I wanted to share all of what the US under neo-cons and neo-liberals has operating overseas in International Economic Zones. There is no global corporation more sinister and sadistic than Blackwater and that ethos is now coming into the US under the guise of smaller military/security contractors leading this Homeland Security militarization of community police.
THESE ARE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD EXECUTIVE LEADERS----THE GUNS AND AMMO PARTNERSHIP WITH THE OTHER REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD EXECUTIVE LEADERS---WALL STREET.
Johns Hopkins is the Bush/Cheney neo-con focused on military/security/surveillance and Baltimore has been privatizing and installing all these policing/security structures since O'Malley was mayor. ALL BALTIMORE POLS KNOW THIS AND WORK TO INSTALL THIS.
Today I want to address the gun control legislation that Obama and Congressional neo-liberals teamed with state governors like O'Malley pushed all while posing progressive. Gun control has always been a progressive issue. We do not want guns in the hands of people who intend to harm other people. Gun laws can be tightened---licensing of guns, ending sales of automatic assault weapons etc. Republicans go wild over this because allowing one law to weaken your favorite Constitutional right is a slippery slope.....that is why women fight against all Anti-abortion laws. Do we really think Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are concerned for our safety with these laws? All of their economic policies since Clinton have created the massive unemployment and deepened poverty that pushes the black market and use of guns. All of their economic policies created massive and systemic fraud and government corruption that has rural Republicans loading up on AK-47s because they do not trust government.
IF YOU ARE CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR THIS BUILDUP IN GUN OWNERSHIP----IF YOU ARE BRINGING MILITARIZED EQUIPMENT AND POLICING THAT MAKES GUNS AND AMMO MAINSTREAM----ARE YOU REALLY TRYING TO TAKE GUNS AWAY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY?
“What we do have is guns. Especially handguns. And we have more homicides,” Miller said. “Our firearm homicide rate is an order of magnitude higher than in these other countries. Our rates of homicides with non-gun mechanisms—knives, bats, whatever—is pretty much right where they are in other high income countries.”
And guns make all the difference, Miller said. “We’re not more violent, but when we are violent, we kill.”
I attended these gun control forums at Hopkins that were on C-SPAN----live viewing all over the world and asked just that ----and the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health person leading this forum was stunned and refused to address the thugs at the top of the income ladder while describing all those people with guns at the bottom of the income ladder.
WE DON'T WANT EXCUSES!!!!! WE WANT THOSE GUNS.
Jan. 15 2013 2:40 PM
Gun Violence Summit: What Do the Experts Say?
Despite the NRA’s best efforts, researchers have some decent data on gun deaths.
By Joel Shurkin
A trash bin of handguns collected during the LAPD Gun Buyback Program in December 2012.Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
Read more in Slate about gun control.
The headquarters of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade association, is 3.2 miles, a seven-minute drive, from Sandy Hook Elementary School.
After last month’s massacre, all the pictures of NSSF executives had been taken down from the organization’s website, said Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the UC-Davis Medical Center.
“I suspect they were taken down because they were involved. This was their neighborhood elementary school. Their kids went there.” Their kids may even have been in the building during the rampage, he said. “Everyone in the industry knows the people at NSSF. Every executive in that industry was not that many degrees of separation from Sandy Hook.”
Maybe this would be a good time to ask them to help, Wintemute suggested to an auditorium full of gun violence researchers. They met this week at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, at the Summit on Reducing Gun Violence in America, to discuss what we actually know and don’t know about gun violence and to propose some solutions to one of America’s greatest public health threats.
The eponymous Bloomberg was there—Michael, the onetime-Republican mayor of New York City, a graduate of Johns Hopkins and the university’s biggest donor since, well, Johns Hopkins. So was Martin O’Malley, the Democratic governor of Maryland. Both men have been on the front line of the gun control debate; both men this week proposed sweeping laws that would put what they say are rational limits on gun ownership.
The setting, Baltimore, the locale for The Wire, was fitting. The emergency room around the corner specializes in gunshot wounds, and the neighborhood around the medical center may be more dangerous than Baghdad on Saturday nights.
Several people in the audience, including uniformed police and others not in uniform, were packing heat. Security was tight.
No speaker at the conference suggested confiscating guns, except guns owned by people who are ineligible to own guns by law: criminals, the insane, people involved in nasty domestic violence disputes. Even limiting ammunition didn’t get much time. Most of the discussions were about interrupting the flow of weapons to people who might use them to do evil, who was to blame for getting them the guns, and who, after all, should be allowed to own guns.
Thanks to legislation pushed in Washington and the state capitals by the National Rifle Association over the years, there aren’t very many gun violence experts. And the data scientists have gathered through the years are not a great help. Most of the results are ambiguous, and the studies are retrospective—going back after the fact to look at possible predictors of gun violence and the best ways to prevent it—which is not the preferred way to prove anything in science.
One of the reasons results are limited is the ban by the government’s two largest research institutions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, on funding research that could “advocate or promote gun control.”
Thanks to Congress, the CDC spends $100,000 on gun research out of a budget of $6 billion, Bloomberg said. The NIH spends less than $1 million out of a budget of $31 billion. It spends more researching headaches.
Nonetheless, university researchers, mostly privately funded, have gathered some data to work with.
In 1994, Congress voted to ban assault weapons and, more important, magazines that held more than 10 bullets. The idea, said Christopher Koper of George Mason University, was less to reduce the number of shootings than to reduce the number of people shot. It is the magazines that make these guns so deadly.
(Continued from Page 1)
Neither bans worked very well because of the loopholes Congress put into the law, including grandfather clauses for magazines already ordered. The magazines continued to flow in from overseas by the millions. Additionally, those guns considered assault weapons were used in only about 2 percent of crimes, Koper said. The threat from them compared to other guns appears to be exaggerated.
There are signs in the statistics that had the law been in effect longer, it might have made a difference, but Congress let the ban expire in 2004.
Philip Cook of Duke University said the Brady Act, passed in 1994 after President Reagan was shot, probably hasn’t worked very well either. The law, which prohibits gun sales to certain people, is hamstrung by an inefficient and ineffective reporting system and an incomplete database—much of which is by design of either Congress or state Legislatures.
Agencies are not sharing information. States, in part due to privacy laws, are not reporting mental health records. There are both technical and financial problems with fully implementing current restrictions.
The mentally ill, people with criminal records, and criminals with mental problems are still buying guns, said Linda Frisman of the University of Connecticut. In most places, no one comes to take away guns from people who are prohibited from having them.
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Contrary to popular opinion, gun shows sell only a small percentage of the guns that wind up used in crimes. Most guns used in crimes (80 percent) are bought on the private market, and many are sold by federally licensed dealers. Surveys of dealers have found that a disturbing number (20 percent) admit they’d sell guns to people prohibited from buying a weapon, and Congress has blocked efforts to stamp out the illegal sales.
“We have a lot of laws that protect licensed gun dealers from inspections, license revocations, prosecution, lawsuits and even general embarrassment by hiding the data connected to different gun dealers,” said Daniel Webster of Hopkins. “Some gun dealers sell far, far more guns that wind up in the hands of criminals than other licensed dealers.”
One percent of gun dealers are responsible for half the guns used in crimes, said Jon Vernick, also of Hopkins. Yet Congress has limited inspections by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to one a year, and ATF is so underfunded that many dealers won’t see an inspection in 17 years.
Maybe people who own guns should be licensed, Vernick said. Every state has a requirement that cosmetologists are licensed, he pointed out, but only 17 states require gun licenses.
“An array of complementary actions have been proposed that make it fairly difficult even for a malevolent industry—which I do not think we have; we have essentially an amoral enterprise maximizing profits and minimizing liability—to make it difficult to thrive in legal commerce,” Wintemute said. There are options.
All is not gloom, however.
America is not a particularly violent country, according to Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health. The rate of violent crimes falls right in the middle of the rates in other high-income nations. American kids are not more likely to get into fights at school, and Americans are not more likely to be mentally ill than people in comparable countries.
“What we do have is guns. Especially handguns. And we have more homicides,” Miller said. “Our firearm homicide rate is an order of magnitude higher than in these other countries. Our rates of homicides with non-gun mechanisms—knives, bats, whatever—is pretty much right where they are in other high income countries.”
And guns make all the difference, Miller said. “We’re not more violent, but when we are violent, we kill.”
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When you are militarizing US society with the plans of taking it to a third world autocratic global corporate tribunal rule----YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PEOPLE. YOU HARM MORE PEOPLE IN ONE HOUR THEN ARE HARMED BY GUNS.
