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Articles by Edward Lyon

Report: U.S. Border Patrol Not Nearly as Nice as It Claims

Prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center Towers and damaged ...

Austin, Texas, Diverting Funds From Police to Transform Community

Extreme Prosecutorial Misconduct Results in Wrist Slap

When Police Body Cam Is a ‘Propaganda Tool’

However, “[w]hen the police are given the discretion to publicly release favorable body camera footage but withhold negative footage, police ...

Socially Unacceptable New York Cops

Some officers bring racist or other hateful comments to social media [CLN, October 2019, p. 41]. However, some of ...

Hundreds Serving Life Due to Less Than Unanimous Jury Verdicts

Athlete Settles Tasing Suit Against Milwaukee Police

Milwaukee city attorney Tearman Spencer and assistant city attorney Robin A. Pederson sent a letter to the city’s Common Council on November ...

Texas Police S.W.A.T. Woman Over Anti-Cop Bumper Stickers

$12 Million Settlement Against Louisville, Kentucky

 

by Ed Lyon 

A settlement with family was reached in the death of Breonna Taylor of Kentucky, an unarmed Black woman who was killed when undercover Louisville Metro police “blindly” fired 10 rounds into her apartment on March 13, 2020, the result of a botched raid that began as Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker were sleeping. [See August 2020 CLN, p.48.]

The family’s lawsuit, resolved in mid-September 2020, cites battery, wrongful death, excessive force, and gross negligence. Taylor received no medical attention for more than 20 minutes after she was wounded, dispatch logs reveal, The Courier Journal reports.

Taylor was an emergency medical technician who battled for victims of the novel coronavirus before she became the victim of a no-knock warrant by overzealous cops.

The Taylor case got more exposure after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd. The video of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Officer Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes brought awareness to the everyday perils Black citizens face from police. Her death set off protests across the world along with Floyd’s. 

Representing Taylor’s family were Lonita Baker and Benjamin Crump, who brought a civil rights deprivation and wrongful death ...

Exodus of a Baker’s Dozen

 

by Ed Lyon

Since the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd while in police custody, protests against police brutality and systemic racism have grown. And, as various protests and incidents of excessive force by police make headlines, police chiefs are beating a hasty exodus from troubled departments. 

• In California, Los Angeles Schools’ Police Chief Todd Chamberlain resigned after defunding of his department by 33 percent resulted in 40 vacancies remaining unfilled and a force reduction of 65 officers. 

• In Georgia, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned after Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by now-fired police Officer Garrett Rolfe. Although Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms accepted the resignation, she stated Shields would continue to serve within the department in a position “yet to be determined,” turning the resignation into a demotion. 

• In Kentucky, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer fired Chief Steve Conrad after cops and National Guard soldiers shot restaurateur David McAtee to death. Conrad was fired because cops were not wearing their body cams, not because McAtee died. 

• Prince George’s County, Maryland, Police Chief Hank Stawinski resigned after complaints by 13 minority officers were aired by the American Civil Liberties Union. They had ...

 

 

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