Tag Archives: Police

UK police say almost 6,200 hate crimes in month after Brexit vote

LONDON (Reuters) – British police said on Friday there had been almost 6,200 hate crimes reported in the last month following the vote to leave the European Union in a referendum where immigration had been a key issue.

In the four weeks from June 16, police forces across the country said 6,193 offences had been reported, with the most common crimes being harassment, assault and other violence such as verbal abuse or spitting.

Britons voted on June 23 to exit the EU following bitter and deeply divisive campaigning in which the control of immigration was one of the main arguments of those who supported leaving the bloc. Since the result was declared, Muslims and Eastern Europeans say they have been particularly targeted.

The latest figures showed there were 3001 offences in the first two weeks of July, down 6 percent compared to the previous fortnight but still 20 percent higher than the same period last year.

“Following increases in hate crime seen after the EU referendum, police forces have been taking a robust approach to these crimes and we are pleased to see the numbers of incidents have begun to fall,” Mark Hamilton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesman on hate crimes.

“Clearly any hate crime is unacceptable and these numbers are still far too high.”

Critics of the “Leave” campaign say its focus on immigration helped stoke xenophobia and racism, an accusation its leaders reject. A week before the vote, opposition Labour lawmaker Jo Cox, a strong supporter of remaining in the EU, was shot and stabbed to death in her constituency in northern England.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Giles Elgood)

Shooting of unarmed black man in Florida heightens calls for police review

North Miami Police Department

By Zachary Fagenson

NORTH MIAMI, Fla. (Reuters) – The shooting by police of an unarmed black man as he lay on the ground with his hands in the air in North Miami, Florida, raised calls on Thursday for U.S. police to review their training programs and policies.

Behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey was shot on Monday as he tried to get an autistic patient back to a nearby group home from which he had wandered. A cell phone video showed Kinsey with his hands extended above his chest moments before a bullet struck his leg.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said the incident showed more police training was needed, particularly for situations involving people with disabilities.

“We are grateful that both Mr. Kinsey and his patient are alive, but without changes in policy and improved training of officers, we will very likely see more needless shootings and deaths at the hands of police,” Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.

North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said on Thursday that an investigation into the shooting would be conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at his request.

Kinsey’s lawyer, Hilton Napoleon of the firm Rasco Klock Perez & Nieto in Coral Gables, Florida, sent the video to Reuters on Thursday. Napoleon did not provide information about who filmed it. Neither he nor Kinsey were immediately available for comment.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Thursday the U.S. Justice Department was gathering information about the incident, the latest controversial shooting of a black man by police in the United States.

Kinsey told Miami’s WSVN-TV that he was trying to calm the autistic patient when police showed up on Monday evening. Media reports have said Kinsey is 47 years old.

Kinsey said he dropped to the ground and lay on his back with his hands up and open to comply with commands from the police officers.

“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking,” Kinsey said in an interview with WSVN-TV from a hospital bed on Wednesday. “Wow, was I wrong.”

Kinsey said he kept his hands up throughout the incident and that he asked the officer, “Sir, why did you shoot me?”

“He said, ‘I don’t know.'”

Police said in a statement that the officers were responding to an emergency call about an armed man threatening suicide. They said the officer, who has not been identified, is on administrative leave according to standard procedures.

The shooting itself was not recorded, but in the video, which has been widely circulated on social media, Kinsey can be heard talking to his patient and police while lying flat in the street.

“All he has is a toy trunk in his hands … I am a behavior therapist at a group home,” Kinsey yelled in the video. He also urged his patient, who was sitting nearby, to lie down and be still. The autistic man told him to “shut up” and did not comply.

Clint Bower, chief executive for the Miami Achievement Center for the Developmentally Disabled, which runs the group home where Kinsey has worked for more than a year, said, “My employee saved that young man’s life.”

The United States has seen demonstrations from coast to coast over the use of excessive force by police, especially toward black men.

In the past month there have been deadly shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota and eight police officers have been killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Police in North Miami have offered few details about the shooting. Chief Eugene told reporters that officers had responded to the scene with the threat of a gun in mind, but no gun was recovered.

“There are many questions about what happened on Monday night,” he said. “I assure you we will get all the answers.”

Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Molly Best said the agency would not comment on the shooting.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Colleen Jenkins and Michelle Gershberg; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Video shows man with hands up before Florida police shooting

y Zachary Fagenson

NORTH MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) – An employee of a group home who was shot by police in North Miami, Florida, said he was more worried about his autistic patient than himself before he felt the sting of a bullet in his leg.

Behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey told WSVN-TV in Miami on Wednesday that he was trying to calm the man, who had run away from the home on Monday when police showed up. Kinsey was on his back with his hands up and open to comply with the commands of the officers, who according to a police statement were responding to a 911 call about an armed man threatening suicide.

“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking,” Kinsey said in an interview from his hospital bed on Wednesday. “Wow, was I wrong.”

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Thursday the Justice Department was gathering information about the incident, the latest in a series of controversial shootings of black men by police in the United States.

Kinsey said he told police he was unarmed and there was no need for guns. He told WSVN-TV he kept his hands up throughout the incident and that he asked the officer, “Sir, why did you shoot me?”

“He said, ‘I don’t know,'” Kinsey said.

The officer, who has not been named, is on administrative leave per standard procedure, the department said.

Cellphone video showing Kinsey with his hands high before police opened fire emerged online on Wednesday, sparking new outrage. The shooting itself was not recorded.

In the video, Kinsey can be heard talking to both his patient and police while prone in the street.

“All he has is a toy trunk in his hands … I am a behavior therapist at a group home,” Kinsey yells. He also urges his patient, who is sitting nearby, to lie down and be still.

The autistic man tells him to “shut up” and does not comply.

Videos in the past year of such shootings or their aftermath in cities including North Charleston, South Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota have spurred protests over use of force against minorities by police. The Baton Rouge and St. Paul incidents were followed by attacks that killed eight police officers.

Police in North Miami have offered few details about the latest incident. Police Chief Gary Eugene told reporters on Thursday he had asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to lead the investigation.

Eugene said officers responded to the scene with the threat of a gun in mind but no gun was recovered.

“There are many questions about what happened on Monday night,” the chief said. “I assure you we will get all the answers.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Colleen Jenkins and Michelle Gershberg; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)

Australian police arrest man over apparent bid to attack police station

A bomb disposal expert wearing protective gear walks past emergency services personnel outside a police station in the western Sydney suburb of Merrylands, Australia

YDNEY (Reuters) – Australian police on Thursday arrested a man for an apparent attack on a Sydney police station, after he set himself alight and drove a car into its underground carpark.

Police said they had no reason to believe it was a terrorist attack or that the man, in his 60s, was connected to any terrorist organization.

Media reported the man’s car contained gas canisters while New South Wales state assistant police commissioner Dennis Clifford said there appeared to have been some kind of fire accelerant in it.

“Until we do some background investigation, we’re just uncertain about the motive,” Clifford told reporters.

“There’s nothing to indicate this is in any way related to terrorism.”

A staunch U.S. ally, Australia has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown militants since 2014, having suffered several “lone wolf” assaults, including a cafe siege in Sydney in which two hostages and the gunman were killed.

Clifford said officers spotted the man sitting in his car outside the station, and when they approached him he set the inside of the car alight.

The man then tried to drive into the front of the police station before driving it into a roller door under the station. Police put out the fire, and the man was taken to hospital with severe burns, Clifford said.

Media reported that the man was known to police and was believed to have a mental illness.

Clifford declined to comment on those reports but said the man was in a critical condition in hospital.

Police earlier cordoned off the station in Merrylands, in Sydney’s west, while officers from the Rescue and Bomb Disposal Unit searched the vehicle.

No members of the public or police officers were injured during the incident, police said.

(Reporting by Jane Wardell and Byron Kaye; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel)

Police captain shot and killed in Kansas City, Kansas

(Reuters) – A Kansas City, Kansas, police captain was shot and killed on Tuesday as he tried to reach a suspect, authorities said.

Police Captain Robert Melton had responded to a report of several people in a vehicle shooting at a man, police said in a statement.

Three or four people in the car ran when police arrived. Melton “attempted to make contact” with a suspect and was shot, the statement said.

Melton was taken to a hospital and died of his injuries, it said. Two people were in custody and one suspect was still at large.

