State Champ Radio Police Brutality
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: The Washington Post / Getty
The five former police officers involved in the death of Memphis man Tyre Nichols have been officially indicted by a federal grand jury.
On Tuesday (September 12th), the Justice Department announced that the five former Memphis Police Department officers were indicted on four federal criminal charges in relation to the 29-year-old Black man after he was assaulted on January 7th, accusing them of violating his civil rights. “Tyre Nichols should be alive today. No one in this country should have to bury a loved one because of police violence,” said Kristin Clarke, head of the civil rights division of the Justice Department.
The four counts consist of two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law. The grand jury concluded that the officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith – unlawfully assaulted Tyre Nichols and then refused to disclose his injuries to medical responders and willfully refused him medical aid. Nichols would die three days later in the hospital due to injuries sustained from the brutal beating inflicted on him. Those two counts could carry a sentence of life in prison if convicted for each defendant. The other two counts of witness tampering and obstruction carry a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
The federal charges are separate from the charges brought by Tennessee state prosecutors against the former officers, who are also Black. Those charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, and official misconduct came after the five were fired and barred from working with law enforcement in the state. Memphis Police Department also disbanded the SCORPION unit they were attached to. The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office welcomed the federal charges, adding that the trials would likely intersect.
“We all heard Mr. Nichols cry out for his mother and say, ‘I’m just trying to go home.’” Said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a video statement before adding, “The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable officers who betray their oath.”
In a statement released to the press afterward, the Nichols family attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said of the indictments: “We applaud AG Garland and Assistant AG Clarke for their tireless efforts to create federal accountability for these officers who were selected to be part of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit and savagely ended Tyre’s life, setting a critical precedent for accountability and justice.”
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty / JAY-Z
JAY-Z is once again using his influence to aid those in need, specifically those who are victims of shady law enforcement.
Spotted on TMZ Hip Hop, JAY-Z and Roc Nation are coming to the aid of a Wisconsin man who was wrongfully and violently arrested, and despite the police admitting they threw coughs on the wrong man, he is still facing charges.
Per TMZ Hip Hop:
TMZ Hip Hop has learned Jay-Z’s Team ROC org has enlisted powerhouse lawyer Alex Spiro to rep Jermelle English Jr. and his family … in hopes of getting all charges dropped, and possibly to sue the Kenosha PD.
Team ROC Managing Director Dania Diaz tells TMZ Hip Hop, “The reckless arrest of Jermelle English Jr. and the careless endangerment of his infant child by the Kenosha Police Department is an absolute travesty … the Team ROC team is here to support Jermelle and his family through this traumatic experience, demand justice and hold the Kenosha police officers accountable.”
Kenosha PD’s Leo Viola tells us the department is still undergoing an internal investigation, and plans to be extremely transparent with the public once it’s completed. He adds, the Dept. initiated its probe without any outside pressure.
What Exactly Went Down That Day
According to reports, English Jr. was mistaken for a suspect in a hit-and-run. A Black couple and a child involved in an accident ran towards the Kenosha, Wisconsin Applebee’s.When police officers arrived, employees pointed them toward English Jr., sitting with his family at the time. In a video captured by an employee, English Jr. can be seen holding his child as the cops approach him.
[embedded content]
“He tried to go the other way, and they eventually tackled him into a wall, and the baby had his head on the wall. They had at least four cops on his back,” said restaurant manager Jennifer Harris. “At least a cop or two, each grabbing his arm. And still, one cop punching him over and over again in his face.”
Witnesses in the restaurant during the incident said English Jr. and his family were there well before the incident took place.
Police later realized they had the wrong man when they found the family they were looking for hiding in the Applebee’s bathroom.
Even though he was cleared, police still had the audacity to charge him and the woman he was with, Shanya Boyd, with disorderly conduct, resisting and obstructing an officer. Boyd was also accused of marijuana possession.
Spiro is working to get all of the charges dismissed.
The Kenosha PD has launched its internal investigation into the incident.
—
Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Baris-Ozer / Getty
Six white former Mississippi police officers, who as part of a “goon squad” tortured two Black men pleaded guilty to blocking prosecution efforts.