So, REAL progressive are in a dilemma---we want citizens living in underserved communities safe from gun violence----we want rural Republicans filling homes with AK 47s under the guise of keeping family safe to stop using that method. You do that by removing the cause of gun proliferation and violence----
YOU GET RID OF POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT AND REBUILD OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO KEEP CORPORATE FRAUD AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION AWAY.
Have you noticed Obama/Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are doing neither---they have all this soaring. That is how you know their approach to gun control is not about public safety----its about getting weapons out of the hands of what will be angry American citizens. THAT'S IT! THAT IS WHY OBAMA, O'MALLEY, AND JOHNS HOPKINS PUSHED GUN CONTROL RIGHT NOW.
Militarizing police creates the expanded need by citizens to have guns for goodness sake.
This happens in every nation where Clinton neo-liberalism and US global corporations went in to take control of a nation's government. This is where all the societal violence starts and that instability is EYE CANDY for Wall Street in moving in its economic policies of neo-liberalism.
REMEMBER, CLINTON/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS WITH NEO-CONS ARE NOT JUST BRINGING BACK GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND THEIR MANUFACTURING---THEY SEEK TO HAVE THEM IN THE US OPERATING AS THEY DID IN DEVELOPING NATIONS---ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION AND ENSLAVED LABOR AND AUTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.
A REAL progressive social Democrat would address the social issues and the fraud and corruption FIRST ====getting rid of feeling the need for a gun=== and then look at individual changes to gun laws. The way global corporate pols are doing it will create the same WAR ON DRUG repression and criminalization of Americans for something that is A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT.
Some Thoughts on the “Under the Gun” Series
Cross-cultural comparisons are fraught with pitfalls for the best of researchers, not to mention journalists. Last week Robert Wildeboer did a series of reports titled "Under the gun: Murder in Chicago and Toronto" on WBEZ attempting to seek out answers about why two cities that seem so similar, Toronto and Chicago, have such different realities when it comes to gun violence. Rob did a commendable job attempting to make the comparison; the problem is that so much of what is at the root of the problem is embedded in each nation’s culture. Unfortunately, this is not an issue that many journalists are well equipped to tackle, and despite Wildeboer’s best effort, he also fell short of the mark.
It is impossible to attempt to explain the levels of gun violence in Chicago without tackling the issues of race and class, because Chicago is a highly segregated city both in terms of class and race lines. This is not something that has occurred overnight or even over the past few years, but has been orchestrated by urban planners and politicians over the course of decades. To try to comprehend why gun violence is so high now we must understand what political and public policy decisions have been made in the past that created these circumstances.
We place exclusive blame on the Englewood man who pulls the trigger in anger, yet fail to address the factors that helped derail his life even before he was born, namely the abandonment of the his community in favor of the wealthy white ones. Without this context, trying to understand why someone would be in the position to pull that trigger is mostly fruitless. Now, trying to understand the circumstances and context that would lead two totally different people from two different cultures to attempt murder is a nearly impossible feat, especially for journalists who unfortunately do not have the time or an academic team to research. This is not to say that every murder or shooting in underserved communities in Chicago is directly related to the last 30 years, but it is to say that just about all are.
Below I provide two examples of violence driven by the decisions and actions of institutions. To understand the role of institutions journalists must look below the surface facts and delve into the history of a community and city.
TIFs as gun violence generators A quick review of how Tax Increment Financing dollars have and have not been spent over the last 25 years is evidence enough about how the city prioritizes whose interests to represent.
“Developers received $505 million in subsidies, just over 30 percent of the total TIF money spent by Mr. Daley. Those payments included $5.4 million to United Airlines to move its headquarters to Willis Tower, $13.7 million for the insurance giant CNA to renovate its South Loop headquarters and $8.5 million to help renovate the Carbide and Carbon building to house the Hard Rock Hotel on Michigan Avenue.
The city also spent more than $200 million buying properties, razing vacant buildings and cleaning up toxic land, mostly for the benefit of private developments.
Another $90 million, or 5 percent of total spending, was used for program administration, consulting and legal services, and for job training for businesses in select districts. “ New York Times via Chicago News Cooperative ("TIF Aided Public and Private Projects Almost Evenly, Analysis Shows", Aug. 6, 2011)
It does not take a statistical wizard to figure out that the City spent about $90 million on a variety of programs that included some money spent on job training. At the same time, the City spent $505 million on subsidies for developers. When you talk about subsidies for developers, you are usually talking about using public dollars to subsidize gentrification. When a community gentrifies, its poor residents are now forced to scatter across the city to even lower income areas. What tends to be spurred by this movement? Gun violence. Why? Because this movement across the city spurs gang conflicts as gangs try to fight over turf that continues to shrink. Also, don’t forget that we have the families from the gentrified communities now seeking to move to a community that may or may not be of the same gang affiliation as their child. This also spurs gun violence.
This is also evidence about how the latest Mayor Daley valued professional jobs over industrial or manufacturing. It is obvious that moving Boeing’s offices to the loop actually creates few jobs when compared to, say, moving Toyota’s factory to the city using the same public funds. The city spent dollars on blue-collar job training, but spent more to bring in white-collar jobs. Now, there might indeed be a small number of retail or fast food jobs created by moving a large number of white-collar jobs to the city, but those numbers pale in comparison to the number of jobs created by luring a factory rather than a corporate office.
Charter Schools as Gun Violence Generators
I have written before on this blog about the experiences of the youth at Collins High School and Little Village High School. In this example, the city under Daley closed Collins (which was in North Lawndale - 95 % Black and strongly affiliated with the Vice Lords gang) and shipped those kids to Little Village High School (99% Latino and affiliated with a variety of Latino based gangs). What was the outcome? Gun violence! Wow, wasn’t that predictable? Why did they close Collins High School and ship the kids into circumstances they knew or should have known would result in serious violence? Money, of course! Collins was turned into three charter schools because the powers that be targeted North Lawndale for gentrification. The Mayor’s buddies bought property around and near the park and some brand spanking new (and expensive) town houses were built. Too bad for all those investors, because the Olympics bypassed Chicago – the park Collins is situated in was going to host one of the events– and all the Mayor’s buddies lost their shirts. Unfortunately, the late Michael Scott lost much more than his shirt.
Conclusion
For more on the topic of the Collins / Little Village High School problems click here.Neither example is easy to fit into a two nor three minute radio news story, or even a news article in what remains of our dailies. If journalists don’t find a way to include the effects of racism and class divides into their reporting, we are going to continue to ignore it and allow communities to be devastated by the violence. There is no cure in which the police department can be the sole player; everyone knows the steps that need to be taken, but there is no political will to take action. Instead, we offer corporate giants millions of public dollars to move their operations into the loop so our politicians can claim they are creating jobs. Racism and classism run deep in the policies and practices of our entire city, and until they are challenged nothing will change. There can be no cure for the violence that plagues many parts of our city without seeking redress of the many crimes that have been thrust upon these communities by our political leaders over the last decades. No matter how many Chicago Police Officers we hire, violence in Chicago will not be greatly reduced until we have provided an alternative to gang membership for the youth of our city.
Gentrification is not a cure for poverty and violence; on the contrary it merely displaces these problems and makes them worse. The alternative must be to provide living wage jobs and a redistribution of the city’s resources to include every community. Easy, right?
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As usual------Baltimore did not wait for the gun control laws to be installed through Federal and state government processes-----it simply moved to install the gun policy Johns Hopkins wrote. You will not here in the news what this looks like but citizens in Baltimore are shouting----search and seizures in underserved communities are soaring and most are done illegally and bringing no results. People are having SWAT teams break down their doors because the police had a 'lead' on guns and what comes with that? PEOPLE ARE BEING KILLED BY POLICE LOOKING FOR GUNS. That is what Hopkins had in mind with these gun policies-----give police reasons to look for and seize guns.
THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT BY THE WAR ON DRUGS CRIMINALIZATION OF PEOPLE---THIS TIME IT IS FOR HAVING A GUN.
I spoke a few days ago of a young lady testifying at a justice rally against police brutality of watching police kill her boyfriend for no reason all on a tip about a gun. Baltimore is building the process that will make it impossible for anyone to legally own a gun and that is the goal of Hopkins' gun policy.
The Affordable Care Act created the conditions for mental health diagnosis to be subprimed------all you have to do is 'need help' according to an institution. That extends now to gun ownership as mental health issues under Hopkins precludes having the right to own a gun. Anything can assign this designation-----being caught in a fight outside a bar while drunk can get you assigned to a mental health category of not owning a gun.
