WATCH: NYPD Sgt.'s filthy tirade captured in shocking cellphone video

From NY Post:
 


A uniformed NYPD sergeant was caught on video unleashing a vulgar tirade against a group of Brooklyn men — threatening them with his gun even while condoning their criminal behavior, The Post has learned.

Sgt. Lesly Charles even indicated that some criminal activity is apparently OK on his beat — as long as he’s paid proper respect.

“You guys are hustling or whatever, I ain’t got no problem with that. Listen . . . do your thing,” Charles barked during the April 28 diatribe, which is now being investigated by the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board. “But when I come around and I speak, you f--king listen. Tell your boys.”

The surly sergeant apparently was angry over a car that was illegally parked on Ditmas Avenue in the Kensington section.

His rant against the men was recorded on a 20-minute cellphone video obtained exclusively by The Post.

The footage includes Charles berating a young man in the roadway near a silver BMW, telling him:
“This is my street. All right? If you got to play tough, that’s your problem . . . I do whatever the f--k I want.”

A short time later, Charles followed the group into the nearby No. 1 Chinese Food restaurant, flanked by two plainclothes cops.

“I have the long d--k. You don’t,” the cop bragged.

“Your pretty face — I like it very much. My d--k will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don’t f--k with me. All right?”

After the target of his tirade insisted, “I didn’t do anything,” Charles retorted, “Listen to me. When you see me, you look the other way. Tell your boys, I don’t f--k around. All right?”

“I’ll take my gun and put it up your a-- and then I’ll call your mother afterwards. You understand that?”

For good measure, the sergeant added: “And I’ll put your s--t in your own mouth.”

Charles added, “I’m here every f--king day. I don’t go home. I have no life. No kids. I do what I do.’’

The 21-year-old man who shot the video — and provided it to The Post on the condition of anonymity — was arrested that night and charged with disorderly conduct, which court records show was for ignoring the cops’ orders to leave.

Police sources said he has been arrested more than 20 times, including for petit larceny and weapons and pot possession.

An NYPD spokeswoman said the department is investigating the incident.

The man’s lawyer, David Zelman, said it was troubling that “there were other cops by [Charles’] side, and they seemed to take it in stride.”

Charles, reached at home yesterday, said, “I’m just doing God’s work. You know I can’t comment . . . Have a blessed day.”

A source close to the sergeant said that in the past, “all efforts at civility failed’’ in dealing with the men. They are known to loiter and play loud music, prompting complaints from local businesses, law-enforcement sources said.

“The sergeant was trying to get the message across in a way they could understand,’’ the source said.

Police kill man in Fairfax County

Washington Examiner

A man died after officers shot him in Fairfax County, [Virginia,] police said.

Shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday, officers were called to an apartment in the 5700 block of Backlick Road in the Springfield area for the report of a suspect hiding in a bedroom, Fairfax County police said.

Patrol officers and a K9 unit encounted the suspect. He threatened authorities with a sword and didn't comply with their commands. The officers then fired less-lethal beanbag rounds and lethal rounds, and the suspect was struck and fell to the ground, police said.

Officers immediately provided medical care and CPR. The suspect was taken to a hospital but he died soon after, police said.

The suspect's name was not released. Officers had tried to serve child pornography-related warrants on the suspect Friday night but he allegedly gave false identification and fled.

One officer has been placed on routine administrative leave, and police are continuing to investigate the incident.

Anger at Killing of Alan Blueford

Oakland, California

Community and family members marched through East Oakland over the weekend and spoke at a City Council meeting this week to protest the police killing of Alan Blueford, an 18-year-old senior at Skyline High School.

Blueford’s family and supporters held up pictures at Tuesday’s council meeting and asked for answers. “My heart is bleeding every day,” Blueford’s mother Jeralynn said. “I want the facts of what happened, how it happened and why it happened … we need help, Oakland Council.”

Blueford’s older sister, Janae, said the family is struggling to deal with the awful reality.

“This is, of course, the hardest thing we have ever had to go through,” she said. “It’s very, very difficult. If we’re not crying, we’re angry. If we’re not angry, we’re crying. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anybody.”

“We want the City Council to hold the police department accountable and demand a thorough investigation,” she said. “So many facts in the case have changed already, we need to make sure that nothing gets swept under the rug.”

According to Oakland police, it was just after midnight Sunday, May 5, when officers approached a group of three people in the 1900 block of 90th Avenue, believing that one man was carrying a hidden gun.

One of the young men started running, and the officer ran after him for several blocks. The officer fired his weapon, police said, when they were in the 8200 block of Birch Street. According to police, Blueford pointed a gun at the officer but did not fire the weapon. The officer fired four shots, hitting Blueford several times, and one hit the officer’s foot, police said.

Police say witnesses confirm that Blueford pointed a gun at the police officer.

The youngest of five siblings, Blueford transferred to Skyline High School in December. According to Skyline High Principal Troy Johnston, the young man was working hard to graduate in June. He was quiet but popular among his group of friends and worked in the school cafeteria, Johnston said.

Blueford lived in Tracy with his family, who have hired Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris to represent them.

