A former St Louis police officer with a track record of violence, including the killing of a mentally disturbed Black man that was condemned as amounting to an execution, has been convicted of beating a suspect as he lay restrained and prostrate on the ground.
Ellis Brown III was found guilty by a federal jury last week after an internal police inquiry cleared him over a car chase in 2019 which ended with the then detective severely kicking Steven Kolb after he surrendered.
....
The former detective left the St Louis police several years later after he was caught lying about a car pursuit that resulted in a crash.
But Ellis Brown’s history, including other allegations of violence and of fabricating evidence, has raised questions about the ease with which police officers with bad records are able to move between departments after he swiftly found a job with the city of St Ann, a St Louis suburb. There Brown rose to be head of detectives until his arrest for assaulting Kolb.
....
The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported that officers with poor records are shuffled between dozens of small police forces in the St Louis area as small municipalities with tight budgets overlook histories of misconduct in order to hire experienced officers forced to accept lower pay.
Among those hired by St Ann were Joshua Becherer, who resigned from St Louis police in 2017 after he was arrested on suspicion of domestic assault for pointing a loaded rifle at a woman’s face and threatening to kill her. Others taken on by the department include a St Louis officer who pistol whipped a 12-year-old girl and then lied about the circumstances, and another who shot a Black colleague who was out of uniform in circumstances that indicated racial profiling.
Among Brown’s colleagues in the St Ann detective bureau was an officer who left the St Louis force after he was accused of using a stun gun on a handcuffed man who was lying on the ground.
George Floyd Police killing and protests
Moderator: bbmods
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... llis-brown
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-26/ ... /100245998
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22 and a half years in jail for the murder of George Floyd, in a case that galvanised Black Lives Matter protesters, prompted protests around the world and led to clashes in US cities.
https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/de ... index.htmlFormer Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin appeared in court Wednesday and entered a new plea of guilty in the federal civil rights case stemming from the death of George Floyd.
Chauvin also admitted guilt in a separate case in which he was accused of assaulting a 14-year-old juvenile in 2017. It was unclear in court if prosecutors will dismiss the charges in the 2017 case as part of the agreement.
As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors are requesting that Chauvin be sentenced to 300 months in prison, or 25 years, to be served concurrently with his sentence on state murder charges.
So, given he was sentenced to only 22 and a half years on the State murder charges, the 25-year plea deal on the Federal hate crime charges means that his appeal against the State conviction and sentence is now likely irrelevant.
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David
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How's this work re: double jeopardy? I can understand that not applying in different jurisdictions, but it seems pretty bizarre that you can be sentenced twice for the same crime.
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange
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stui magpie
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US Law is weird.
He was charged with 3 different crimes for the same action at State level wasn't he? 3 different degrees of Murder/manslaughter and found guilty and sentenced on more than one?
This is different jurisdiction, another different change stemming from the same action.
The family should go for the trifecta and sue him as well.
He was charged with 3 different crimes for the same action at State level wasn't he? 3 different degrees of Murder/manslaughter and found guilty and sentenced on more than one?
This is different jurisdiction, another different change stemming from the same action.
The family should go for the trifecta and sue him as well.
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down.
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think positive
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... vil-rights
A jury has convicted three former Minneapolis police officers of violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
...
Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane were charged with depriving Floyd of his right to medical care when Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes as the 46-year-old Black man was handcuffed and lying face down on the street on 25 May 2020. Thao and Lane were also charged with failing to intervene to stop Chauvin.
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Chauvin was convicted of murder last year in state court and pleaded guilty in December in the federal case.
Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders back. Kueng and Lane both said they deferred to Chauvin as the senior officer at the scene. Thao testified that he relied on the other officers to care for Floyd’s medical needs as his attention was elsewhere.
Lane is white, Kueng is Black and Thao is Hmong American.
Conviction of a federal civil rights violation that results in death is punishable by life in prison or even death, but such sentences are extremely rare. The former officers will remain free on bond pending sentencing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ghter-plea
A former Minneapolis police officer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to manslaughter in the murder of George Floyd and agreed to spend three years in state prison, officials said.
Thomas Lane’s plea to a count of aiding and abetting manslaughter came a year after his former colleague Derek Chauvin, who was recorded by a bystander killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck, was convicted of murder and sentenced to more than two decades in prison.
In February, Lane and former officers Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng were convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights. Sentences have not yet been handed down for them.
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think positive
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David
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I don't see much to cheer for here. It would be nice if cops who stood by and watched while their colleagues killed an unarmed citizen had reason to fear legal (or at least professional) consequences. But I think everyone knows that anything to do with Floyd is being treated as a special case, and so this manifestly excessive punishment (three years in jail for not intervening in something someone else was doing!?) will have the opposite effect to a deterrent, because no police officer in the country has reason to believe that they will ever be at risk if another scenario like this occurs.
Justice doesn't really seem to exist in America, particularly not when it comes to police violence: a very few get the book thrown at them, and the rest of them walk away scot free.
Justice doesn't really seem to exist in America, particularly not when it comes to police violence: a very few get the book thrown at them, and the rest of them walk away scot free.
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange
^ And, of course, there's a consistent link in the US between police (and military) recruiting - and policing strategies, sadly - and white supremacism, as the following opinion piece reminds us: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ack-people
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think positive
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