National attention has been focused on attacks on law enforcement officers following the ambush killings of eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Verdict due in trial of Baltimore policeman over Freddie Gray death

A man participates in a protest in Union Square after Baltimore Police Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. was acquitted of all charges for his involvement in the death of Freddie Gray in the Manhattan borough of New York

Reuters) – A Maryland judge is scheduled to hand down a verdict on Monday in the manslaughter trial of the highest-ranking Baltimore police officer charged in the death of black detainee Freddie Gray.

Lieutenant Brian Rice, 42, is the fourth of six officers to be tried for Gray’s death in April 2015 from a broken neck suffered in a police van. Prosecutors have yet to secure a conviction in the high-profile case.

Gray’s death triggered protests and rioting in the mainly black city and stoked a national debate about how police treat minorities. That debate flared anew this month with the deaths of African-American men at the hands of police in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams has said he will announce his verdict at 10 a.m. EDT. He is hearing the case in a bench trial after Rice waived his right to a jury trial.

Rice, who is white, ordered two bicycle officers to chase Gray, 25, when he fled unprovoked in a high-crime area. The officer helped put Gray, who was shackled and handcuffed, into the police wagon face down on its floor.

Prosecutors said Rice was negligent in shackling Gray’s legs and not securing him in a seat belt, as required by department protocol.

But defense lawyers have said Rice was allowed leeway on whether to get inside a van to secure a prisoner. The officer made a correct decision in a few seconds while Gray was being combative and a hostile crowd was looking on, they said.

Rice is charged with involuntary manslaughter, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. He could face at least 15 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Williams has acquitted Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson Jr., the van’s driver. A third officer, William Porter, faces a retrial after a jury deadlocked.

(Writing by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell and Lisa Von Ahn)

Multiple Police officers shot, 3 dead in Baton Rouge this morning

Police officers block off a road after a shooting of police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

By Joseph Penney

BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) – Three police officers were shot to death and several others wounded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sunday, the city’s mayor said, as the country remained on edge in the wake of police shootings of black men and the killings of five Dallas officers.

The officers in Baton Rouge were responding to a call of shots fired when they were ambushed by at least one gunman, Mayor Kip Holden told NBC News. A gunman was shot but his condition was not clear, a Louisiana State Police official told NBC.

A spokesman for the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office said police and sheriff’s deputies were involved in the shooting incident. “Multiple officers from both agencies sustained injuries and were transported to local hospitals,” he said in an email. He said there were no firm numbers on the number hurt or the extent of injuries.

While the scene of the shootings was contained, police warned residents to stay away from the area, near Airline Highway, which is a mile from the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters, where dozens of protesters were arrested earlier this month..

Two nearby hospitals were on lockdown, CBS reported. Efforts to confirm the report were not immediately successful.

The reports come a week after a wave of protests against police violence in Baton Rouge and other cities after a 37-year-old African-American father of five was shot and killed at close quarters by law enforcement officers. At one of the demonstrations in Dallas, a gunman opened fire on white officers assigned to the protest, killing five of them.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Ian Simpson, Tim Gardne and Julia Edwards in Washington; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by David Evans and Mary Milliken)

In U.S. cities hit by killings, shared concerns over cops tactics, race

Law officers march down a street during protests in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

By Tom Polansek

(Reuters) – Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, compares the city’s mostly white police department to “an occupying force” when its officers go into black neighborhoods.

In Baton Rouge, minorities are “very wary of police and often afraid of them,” says Michele Fournet, a veteran criminal defense lawyer there.

Long before they were rocked this month by local police killings of black men, the two U.S. cities were grappling with similar problems – police forces viewed by many as overly aggressive and unrepresentative of black communities.

Activists and residents in both places have urged law enforcement to spend more time in neighborhoods building relationships and trust as part of “community policing” efforts. Many would also like the cities to hire more black officers.

Such calls having been growing across the country since the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by a white officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. Since then, a wave of anti-police protests has spread across the country fueled by high-profile police killings of other black men, including Baltimore police detainee Freddie Gray last year.

“Whether it’s Baton Rouge or Ferguson or Baltimore or Minnesota, we need more community policing,” said Cleve Dunn Jr., a black business man and political consultant in Baton Rouge.