According to reports, the police officers pled guilty to hindering efforts by the prosecution among other charges in relation to the brutal raid and torture of two Black men at a home in Braxton on Jan. 24. Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, Christian Dedmond, Hunter Elward, Daniel Opdyke and Joshua Hartfield referred to themselves as a “goon squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force. Five of the men were deputies with the Rankin Police Department while Hartfield was a narcotics investigator for the Richland Police Department.
“To my knowledge,” said Trent Walker, an attorney for victims Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins, “never in the history of Mississippi have, in particular, white officers been held to account for brutality against Black victims.” The six men were found to have committed actions hindering obstruction in the case, which included giving false statements to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and intimidating others involved with that incident and others.
The brutal assault on Jenkins and Parker Jan. 24 included deputies hurling racial slurs at the two, beating and torturing them with various objects, resulting in Jenkins being shot in the mouth. He and Parker would be charged with disorderly conduct, with Jenkins being accused of assaulting an officer and drug possession. All the charges would eventually be dropped.
After being federally convicted, the former officers face varying lengths of prison time. Dedmon and Elward each face up to 120 years, in addition to a life sentence. Opdyke faces a sentence of up to 100 years and McAlpin faces a sentence of up to 90 years; Hartfield and Middleton each face up to 80 years. University of South Carolina School of Law professor Seth W. Stoughton said of the situation that it was “reminiscent of the most blatant racist abuses by police in the Jim Crow and Civil Rights era. This was a lynch mob of officers, pure and simple.” Many are calling for Rankin Police Chief Bryan Bailey to resign, but he has vehemently refused and plans to run again for sheriff in November.
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Ira L. Black – Corbis / Getty
New York City has agreed to pay out over $13 million in a settlement with protesters over their treatment during arrests by police in 2020.
On Wednesday (July 19th), the settlement amount of $13.7 million was agreed to by city officials. The settlement is in response to a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of 1,300 individuals who were arrested and/or beaten by members of the New York Police Department during protests over the killing of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Once approved by a judge, the settlement would rank among the most expensive ever recorded. Other cities are in the process of negotiating their own settlements with those who filled streets across the country in outrage.
“Today’s settlement is historic, and I’m very proud that it will bring some sense of justice to nearly 1,400 people who took to the streets and put their bodies on the line against police brutality,” attorney Wylie Stecklow said with other attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild representing the plaintiffs in a press conference at Foley Square in lower Manhattan afterward. Plaintiffs described their treatment in testimony during the two years of litigation to the press, including “kettling” or forcibly boxing people into a tight space and having zip ties placed on them until their hands turned purple as described by Adam Sow. “It was so disorganized but so intentional,” they said. “They seemed set on traumatizing everyone.”
If approved, each plaintiff in the suit would be slated to receive $9,950. There is another class action settlement that was announced in March which would award over $21,000 to those who were arrested by the NYPD at one protest in the Bronx. Over 600 other people have filed suits against the city, costing over $12 million to date. The city has denied any unconstitutional practices. “There is no history — or present or future — of unconstitutional policing,” Georgia Pestana, an attorney for the city, wrote in a legal filing. “There is no frequent deprivation of constitutional rights.” The Law Department of the city released a statement saying, “The NYPD has improved numerous practices to address the challenges it faced at protests during the pandemic. This settlement was in the best interests of all parties.”
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: screenshot / mississippifreepress
A Mississippi boy was shot in the chest by a police officer who responded to a 911 call he made to help his mother in a domestic dispute.
On May 20, Aderrien Murry was directed by his mother, Nakala, to call 911 after the father of one of his siblings came home “irate” at 4 a.m. Indianola Police Department officer Greg Capers arrived on the scene and “had his gun drawn at the front door and asked those inside the home to come outside.” Murry then said her son Aderrien complied and was shot coming around the corner from his room into the living room.
According to NewsOne, “Once he came from around the corner, he got shot,” Murry said. “I cannot grasp why. The same cop that told him to come out of the house. (Aderrien) did, and he got shot. He kept asking, ‘Why did he shoot me? What did I do wrong?’”
