Keeping The Sheeple Up To Date With Reality!!!
Monday, November 30, 2015
Former CBS Reporter Exposes Media Manipulation
In this eye-opening talk, veteran investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson shows how astroturf, or fake grassroots movements funded by political, corporate, or other special interests very effectively manipulate and distort media messages.
Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. She is currently writing a book entitled Stonewalled (Harper Collins), which addresses the unseen influences of corporations and special interests on the information and images the public receives every day in the news and elsewhere. For twenty years (through March 2014), Attkisson was a correspondent for CBS News. In 2013, she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for her reporting on “The Business of Congress,” which included an undercover investigation into fundraising by Republican freshmen. She also received Emmy nominations in 2013 for Benghazi: Dying for Security and Green Energy Going Red. Additionally, Attkisson received a 2013 Daytime Emmy Award as part of the CBS Sunday Morning team’s entry for Outstanding Morning Program for her report: “Washington Lobbying: K-Street Behind Closed Doors.” In September 2012, Attkisson also received an Emmy for Oustanding Investigative Journalism for the “Gunwalker: Fast and Furious” story. She received the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting for the same story. Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2009 for her exclusive investigations into TARP and the bank bailout. She received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2002 for her series of exclusive reports about mismanagement at the Red Cross.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Video Shows ISIS Militants Having Friendly Chat With Turkish Border Guards
Incase you needed more proof about #Turkey's stance on terrorists #ISIS:
A remarkable video has emerged purporting to show Islamic State militants chatting casually with a group of Turkish border guards near the besieged Syrian city of Kobane
Don't file this one under “surprising”, but a video has emerged of ISIS jihadists having a lovely chit-chat with Turkish border guards. The video is allegedly from October, so this is not a new Turkish tourism campaign launched in the wake of losing hundreds of thousands of Russian tourists. No, Turkey just sort of “likes” ISIS. They go together like peas and carrots. This is precious:
The clip begins with the two apparent jihadists lighting fires near a group of cars, which are believed to have been abandoned by desperate Kurdish families who fled Kobane in recent weeks when ISIS militants stepped up their attacks on the city.After appearing to realise they are being filmed from inside Turkey, the pair start walking towards the border fence, stopping only to mockingly wave at the amateur filmmaker.As they reach the border fence, an armoured military vehicle belonging to Turkish border guards speeds up to meet them. Heavily armed officials jump out the back of the car and - after briefly talking on their radios, simply engage the men in conversation.At one point the situation appears tense and a border guard scampers towards the militants with his gun briefly raised, but he stops seconds later and also begins talking to the men.After several minutes chatting, the militants wander off, defiantly raising their index finger to the sky to represent jihadism while chanting 'Allahu Akbar' - a phrase that translates as 'God is the greatest'.
Link: http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/video-shows-isis-militants-having-friendly-chat-turkish-border-officers/ri11511?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
The Black Female Mathematicians Who Sent Astronauts to Space
Today, November 24, President Barack Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, considered the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 17 men and women. Among them is 97-year-old retired African-American NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, selected for her contributions to the space program, starting with the Mercury missions in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, through the Apollo moon missions in the late ’60s and early ‘70s, and ending with the space shuttle missions in the mid '80s. Among other things, she calculated the trajectories of America's first manned mission into orbit and the first Moon landing.
Awarding Johnson this well-deserved honor doesn't just shine a spotlight on a single black female STEM pioneer. It also illuminates an obscure but important piece of history. Johnson was just one of dozens of mathematically talented black women recruited to work as “human computers” at the Langley Memorial Research Laboratory in the ‘40s and ‘50s.
They were so named because before machines came along, they crunched the numbers necessary for figuring out everything from wind tunnel resistance to rocket trajectories to safe reentry angles.
In fact, all of Langley’s hundreds of “human computers,” whether black or white, were women. It was an era when, as Johnson put it, “the computer wore a skirt.”
Considering society’s longheld prejudices about women and math, it may surprise some that NASA (then NACA, or the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics) would allow these "skirts" to work there in the first place. But the same man shortage that handed Rosie her rivets when the U.S. entered WWII in 1941 handed the human computers their slide rules.
That year, FDR signed an order to hire more African-American workers, and two years later, in 1943, Langley started hiring college-educated black women with a background in math and chemistry.