Baltimore has had such criminalization over guns for decades when it uses zero tolerance and fines and fees attached to misdemeanors add up to making someone a felon. Baltimore simply arrests someone and then leaves that charge on someone's record even if there is no conviction ----just to make them a felon. Who cannot own guns? A FELON.
Below you see where International Economic Zone UnderArmour meets Baltimore City policing. Please take a second to Google this YOU TUBE video------------
Under Armour Baltimore SWAT shoot
OCPhotographyTV
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Uploaded on Dec 3, 2010Helicopters, Armored Cars, Snipers, Smoke Bombs, and lots of Weapons.
OC shoots the Baltimore SWAT Team, one of the nation's most elite SWAT programs for Under Armour's Tactical Division.
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As global pols allow militarization of police soar-----American citizens are being pushed to such levels of injustice that they are feeling they NEED to arm themselves to protect themselves from police. This is how global neo-liberalism creates the conditions for moving in more and more security---more and more surveillance----all under the guise of protecting the communities.
As the video above states----Baltimore is ground zero for global SWAT training and is now training around the nation. So, as Baltimore City Council/Maryland Assembly pols pose progressive in saying they are trying to hold police accountable-----they are the ones installing laws that allow more and more police power.
This is hitting black communities hardest but the expansion of power by the military in US communities is spilling over to all communities. We cannot control this until we get GOOD PEOPLE RUNNING IN ALL PRIMARIES AGAINST CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS AND CREATE A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC BALTIMORE CITY HALL THAT GETS WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND JOHNS HOPKINS OUT OF GOVERNMENT.
When Police Shoot And Kill Unarmed Men
—By Titania Kumeh
| Wed Jul. 14, 2010 1:38 PM EDT Mother Jones
ThomasHawk/FlickrLast week, Kevin Drum wrote about Johannes Mehserle, the white former transit cop who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, who was lying face down and handcuffed. Elizabeth Gettelman covered the post-verdict headlines which focused on looting committed by 49 out-of-town recreational anarchists and detracted from the cause of initially peaceful protests. Incidentally, Mehserle's five-years max sentence, with a chance of added time, is especially confusing considering that last year a California man convicted of growing marijuana was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in federal prison. But almost more puzzling is how often unarmed men are shot by police officers in this country and the reasons given and accepted for the violence. More on that after the jump.
After Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, a panel investigating excessive use of force by the LAPD found that officers operated under "an organizational culture that emphasizes crime control over crime prevention and that isolates the police from the communities and the people they serve." As a result, police violence and racism stems from this culture which teaches "to command and confront, not to communicate," the report said. These findings were echoed in the book Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force. In it, UC Berkeley law professor Jerome Skolnick and former New York City police officer/Temple University criminal justice professor James Fyfe say that police work is often viewed by those in the force as an us-versus-them war rather than a chance for community-oriented engagement and problem solving. The authors also point to a lack of accountability as one of the reasons why police violence persists. They acknowledge that, yes, police officers are placed in dangerous situations that at times require immediate responses. But they maintain that that doesn't excuse using more force than is needed to subdue someone, the lack of professional training that leads to such fear-based responses, or treating citizens as enemy combatants. As expected, the Mehserle-Grant case has some people questioning the tactics used by and training given to police officers. A Facebook group calling for the disarmament of BART cops has even emerged in the verdict's wake. Fueling these calls for police reform are several cases in recent years where unarmed civilians have died at the hands of those badged to protect and serve. Here's a rundown, along with a few memorable shootings from the past decade or so:
1999: "It looks like one guy may have panicked and the rest followed suit," a police official told The New York Times after the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Amadou Ahmed Diallo, a Guinnea-Bissau immigrant who was killed when four white New York police officers in plain clothes fired 41 shots at him, 19 of which hit his body. The officers said they thought Diallo was reaching for a gun when they shot him in the doorway of his apartment. Turns out it was his wallet. During the trial, the officers admitted that they never considered the situation (four strangers in an unmarked car with guns approaching a guy on his stoop at night) from Diallo's point of view. They were acquitted of all charges.
2003: While surrendering on his knees in front of four Las Vegas police officers, Orlando Barlow is shot with an assault rifle by officer Brian Hartman from 50 feet away. Hartman argued that he feared Barlow was feigning surrender and about to grab a gun. Barlow was unarmed; a jury ruled the fatal shooting was "excusable." Hartman later resigned from the force a month before a federal probe uncovered that he and other officers printed T-Shirts labeled "BDRT" which stood for "Baby's Daddy Removal Team" and "Big Dogs Run Together." The probe also found that Hartman and other officers had used excessive force during two separate investigations and lied about it. Their punishment: the possibility of losing their jobs, The Las Vegas Sun reports.
2006: Just hours before his wedding, 23-year-old Sean Bell leaves the strip club hosting his bachelor party, jumps into a car with two friends, and is killed when police fire 50 shots into his vehicle, wounding his friends. Police say they opened fire after Bell rammed his car into an unmarked police van filled with plainclothes officers. They say they followed Bell and his friends outside the club suspecting that one person in their group had a gun. Referring to Bell and his friends, Mayor Bloomberg told the Associated Press "there is no evidence that they did anything wrong." A judge acquitted the officers of all charges in 2008. A federal civil rights claim filed by Bell's widow is set for this month.
2009
January 1: On New Years morning, three Bay Area Rapid Transit officers pull 22-year-old Oscar Grant and four other black men off a train in Oakland. You can view what happened afterwards in this Youtube video. In it, now former-transit officer Mehserle can be seen shooting Grant in the back. During the trial, Mehserle argued that he thought Grant was reaching for a gun near his waistband. To stop this from happening, Mehserle said he intended to Tase him, but shot him with a pistol instead. A judge will deliver his sentence in August. And the US Department of Justice is investigating the case.
June 10: Niles Meservey, 51, tries to drive away from a Washington state restaurant, but he's drunk. Officers are called to the restaurant parking lot to intervene. They block Meservey's car with their vehicles, shoot him with a Taser, and his car lurches forward. At that point, Officer Troy Meade fires seven shots with his handgun into Meservey's back, killing him. Jurors find Meade not guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter, while also finding that he didn't act in self-defense. He will not spend time in jail.
2010
January 29: Portland police officers get a call to check on a suicidal and armed man at an apartment complex. Aaron Campbell, 25, comes out of the apartment walking backward toward police with his hands over his head. The Oregonian reports that police say Campbell ignored their orders to put his hands up. At which point one officer fired six bean bag shots at his back. Witnesses say they saw Campbell reach his arm around his back, where the beanbag struck him. Officer Ronald Frashour says he saw Campbell reach both hands around his waistband to get a gun, and so he shot Campbell in the back with an assault rifle. "We feel that his death resulted from flawed police policies, incomplete or inappropriate training, incomplete communication and other issues with the police effort,'' a jury wrote after charging the police officer with no criminal wrongdoing.
January 10: Porterville, Calif. police officers shoot and kill Victor Steen after stopping him for a traffic violation he committed while riding his bike. Officers say they struggled with Sheen, Tasing him, and chasing him to his mother's house where they broke down the door and the altercation continued, until they shot him. The officers were cleared of any wrongdoing.
March 20: After hearing a loud sound, Los Angeles police officers Allan Corrales and George Diego turn their marked car around and see Steven Eugene Washington, 27, walking down the street while looking around and touching something near his waist. The officers say something to Washington. He then approaches them while seemingly removing something from his waistband. Thinking Washington is armed, they fire. One bullet strikes Washington in the head, killing him. Soon afterward, his family announce that Washington was autistic, had learning disabilities, and was generally afraid of strangers. His mom filed a claim for damages with no word yet on whether a lawsuit will follow. The officers have not been charged with a crime.
June 5: Tyrone Brown, a 32-year-old former Marine from East Baltimore, is shot 12 times in a crowded bar after an off-duty Baltimore police officer fires 13 rounds at him for groping one of the officer's lady friend's. That officer, Gahiji Tshamba, was indicted for murder yesterday and faces a maximum life in prison charge if convicted. His attorney had argued that Tshamba "did what he had to do."
Know of other recent or seminal cases? Feel free to add them in the comments section below.
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The focus on mental illness with mass shootings has all research showing----this does not happen that much and in all cases people simply need more access to mental health services. Whereas Affordable Care Act funded more PHARMA for mental illness and treatment for alcohol and drugs-----people's impoverishment and access to less and less health care will not see any growth in real public mental health services.
