Cover Up Caught On Camera: 6 Police Officers Taser And Beat Homeless Man To Death
Corporate news coverage of the event downplays the prospect of police brutality or foul play in the incident.
A shocking video has been released allegedly showing police officers tasering and beating a homeless man to death who they claim was resisting arrest.
Video footage of 6 Fullerton, CA police officers tasering and beating a homeless man to death exposes a cover up that local officials refuse to answer questions about.
Though the video is not clear, eye witnesses say the homeless man - Kelly Thomas, 37 - was unable to put up any resistance and was lying on the ground on his front when the attack took place on July 5.
His screams and cries for his father can be heard amid the tasering noises.
ABC video report on the eyewitness statements and recently a released video of the beating captured by a bystander, both attached to this page below, contradict the official story of the incident given by the police.
The LA Times report on the incident, however, echoes the official police story failing to report within the article itself the claims from eyewitnesses.
As shown in the ABC video below, witnesses report that the man was not resisting arrest. They tell ABC he was actually knocked unconscious while the police continued to beat him and scream at him to stop resisting.
But in over three weeks since the incident little has been done as the apparent police cover up has continued.
Local residents report that public officials have stonewalled the public and media who are trying to get an official statement on the story.
The district attorney has so far remained silent on the issue. Bystanders who witnessed the deadly beating claim they have not been contacted by the city for their testimony about the incident.
One citizen reports he was finally able to corner the Mayor into making a statement to the public. In this this YouTube video of the Mayor stated, "You don't start talkin' about things if your trying to get the answer."http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w84LUUYWrsI
Showing posts with label homeless. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeless. Show all posts
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Homeless man beat to death by police
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Homeless man harassed by police
At about 8:30 am, on July 23,2011, a Portland police officer was hassling a homeless hippie in front of the Greyhound station. I do not know what they were saying, but it appears that it is true that the cops in Portland do not care about the poor or homeless at all.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Homeless
Listen, you rich, stuck-up Ajax-Wipes! The homeless have rights too, you buttlick-hipnicks. I would just like to chew you out for treating them like crap. Dismissed!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Homeless Protest
Homeless Camp out at Rose Parade for right 2 survive
author: joyofresistancee-mail: joyofresistance@gmail.com
Right 2 Survive put out a call to pitch a tent in downtown Portland to support the rights of the homeless to survive. This peaceful direct action raised awareness that there are not enough shelters or resources for the homeless. On any given day, there are 1,500 people sleeping in the streets, with nowhere to go, but city laws forbid them to set up tents. For 1 day only before the Rose Parade, the city allows everyone to camp out. For homeless activists, it's unfair that people are allowed to camp out for fun, but not for survival. For most people, being homeless is one of their biggest fears. Yet millions of Americans have experienced homelessness. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty reported in 2007 that about 3.5 million people have experienced being homeless, 1.5 million of them children.
Homelessness is on the rise, as thousands of Americans have lost their housing and jobs in recent years. Often, the authorities respond, not with more support, but with criminalizing and increasing assaults on the homeless people, and cuts on social programs that provide them with support. In Portland, there are about 1,500 people sleeping in the streets on a given day. There are just not enough shelters and support for them.
To call attention to their plight, Right2Survive, a group of 9 people who are homeless, formerly homeless and allies, put out a call to folks to pitch a tent in downtown Portland on June 10th. Soon after 10 AM, about 50 homeless and supporters, set up camp on SW 4th Avenue and Washington. In no time, tents were erected on several city blocks. A huge sign stated the purpose of this action: Legal Camping Now; Land, Not Jail. A table with coffee, water, soft drinks and food was set up, and all day long, many homeless and non-homeless people stopped by and were fed. We were treated to fresh fruit, sandwiches, burritoes, cookies, donuts, chocolate cake and hot soup, thanks to all who cooked and/or donated food! Many curious people talked to us, and were given leaflets explaining the purpose of Right 2 Survive. A couple of police came and tried to evict us, but we stood our ground. Shortly, the city attorney appeared, but she too left, since for once, the "law" was on our side.