Though the job (at $2000 a year) was far better paid than most available for educated women at the time, such as nursing or teaching, the black mathematicians, or computers, faced segregation in Hampton, Virginia, where NACA set up its research lab. They worked in a separate facility from the white computers, had to use separate washrooms, and had to sit at a colored table in the cafeteria. A few years into the program, the unmarried white computers were housed in a fancy dorm. Meanwhile, the unmarried black computers had to find lodging in town, which wasn’t always easy. The lab was even on the site of a former plantation.
Despite the systematic discrimination, these mathematicians kept calculating.
“They’re more resilient than I could imagine,” said Duchess Harris, an American Studies professor at Macalester College in Minnesota who is part of the “Human Computer Project,”which launched last year. It's a collaboration between Harris, recent Macalester grad Lucy Short, and researcher and author Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book, Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped the United States Win the Space Race, is being published by William Morrow/HarperCollins next year. (The book may also bemade into a movie.)
As part of the project, the three women toured the lab and saw where the black mathematicians worked, in a building a mile away from the white ones. The building had no restroom facilities, Harris said.
Such details are personal to Harris, because her grandmother, Miriam Daniel Mann, was one of the first black computers at Langley. A former math teacher, Mann worked for the lab until 1966, when illness forced her to retire. She died in 1967, two years before the lunar landing. Among other things, she worked on the Mercury program along with Johnson, crunching numbers for Alan Shepard and John Glenn’s flights.
Unlike Mann, Johnson did not have to work in a separate building for long. Hired in 1953, she was first put in the computer pool, but in just weeks was working more closely with engineers, a promotion she credited to her asking them incessant questions about the material. One such question was: Why weren’t women allowed to attend meetings and briefings? Was there a law?
There wasn’t. In five years, Johnson became the only non-white, non-male member of the Space Task Force, charged with getting American astronauts into space as soon as possible. When that happened for the first time three years later, in 1961, Johnson's calculations for Alan Shepard’s capsule trajectory played a crucial role.
"The early trajectory was a parabola, and it was easy to predict where it would be at any point," Johnson told Langley’s in-house newsletter, Researcher News, in 2008. "Early on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to compute when it should start. I said, 'Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.' That was my forte."
When it was John Glenn’s turn to go up, NASA had started using machines for such calculations. But Glenn, who mistrusted this new technology, insisted that Johnson double-check the results.
"You could do much more, much faster on a [machine] computer," Johnson told Researcher News. "But when they went to [machine] computers, they called over and said, 'Tell her to check and see if the computer trajectory they had calculated was correct.' So I checked it and it was correct." Glenn subsequently became the first American to orbit the Earth.
Johnson would go on to make her mark on future missions, including calculating the trajectory for Apollo 11 and then lending her expertise to the space shuttle program. And while today's ceremony honors only her, the other women should not be forgotten, including Mann, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Kathryn Peddrew, to name only a few. All broke professional barriers for black women—and played key roles in getting us all closer to the stars.
Black Friday Sales Down More Than $1 Billion
Shoppers walk by holiday decor in New York City on Black Friday, on Nov. 27, 2015
Shoppers spent $10.4 billion at stores on Friday
Shoppers this year still wanted to get a head start on their holiday gift list on Black Friday — but overall were less willing to brave the crowds.
Sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday both fell in stores this year, with a growing amount of people pursuing their discounts online instead.
Brick and mortar sales on Black Friday fell from $11.6 billion in 2014 to $10.4 billion in 2015,according to the retail researcher ShopperTrak. Sales on Thanksgiving fell from just over $2 billion to $1.8 billion. Both decreases are attributed to the increase in online sales, the Associated Press reports.
Meanwhile, online sales jumped 14 percent on Black Friday from 2014, bringing in $2.72 billion altogether. The increase came during a week of online sales and promotions leading up to Cyber Monday on Nov. 30, forecasted to be the biggest e-commerce sales day of the year.
Bernie Sanders Powerful Speech On Criminal Justice In 1991 "Let's Not Keep Putting Poor People Into Jail & Disproportionately Punishing Blacks!"
In 1991, Rep. Bernie Sanders believed passionately that the United States criminal justice system was on the wrong track, and even back then incarceration rates (the number of people in prison per 1000 population) showed the authoritarian direction crime had taken in America. He also spoke highly on race issues and fought hard for it.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
After Demanding Voter ID Laws, Alabama Republicans Close DMVs In ALL Black Counties
The state of Alabama announced that it will no longer be issuing drivers licenses in predominately African American counties. This is extremely problematic because Alabama now requires a photo ID to vote. By making it impossible to receive a driver’s license in counties where 75% of registered voters are black, they eliminate the black vote in one of the most blatant efforts to disenfranchise minority voters that our nation has ever seen.