I would suggest that the funding for drug and alcohol treatment combined with expanding forced commitment to anyone 'needing help' are policies made to look progressive but having only the goal of getting guns from Americans and ending their Constitutional rights to have a gun. You go in to these ACA drug and alcohol treatment programs and you are on the list of people with mental health issues and cannot own a gun. That is what these policies are meant to do.
Why would a REAL progressive mind if guns are taken from all Americans? The money going to what should be real mental health services is yet again being sent towards a goal not of addressing mental health----but moving forward policy of ending gun ownership at a time when the US is being taken more and more repressive and autocratic.
As someone who shouts all the time for Rule of Law and Equal Protection-----this includes the right of Americans to own guns. Whether you like it or not----that is what our Founding Fathers included as rights FOR WE THE PEOPLE.
Below you see where Obama uses yet again Executive Order to go around our elected Congress to install what was the goal of Clinton neo-liberals----using the assignment of mental illness to deny people access to their Constitutional right to own a gun. The new definitions expand depression----they include single drunken offenses---you could be at a Ravens' tailgate event and drink too much and end up with no rights to own a gun....that is how broad this is----and deliberately. Where it is really hitting is underserved communities once again being policed in ways that create that designation of mental illness.
Critics: Gun Control By Executive Order - The Kelly File
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Published on Feb 26, 2015Critics: Gun Control By Executive Order - The Kelly File
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W.H.: New gun rules for mentally ill
By Reid J. Epstein
01/03/14 01:35 PM EST Politico
Updated 01/03/14 03:06 PM EST
The Obama administration proposed two new federal rules Friday that it said would provide more information about the mentally ill to gun-background-check databases.
The rules, proposed by the Justice and Health and Human Services departments, would allow the federal database access to some mental health records by giving it an exemption from existing privacy law and “clarify” that people involuntarily committed to both inpatient and outpatient institutions could be prohibited from purchasing guns.
Story Continued Below
The proposed rules are the latest set of executive actions in the wake of the December 2012 school massacre at Newtown, Conn. Last January, President Barack Obama announced 23 executive actions and called for a host of legislation that included universal background checks for gun purchases and a new ban on assault weapon sales.
Federal agencies have provided 1.2 million records identifying people not allowed to buy guns because of mental illness because of Obama’s 2013 executive orders, the White House said Friday.
The White House said the proposed rules are meant to strengthen the background check system, yet background check requirements do not apply to the millions of gun transactions that take place outside of licensed dealers — at gun shows or online, for instance. The Senate last April rejected an expanded, but not universal, background checks bill. The House held no gun control votes.
The proposed rules will not go into effect until after a 60-day comment period that begins next Tuesday , followed by a period during which the agencies will review the comments and issue first an interim and then a final rule.
Before the Newtown massacre, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that the health care privacy law known as HIPAA does not prevent state court and justice systems from sharing mental health information with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. States could, Sebelius wrote in an Aug. 2012 letter to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), compel agencies that are covered by HIPAA to share information with the federal background check database.
The proposed new HHS rule would allow HIPAA-covered agencies “an express permission to submit to the background check system the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands,” the White House said.
The DOJ rule adding a gun purchase prohibition for those involuntary committed to mental health outpatient facilities would have prevented the shooter in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre from legally buying a weapon because he had been ordered by a judge to seek outpatient mental health treatment.
The proposals follow the executive actions Vice President Joe Biden announced in August that banned the re-importation of military weapons sold in other countries and forbade certain felons from evading background checks.
While Obama and Biden announced the first batch of executive actions together during a White House gun control event and Biden unveiled the August set during the swearing-in ceremony of B. Todd Jones, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Friday’s news came via an e-mailed statement from the White House.
Biden did offer his support for the rules via Twitter.
“Today, we are taking steps to further strengthen the federal background check system. It’s time Congress joins us in this effort,” Biden tweeted.
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'Sadly, it is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, such as the 16-year-old teenager who skipped school only to be shot by police after they mistook him for a fleeing burglar'.
REAL progressives are being forced to watch as policies they have fought for for a century are now being used time and again to install this repressive, autocratic government of Clinton neo-liberalism and Bush neo-conservatism. A global corporate tribunal rule will look like a Stalinist Russia or a Maoist China as these global pols are looking to re-industrialize America bringing third world values with them. There are no plans for progressive treatment of those mentally ill----WE KNOW THAT. Stop allowing neo-liberals to pose progressive while running as Democrats!
As this article states----it's time for another American Revolution----well, they know that---that is why they want to end the rights of Americans to own guns.
Life in the Emerging American Police State: What's in Store for Our Freedoms in 2014?
Posted: 01/06/2014 10:16 pm EST Updated: 03/08/2014 5:59 am EST Huffington Post
In Harold Ramis' classic 1993 comedy Groundhog Day, TV weatherman Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) is forced to live the same day over and over again until he not only gains some insight into his life but changes his priorities. Similarly, as I illustrate in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we in the emerging American police state find ourselves reliving the same set of circumstances over and over again -- egregious surveillance, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc. -- although with far fewer moments of comic hilarity.
What remains to be seen is whether 2014 will bring more of the same or whether "we the people" will wake up from our somnambulant states. Indeed, when it comes to civil liberties and freedom, 2013 was far from a banner year. The following is just a sampling of what we can look forward to repeating if we don't find some way to push back against the menace of an overreaching, aggressive, invasive, militarized government and restore our freedoms.
Government spying.
It's hard to understand how anyone could be surprised by the news that the National Security Agency has been systematically collecting information on all telephone calls placed in the United States, and yet the news media have treated it as a complete revelation. Nevertheless, such outlandish government spying been going on domestically since the 1970s, when Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the NSA's breaches, warned the public against allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security. Recent reports indicate that the NSA, in conjunction with the CIA and FBI, has actually gone so far as to intercept laptop computers ordered online in order to install spyware on them.
Militarized police.
With almost 13,000 agencies in all 50 states and four U.S. territories participating in a military "recycling" program, community police forces across the country continue to be transformed into outposts of the military, with police agencies acquiring military-grade hardware -- tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield -- in droves. Keep in mind that once acquired, this military equipment, which is beyond the budget and scope of most communities, finds itself put to all manner of uses by local law enforcement agencies under the rationale that "if we have it, we might as well use it."
Police shootings of unarmed citizens.
Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Sadly, it is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, such as the 16-year-old teenager who skipped school only to be shot by police after they mistook him for a fleeing burglar.
The erosion of private property.
If the government can tell you what you can and cannot do within the privacy of your home, whether it relates to what you eat or what you smoke, you no longer have any rights whatsoever within your home. If government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you're no longer the owner of your property. If school officials can punish your children for what they do or say while at home or in your care, your children are not your own--they are the property of the state. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure--it belongs to the government. Likewise, if police can forcefully draw your blood, strip search you, and probe you intimately, your body is no longer your own, either. This is what a world without the Fourth Amendment looks like.
Strip searches and the loss of bodily integrity.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect the citizenry from being subjected to "unreasonable searches and seizures" by government agents. While the literal purpose of the amendment is to protect our property and our bodies from unwarranted government intrusion, the moral intention behind it is to protect our human dignity. Unfortunately, court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, strip search us, and probe us intimately.
Invasion of the drones.
As corporations and government agencies alike prepare for their part in the coming drone invasion--it is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020, ushering in a $30 billion per year industry--it won't be long before Americans discover first-hand that drones--unmanned aerial vehicles--come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to middle-sized copter drones that can deliver pizzas to massive "hunter/killer" Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high.
Criminalizing childish behavior.
It wouldn't be a week in America without another slew of children being punished for childish behavior under the regime of zero tolerance which plagues our nation's schools. Some of the most egregious: the 9-year-old boy suspended for allegedly pointing a toy at a classmate and saying "bang, bang"; two 6-year-old students in Maryland suspended for using their fingers as imaginary guns in a schoolyard game of cops and robbers; the ten-year-old Pennsylvania boy suspended for shooting an imaginary "arrow" at a fellow classmate, using nothing more than his hands and his imagination.
Common Core.
When viewed in light of the government's ongoing attempts to amass power at great cost to Americans--in terms of free speech rights, privacy, due process, etc.--the debate over Common Core State Standards, which would transform and nationalize school curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade, becomes that much more critical. These standards, which were developed through a partnership between big government and corporations and are being rolled out in 45 states and the District of Columbia, will create a generation of test-takers capable of little else, molded and shaped by the federal government and its corporate allies into what it considers to be ideal citizens.