Nakala Murry acted swiftly, pressing her hand on Aderrien’s wound as “he sang gospel songs and prayed while bleeding out.” The boy was then rushed to the University of Mississippi Medical Center of Jackson where he was given a chest tube and placed on a ventilator. Aderrien had suffered a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver as a result of the shooting. He was released from the hospital on Wednesday (May 24).
Officer Capers was placed on paid administrative leave by the Indianola Board of Aldermen. The family attorney for the Murrrys, Carlos Moore, blasted the decision. “Aderrien came within an inch of losing his life,” Moore said to CNN. “It’s not OK for a cop to do this and get away with this. The mother asked Aderrien to call the police on her daughter’s father. He walked out of his room as directed by the police and he got shot.” Nakala Murry said that “no one came to the hospital from the police station” and that she hadn’t spoken to any police investigators.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation released a statement over the weekend saying that it was “currently assessing this critical incident and gathering evidence,” planning to release its findings to the state attorney general. They refused to offer further information to the press. “Due to this being an open and ongoing investigation, no further comment will be made.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
Irvo Otieno, who came to the United States at the age of four with his family from Kenya, died while in the custody of Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County in Virginia. Video footage shared with a grand jury showed seven Henrico County sheriff’s deputies and three hospital employees piling atop Otieno for 12 minutes before he stopped moving.
According to the Associated Press, Irvo Otieno crossed paths with Henrico police on March 2, who then delivered him to Parham Doctors Hospital per an emergency mental health order. The police report stated that Otieno became aggressive with the officers upon arrival at Parham and moved him to the Henrico County Jail for holding.
On March 6, Otieno was moved to Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County, just southwest of Petersburg, Va. It was there that Otieno succumbed to being smothered by the deputies and hospital staff while shackled with leg irons and handcuffed.
In a hearing that was held earlier in March, Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Baskervill said, “In the video at Central State you see at least a knee inflicted on the body, which is — we’ve seen this before as a country. He was held down on the ground, pinned on the ground for 12 minutes by all seven of our defendants charged here.”
The outlet adds that two of the 10 indicted attempted to have their legal team stop the entering of the security footage from the hospital into evidence but were unsuccessful as the grand jury witnessed the video earlier on Tuesday (March 20).
Irvo Otieno was 28 at the time of his death.
—
Photo: CNN
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Michael M. Santiago / Getty
A new report discloses that the majority of stops made by the New York Police Department last year consisted of Black & Latino drivers, furthering concern from social justice advocates.
According to reports, findings from a comprehensive compilation of data from the New York Civil Liberties Union showed that NYPD officers stopped, searched, and arrested Black & Latino drivers at a far higher rate than white drivers last year. The report showed that more than over 670,000 drivers were stopped last year. 15,000 of those stops led to arrests, with 49% of those drivers being Black and 39% being Latino.
“Race plays a big role in what happens to motorists after they get stopped and that number just jumps off the page,” NYCLU Legal Director Chris Dunn said. “Something is wrong when you see 9 out of ten people getting arrested are Black or Latino.” The report also detailed how the amount of those stopped was equal to the amount recorded at the height of the city’s stop-and-frisk era under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2011.
The data revealed more disturbing facts about these stops by law enforcement. The Policing Project, a research group founded at New York University, found that the NYPD only recorded data concerning the race of the driver for just over 620,000 of the stops. Another fact was that in those stops where force was used and race was recorded, 92% of the cases reported involved Black and Latino drivers. It was also found that arrests occurred only 2.2% of the time after these stops.
The news comes as the NYPD is being criticized for its actions during these traffic stops, with reports of excessive force being inflicted and civilians being shot as they’re taking place. The Civilian Complaint Review Board has investigated numerous complaints by civilians over their treatment during these stops and substantiated hundreds of them by charging officers with violating policy.
“We know that doesn’t work. We know that does not fix crime problems and we see year after year, very few people are getting arrested as a result of stop and frisk,” Dunn concluded. “Most people are getting stopped and frisked are innocent people and they’re Black and brown New Yorkers.”