The state passed the voter ID restriction, which demands a voter present a picture ID prior to voting, a full year ago. This was a controversial enough measure, as not everyone has an ID and getting an ID requires money and time that many people don’t have. Now, the overt repression of the black vote has reached a new apex. Getting a license from a nearby DMV is not an option. As a result of budget cuts, thirty-one satellite DMVs offices “no longer have access to driver’s licenses examiners.” This means residents will have to travel to other, faraway white counties to apply for licenses.
This raises civil liberties issues on all ends, as driving in Alabama is an absolute necessity. If people are forced to go far to get their license, the state is preventing their African American population from engaging in their most basic rights; easily acquiring a driver’s license and of course—voting. The fact that offices closed in only two white neighborhoods goes to show how strongly the racial prejudice is written into this.
John Archibald, of AL.com, suggested the US Department of Justice open an investigation into the closures. “Alabama just took a giant step backward,” wrote Archibald. “Take a look at the ten Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters. That’s Macon, Greene, Sumter, Lowndes, Bullock, Perry, Wilcox, Dallas, Hale, and Montgomery, according to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office. Alabama, thanks to its budgetary insanity and inanity, just opted to close driver license bureaus in eight of them. Every single county in which blacks make up more than seventy-five percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one,” he continued. “It is an affront to the very notion of justice in a nation where one man one vote is as precious as oxygen,” he insisted. “It is a slap in the face to all who believe the stuff we teach the kids about how all are created equal.”
The racially targeted closures of the DMVs tells the state’s African American population that their opinion is not wanted, their vote should not be counted, they are regulated to the margins yet again. The people in these counties do vote, which is what makes this an even more vicious measure. The state, and the Republicans have waged a premeditated attack on the 15th amendment. The federal government and anyone who believes in civil rights, should stand up to this and say, no. We will not sit idly by as the state undermines justice and upholds disenfranchisement. We will not allow Alabama to backhandedly revoke our minorities right to vote.
Black Friday Sales Plummeted This Year
Consumer spending during America's Thanksgiving weekend dropped compared with last year, but the decline can be attributed to an improving economy and changing shopping habits, a survey found Sunday.
According to the National Retail Federation's Thanksgiving weekend spending survey, 55.1 percent of holiday shoppers were expected to visit stores or go online over Thanksgiving weekend, down from 58.7 percent last year.
"A strengthening economy that changes consumers' reliance on deep discounts, a highly competitive environment, early promotions, and the ability to shop 24/7 online all contributed to the shift witnessed this weekend," NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement.
According to the survey, the average weekend shopper was expected to spend $380.95, down 6.4 percent from $407.02 last year.
Total spending was expected to reach $50.9 billion, down from last year’s estimated $57.4 billion.
American consumers flood stores looking for steep discounts, particularly on electronics, toys, and clothes, during the Thanksgiving weekend, which kicks off Christmas holiday spending.
Black Friday still drew the biggest crowds, but the weekend has been expanded into a number of speciality commercial "holidays": "Gray Thursday," "Small Business Saturday," and "Cyber Monday."
Of those who went shopping Saturday, three-quarters said they did so specifically to support "Small Business Saturday," which is a growing movement to encourage residents to support local sellers.
Many online retailers also offered discounts in the days before Black Friday, possibly accounting for a reduced overall spend on the day itself.
"Early online promotions before the big weekend may have taken some of consumer's spending power with them," the NRF statement read.
The survey was conducted Friday and Saturday by Prosper Insights & Analytics for NRF. It polled 4,631 consumers and had a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Why So Many Conservatives and Republicans Are “Feeling the Bern”
Failures Of Unrestrained Capitalism Fueling Bernie Sanders' Surge
Several weeks ago, Bernie Sanders appeared on Morning Joe, a conservative talk show hosted by former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough. During the interview, there was discussion about Republicans and other conservatives who are starting to listen to what Sanders has to say, and even embracing his message. This hasn’t changed – in fact, the phenomenon is actually growing. Voters who have identified as staunch Republicans their entire lives find themselves getting behind the self-described democratic socialist Senator from Vermont.
This change of heart among a growing number of GOP voters has been driven in large part by the same issues that have propelled Sanders’ campaign since the beginning. There is anger and frustration over the status quo in Washington, a government that has become unresponsive and unaccountable to the electorate, as well as the gridlock that has defined President Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office. There are also grave concerns about the extreme right-wing platforms that today’s Republican candidates have taken. Increasingly, GOP voters are coming to the realization that they’ve gone way too far. One self-described lifelong conservative Republican voter from Oregon told The Atlantic, “The Republican party as a whole has gotten so far out of touch with the American people.” He switched his voter registration to Democratic so he can vote for Sanders in the Oregon Primary.