If you're in the business of making New Year's resolutions, why not resolve that 2014 will be the year we break the cycle of tyranny and get back on the road to freedom. As I've said before, it's time for a second American revolution.
THESE ARE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD EXECUTIVE LEADERS----THE GUNS AND AMMO PARTNERSHIP WITH THE OTHER REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD EXECUTIVE LEADERS---WALL STREET.
Johns Hopkins is the Bush/Cheney neo-con focused on military/security/surveillance and Baltimore has been privatizing and installing all these policing/security structures since O'Malley was mayor. ALL BALTIMORE POLS KNOW THIS AND WORK TO INSTALL THIS.
Today I want to address the gun control legislation that Obama and Congressional neo-liberals teamed with state governors like O'Malley pushed all while posing progressive. Gun control has always been a progressive issue. We do not want guns in the hands of people who intend to harm other people. Gun laws can be tightened---licensing of guns, ending sales of automatic assault weapons etc. Republicans go wild over this because allowing one law to weaken your favorite Constitutional right is a slippery slope.....that is why women fight against all Anti-abortion laws. Do we really think Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are concerned for our safety with these laws? All of their economic policies since Clinton have created the massive unemployment and deepened poverty that pushes the black market and use of guns. All of their economic policies created massive and systemic fraud and government corruption that has rural Republicans loading up on AK-47s because they do not trust government.
IF YOU ARE CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR THIS BUILDUP IN GUN OWNERSHIP----IF YOU ARE BRINGING MILITARIZED EQUIPMENT AND POLICING THAT MAKES GUNS AND AMMO MAINSTREAM----ARE YOU REALLY TRYING TO TAKE GUNS AWAY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY?
“What we do have is guns. Especially handguns. And we have more homicides,” Miller said. “Our firearm homicide rate is an order of magnitude higher than in these other countries. Our rates of homicides with non-gun mechanisms—knives, bats, whatever—is pretty much right where they are in other high income countries.”
And guns make all the difference, Miller said. “We’re not more violent, but when we are violent, we kill.”
I attended these gun control forums at Hopkins that were on C-SPAN----live viewing all over the world and asked just that ----and the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health person leading this forum was stunned and refused to address the thugs at the top of the income ladder while describing all those people with guns at the bottom of the income ladder.
WE DON'T WANT EXCUSES!!!!! WE WANT THOSE GUNS.
Jan. 15 2013 2:40 PM
Gun Violence Summit: What Do the Experts Say?
Despite the NRA’s best efforts, researchers have some decent data on gun deaths.
By Joel Shurkin
A trash bin of handguns collected during the LAPD Gun Buyback Program in December 2012.Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
Read more in Slate about gun control.
The headquarters of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade association, is 3.2 miles, a seven-minute drive, from Sandy Hook Elementary School.
After last month’s massacre, all the pictures of NSSF executives had been taken down from the organization’s website, said Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the UC-Davis Medical Center.
“I suspect they were taken down because they were involved. This was their neighborhood elementary school. Their kids went there.” Their kids may even have been in the building during the rampage, he said. “Everyone in the industry knows the people at NSSF. Every executive in that industry was not that many degrees of separation from Sandy Hook.”
Maybe this would be a good time to ask them to help, Wintemute suggested to an auditorium full of gun violence researchers. They met this week at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, at the Summit on Reducing Gun Violence in America, to discuss what we actually know and don’t know about gun violence and to propose some solutions to one of America’s greatest public health threats.
The eponymous Bloomberg was there—Michael, the onetime-Republican mayor of New York City, a graduate of Johns Hopkins and the university’s biggest donor since, well, Johns Hopkins. So was Martin O’Malley, the Democratic governor of Maryland. Both men have been on the front line of the gun control debate; both men this week proposed sweeping laws that would put what they say are rational limits on gun ownership.
The setting, Baltimore, the locale for The Wire, was fitting. The emergency room around the corner specializes in gunshot wounds, and the neighborhood around the medical center may be more dangerous than Baghdad on Saturday nights.
Several people in the audience, including uniformed police and others not in uniform, were packing heat. Security was tight.
No speaker at the conference suggested confiscating guns, except guns owned by people who are ineligible to own guns by law: criminals, the insane, people involved in nasty domestic violence disputes. Even limiting ammunition didn’t get much time. Most of the discussions were about interrupting the flow of weapons to people who might use them to do evil, who was to blame for getting them the guns, and who, after all, should be allowed to own guns.
Thanks to legislation pushed in Washington and the state capitals by the National Rifle Association over the years, there aren’t very many gun violence experts. And the data scientists have gathered through the years are not a great help. Most of the results are ambiguous, and the studies are retrospective—going back after the fact to look at possible predictors of gun violence and the best ways to prevent it—which is not the preferred way to prove anything in science.
One of the reasons results are limited is the ban by the government’s two largest research institutions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, on funding research that could “advocate or promote gun control.”
Thanks to Congress, the CDC spends $100,000 on gun research out of a budget of $6 billion, Bloomberg said. The NIH spends less than $1 million out of a budget of $31 billion. It spends more researching headaches.
Nonetheless, university researchers, mostly privately funded, have gathered some data to work with.
In 1994, Congress voted to ban assault weapons and, more important, magazines that held more than 10 bullets. The idea, said Christopher Koper of George Mason University, was less to reduce the number of shootings than to reduce the number of people shot. It is the magazines that make these guns so deadly.
(Continued from Page 1)
Neither bans worked very well because of the loopholes Congress put into the law, including grandfather clauses for magazines already ordered. The magazines continued to flow in from overseas by the millions. Additionally, those guns considered assault weapons were used in only about 2 percent of crimes, Koper said. The threat from them compared to other guns appears to be exaggerated.
There are signs in the statistics that had the law been in effect longer, it might have made a difference, but Congress let the ban expire in 2004.
Philip Cook of Duke University said the Brady Act, passed in 1994 after President Reagan was shot, probably hasn’t worked very well either. The law, which prohibits gun sales to certain people, is hamstrung by an inefficient and ineffective reporting system and an incomplete database—much of which is by design of either Congress or state Legislatures.
Agencies are not sharing information. States, in part due to privacy laws, are not reporting mental health records. There are both technical and financial problems with fully implementing current restrictions.
The mentally ill, people with criminal records, and criminals with mental problems are still buying guns, said Linda Frisman of the University of Connecticut. In most places, no one comes to take away guns from people who are prohibited from having them.
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Contrary to popular opinion, gun shows sell only a small percentage of the guns that wind up used in crimes. Most guns used in crimes (80 percent) are bought on the private market, and many are sold by federally licensed dealers. Surveys of dealers have found that a disturbing number (20 percent) admit they’d sell guns to people prohibited from buying a weapon, and Congress has blocked efforts to stamp out the illegal sales.
“We have a lot of laws that protect licensed gun dealers from inspections, license revocations, prosecution, lawsuits and even general embarrassment by hiding the data connected to different gun dealers,” said Daniel Webster of Hopkins. “Some gun dealers sell far, far more guns that wind up in the hands of criminals than other licensed dealers.”
One percent of gun dealers are responsible for half the guns used in crimes, said Jon Vernick, also of Hopkins. Yet Congress has limited inspections by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to one a year, and ATF is so underfunded that many dealers won’t see an inspection in 17 years.
Maybe people who own guns should be licensed, Vernick said. Every state has a requirement that cosmetologists are licensed, he pointed out, but only 17 states require gun licenses.
“An array of complementary actions have been proposed that make it fairly difficult even for a malevolent industry—which I do not think we have; we have essentially an amoral enterprise maximizing profits and minimizing liability—to make it difficult to thrive in legal commerce,” Wintemute said. There are options.
All is not gloom, however.
America is not a particularly violent country, according to Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health. The rate of violent crimes falls right in the middle of the rates in other high-income nations. American kids are not more likely to get into fights at school, and Americans are not more likely to be mentally ill than people in comparable countries.
“What we do have is guns. Especially handguns. And we have more homicides,” Miller said. “Our firearm homicide rate is an order of magnitude higher than in these other countries. Our rates of homicides with non-gun mechanisms—knives, bats, whatever—is pretty much right where they are in other high income countries.”
And guns make all the difference, Miller said. “We’re not more violent, but when we are violent, we kill.”
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When you are militarizing US society with the plans of taking it to a third world autocratic global corporate tribunal rule----YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PEOPLE. YOU HARM MORE PEOPLE IN ONE HOUR THEN ARE HARMED BY GUNS.