Hammer, a well-known rapper, entrepreneur, and actor, spoke at a rally in front of the police station, saying he knew Blueford since he was a child because he was a “dear friend of my children.” “ The character assassination won’t stand,” Hammer said.  “Alan was a good kid.” The police must be held accountable, he said.  “How (can) the penalty for fleeing (be) death?”

Montreal Police Shooting: Charges Nixed After Police Shoot And Kill 2

MONTREAL - There will be no charges laid against police who shot and killed two people in Montreal last year, including an innocent bystander on his way to work.

A statement from the province's Director of Penal and Criminal Prosecutions about the June 2011 tragedy said there were no grounds for charges.

"No criminal infraction was committed by officers with the Montreal Police Service," said the statement issued Thursday.

That assessment was based on an investigation by provincial police — who reviewed the work of the Montreal police officers involved in the shootings.

The incident earned national attention, triggered an angry anti-police march, and prompted calls for procedural changes at Quebec's police forces.

Officers shot a homeless man, Mario Hamel, during a public disturbance. Their gunfire also struck Patrick Limoges, who happened to be walking by on his way to work at a nearby hospital.

Montreal police said they were called as a knife-wielding Hamel tossed garbage around downtown Montreal. Hamel, a mentally ill 40-year-old who lived in a downtown shelter, was cornered by police, ordered to drop his weapon, pepper-sprayed, and ultimately shot.

The 36-year-old Limoges was across the street when he was struck by a police bullet.

In Quebec, it is customary when a police force is involved in a shooting for another to handle the investigation. The debate over who should be leading those investigations was rekindled following the tragedy.

The provincial government has since introduced reforms intended create a civilian oversight body that would monitor such investigations. But its critics — including Quebec's ombudsman — have said the changes don't go far enough because police still have too much latitude.

That 2011 incident and other recent shootings involving police in Montreal have also prompted adjustments to intervention tactics, like making a few more tasers available.

Remembering the Rebellion

From Critical Resistance

As we join people all over the world today on Mayday to celebrate workers’ struggles, mourn the victims of capitalism, and continue the call for social and economic change, we’d also like to take a moment to humbly commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the LA Rebellion.  Sparked by the not-guilty verdict for LAPD officers in the brutal beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles exploded.  From April 29^th to May 4^th, residents primarily from the city’s Black and Latino communities took to the streets. They raged not only against the rampant, unchecked, daily brutality of policing, but also the related and intensely racialized violence of economic exploitation and poverty, grinding unemployment, the systematic gutting of educational and social services and programs, skyrocketing rates of imprisonment, ecological devastation, gentrification, and debilitating disenfranchisement and dispossession.

     

For six days—with all the excitement, creativity, complexity, problems, tragedies, and messiness that comes with spontaneous uprising—there was no business as usual in LA , or many other places as well.  Those in power, however shaken, responded in their typical fashion, combining overtly racist nationalist speeches, news reports, and editorials, with out and out military occupation of the city.  More than 10,000 National Guard troops coordinated with countless other law enforcement and military agencies to put down the rebellion.  Nearly 7000 residents were arrested and at least 10 were killed by the state’s backlash.  While we might be more familiar with images of destruction of mostly commercial property, less told are the stories of sporadic armed conflict between residents and police and troops.

While the uprising ended after several days--the troops didn’t withdraw until several weeks later--communities’ struggles certainly did not.  People began to try to understand the roots of the rebellion and the ramifications of its impacts. While corporate media and the academy played its role in the state’s divide and conquer strategies, by branding the uprising a race riot, expounding continuously on the disintegration of the moral fabric of the Black community, and stoking a mythology of hopeless interracial antagonism and conflict, others sought to understand the political moment and what work there was to do moving forward.

One hidden story in the wake of the rebellion were the broad-scale and highly organized truces between formerly rival Black and Latino gangs.  Indeed, these truces emerged from analysis and strategizing by residents and organizations of various political bents that were not content to merely ‘heal’ from the uprising but instead sought to extend its potential and energy toward radical and transformative ends.  Truce, of course, was a dangerous proposition for those for whom healing meant the swift re-imposition of the status quo.  Funds slated to aid community rebuilding efforts never materialized or just disappeared, poverty and joblessness continued.  The LAPD persistently tried to undermine and sabotage the truce, and eventually to co-opt its success.       

A prominent rallying cry of the rebellion was: “no justice, no peace!” While a narrow understanding of the slogan could be that it referred only to the not-guilty verdict for the officers who beat King, we can also extend it to residents’ understanding of the inequitable and oppressive social and economic conditions under which they lived, as well as a warning and threat against the status quo.  20 years later many of the same conditions exist in Los Angeles that did in ’92: very little justice, and very little peace.  Poverty is still widespread, as are the lack of social services and programs, decent housing, and educational opportunities.  The violence of policing and imprisonment is also a present as ever.   Indeed entire theories, strategies, and technologies of policing modeled on post-rebellion LAPD have been packaged and sold to cities all over the world.   Wholly a third of all prisoners throughout the state are taken from Los Angeles County and LA’s county jail system is one of the largest on the planet.

As we commemorate the hard-fought struggles of workers across the world today, we must not forget the far-reaching impacts of capitalism on our understandings of race, gender and place, nor the lengths to which the state will go to repress challenges to that institution.  Today we also commemorate those lost and hurt in the LA rebellion as well as those that continue to resist the violence of policing and imprisonment.