GOP voters are also disenchanted with their choice of candidates. Front-runner Trump is a racist buffoon, runner-up Carson is a delusional psychotic, and third-place candidate Rubio has a checkered past when it comes to handling finances and is a demonstrated slacker when it comes to his job, having missed over a third of Senate votes this year. To many voters across the board, Hillary Clinton represents “business as usual” – and carries a great deal of baggage in any event.
That leaves Bernie Sanders as the one who is most likely to shake things up inside the Beltway.
One aspect of this phenomenon has to do with the fact that labels such as “conservative” and “liberal” are gradually becoming meaningless outside of Washington D.C. The differences between “right” and “left” are increasingly blurry, as individual voters can hold liberal views on some issues and conservative views on others. A common example would be a Republican who accepts same-sex marriage but favors more stringent controls on federal spending. Another might be the Democrat who supports universal single-payer health care but opposes marijuana legalization.
The bottom line, however, is that when it comes to the everyday issues that affect people’s pocketbooks, their families, their health and well-being, and their futures, everyone has the same concerns. In his own discussions with conservatives, this author notes that both sides agree on the problems we’re all facing. Where we part ways is on the solutions. Once we all understand this, the way is cleared for civil debate and reasoned discussion.
Regardless of how we choose to fight, the fact is that we’re all fighting the same battle.
Here’s another way to look at it. According to liberals, corporations wield too much power and control. They care nothing for people. Workers lose ground while CEOs and shareholders make obscene amounts of money by exploiting people and rob them of their rights. According to conservatives, government wields too much power and control. It cares nothing for people. Workers lose ground while government taxes them too heavily, wastes money on useless programs and robs people of their freedoms.
Arguments on both sides are valid. However, until Bernie Sanders brought the real issues to the forefront of this election cycle, few people could see the big picture. The fact is that corporations spend huge amounts of money in order to influence and buy elections. Because legislators are beholden to the corporations who finance their election, they allow their corporate donors to write legislation, which is pushed through the legislative process. These legislators also appoint judges in accordance with their corporate backers’ wishes.
The big picture here is that both corporations and government are responsible for the problems that we now face. That should get everyone outraged – and it is, as demonstrated by the fact that more conservatives and Republicans are “feeling the Bern.”
Link: http://trofire.com/2015/11/26/conservatives-and-republicans-are-feeling-the-bern/
How 2 Independent Journalists And A Lawyer Held Chicago Police Accountable For Teen's Death
Journalist Brandon Smith, left, and activist William Calloway talk to reporters Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015, after a Cook County judge ordered the Chicago Police Department to release a video of an officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Nov. 25, in Chicago.
The group pried loose shocking dashcam video showing the police killing of Laquan McDonald, 17.
The shocking police dashcam video that shows a Chicago teen gunned down by a city cop came to light because a couple of dogged independent journalists and a lawyer pried open government records.
Chicago's mainstream media barely flinched when police and union officials claimed Laquan McDonald, 17, was shot after lunging at officers with a knife. But journalists Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith, and University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, dutifully dug in. For months, they looked for hard evidence about what happened the night of Oct. 20, 2014.
Their efforts culminated Tuesday, when officials announced an unprecedented first-degree murder charge against Officer Jason Van Dyke, the first time an on-duty cop has been charged with the offense.
This Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, photo, released by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office shows Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who was charged Tuesday with first degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald on Oct. 20, 2014. (Cook County State's Attorney's Office via AP)
A now-discredited initial police version of events said Van Dyke opened fire after McDonald disobeyed orders to drop the knife and attempted to attack officers with the blade. McDonald was shot in the chest, according to the early accounts.
To say the teen was shot in the chest is an understatement. Kalven, who runs the nonprofit Invisible Institute, obtained the autopsy report through a freedom of information request. That report revealed that two gunshots hit the teen in the chest, in addition to 14 bullet wounds to other body parts.
"The autopsy raises questions not only about how he died, but about how the Chicago Police Department has handled the case since," Kalven wrote.