So, REAL progressive are in a dilemma---we want citizens living in underserved communities safe from gun violence----we want rural Republicans filling homes with AK 47s under the guise of keeping family safe to stop using that method. You do that by removing the cause of gun proliferation and violence----
YOU GET RID OF POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT AND REBUILD OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO KEEP CORPORATE FRAUD AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION AWAY.
Have you noticed Obama/Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are doing neither---they have all this soaring. That is how you know their approach to gun control is not about public safety----its about getting weapons out of the hands of what will be angry American citizens. THAT'S IT! THAT IS WHY OBAMA, O'MALLEY, AND JOHNS HOPKINS PUSHED GUN CONTROL RIGHT NOW.
Militarizing police creates the expanded need by citizens to have guns for goodness sake.
This happens in every nation where Clinton neo-liberalism and US global corporations went in to take control of a nation's government. This is where all the societal violence starts and that instability is EYE CANDY for Wall Street in moving in its economic policies of neo-liberalism.
REMEMBER, CLINTON/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS WITH NEO-CONS ARE NOT JUST BRINGING BACK GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND THEIR MANUFACTURING---THEY SEEK TO HAVE THEM IN THE US OPERATING AS THEY DID IN DEVELOPING NATIONS---ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION AND ENSLAVED LABOR AND AUTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.
A REAL progressive social Democrat would address the social issues and the fraud and corruption FIRST ====getting rid of feeling the need for a gun=== and then look at individual changes to gun laws. The way global corporate pols are doing it will create the same WAR ON DRUG repression and criminalization of Americans for something that is A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT.
Some Thoughts on the “Under the Gun” Series
Cross-cultural comparisons are fraught with pitfalls for the best of researchers, not to mention journalists. Last week Robert Wildeboer did a series of reports titled "Under the gun: Murder in Chicago and Toronto" on WBEZ attempting to seek out answers about why two cities that seem so similar, Toronto and Chicago, have such different realities when it comes to gun violence. Rob did a commendable job attempting to make the comparison; the problem is that so much of what is at the root of the problem is embedded in each nation’s culture. Unfortunately, this is not an issue that many journalists are well equipped to tackle, and despite Wildeboer’s best effort, he also fell short of the mark.
It is impossible to attempt to explain the levels of gun violence in Chicago without tackling the issues of race and class, because Chicago is a highly segregated city both in terms of class and race lines. This is not something that has occurred overnight or even over the past few years, but has been orchestrated by urban planners and politicians over the course of decades. To try to comprehend why gun violence is so high now we must understand what political and public policy decisions have been made in the past that created these circumstances.
We place exclusive blame on the Englewood man who pulls the trigger in anger, yet fail to address the factors that helped derail his life even before he was born, namely the abandonment of the his community in favor of the wealthy white ones. Without this context, trying to understand why someone would be in the position to pull that trigger is mostly fruitless. Now, trying to understand the circumstances and context that would lead two totally different people from two different cultures to attempt murder is a nearly impossible feat, especially for journalists who unfortunately do not have the time or an academic team to research. This is not to say that every murder or shooting in underserved communities in Chicago is directly related to the last 30 years, but it is to say that just about all are.
Below I provide two examples of violence driven by the decisions and actions of institutions. To understand the role of institutions journalists must look below the surface facts and delve into the history of a community and city.
TIFs as gun violence generators A quick review of how Tax Increment Financing dollars have and have not been spent over the last 25 years is evidence enough about how the city prioritizes whose interests to represent.
“Developers received $505 million in subsidies, just over 30 percent of the total TIF money spent by Mr. Daley. Those payments included $5.4 million to United Airlines to move its headquarters to Willis Tower, $13.7 million for the insurance giant CNA to renovate its South Loop headquarters and $8.5 million to help renovate the Carbide and Carbon building to house the Hard Rock Hotel on Michigan Avenue.
The city also spent more than $200 million buying properties, razing vacant buildings and cleaning up toxic land, mostly for the benefit of private developments.
Another $90 million, or 5 percent of total spending, was used for program administration, consulting and legal services, and for job training for businesses in select districts. “ New York Times via Chicago News Cooperative ("TIF Aided Public and Private Projects Almost Evenly, Analysis Shows", Aug. 6, 2011)
It does not take a statistical wizard to figure out that the City spent about $90 million on a variety of programs that included some money spent on job training. At the same time, the City spent $505 million on subsidies for developers. When you talk about subsidies for developers, you are usually talking about using public dollars to subsidize gentrification. When a community gentrifies, its poor residents are now forced to scatter across the city to even lower income areas. What tends to be spurred by this movement? Gun violence. Why? Because this movement across the city spurs gang conflicts as gangs try to fight over turf that continues to shrink. Also, don’t forget that we have the families from the gentrified communities now seeking to move to a community that may or may not be of the same gang affiliation as their child. This also spurs gun violence.
This is also evidence about how the latest Mayor Daley valued professional jobs over industrial or manufacturing. It is obvious that moving Boeing’s offices to the loop actually creates few jobs when compared to, say, moving Toyota’s factory to the city using the same public funds. The city spent dollars on blue-collar job training, but spent more to bring in white-collar jobs. Now, there might indeed be a small number of retail or fast food jobs created by moving a large number of white-collar jobs to the city, but those numbers pale in comparison to the number of jobs created by luring a factory rather than a corporate office.
Charter Schools as Gun Violence Generators
I have written before on this blog about the experiences of the youth at Collins High School and Little Village High School. In this example, the city under Daley closed Collins (which was in North Lawndale - 95 % Black and strongly affiliated with the Vice Lords gang) and shipped those kids to Little Village High School (99% Latino and affiliated with a variety of Latino based gangs). What was the outcome? Gun violence! Wow, wasn’t that predictable? Why did they close Collins High School and ship the kids into circumstances they knew or should have known would result in serious violence? Money, of course! Collins was turned into three charter schools because the powers that be targeted North Lawndale for gentrification. The Mayor’s buddies bought property around and near the park and some brand spanking new (and expensive) town houses were built. Too bad for all those investors, because the Olympics bypassed Chicago – the park Collins is situated in was going to host one of the events– and all the Mayor’s buddies lost their shirts. Unfortunately, the late Michael Scott lost much more than his shirt.
Conclusion
For more on the topic of the Collins / Little Village High School problems click here.Neither example is easy to fit into a two nor three minute radio news story, or even a news article in what remains of our dailies. If journalists don’t find a way to include the effects of racism and class divides into their reporting, we are going to continue to ignore it and allow communities to be devastated by the violence. There is no cure in which the police department can be the sole player; everyone knows the steps that need to be taken, but there is no political will to take action. Instead, we offer corporate giants millions of public dollars to move their operations into the loop so our politicians can claim they are creating jobs. Racism and classism run deep in the policies and practices of our entire city, and until they are challenged nothing will change. There can be no cure for the violence that plagues many parts of our city without seeking redress of the many crimes that have been thrust upon these communities by our political leaders over the last decades. No matter how many Chicago Police Officers we hire, violence in Chicago will not be greatly reduced until we have provided an alternative to gang membership for the youth of our city.
Gentrification is not a cure for poverty and violence; on the contrary it merely displaces these problems and makes them worse. The alternative must be to provide living wage jobs and a redistribution of the city’s resources to include every community. Easy, right?
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As usual------Baltimore did not wait for the gun control laws to be installed through Federal and state government processes-----it simply moved to install the gun policy Johns Hopkins wrote. You will not here in the news what this looks like but citizens in Baltimore are shouting----search and seizures in underserved communities are soaring and most are done illegally and bringing no results. People are having SWAT teams break down their doors because the police had a 'lead' on guns and what comes with that? PEOPLE ARE BEING KILLED BY POLICE LOOKING FOR GUNS. That is what Hopkins had in mind with these gun policies-----give police reasons to look for and seize guns.
THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT BY THE WAR ON DRUGS CRIMINALIZATION OF PEOPLE---THIS TIME IT IS FOR HAVING A GUN.
I spoke a few days ago of a young lady testifying at a justice rally against police brutality of watching police kill her boyfriend for no reason all on a tip about a gun. Baltimore is building the process that will make it impossible for anyone to legally own a gun and that is the goal of Hopkins' gun policy.
The Affordable Care Act created the conditions for mental health diagnosis to be subprimed------all you have to do is 'need help' according to an institution. That extends now to gun ownership as mental health issues under Hopkins precludes having the right to own a gun. Anything can assign this designation-----being caught in a fight outside a bar while drunk can get you assigned to a mental health category of not owning a gun.
