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies — where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement....

"When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury — national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture — we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.

"Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them. Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.

"Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth."

Read more: http://time.com/3111474/rand-paul-ferguson-police/
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Ferguson, MO, shows cost of militarizing police

Police Militarization in Ferguson -- and Your Town | Cato @ Liberty - Walter Olson:

August 13, 2014 - "Why armored vehicles in a Midwestern inner suburb? Why would cops wear camouflage gear against a terrain patterned by convenience stores and beauty parlors? Why are the authorities in Ferguson, Mo. so given to quasi-martial crowd control methods (such as bans on walking on the street) and, per the reporting of Riverfront Times, the firing of tear gas at people in their own yards? ('"This my property!" he shouted, prompting police to fire a tear gas canister directly at his face.') Why would someone identifying himself as an 82nd Airborne Army veteran, observing the Ferguson police scene, comment that 'We rolled lighter than that in an actual warzone'?

"As most readers have reason to know by now, the town of Ferguson, Mo. outside St. Louis, numbering around 21,000 residents, is the scene of an unfolding drama that will be cited for years to come as a what-not-to-do manual for police forces. After police shot and killed an unarmed black teenager on the street, then left his body on the pavement for four hours, rioters destroyed many local stores. Since then, police have refused to disclose either the name of the cop involved or the autopsy results on young Michael Brown; have not managed to interview a key eyewitness even as he has told his story repeatedly on camera to the national press; have revealed that dashcams for police cars were in the city’s possession but never installed; have obtained restrictions on journalists, including on news-gathering overflights of the area; and more."

Read more: http://www.cato.org/blog/police-militarization-ferguson-nationwide
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