Injustice Everywhere
Here are the 27 reports of police misconduct tracked in our National Police Misconduct News Feed for Wednesday, October 6, 2010:
A Phoenix Arizona police officer has been arrested on an aggravated assault charge and may be facing additional charges, possibly including murder, for fatally shooting an unarmed man while responding to a domestic dispute call. The incident started when the man’s mother called 911 in hopes of having the police help calm her son down who was causing damage in a trailer home. When the police came the man told them they couldn’t enter without a warrant, at which point officer Richard Chrisman allegedly put his gun to the man’s temple and replied “I don’t need no warrant, motherf*****.” At that point, according to another officer on the scene, Chrisman went hands-on with him, tasered him, peppersprayed him from a foot away, then shot a dog that was barking but not threatening the officers. The second officer talked the situation down and the man tried to leave on his bicycle but Chrisman fought with him over the bicycle before pulling out his gun and firing 2-3 shots, killing the man. It should be said that, if it wasn’t for the second officer coming forward, I’m sure the officer wouldn’t have been charged. The mother says she regrets ever calling the police for help.
Oakland California has settled a lawsuit for $1,200,000 to a woman who was left permanently disfigured by a SWAT team’s flash-bang grenade that burned 11% of her body when it hit her as she slept during a drug raid. That raid apparently involved property owned by a man involved in a suit against the department over falsified search warrants and this raid was also questionable as the two women at the home weren’t charged. The city settled a suit by the other woman for $45,000 previously.
A now-retired Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper has been charged with misdemeanor assault for slamming a handcuffed female accident face-first into concrete divider wall on dashcam video when he responded to her 911 call. The accident was apparently caused when a drunk friend she was driving home had grabbed her steering wheel though the suit claims she wasn’t drunk.
Maricopa County Arizona has settled a lawsuit for $600,000 to a man who hit by a deputy’s cruiser and left pinned underneath it while the deputy fought with family members who came out after hearing what happened when the deputy attempted to block the man in during a traffic stop.
The Jackson Wyoming police are being sued by an Idaho resident who was tasered multiple times when he protested about being pulled over for having out-of-state tags. While the police chief is defending his officers, the incident sparked a policy change that restricted taser use to incidents where officers or the public was in danger instead of in compliance situations.
Rutland Vermont has settled a lawsuit for $45,000 to a man who was shot over 20 times with pepperball rounds while he was shackled in a holding cell for being argumentative with police, the officer who repeatedly shot him was fired over the incident.
An Owensboro Kentucky police officer has been suspended without pay for 6 months after failing to intervene when another officer attacked a after taunting him on surviellance video. That officer was fired over the incident.
A now-former Fallowfield Pennsylvania police officer has been sentenced to probation for obstruction after failing to report finding a 17-year-old boy who had run away from home… instead he allegedly took the boy to his home and had sex with him twice.
A 34-year-old Norfolk Virginia police officer is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a 60-year-old woman who claims that the officer sexually assaulted her while on-duty when he responded to her 911 call requesting medical assistance when she mixed prescription medication with alcohol. She also claims that the officer returned later and raped her again though, according to the lawsuit, he claimed it was consensual.
An Indian Shores Florida police detective has resigned after a lengthy 15 month criminal and internal investigation into numerous allegations that included sexual battery, supplying a minor with alcohol, and association with a known criminal. He won’t face any charges as the statute of limitations apparently expired for the sexual battery allegations.
A Minneapolis Minnesota police officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for multiple armed robberies to be served concurrently with an 8-year federal sentence for bank robbery. He still faces more charges for robberies that occurred in a different county.
A Buffalo New York police officer has been charged with criminal trespassing and harassment after he barged into a home and began assaulting a man who he believed to be having an affair with his girlfriend then attacking his mom and her boyfriend when they tried to intervene. Ultimately it ended up that the officer had the wrong address.
A Plainfield New Jersey police officer has been charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer and drunk driving after he fought with police who responded to calls about his repeated attempts to start fights in a bar parking lot.
A Duquesne Pennsylvania police officer is under investigation after receiving 9 citations after some of her dogs attacked a group of people including a 12-year-old girl who was bitten. The officer allegedly came out, ignored everyone and refused to offer assistance to victims as she dragged her dogs back onto her property… The dogs weren’t shot.
Two Ripley Tennessee police officers have been indicted over unrelated incidents. One officer was charged with official oppression over a wrongful arrest and the other officer was charged with theft and official misconduct… Did I ever mention how much I hate news articles that don’t really explain what happened?
A Suffolk New York police officer and an investigator for the District Attorney’s office have been arrested on felony computer trespass charges. At this point I should mention how much more I hate subscription news sites.