Baltimore has had such criminalization over guns for decades when it uses zero tolerance and fines and fees attached to misdemeanors add up to making someone a felon. Baltimore simply arrests someone and then leaves that charge on someone's record even if there is no conviction ----just to make them a felon. Who cannot own guns? A FELON.
Below you see where International Economic Zone UnderArmour meets Baltimore City policing. Please take a second to Google this YOU TUBE video------------
Under Armour Baltimore SWAT shoot
OCPhotographyTV
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Uploaded on Dec 3, 2010Helicopters, Armored Cars, Snipers, Smoke Bombs, and lots of Weapons.
OC shoots the Baltimore SWAT Team, one of the nation's most elite SWAT programs for Under Armour's Tactical Division.
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As global pols allow militarization of police soar-----American citizens are being pushed to such levels of injustice that they are feeling they NEED to arm themselves to protect themselves from police. This is how global neo-liberalism creates the conditions for moving in more and more security---more and more surveillance----all under the guise of protecting the communities.
As the video above states----Baltimore is ground zero for global SWAT training and is now training around the nation. So, as Baltimore City Council/Maryland Assembly pols pose progressive in saying they are trying to hold police accountable-----they are the ones installing laws that allow more and more police power.
This is hitting black communities hardest but the expansion of power by the military in US communities is spilling over to all communities. We cannot control this until we get GOOD PEOPLE RUNNING IN ALL PRIMARIES AGAINST CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS AND CREATE A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC BALTIMORE CITY HALL THAT GETS WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND JOHNS HOPKINS OUT OF GOVERNMENT.
When Police Shoot And Kill Unarmed Men
—By Titania Kumeh
| Wed Jul. 14, 2010 1:38 PM EDT Mother Jones
ThomasHawk/FlickrLast week, Kevin Drum wrote about Johannes Mehserle, the white former transit cop who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, who was lying face down and handcuffed. Elizabeth Gettelman covered the post-verdict headlines which focused on looting committed by 49 out-of-town recreational anarchists and detracted from the cause of initially peaceful protests. Incidentally, Mehserle's five-years max sentence, with a chance of added time, is especially confusing considering that last year a California man convicted of growing marijuana was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in federal prison. But almost more puzzling is how often unarmed men are shot by police officers in this country and the reasons given and accepted for the violence. More on that after the jump.
After Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, a panel investigating excessive use of force by the LAPD found that officers operated under "an organizational culture that emphasizes crime control over crime prevention and that isolates the police from the communities and the people they serve." As a result, police violence and racism stems from this culture which teaches "to command and confront, not to communicate," the report said. These findings were echoed in the book Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force. In it, UC Berkeley law professor Jerome Skolnick and former New York City police officer/Temple University criminal justice professor James Fyfe say that police work is often viewed by those in the force as an us-versus-them war rather than a chance for community-oriented engagement and problem solving. The authors also point to a lack of accountability as one of the reasons why police violence persists. They acknowledge that, yes, police officers are placed in dangerous situations that at times require immediate responses. But they maintain that that doesn't excuse using more force than is needed to subdue someone, the lack of professional training that leads to such fear-based responses, or treating citizens as enemy combatants. As expected, the Mehserle-Grant case has some people questioning the tactics used by and training given to police officers. A Facebook group calling for the disarmament of BART cops has even emerged in the verdict's wake. Fueling these calls for police reform are several cases in recent years where unarmed civilians have died at the hands of those badged to protect and serve. Here's a rundown, along with a few memorable shootings from the past decade or so:
1999: "It looks like one guy may have panicked and the rest followed suit," a police official told The New York Times after the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Amadou Ahmed Diallo, a Guinnea-Bissau immigrant who was killed when four white New York police officers in plain clothes fired 41 shots at him, 19 of which hit his body. The officers said they thought Diallo was reaching for a gun when they shot him in the doorway of his apartment. Turns out it was his wallet. During the trial, the officers admitted that they never considered the situation (four strangers in an unmarked car with guns approaching a guy on his stoop at night) from Diallo's point of view. They were acquitted of all charges.
2003: While surrendering on his knees in front of four Las Vegas police officers, Orlando Barlow is shot with an assault rifle by officer Brian Hartman from 50 feet away. Hartman argued that he feared Barlow was feigning surrender and about to grab a gun. Barlow was unarmed; a jury ruled the fatal shooting was "excusable." Hartman later resigned from the force a month before a federal probe uncovered that he and other officers printed T-Shirts labeled "BDRT" which stood for "Baby's Daddy Removal Team" and "Big Dogs Run Together." The probe also found that Hartman and other officers had used excessive force during two separate investigations and lied about it. Their punishment: the possibility of losing their jobs, The Las Vegas Sun reports.
2006: Just hours before his wedding, 23-year-old Sean Bell leaves the strip club hosting his bachelor party, jumps into a car with two friends, and is killed when police fire 50 shots into his vehicle, wounding his friends. Police say they opened fire after Bell rammed his car into an unmarked police van filled with plainclothes officers. They say they followed Bell and his friends outside the club suspecting that one person in their group had a gun. Referring to Bell and his friends, Mayor Bloomberg told the Associated Press "there is no evidence that they did anything wrong." A judge acquitted the officers of all charges in 2008. A federal civil rights claim filed by Bell's widow is set for this month.
2009
January 1: On New Years morning, three Bay Area Rapid Transit officers pull 22-year-old Oscar Grant and four other black men off a train in Oakland. You can view what happened afterwards in this Youtube video. In it, now former-transit officer Mehserle can be seen shooting Grant in the back. During the trial, Mehserle argued that he thought Grant was reaching for a gun near his waistband. To stop this from happening, Mehserle said he intended to Tase him, but shot him with a pistol instead. A judge will deliver his sentence in August. And the US Department of Justice is investigating the case.
June 10: Niles Meservey, 51, tries to drive away from a Washington state restaurant, but he's drunk. Officers are called to the restaurant parking lot to intervene. They block Meservey's car with their vehicles, shoot him with a Taser, and his car lurches forward. At that point, Officer Troy Meade fires seven shots with his handgun into Meservey's back, killing him. Jurors find Meade not guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter, while also finding that he didn't act in self-defense. He will not spend time in jail.
2010
January 29: Portland police officers get a call to check on a suicidal and armed man at an apartment complex. Aaron Campbell, 25, comes out of the apartment walking backward toward police with his hands over his head. The Oregonian reports that police say Campbell ignored their orders to put his hands up. At which point one officer fired six bean bag shots at his back. Witnesses say they saw Campbell reach his arm around his back, where the beanbag struck him. Officer Ronald Frashour says he saw Campbell reach both hands around his waistband to get a gun, and so he shot Campbell in the back with an assault rifle. "We feel that his death resulted from flawed police policies, incomplete or inappropriate training, incomplete communication and other issues with the police effort,'' a jury wrote after charging the police officer with no criminal wrongdoing.
January 10: Porterville, Calif. police officers shoot and kill Victor Steen after stopping him for a traffic violation he committed while riding his bike. Officers say they struggled with Sheen, Tasing him, and chasing him to his mother's house where they broke down the door and the altercation continued, until they shot him. The officers were cleared of any wrongdoing.
March 20: After hearing a loud sound, Los Angeles police officers Allan Corrales and George Diego turn their marked car around and see Steven Eugene Washington, 27, walking down the street while looking around and touching something near his waist. The officers say something to Washington. He then approaches them while seemingly removing something from his waistband. Thinking Washington is armed, they fire. One bullet strikes Washington in the head, killing him. Soon afterward, his family announce that Washington was autistic, had learning disabilities, and was generally afraid of strangers. His mom filed a claim for damages with no word yet on whether a lawsuit will follow. The officers have not been charged with a crime.
June 5: Tyrone Brown, a 32-year-old former Marine from East Baltimore, is shot 12 times in a crowded bar after an off-duty Baltimore police officer fires 13 rounds at him for groping one of the officer's lady friend's. That officer, Gahiji Tshamba, was indicted for murder yesterday and faces a maximum life in prison charge if convicted. His attorney had argued that Tshamba "did what he had to do."
Know of other recent or seminal cases? Feel free to add them in the comments section below.
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The focus on mental illness with mass shootings has all research showing----this does not happen that much and in all cases people simply need more access to mental health services. Whereas Affordable Care Act funded more PHARMA for mental illness and treatment for alcohol and drugs-----people's impoverishment and access to less and less health care will not see any growth in real public mental health services.