Ibrahim Mubarak is a member of Right2Survive, and one of the founders of Dignity Village. He informed me that the goal of this peaceful direct action was to protest against the city's anti-camping law, which makes camping illegal for homeless folks. Yet the city allows camping for all people for 1 day before the Rose Parade. "The city allows people to camp out for fun, but not for survival," he said. He added that the homeless are vulnerable to assault, especially women. One of the homeless' biggest complaints and fear is assault from the police. Many have told me that the cops often harass them at night, waking them up, searching their tents, and throwing away their only belongings, their sleeping bags, tents, papers, and things they value. Ibrahim said that people want to camp together, not only for comraderie, but for protection against violence and rape.
Leo Rhodes, a Street Roots poet and board member, said one of the biggest obstacles the homeless confront is the negative stereotypes that the media perpetrate. "Many of us have jobs, and are not drug addicts or have mental problems," he said. "Every March 31st, many shelters are closed because they think that the homeless won't die in the summer. We've tried to meet with city officials, but their solution is "Out of sight, out of mind." They want to sweep the homeless off the streets, because we're an "eyesore," but there's nowhere for us to go. We're here today to let everyone know that we're human beings too, and we need shelter."
The media showed up, including FOX. They interviewed Ibrahim, Leo and many others.
The next day, hundreds of people, who showed up for the Rose Parade, became informed of the Right 2 Survive camping. They saw the signs, including "100,000 Homeless Vets on the streets every night" when Ibrahim and others walked up several city blocks carrying the signs. When the Oregon National Guard float passed by, Ibrahim walked next to them, carrying a sign: "Support the troops? Give them homes," and "Beds, not bombs. 100,000 homeless vets."
Several homeless activists came down from Seattle to support this action. They talked about the growing tent cities in Seattle, Nickelsville (named after the scumbag mayor), Tent City 2 and 3. It's good to see such solidarity among the homeless and their allies. This was a very successful direct action, and more actions are planned in the future, because homelessness is not an "eyesore" that can be swept out of sight. It's a growing problem that more and more people will experience as the economy, our civil rights and our country are being destroyed by rapacious corporate power and a government that serves its interests, instead of the people's.
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Thursday, October 14, 2010
occupy,resist,produce - homeless protest SF
Occupy, Resist, Produce
| Homeless protest, then occupy empty Lesile Residential Hotel in San Francisco Tenderloin. The police say this is nothing more than a routine event that "happens all the time", but if that's true then why does it never make the local papers? |
By Jim Kirwan
10-12-10
Protesters take over empty Tenderloin building, in San Francisco.
By Mike Aldax
October 11, 2010
"Protesters squatting in a vacant Tenderloin residential hotel may have set up blockades to thwart invading cops, police said.
More than a dozen police officers stormed the building at 587 Eddy St. Monday in an attempt to flush out an unknown number of homeless advocates who broke into the building Sunday and have refused to leave.
But as of noon, cops said they struggled to make contact with the protesters. Officers dealt with a number of obstacles and blockades that may have been intentionally placed inside the building, police spokesman Sgt. Mike Andraychak said.
The activists occupied the building, formerly the Leslie Hotel, as part of the firstWorld Homeless Day. A rally for World Homeless Day was held in Civic CenterSunday.
Miguel Carrera, a spokesman for the activist group, Creative Housing Liberation, said there were 18 people inside the building, and that they would remain there until police remove them.
Officers planned to go room-to-room in all six floors of the building. They hoped to boot out trespassers and also scan for any damage the activists may have caused, Andraychak said.
Police shut down streets surrounding the building due to the operation. Muni had to reroute the 31-Balboa bus line due to the street closure. (And the 19 Polk).
Cops have been on scene since Sunday around 5 p.m., after a citizen called 911 to report that around 50 people were blocking traffic in front of the vacant building.
The activists say it is a crime that there are more vacant housing units in San Francisco than homeless people. They claimed in a press release that there were between 6,000 and 15,000 homeless people in The City last year, and that more than 36,000 units are currently vacant.