This undated autopsy diagram provided by the Cook County Medical Examiner's office shows the location of wounds on the body of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald who was shot by a Chicago Police officer 16 times in 2014. A judge on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015 ordered the city to release squad car dashcam video of the shooting. The officer has been stripped of his police powers, but remains at work on desk duty. (Cook County Medical Examiner via AP)
Further doubts about the police account emerged when Kalven found a witness, who said the teen was backing away from officers, rather than lunging at them. The witness also said an officer continued firing at McDonald after he had collapsed onto the street from the first bullets.
That witness, we now know, saw what the police car dashcam video shows.
City officials withheld the explosive video from the public until Tuesday, a deadline set last week by a judge who ordered the video's release
Kalven and Futterman jointly demanded that city release the dashcam footage almost a year ago. A whistleblower from inside the police force had tipped the journalists to the disturbing nature of the shooting.
“Sources report that a police officer repeatedly fired into the boy’s body as he lay on the ground,” Futterman said in a statement at the time. “If they are correct, this isn’t a case of self-defense. It’s an execution. The video should reveal the truth."
The police department, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and Mayor Rahm Emanuel at various times declined to share the video, saying its release may hinder investigations into Van Dyke's actions.
A development in April heightened the importance of the video. That's when the city offered $5 million to McDonald's family -- before relatives had even filed a lawsuit. The city lawyer cited the video as an "important part of the evidence" that led to the preemptive offer.
Smith took a larger role in the story in May, when he filed a freedom of information request for the video.
Chicago police asked for time extensions and blew deadlines, Smith said. They finally rejected Smith's request in August, as they did with similar requests filed by 15 others.
"But I'm not taking no for an answer," Smith wrote in the Chicago Reader.
So Smith teamed up with Futterman, and they filed a lawsuit to get the contents of the dashcam video. In his article in the Chicago Reader, Smith credited Kalven's work on a previous case of police misconduct with making him believe he'd prevail in getting the video.
The tide turned against the police earlier this month. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked police last week to produce the video. She said it was "unsubstantiated" that making the contents public would impede the investigation or a fair trial.
The decisive blow came on Nov. 19, when a Cook County judge issued the order for the video's release.
The city complied Tuesday, hours after it announced murder charges against Van Dyke.
On Twitter, Smith basked in the victory.
Still, Smith's battle with Chicago authorities wasn't over. He was blocked from attending the mayor's Tuesday press conference about the case because he lacked official media credentials.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
SIGNS OF THE END PART 125 - LATEST EVENTS NOVEMBER 2015
Make sure to watch in HD
Music by Mr.Assault89 "Revolution" and "Arcade Alternative"
https://iconaudio.bandcamp.com/album/...
https://iconaudio.bandcamp.com/track/...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2IJ...
subscribe also to my back up channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-EC...
Join me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watchingthesky2
Please subscribe, share and like!
Stay tuned for more upcoming devastating events here on my channel.
About the video / Community guidelines:
These footages are NOT intended to be violent or glorify violence in any way. We are sharing this footage STRICTLY for the purposes of news reporting and educating. ANGEL OF APOCALYPSE is a channel where we strive to show people the videos that has been left out of the main-stream media.
End time events
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Not withstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phono-records or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
"End time events" "signs of the end" "jesus return" prophecy prediction bible "biblical events" "natural disaster" "extreme weather" hurricane flood storm blizzard hail earthquake volcano tornado typhoon obama nwo illuminati antichrist tribulation revelation rapture "the end" "biblical storm" exodus, Jason A , Fidockave213 planet x nibiru paul begley, anita fuentes, seventhvial213
Chicago Just Fired An Investigator Trying To Hold Cops Accountable For Unjustified Shootings
"They're just an arm against the city to hurt people bringing complaints."
Protesters and Chicago Police confront each other near the NATO conference venue on the first day of the NATO summit on May 20, 2012 in Chicago.
The independent agency tasked with policing Chicago cops hasn’t released findings on several unjustified police shootings, and its leaders are more concerned with protecting officers than investigating citizen complaints, a fired employee said.
Lorenzo Davis, an Independent Police Review Authority supervisor who was fired this month, said Chief Administrator Scott Ando asked him to change his findings in three police shootings in which he had determined officers committed wrongdoing.
The authority was formed in 2007 amid mounting frustration with the city’s handling of police misconduct cases. The agency, independent from the police department and staffed by civilians, handles all allegations of misconduct against officers.
Davis said the authority is failing its mission to maintain “the highest level of integrity while conducting objective, thorough investigations, striving to reach a sound and just conclusion.”
“The Independent Police Review Authority is being used to deflect protest and criticism from the police department,” Davis told The Huffington Post. “What they’re concerned about is the careers of the police officers.”