I would suggest that the funding for drug and alcohol treatment combined with expanding forced commitment to anyone 'needing help' are policies made to look progressive but having only the goal of getting guns from Americans and ending their Constitutional rights to have a gun. You go in to these ACA drug and alcohol treatment programs and you are on the list of people with mental health issues and cannot own a gun. That is what these policies are meant to do.
Why would a REAL progressive mind if guns are taken from all Americans? The money going to what should be real mental health services is yet again being sent towards a goal not of addressing mental health----but moving forward policy of ending gun ownership at a time when the US is being taken more and more repressive and autocratic.
As someone who shouts all the time for Rule of Law and Equal Protection-----this includes the right of Americans to own guns. Whether you like it or not----that is what our Founding Fathers included as rights FOR WE THE PEOPLE.
Below you see where Obama uses yet again Executive Order to go around our elected Congress to install what was the goal of Clinton neo-liberals----using the assignment of mental illness to deny people access to their Constitutional right to own a gun. The new definitions expand depression----they include single drunken offenses---you could be at a Ravens' tailgate event and drink too much and end up with no rights to own a gun....that is how broad this is----and deliberately. Where it is really hitting is underserved communities once again being policed in ways that create that designation of mental illness.
Critics: Gun Control By Executive Order - The Kelly File
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Published on Feb 26, 2015Critics: Gun Control By Executive Order - The Kelly File
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W.H.: New gun rules for mentally ill
By Reid J. Epstein
01/03/14 01:35 PM EST Politico
Updated 01/03/14 03:06 PM EST
The Obama administration proposed two new federal rules Friday that it said would provide more information about the mentally ill to gun-background-check databases.
The rules, proposed by the Justice and Health and Human Services departments, would allow the federal database access to some mental health records by giving it an exemption from existing privacy law and “clarify” that people involuntarily committed to both inpatient and outpatient institutions could be prohibited from purchasing guns.
Story Continued Below
The proposed rules are the latest set of executive actions in the wake of the December 2012 school massacre at Newtown, Conn. Last January, President Barack Obama announced 23 executive actions and called for a host of legislation that included universal background checks for gun purchases and a new ban on assault weapon sales.
Federal agencies have provided 1.2 million records identifying people not allowed to buy guns because of mental illness because of Obama’s 2013 executive orders, the White House said Friday.
The White House said the proposed rules are meant to strengthen the background check system, yet background check requirements do not apply to the millions of gun transactions that take place outside of licensed dealers — at gun shows or online, for instance. The Senate last April rejected an expanded, but not universal, background checks bill. The House held no gun control votes.
The proposed rules will not go into effect until after a 60-day comment period that begins next Tuesday , followed by a period during which the agencies will review the comments and issue first an interim and then a final rule.
Before the Newtown massacre, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that the health care privacy law known as HIPAA does not prevent state court and justice systems from sharing mental health information with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. States could, Sebelius wrote in an Aug. 2012 letter to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), compel agencies that are covered by HIPAA to share information with the federal background check database.
The proposed new HHS rule would allow HIPAA-covered agencies “an express permission to submit to the background check system the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands,” the White House said.
The DOJ rule adding a gun purchase prohibition for those involuntary committed to mental health outpatient facilities would have prevented the shooter in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre from legally buying a weapon because he had been ordered by a judge to seek outpatient mental health treatment.
The proposals follow the executive actions Vice President Joe Biden announced in August that banned the re-importation of military weapons sold in other countries and forbade certain felons from evading background checks.
While Obama and Biden announced the first batch of executive actions together during a White House gun control event and Biden unveiled the August set during the swearing-in ceremony of B. Todd Jones, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Friday’s news came via an e-mailed statement from the White House.
Biden did offer his support for the rules via Twitter.
“Today, we are taking steps to further strengthen the federal background check system. It’s time Congress joins us in this effort,” Biden tweeted.
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'Sadly, it is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, such as the 16-year-old teenager who skipped school only to be shot by police after they mistook him for a fleeing burglar'.
REAL progressives are being forced to watch as policies they have fought for for a century are now being used time and again to install this repressive, autocratic government of Clinton neo-liberalism and Bush neo-conservatism. A global corporate tribunal rule will look like a Stalinist Russia or a Maoist China as these global pols are looking to re-industrialize America bringing third world values with them. There are no plans for progressive treatment of those mentally ill----WE KNOW THAT. Stop allowing neo-liberals to pose progressive while running as Democrats!
As this article states----it's time for another American Revolution----well, they know that---that is why they want to end the rights of Americans to own guns.
Life in the Emerging American Police State: What's in Store for Our Freedoms in 2014?
Posted: 01/06/2014 10:16 pm EST Updated: 03/08/2014 5:59 am EST Huffington Post
In Harold Ramis' classic 1993 comedy Groundhog Day, TV weatherman Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) is forced to live the same day over and over again until he not only gains some insight into his life but changes his priorities. Similarly, as I illustrate in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we in the emerging American police state find ourselves reliving the same set of circumstances over and over again -- egregious surveillance, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc. -- although with far fewer moments of comic hilarity.
What remains to be seen is whether 2014 will bring more of the same or whether "we the people" will wake up from our somnambulant states. Indeed, when it comes to civil liberties and freedom, 2013 was far from a banner year. The following is just a sampling of what we can look forward to repeating if we don't find some way to push back against the menace of an overreaching, aggressive, invasive, militarized government and restore our freedoms.
Government spying.
It's hard to understand how anyone could be surprised by the news that the National Security Agency has been systematically collecting information on all telephone calls placed in the United States, and yet the news media have treated it as a complete revelation. Nevertheless, such outlandish government spying been going on domestically since the 1970s, when Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the NSA's breaches, warned the public against allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security. Recent reports indicate that the NSA, in conjunction with the CIA and FBI, has actually gone so far as to intercept laptop computers ordered online in order to install spyware on them.
Militarized police.
With almost 13,000 agencies in all 50 states and four U.S. territories participating in a military "recycling" program, community police forces across the country continue to be transformed into outposts of the military, with police agencies acquiring military-grade hardware -- tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield -- in droves. Keep in mind that once acquired, this military equipment, which is beyond the budget and scope of most communities, finds itself put to all manner of uses by local law enforcement agencies under the rationale that "if we have it, we might as well use it."
Police shootings of unarmed citizens.
Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Sadly, it is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, such as the 16-year-old teenager who skipped school only to be shot by police after they mistook him for a fleeing burglar.
The erosion of private property.
If the government can tell you what you can and cannot do within the privacy of your home, whether it relates to what you eat or what you smoke, you no longer have any rights whatsoever within your home. If government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you're no longer the owner of your property. If school officials can punish your children for what they do or say while at home or in your care, your children are not your own--they are the property of the state. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure--it belongs to the government. Likewise, if police can forcefully draw your blood, strip search you, and probe you intimately, your body is no longer your own, either. This is what a world without the Fourth Amendment looks like.
Strip searches and the loss of bodily integrity.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect the citizenry from being subjected to "unreasonable searches and seizures" by government agents. While the literal purpose of the amendment is to protect our property and our bodies from unwarranted government intrusion, the moral intention behind it is to protect our human dignity. Unfortunately, court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, strip search us, and probe us intimately.
Invasion of the drones.
As corporations and government agencies alike prepare for their part in the coming drone invasion--it is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020, ushering in a $30 billion per year industry--it won't be long before Americans discover first-hand that drones--unmanned aerial vehicles--come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to middle-sized copter drones that can deliver pizzas to massive "hunter/killer" Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high.
Criminalizing childish behavior.
It wouldn't be a week in America without another slew of children being punished for childish behavior under the regime of zero tolerance which plagues our nation's schools. Some of the most egregious: the 9-year-old boy suspended for allegedly pointing a toy at a classmate and saying "bang, bang"; two 6-year-old students in Maryland suspended for using their fingers as imaginary guns in a schoolyard game of cops and robbers; the ten-year-old Pennsylvania boy suspended for shooting an imaginary "arrow" at a fellow classmate, using nothing more than his hands and his imagination.
Common Core.
When viewed in light of the government's ongoing attempts to amass power at great cost to Americans--in terms of free speech rights, privacy, due process, etc.--the debate over Common Core State Standards, which would transform and nationalize school curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade, becomes that much more critical. These standards, which were developed through a partnership between big government and corporations and are being rolled out in 45 states and the District of Columbia, will create a generation of test-takers capable of little else, molded and shaped by the federal government and its corporate allies into what it considers to be ideal citizens.
If you're in the business of making New Year's resolutions, why not resolve that 2014 will be the year we break the cycle of tyranny and get back on the road to freedom. As I've said before, it's time for a second American revolution.
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