The activists colored the run-down building with several protest signs, one reading "Empty homes are for people too" and "Affordable housing RIP." Officers camped out in front of the building overnight." (1)
The police say this is nothing more than a routine event that "happens all the time", but if that's true then why does it never make the local papers? The homeless, the sick and the jobless are everywhere on the streets here; yet absolutely nothing is being done about it. Meanwhile a program to install two handicapped ramps on each corner of the neighborhoods (where there was already one ramp) is moving ahead at a cost that is surreal. Thousands have nothing to eat, no medical care and nowhere to sleep, so where does the City of San Francisco choose to spend millions of what little money they do have: Not on creating more jobs or on providing more food! No they chose instead to build more convenient ramps for the handicapped: Because there's money to be made in the kick-backs for the concrete that's required. So the Depression continues unabated; and the rich get richer while the poor and the disenfranchised are left to starve.
It's the same story nationally with the FORECLOSURE-CRISIS that is not being treated like the death blow to millions which it is. When the Savings & Loan Scandal happened that too was ignored until it became apparent that the only way to end it was to federally control and to eliminate the S&L's if there was to be a future for that aspect of banking. The massive criminal-fraud inside the Home Loan Foreclosure scandals makes the S&L debacle look like child's play: Yet Obama and his Czar's who are ultimately in charge of this nightmare are refusing to sanction a nationwide-moratorium on FORECLOSURES, until "the facts" can be clearly understood and corrected.
Incidentally where is Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, on this flashpoint where criminal-behavior has apparently replaced the legal procedures that were supposed to protect us all against what has become common practice in the banking world. Obama and his cabinet appointees are standing against the moratorium while my representative Nancy Pelosi, remains mute!
The banks are making millions, if not billions more on the foreclosure process through the fraudulent sales of these illegally-foreclosed properties, from checks written by the feds to the banks that do not reflect the devalued prices that the properties-in-foreclosure have become. It's a huge scam. Watch this four minute video which explains it all. (2)
What is needed is a nationwide moratorium in all fifty states because the current moratorium in just 23 states allows the banks to file in any of the other 27 states; to do what they cannot do in the 23 affected states. Bank of America has announced that they are declaring a moratorium on all of their foreclosures in all 50 states: So far they are the only bank complying with what must happen if we are to ever untangle this Gordian knot.
Another cruel irony is that Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac, two federal institutions that are supposedly there to help people in trouble ¬ are still actively foreclosing on these same contested properties without clear lines of ownership that are required before foreclosure can even be entered into. This is where the problem becomes nightmarish.
The mortgages themselves were subdivided and re-sold; becoming in that process a small part in many different "real-estate-packages" that were then used as collateral for even more loans. So when the banks began to try to foreclose upon an individual mortgage, they could not clearly establish who actually owns the mortgage on any particular piece of property; because of all the subdividing of the property as collateral for other scams. The legal problem comes when a lender tries to foreclose on a property which they cannot prove they own outright. That transaction, when it is carried out is criminal-fraud and it has happened to millions of Americans. A moratorium on foreclosures would allow the necessary time for the banks to correct this practice and clear the records; and to compensate those that have lost everything in this massively fraudulent scam. This cannot go unanswered because it is the very basis for the housing bubble and for the crash that followed its collapse. So where the hell is Pelosi on any of this stuff?
The criminal institutions have already bailed themselves out, time after time, using our money to enrich their own bottom lines. Now its time for us to hold these so-called pillars of the corporate world to account-all the way down to stripping them of all their assets and sending to them to federal prison.
The conversations that are taking place today, around these topics, make it sound like these criminals are guilty of only having "misspoken during some cocktail conversation" ¬ when the truth is everything they've been doing since derivatives and hedge funds first made their appearance on Wall Street has been illegal. Now instead of facing the facts they want this entire shell-game to go on uninterrupted.
These outrageously criminal-insiders need to pay in direct proportion to the damage they have done to so many millions of people: And the politicians that gave them the cover they needed to do this must pay the same way ordinary people would have to pay for any of the thousands of infractions that we are subject-to everyday and in every way. Either there are laws for all of us to follow or there is no law for anyone ¬ only payoffs, kick-backs and illegal schemes that always seem to go unnoticed!
kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net 1) Protestors takeover empty Tenderloin Building
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Protesters-take-over- empty-Tenderloin-building-104707089.html
2) Indymac boys get sweetheart deal
http://www.youtube.com/user/fiercefreeleancer From:
http://www.rense.com/general92/pelo.htm
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