A Lancaster Pennsylvania police officer has been charged with assault and reckless endangerment for ramming a woman’s car and ran her off the during an alleged domestic dispute, though the report does not specify what their relationship was.
A Grand Rapids Michigan police officer is accused of illegally shutting down a business for not displaying a license that they weren’t legally required to display. However, by the time that was cleared up in court the owners had lost their business and went into debt. The officer isn’t facing any disciplinary action .
A now-former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper has pled guilty to illegally selling drivers licenses to unqualified applicants.
A Tea South Dakota police officer who was hired despite being fired from the Souix Falls PD over being arrested on drug and alcohol charges has pled guilty to obtaining Oxycodone by fraud and DUI charges in a plea deal that requires him to also plead guilty to another DUI charge he was facing in a different county.
A Wilmington North Carolina police officer is the subject of a lawsuit alleging he caused an accident that injured an 81-year-old man when he ran a red light while on duty.
A Gaston County North Carolina police officer is facing DUI charges after crashing into a group of trees with his pickup truck while off-duty.
A Riviera Beach Florida police officer is on paid leave while he’s the subject of an unspecified internal and criminal investigation.
Mendenhall Mississippi residents have filed a petition with that city demanding that they either fire or suspend their police chief without pay while he’s under investigation over allegations that his officers stole $7,000 and other property from a man they detained but didn’t charge. Residents are still stinging from having to pay their former chief’s salary for several months while he was on leave facing molestation charges.
A Los Angeles California police detective has been arrested on seven felony counts of workers compensation fraud, perjury and attempted grand theft.
An Anchorage Airport police officer is under investigation after he received a citation for solicitation when he was allegedly caught up in a prostitution sting operation.
And finally, 89 Puerto Rico law enforcement officers from different departments have been arrested as part of a massive FBI raid that resulted from a 2-year long investigation into allegations of corruption and drug trafficking where officers allegedly supplied protection for drug While we haven’t previously tracked incidents from US territories since we didn’t have law enforcement employment numbers from those places, now that we do I’ve decided to start.
That’s it for today, stay safe out there!
View Article With links HERE
Thursday, October 7, 2010
27 Signs That The Standard Of Living For America’s Middle Class Is Dropping Like A Rock
theeconomiccollapseblog.com
If you still have a job and you can put food on the table and you still have a warm house to come home to, then you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. The truth is that every single month hundreds of thousands more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. The statistics that you are about to read are incredibly sobering. Household incomes are down from coast to coast. Enrollment in government anti-poverty programs sets new records month after month after month. Home ownership is down, personal bankruptcies are way up and there are not nearly enough jobs to go around. Meanwhile, the price of basics such as food and health care continue to skyrocket. Don't be fooled by a rising stock market or by record bonuses on Wall Street. The U.S. economy is not getting better. After World War II, the great American economic machine built the largest and most vigorous middle class in the history of the world, but now America's middle class is disintegrating at a blinding pace.
Most of those who write about the plight of the American middle class believe that things can be turned around and that the middle class will eventually be stronger than it ever has been. But unfortunately, that is just not the case. As a society, we have lived far, far beyond our means for decades. Now the bills are coming due and none of our leaders seem to know what to do.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is being rapidly assimilated into the emerging one world economy. Middle class American workers now find themselves in direct competition for jobs with the cheapest labor on the other side of the globe. Of course many multinational corporations have taken advantage of this by moving factories and jobs to countries like China where blue collar workers make about a dollar an hour. This has helped raise the standard of living for workers in those nations by a nominal amount, but it has been absolutely devastating for the standard of living of America's middle class.
So what does all of this mean?
It means that the U.S. economy is headed for collapse and middle class Americans are in for some really, really hard times.
The following are 27 signs that the standard of living for America's middle class is dropping like a rock....
#1 Household spending for the middle fifth of all U.S. income earners was down 3.5% in 2009. That was the steepest one year decline since records began being kept back in 1984.
#2 Median household income in the United States fell from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009.
#3 According to one new report, in 2009 residents of New York state experienced their first full-year decline in income in more than 70 years.
#4 Of the 52 largest metro areas in the United States, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income in 2009.
#5 Home ownership in the United States declined for the third year in a row in 2009.
#6 In 2009, approximately 4 million Americans fell out of the middle class and now live below the federal poverty line.
#7 The number of Americans enrolled in the food stamp program has set a new all-time record for 20 consecutive months.
#8 In July (the last month for which data is available), 41.8 million Americans were on food stamps.
#9 The number of Americans in the food stamp program skyrocketed more than 55 percent between December 2007 and July 2010.
#10 In 2009, more than 48 million Americans were enrolled in the Medicaid program.
#11 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the U.S. government.
#12 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
#13 According to the Cato Institute, anti-poverty spending by the U.S. government has increased 89 percent over the past decade.
