Posted on Categories News & Comment

PBC News & Comment: Coast to Coast, Cops in America Are Out of Control, Above the Law

From San Francisco to Chicago to New Jersey suburbs, excessive force, racial profiling, secret detention center are in the news…–in “liberal” San Francisco, eyewitnesses contradict cops who killed homeless man despite new training and rules for de-escalation

–last November, sheriff’s deputies from another county brutally beat a suspect after high-speed chase to San Francsico, tried to bribe witnesses and cover up “worst beating since Rodney King”

–in second round of racist, homophobic texts between cops, prosecutions may result, but Chief Greg Suhr keeps his job

SF Chronicle reports on new study of racial profiling in traffic stops

Chronicle also reports that only 6% of San Franciscans are African-American, but half of arrests for unpaid traffic tickets are black

Vice reports that Bloomfield Township, NJ shows that black and Latino drivers are disproportionately ticketed, and their fines pay costs of court operations, like Ferguson

The Guardian continues exposing Chicago’s secret detention center at Homan Square, where at least two people have died in custody

–California Gov. Jerry Brown hopes to clean up the bad sentencing law he signed in 1977 with November ballot measure

–new California law requires police agencies to disclose surveillance tools and policies, some are complying, some aren’t, according to EFF report

–New York state senator proposes law to allow police to “textalyze” a cell phone if driver has been in an accident

–media blackout of Democracy Spring, as 400 protesters are arrested

–in Brazil, impeachment of President Rousseff is proceeding, Glenn Greenwald interviews her mentor, former president Lula de Silva

–in the craziest attack on Sanders to date, The Atlantic uses Russian Jews who hate communism to slam Bernie for calling himself a democratic socialist