Flagstaff police officer's body camera captures fatal shooting

2 LAPD Officers Charged With Rape, Sexually Assaulting Women While on Duty: DA

Two LAPD officers accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting four women while on duty between 2008 to 2011 were charged Wednesday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.

James Nichols, 44, and Luis Valenzuela, 43, were charged with multiple counts each of sexual assault, including forcible rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation under color of authority and oral copulation by force, a DA news releasestated.

Valenzuela was also accused of pointing a gun at one of the victims, and faces an additional charge of assault with a firearm.

The sexual assaults occurred between December 2008 to March 2011, while the men worked as partners for the department’s Hollywood division, according to the DA.

The victims, who were 19, 24, 25 and 34 at the time, were typically assaulted while the officers were on duty, the DA stated.

Allegations first came to light in January 2010 when one of the four victims told a supervisor the officers stopped her more than a year earlier, and threatened to take her to jail if she did not perform sexual acts, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Another victim settled a $575,000 lawsuit against the city in 2014, saying Nichols and Valenzuela, who were working as narcotics detectives at the time, had arrested her in 2010, then offered to help her through the trial if she acted as an informant and had sex with them, the Times reported.

“Their power over her was abundantly clear from the get go,” the woman’s attorney, Dennis Chang, said at the time.

All four women had been arrested at various times by the officers for narcotics-related offenses, according to the DA.

Valenzuela was an 18-year veteran of the LAPD, and Nichols was a 15-year veteran, the LAPD said in a statement Wednesday.

Both officers were previously released from duty, according to the LAPD, but it was not clear when that occurred.

“I will say again, any officer that abuses the public’s trust is not welcome in the LAPD and we will continue vigorously investigating officers accused of alleged crimes and cooperate fully with the District Attorney’s office,” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday.

Nichols and Valenzuela were scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, at which time prosecutors are expected to ask that bail be set at $3.83 million for Nichols and $3.76 million for Valenzuela, according to the DA.

If convicted, both men face up to life in state prison.

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Trigger-Happy Cop Shot One of His Own and Kept Blasting Away

Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast

A detective who worked narcotics with an undercover officer walked up to a car, shot his fellow officer twice, and then seven more times against the victim’s pleas. Read Full Story here

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VIDEO: Dash Cam Shows Austin Cops Thrown Back After Man Blows Up His Own Car #austin #texas #explosion #cops #police

Austin PD dash cam caught a shocking incident late Tuesday night, when a man lit his own car aflame as officers approached it.

Two officers were injured after they responded to a call of a man who was threatening to blow himself up. They found him standing outside of his car before a gas station, where he warned them he was going to set his car on fire.

When the officers tried to pull him from the car, he flicked his lighter, which may have been doused in fuel, blowing the officers back.

“That car got hot quick,” a fire department spokesman said. “We’re talking thousands of degrees inside there, you saw the force it created right there. For him to get back in the car like that, to do that, he was very dedicated on killing himself.”

One officer was able to drive himself to the hospital, where he was treated for minor burn injuries; the other was treated at the scene, per KXAN.

VIDEO: Being Black in America

When Officer Rod Webber quickly approached the car that Hamza Jeylani was sitting in, the 17-year-old hit record on his cell phone. Moments earlier, Jeylani and three friends were pulled over by the officer after making a U-turn in a church parking lot in South Minneapolis after playing basketball at the local YMCA. After Jeylani and two friends were ordered out of the car, Webber threatened Jeylani as he handcuffed him.

“Plain and simple, if you fuck with me,” says Webber on the video, “I’m going to break your leg before you get the chance to run.” “Can you tell me why I’m getting arrested?” asks Jeylani. “Because I feel like arresting you,” replies Webber. 

According to police, the rationale for the March 18, 2015, arrest was suspicion that the four young Black teenagers had stolen the car. But Jeylani rejects this. “The driver had license and insurance, and that was his car.” Complicating matters more, police said the stolen car they were after was a blue Honda Civic. The teenagers, however, were driving a blue Toyota Camry. But Jeylani believes he knows the real reason for his arrest. He and his friends, all four of whom are of Somali descent, were driving while Black. “I felt like that was a racial profile,” he says. 

The feeling that the Minneapolis Police Department treats people of color, particularly Black and Native American residents, differently than white Minneapolitans isn’t confined to Jeylani and his friends. It’s pervasive, and now it is documented. In late 2014, the ACLU obtained arrest data from the Minneapolis Police Department for low-level offenses, such as spitting, loitering, or driving without insurance, from January 1, 2012, to September 30, 2014. 

The numbers show a startling disparity in the way police enforce low-level crimes, particularly in the low-income and minority communities of North Minneapolis and South Minneapolis. Black people in the city are 8.7 times more likely than White people to be arrested for low-level offenses, and Native Americans have it little better. They are 8.6 times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses than White people.