More scrutiny of this report comes weeks after the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis after he was detained at a traffic stop on January 7th. To date, five officers involved in the beating that led to his death are currently awaiting trial after being fired, then indicted. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has defended the stops in the past on several occasions.
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: Scott Olson / Getty
Jason Whitlock doesn’t deserve a bit of our attention but we can’t stand by and ignore his latest head-scratching statement in the name of free thought. The sportscaster and political commentator called into question the various protests cropping up in the wake of a video going wide showing the murder of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five Black Memphis police officers.
Jason Whitlock, 55, tweeted out a question Friday night (Jan. 27) regarding the reaction to the footage of the five officers beating Nichols after a traffic stop, who later succumbed to his injuries on Jan 10. The city of Memphis continually urged its residents and outside observers to show restraint once the footage of the encounter went wide.
While the Memphis Police Department promptly fired and changed the five officers, most took note of the fact that action was swift when it came to these officers which stand in contrast to actions handed down to their white counterparts involved in similar incidents nationwide.
That fact was seemingly lost on Whitlock, and his tweet displayed his seemingly feigned curiosity as to why people are angered.
“Five police officers in Memphis appear to have committed a violent homicide. They’ve been fired and charged with second-degree murder. What is the protest about? What hasn’t happened?” Whitlock tweeted.
Shortly after that tweet, Whitlock shared a promo for his Blaze TV show, Fearless, which was centered around respecting law enforcement officers and the like. It was a clear shot at the encounter Nichols had with the elite SCORPION police unit in Memphis just mere yards from his home.
One of the most outlandish comments to come from Whitlock came from his appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show discussing the video and the passing of Nichols. While Whitlock was clear in calling the acts of the officers a crime, something he’s never done so swiftly in the past it seems, there was one point of contention that journalist Gretchen Carlson noted in a tweet.
Whitlock quote-tweeted with a response, writing, “What was crazy about my comment, Gretchen? What are the benefits of communities/neighborhoods run by matriarchal, baby-mama culture? You planning to relocate your intact nuclear family into one?”
There is no changing the sturdy, ham-fisted mind of Jason Whitlock and we’ll spare readers more of his asinine commentary. However, what we will share is how Twitter is cooking him and his ashy sew-in alive. Keep scrolling.
—
Photo:
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: SETH HERALD / Getty
On Friday evening (Jan. 27), the Memphis police department shared the footage of Tyre Nichols being beaten so badly by its former police officers that the 29-year-old eventually succumbed to his injuries.
The five Black cops who beat Nichols to death have been arrested and indicted for charges including murder and kidnapping, and after much salivation for it by mainstream media, the footage is now out in the world. NewsOne reported on what can be seen (be warned the footage is graphic and disturbing, and you are under no obligation to watch):
The video, which was released on the city of Memphis’ Vimeo account, comes just a day after five Memphis police officers responsible for the beating death of the 29-year-old were charged with second-degree murder.
If you would like to watch the videos click here. The videos contain graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.
Ahead of the release, Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells gave an emotional speech at a news conference Friday, where she said she was still processing the tragic death of her son.
Four videos were released in total. In the first clip, Nichols can be heard saying “I didn’t do anything” and complying with the seemingly aggressive officers. He can also be heard saying “I’m just trying to go home.”
The incident occurred on Jan. 7 when Nicholes was stopped on suspicion of reckless driving. So far, there is no evidence of reckless driving. He died several days later and an autopsy, ordered by his family, said the cause of death was due to internal bleeding.
Protests have already begun. If only the same energy being used to urge people to protest peacefully was used to urge cops not to kill people.
Pray for Trye Nichols and his family. May he rest in power and may justice be served.
Written By D.L. Chandler , Senior Editor Posted 8 mins ago @dlchandler123 D.L. Chandler is a veteran of the Washington D.C. metro writing scene, working as a journalist, reporter, and culture critic. Initially freelancing at iOne Digital in 2010, he officially joined the iOne team in 2017 where he currently works as a Senior Editor […]