#14 The cost of health care increased a staggering 9.6% for all U.S. households from 2007 to 2009.
#15 It turns out that only the top 5 percent of all U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
#16 35 percent of all U.S. households now live on $35,000 or less.
#17 New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says that Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
#18 According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck. That was up substantially from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
#19 Today, 28% of all American households have at least one member that is searching for a full-time job.
#20 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many that were receiving it back in 2007.
#21 A recent Pew Research survey found that 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours or an involuntary move to part-time work since the recession began.
#22 In 2009, 43.6 million Americans were living in poverty. Sadly, the number of Americans living in poverty has increased for three consecutive years, and the 43.6 million poor Americans in 2009 was the highest number that the U.S. Census Bureau has ever recorded in 51 years of record-keeping.
#23 A staggering 25 percent of all American adults now have a credit score below 599.
#24 It is estimated that nearly a third of all Americans cannot qualify for a mortgage because of low credit scores.
#25 For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all American households put together.
#26 Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a stunning 32 percent increase over 2008.
#27 According to a new report by the U.S. Census Bureau, the bottom fifth of all U.S. income earners brought in just 3.4 percent of all income in 2009 while the top fifth brought in a whopping 49.4 percent of all income.
So is there any hope that things will turn around soon?
No, not really.
At this point, even some of the top economic authorities in the nation are admitting that we are headed for very difficult times.
Goldman Sachs recently announced that the U.S. economy is likely to be either "fairly bad" or "very bad" over the next 6 to 9 months.
Not only that, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke now says that the U.S. economy is in a situation that is dire and "unsustainable".
Not that Goldman Sachs or Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should be trusted when it comes to the economy.
When it comes to the problems we are facing, the truth can be found in the long-term trends. If you have not done so already, please read "11 Long-Term Trends That Are Absolutely Destroying The U.S. Economy". It will open your eyes to the true horrors that our economy is now facing.
But statistics alone do not tell the real story.
Sometimes what gets lost in the endless economic statistics is the very real pain of the millions of Americans who are trying to live through this. The following story from the Unemployed Friends website is from a woman named Leetah who is desperately hoping to be able to get through this upcoming winter....
The place I live in right now has no jobs and no places to live. My fiance, Lloyd, and I have been looking for anything but he lost his job from McDonald's and the factories (the only jobs to make a living off of) consider him an insurance liability. I can't get hired to a factory because of I was fired from our major factory for attendance (I had to miss 3 days of work because I was sick). So we are moving to the Edmond/OKC region where we are hoping to find a job and a place with running water and heating. We've spent the last few years without heat and running water and so having a place with water and heat would be heaven.
Winter is coming up fast and I am so afraid. Last winter we almost died from the cold and now the thought of cold makes my throat close up and my heart pound. But it isn't just ourselves we are looking out for, we have our dog too. Our wonderful APBT Maggie who is 2-years-old and has been with us since she was 5-months-old. She's our baby girl and we can't lose her. We almost lost her to the cold too and it scared me so much. We are going to be living in our car soon with our dog.
I am hoping to be able to keep our food stamps in the new city so we can still eat. I have already applied for ten+ jobs and nothing yet but I am keeping my hopes up. Hopefully it will get easier to find a job once we get there. Then we just have to save up and then we can afford an apartment. Now finding an apartment with my awesome dog is another story.
Please say a prayer for those who are out of work and on the verge of being forced out on the street.
You never know, you might be next.
Read Article With Links HERE
If you still have a job and you can put food on the table and you still have a warm house to come home to, then you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. The truth is that every single month hundreds of thousands more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. The statistics that you are about to read are incredibly sobering. Household incomes are down from coast to coast. Enrollment in government anti-poverty programs sets new records month after month after month. Home ownership is down, personal bankruptcies are way up and there are not nearly enough jobs to go around. Meanwhile, the price of basics such as food and health care continue to skyrocket. Don't be fooled by a rising stock market or by record bonuses on Wall Street. The U.S. economy is not getting better. After World War II, the great American economic machine built the largest and most vigorous middle class in the history of the world, but now America's middle class is disintegrating at a blinding pace.
Most of those who write about the plight of the American middle class believe that things can be turned around and that the middle class will eventually be stronger than it ever has been. But unfortunately, that is just not the case. As a society, we have lived far, far beyond our means for decades. Now the bills are coming due and none of our leaders seem to know what to do.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is being rapidly assimilated into the emerging one world economy. Middle class American workers now find themselves in direct competition for jobs with the cheapest labor on the other side of the globe. Of course many multinational corporations have taken advantage of this by moving factories and jobs to countries like China where blue collar workers make about a dollar an hour. This has helped raise the standard of living for workers in those nations by a nominal amount, but it has been absolutely devastating for the standard of living of America's middle class.