"We've become the new South,” warns Anthony Newby. “We've become the new premiere example of how to systematically oppress people of color. And again, it's done through our legal system, and so low-level offenses, as an example, are just one of the many, many ways that Minnesota has perfected the art of suppressing and subjugating people of color."

“Picking Up the Pieces — Policing in America, a Minneapolis Case Study” digs into the data the ACLU received from the police department and explores the who, what, when, where, why, and how of low-level arrests occurring in a city known for its affluence and liberal politics over 33 months. The report also recommends reforms to begin the process of improving police-community relations and ensure that all Minneapolitans are policed fairly.

385 Fatal Police Shootings In Five Months - Over 100 Had No Gun

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"We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part of the community," the president said to applause. "We're going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for local police departments."

VIDEO: Biker gang war between the Bandidos, Cossacks and Scimitarsin in Waco,Texas ends with nine dead and up to 18 injured. Law enforcement also engage in firefight.

Police say at least 5 biker gangs were involved in a bloody shootout with each other and police in the parking lot of a Waco, Texas restaurant on Sunday that left at least 9 dead and 18 wounded. The biker gangs haven’t been publicly identified, but photos and video from the scene show the bikers “flying their colors.” Three gangs have been observed there, the Cossacks Motorcycle Club, the Scimitars Motorcycle Club and the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. Law enforcement sources told the Waco Tribune that the Cossacks and the Bandidos were at the center of the incident. Photos also show members of the Leathernecks, Veterans and Los Pirados, though it wasn’t immediately clear which, if any, of the other clubs they are affiliated with. The website United Clubs of Waco shows those three clubs as being affiliated with the Bandidos. The Scimitars could be seen among the Cossacks during the aftermath of the shooting.

VIDEO: Kolin Truss Attacked by Baltimore police officer Vincent Cosom. Cosom to Serve Six Months in Prison

Kolin Truss

A Baltimore police officer who was caught on surveillance video beating a man by repeatedly punching him in the face pleaded guilty to second-degree assault today, receiving a five year prison sentence. However, the judge suspended all but six months of the sentence. But who would ever think a cop would spend a single day behind bars? Certainly not Vincent Cosom, who claimed in his police report that he was only defending himself against Kollin Truss who struck him in the body. However, the video shows Truss was trying to walk away from him and never once struck him.

Video Shows North Carolina Cop Shooting Suspect in the Back as He Ran Away, Revealing Omissions in Official Account by Police

 In the predawn hours of January 24, 2013, a police officer in Fayetteville, North Carolina, shot and killed a 22-year-old resident named Nijza Lamar Hagans, who had been pulled over for running a red light and making “several furtive driving maneuvers such as darting onto a neighborhood street and into a driveway,” according to a memo by Cumberland County’s district attorney, Billy West. The police officer, Aaron Hunt, then 24, claimed that, peering into the SUV Hagans was driving, he saw Hagans reach aggressively for a gun in his pants pocket as he opened his car door. “Officer Hunt fired his weapon after observing Mr. Hagans reaching for the gun and exiting the vehicle and turning toward Officer Hunt,” wrote West in his memo (embedded below), which concluded that Hunt’s response was “lawful and measured.” Yet the report absolving Hunt, who is Native American and is still a police officer in Fayetteville, did not mention the existence of video from the dashboard camera in Hunt’s cruiser, which shows a more troubling unfolding of events. The footage — which the city has withheld from public release but was provided to The Intercept by a source who requested anonymity — shows Officer Hunt shooting at Hagans a split-second after Hagans begins thrusting open his car door and while Hagans is still largely in his vehicle. Hunt shoots at Hagans, who is black, twice more as he exits the vehicle. The video then shows Hagans running away from Officer Hunt, who, instead of pursuing him, shoots at Hagans twice as he flees. Just after these final shots, Hagans stumbles to the ground where he died. Read more here...

Palm Beach County, FL — Jeremy Hutton is a 17-year-old boy with Down Syndrome, who nearly lost his life after an officer shot him three times as he fled. The incident happen in October of 2010, and the subsequent internal “investigation” cleared Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Deputy, Jason Franqui, the officer who shot Hutton. Hutton was a somewhat troubled teen and had taken his mother’s minivan for a joy ride. Deputy Franqui was the officer who responded to the mother’s call for help. When Franqui caught up to Hutton, he stopped at a red light. Franqui then pulled in front of the van in an attempt to stop Hutton. According to the report and the results of the investigation, Franqui feared for his life because he said Hutton drove directly at him, so he was forced to shoot.

Video Shows Active Duty Soldier Slowly Die as Police Assault Him

El Paso, TX– A family is suing for damages after decorated active-duty Fort Bliss soldier James Brown self-reported to serve a two-day sentence for a DUI in July 2012, and was never seen alive again. Through a massive battle going all the way up to the Attorney General, KFOX14 finally obtained the footage of what occurred in that jail which left the 26-year-old who has served two tours in Iraq, dead. Read more here...