Ando and the authority denied Davis’ claims.
“No one at IPRA has ever been asked to change their findings,” Ando said in a statement to WBEZ, which first reported on Davis’ termination.
Shortly before he was fired, a performance evaluation said Davis “resists making requested changes as directed by management in order to reflect the correct finding with respect to [officer-involved shootings]," the Chicago radio station reported.
Photo of Lorenzo Davis, former Chicago's Independent Police Review Authority supervisor.
Of several hundred police shooting cases the IRPA has reviewed since its creation, only a few were found unjustified, the Chicago Reader reports. The agency recommended firing a cop involved in a shooting for the first time ever last month, according to the news site. In that case, Officer Francisco Perez, working security while off duty, witnessed a drive-by shooting and then fired at the wrong car 16 times.
Davis said that during his seven years at the agency, he and his team submitted findings on 13 police shootings, and found six of those unjustified.
According to Davis, three of those cases have not been completed by Ando and one has been assigned to a new supervisor and investigator. In the remaining two cases, Davis said Ando disagreed with the findings.
Davis alleged he was told to change findings to exonerate officers in at least three investigations, which he said he resisted. He said he could not discuss specifics of each case, as they are considered confidential.
Davis started at IPRA in 2008. He supervised a team of five investigators when he was fired. Previously, he was a Chicago police officer for two decades.
Davis said he has no bias against cops, as his recent performance review alleged. He said part of IPRA's problem is that it’s run by people who worked in law enforcement for most of their careers, instead of civilians without strong ties to police.
“The problem is the people at the top. The problem is the administration,” Davis said. “Why are they justifying all these hundreds of police shootings and finding none of them to be not justified? Either that’s what they’ve been told to do, or that’s their mentality.”
In a statement emailed to The Huffington Post, Ando said supervisors had determined that some of Davis' investigations were incomplete. As a matter of policy, they requested he review the cases and "include all available evidence" in his findings.
Ando said that Davis didn't include all available evidence in a number of cases, some of which "were built on assumptions."
“In some cases Mr. Davis rejected the recommendations of his subordinates and told them to change their recommendations," he added.
Davis insisted he had completed the investigative work in the cases Ando said were "incomplete."
Officer-involved shootings can take a long time to investigate -- sometimes more than three years -- because of their complexities. But Davis said some cases were intentionally delayed.
“Many [police shooting investigations] are held up by the administration,” he said. “Particularly [with] cases that should be ‘not justified’ or sustained, they just don’t want to deal with them, so they hold onto them for months trying to decide what to do.”
Police arrest a demonstrator during a protest held to draw attention to the shooting of unarmed men by police on April 14, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois.
Civil rights attorney Jeffrey Granich represents two people who allege police used excessive force arresting them. Within 48 hours of the arrest, Granich said, IPRA had taken statements from both his clients. As of this month -- almost two years since the arrests -- authority investigators had not interviewed the accused officers, Granich said.
“This is the problem with IPRA," Granich said. "They take audiotaped statements of complainants and witnesses basically to be used against them later at trial ... and they don’t interview the cops. They're just an arm against the city to hurt people bringing complaints."
IPRA has been criticized before for delays. The Chicago Tribune reported that IPRA took more than five years to file excessive force charges and recommend the firing of an officer who allegedly cracked a man in the head with his baton in 2012. The case was dismissed in 2012 because the statute of limitations had expired.
Ando noted that IPRA has sustained 20 percent of the complaints against police this year, a record, compared with 13 percent in 2014. IPRA’s investigative process had led to prosecutorial action against several officers, he said, including Dante Servin, who in April was found not guilty in the fatal shooting of Rekia Boyd, and Glenn Evans, who faces trial next month oncharges he put his gun in a suspect’s mouth.
Martinez Sutton (2nd L) speaks about the shooting death of his sister Rekia Boyd by Chicago police detective Dante Servin as his mother Angela Helton (3rd L) covers up her face during a rally to mark the finishing of March2Justice April 21, 2015 at the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.
IPRA’s spokesman didn't immediately respond to questions about its handling of Davis’ investigations.
Granich said IPRA sustained a complaint against an officer his clients accused of misconduct, which may help in their defense. But his opinion of the authority remains overwhelmingly negative.
“It’s like a clock that’s broken. Two times a day it’ll be right,” Granich said. “IPRA is part of the systemic culture in Chicago of not investigating the police and making sure that the police are not held accountable.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)