(Racial make-up of Baton Rouge, Minneapolis police: http://tmsnrt.rs/29Bf9We)

Police spokesmen from Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, in statements, said their departments had each made significant strides toward diversity in their forces.

The Minneapolis Police Department said it has been “a national leader and has set national ‘best practice’ standards in community engagement and community policing.”

Officials from St. Anthony, Minn., which provides police service to Falcon Heights and employs the officer who shot Castile, did not respond to questions.

Alton Sterling, the Baton Rouge man who was shot by police on July 5, had peddled CDs for years and law enforcement officers would have known he was not a threat if they were more familiar with the area, local residents said.

One officer is notorious for harassing local black residents, to the point where he has been given a street nickname of “Bro Stupid,” said Burnell Williams, who works with at-risk youth and ex-prisoners for the nonprofit group Against All Odds.

Blacks made up about 55 percent of Baton Rouge’s population in 2010, but only 30 percent of the police force in 2013, according to U.S. government data.

Similar disparities affect Minneapolis, near the tiny city of Falcon Heights where Philando Castile was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop on July 6.

STAFFING PROBLEMS

Blacks in Minneapolis were 8.7 times more likely than whites to be arrested for low-level offenses, such as trespassing and disorderly conduct, according to a study of arrests from 2012 to 2014 that the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota published last year.

Blacks accounted for about 19 percent of Minneapolis’ population in 2010 but just about 9 percent of the city’s police officers in 2013, according to U.S. data.

Black residents of Minneapolis and nearby towns said the lack of a requirement for police to live in the jurisdictions they patrol has kept officers disconnected from neighborhoods. Some U.S. cities have instituted residency requirements for police.

“You have mostly white officers patrolling a poor black neighborhood where they have no real nexus to the community, where there are high rates of complaints against the use of excessive force by police and the over-criminalization of the African American community,” Levy-Pounds said.

Some Minneapolis police and residents said staffing shortages limited officers’ ability to do more community policing.

Bob Kroll, president of the city’s police union, said the department needs to increase its numbers by about 20 percent. Without more officers, “you’re just going call to call to call, 9-1-1,” he said.

Ronald Edwards, a black civil rights activist in Minneapolis who contacted Reuters at the request of the police department, said he believed the city’s police chief was doing her best to improve race relations.

However, he said “you don’t have enough officers to deploy them and do the things that really begin to break down the barriers between people of different colors.”

In Dallas, where five police officers were murdered in the wake of the shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, police Chief David Brown told reporters on July 11 that community policing was the best way to deter crime and protect officers.

Brown, a 33-year department veteran, noted that 2015 was the 12th year of crime reduction in Dallas, more than any other major American city.

Police “have done this by also protecting the civil rights of our citizens,” Brown said of the decline.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Ernest Scheyder, Letitia Stein, Nick Carey and Tom Polansek; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

Cleveland activists wary of city plans to process thousands of arrests

Students Iris Harris and Domonique Dumas with their mentor Kevin Sarran display their Griffin scout robot that will be used by police during a demonstration of police capabilities near the site of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland,

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – Police in Cleveland say they aim to avoid mass arrests at the protests planned for next week’s Republican National Convention, but preparations by the city’s courts to process up to 1,000 people a day have some civil rights activists worried.

Thousands of people from across the country are expected in the city to protest the expected presidential nomination of New York businessman Donald Trump, who has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and restrict immigration from countries with large Muslim populations if elected.

Supporters and opponents of Trump have clashed at several of his campaign events.

Police have vowed to honor protesters’ rights of free expression, which are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and avoid mass arrests.

“We don’t want anybody to trample on anybody else’s rights,” Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams told a news conference on Tuesday.

But memories of recent heavier-handed approaches are fresh in the heavily Democratic, majority black Ohio city of 388,000 people.

“I don’t want to be a naysayer here and rule out the possibility that everything is going to be hunky-dory … but knowing how the Cleveland Police Department has handled situations in the past, I just don’t have confidence that it’s going to work,” said Terry Gilbert, an attorney who has handled criminal and civil rights cases in the city for more than four decades.

“Until I see the actual situation next week, I’m going to be worried,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert pointed to the May 2015 arrests of 71 people following the acquittal of a police officer who fired 137 shots following a high-speed 2012 car chase, killing a black man and woman.