So what does all of this mean?
It means that the U.S. economy is headed for collapse and middle class Americans are in for some really, really hard times.
The following are 27 signs that the standard of living for America's middle class is dropping like a rock....
#1 Household spending for the middle fifth of all U.S. income earners was down 3.5% in 2009. That was the steepest one year decline since records began being kept back in 1984.
#2 Median household income in the United States fell from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009.
#3 According to one new report, in 2009 residents of New York state experienced their first full-year decline in income in more than 70 years.
#4 Of the 52 largest metro areas in the United States, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income in 2009.
#5 Home ownership in the United States declined for the third year in a row in 2009.
#6 In 2009, approximately 4 million Americans fell out of the middle class and now live below the federal poverty line.
#7 The number of Americans enrolled in the food stamp program has set a new all-time record for 20 consecutive months.
#8 In July (the last month for which data is available), 41.8 million Americans were on food stamps.
#9 The number of Americans in the food stamp program skyrocketed more than 55 percent between December 2007 and July 2010.
#10 In 2009, more than 48 million Americans were enrolled in the Medicaid program.
#11 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the U.S. government.
#12 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
#13 According to the Cato Institute, anti-poverty spending by the U.S. government has increased 89 percent over the past decade.
#14 The cost of health care increased a staggering 9.6% for all U.S. households from 2007 to 2009.
#15 It turns out that only the top 5 percent of all U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
#16 35 percent of all U.S. households now live on $35,000 or less.
#17 New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says that Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
#18 According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck. That was up substantially from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
#19 Today, 28% of all American households have at least one member that is searching for a full-time job.
#20 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many that were receiving it back in 2007.
#21 A recent Pew Research survey found that 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours or an involuntary move to part-time work since the recession began.
#22 In 2009, 43.6 million Americans were living in poverty. Sadly, the number of Americans living in poverty has increased for three consecutive years, and the 43.6 million poor Americans in 2009 was the highest number that the U.S. Census Bureau has ever recorded in 51 years of record-keeping.
#23 A staggering 25 percent of all American adults now have a credit score below 599.
#24 It is estimated that nearly a third of all Americans cannot qualify for a mortgage because of low credit scores.
#25 For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all American households put together.
#26 Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a stunning 32 percent increase over 2008.
#27 According to a new report by the U.S. Census Bureau, the bottom fifth of all U.S. income earners brought in just 3.4 percent of all income in 2009 while the top fifth brought in a whopping 49.4 percent of all income.
So is there any hope that things will turn around soon?
No, not really.
At this point, even some of the top economic authorities in the nation are admitting that we are headed for very difficult times.
Goldman Sachs recently announced that the U.S. economy is likely to be either "fairly bad" or "very bad" over the next 6 to 9 months.
Not only that, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke now says that the U.S. economy is in a situation that is dire and "unsustainable".
Not that Goldman Sachs or Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should be trusted when it comes to the economy.
When it comes to the problems we are facing, the truth can be found in the long-term trends. If you have not done so already, please read "11 Long-Term Trends That Are Absolutely Destroying The U.S. Economy". It will open your eyes to the true horrors that our economy is now facing.
But statistics alone do not tell the real story.
Sometimes what gets lost in the endless economic statistics is the very real pain of the millions of Americans who are trying to live through this. The following story from the Unemployed Friends website is from a woman named Leetah who is desperately hoping to be able to get through this upcoming winter....
The place I live in right now has no jobs and no places to live. My fiance, Lloyd, and I have been looking for anything but he lost his job from McDonald's and the factories (the only jobs to make a living off of) consider him an insurance liability. I can't get hired to a factory because of I was fired from our major factory for attendance (I had to miss 3 days of work because I was sick). So we are moving to the Edmond/OKC region where we are hoping to find a job and a place with running water and heating. We've spent the last few years without heat and running water and so having a place with water and heat would be heaven.
Winter is coming up fast and I am so afraid. Last winter we almost died from the cold and now the thought of cold makes my throat close up and my heart pound. But it isn't just ourselves we are looking out for, we have our dog too. Our wonderful APBT Maggie who is 2-years-old and has been with us since she was 5-months-old. She's our baby girl and we can't lose her. We almost lost her to the cold too and it scared me so much. We are going to be living in our car soon with our dog.
I am hoping to be able to keep our food stamps in the new city so we can still eat. I have already applied for ten+ jobs and nothing yet but I am keeping my hopes up. Hopefully it will get easier to find a job once we get there. Then we just have to save up and then we can afford an apartment. Now finding an apartment with my awesome dog is another story.
Please say a prayer for those who are out of work and on the verge of being forced out on the street.
You never know, you might be next.
Read Article With Links HERE
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