The arrested protesters were held for more than 36 hours over the Memorial Day weekend, and four alleged in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that police intentionally kept them in custody longer to prevent the protest from reforming.

‘WE ARE READY’

Cleveland paid $250,000 to secure 200 extra rooms in the Cuyahoga County jail, according to the Republican National Committee budget.

Cleveland Municipal Court officials said they would be ready to process a large volume of people quickly, with staff scheduled to work in two 10-hour shifts keeping the court operating from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. each day.

“We are ready,” said Ed Ferenc, a spokesman for the court. “We’ll have staff here till 1 a.m. If we have to do a docket at 10:30 at night, we’ll do it.”

The United States has seen hundreds of protests over the past two years following a series of high-profile police killings of black men. The vast majority of the protests have been peaceful, although they have been punctuated with bursts of rioting, arson and looting.

The ACLU plans to be out in force to ensure that people are not arrested for legal protests, said Christine Link, the group’s executive director in Ohio.

“Let’s not equate a lot of protesters with violence,” Link said. She noted the group would be keeping careful watch on the whereabouts of anyone arrested to ensure they are charged and released quickly.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, hundreds of protesters were swept up and pushed into pens on the Hudson River.

With temperatures expected to reach 90 degrees F (32 C) most days, the health of detainees will be a concern, she said.

“What we’re worried about is that they’re not saying where they are booking people, they are being vague about it and that’s not good,” Link said. “That’s an attempt to hide the cheese.”

(Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Peter Cooney)

First funerals held for Dallas police slain in racially motivated ambush

Police officers pay their respects ahead of the funeral for Officer Lorne Ahrens in Plano

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garza

DALLAS (Reuters) – Thousands of police officers joined by ordinary citizens attended funerals on Wednesday for three of the policemen shot dead in a racially motivated ambush attack last week that intensified America’s long-running debate on race and justice.

At the Dallas megachurch called The Potter’s House, officers by the thousands crowded into the funeral for Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer Brent Thompson, who had married a fellow officer just two weeks before last Thursday’s attack.

“I know many of you have dealt with these things quite often,” pastor Rick Lamb of Northside Baptist Church told the crowd. “Today is about Brent and trying to bring some closure to this family as they finish the job that they didn’t want to start, but had to start last week.”

Funerals were also taking place on Wednesday for Sergeant Michael Smith, 55, and Officer Lorne Ahrens, 48, of the Dallas Police Department.

The funerals came a day after President Barack Obama praised the slain officers’ heroism, condemned the attack as an “act not just of demented violence but of racial hatred” and made an impassioned plea for national unity.

The five officers were killed by a former U.S. Army Reserve soldier who told police that he was angry about police killings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota earlier that week and wanted to “kill white people,” especially police.

Funerals for the other two slain officers, Michael Krol, 40, and Patrick Zamarripa, 32, are expected later in the week.

The shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota were the latest in a series of high-profile police killings of black men in various U.S. cities that have brought intense scrutiny of police use of force, particularly against black suspects.

The police slain in Dallas last week were patrolling a demonstration decrying the killings by police of Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, 32, outside St. Paul, Minnesota. Sterling was killed after officers responded to a call that he had threatened someone with a gun. Castile was killed during a traffic stop.

In Baton Rouge, Sterling’s 15-year-old son, Cameron Sterling, urged people to refrain from violence as they demand reforms in the U.S. criminal justice system.

“I feel that people in general, no matter what the race is, should come together as one united family,” Cameron Sterling told reporters in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart, where his father was killed. “I want everyone to protest the right way. Protest in peace. … No violence, whatsoever.”

Justin Bamberg, a lawyer for Sterling’s son, said he hoped the officer who shot Sterling would be criminally charged following the federal investigation into the incident.

“We want justice. We want an indictment,” Bamberg said.

A lawyer for the officer has denied race was a factor in Sterling’s shooting.

Protests against police violence continued on Wednesday. In Minneapolis, a mixed-race group of several dozen protesters briefly closed the southbound lanes of a major highway, linking arms and chanting “Black Lives Matter.”

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Justin Madden in Chicago; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Will Dunham)