SALT LAKE CITY — A crowd estimated to include more than 200 people took to the streets of Salt Lake City Saturday, chanting “Black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe”, in a protest against police violence put on by the group Utah Against Police Brutality, and police have blocked off streets and intersections around the protesters.

FOX 13 News’ Todd Tanner supplied video from the scene of the protest, which focuses on police violence. Tanner reports a crowd of more than 200 has gathered, and for some time some of the protesters blocked Main Street and others laid down on a TRAX line. The protesters have since moved from the TRAX lane, and UTA officials stated that, aside from a train delayed due to

http://fox13now.com/2014/12/06/videos-large-crowd-in-slc-protests-police-violence/

?w=770

NYPD officers traveled to Ferguson, MO during the fallout of the grand jury decision for Michael Brown, the unarmed teen who was fatally shot by a police officer in August, to collect intelligence on “professional agitators” ahead of the Garner decision. Missouri protesters managed to outmaneuver police during protests by using disposable or burner phones and organizing via social media. One NYPD officer complained that the protesters were wealthy “little techie brats” who were using social media to outsmart cops.

“The NYPD encourages cooperation across units to spy on people for attempting to protest,” and any one who may be associated with protesters, Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, told ThinkProgress, mentioning the NYPD helicopters surveying thousands of protesters this week.

Police rely on social media and data collection to help them respond more efficiently to crime, but it can often step over the line. “In Chicago, [there was the] creation of the heat map predicting who would do crime based on who they are and where they live. In New York, their anti-terrorism work has pushed the boundaries of privacy,” Robinson said. “But it’s all in how they use the data. At the end of the day, police need to build trust…And monitoring protests doesn’t do this.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/12/06/3600158/nypd-social-media-eric-garner-protests/

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-orders-billionaire-to-open-gate-to-Martins-5938974.php

After a surf session, Morgan Williams of San Francisco climbs over a locked gate that blocks the only public access to Martins Beach in in San Mateo County in May.


Billionaire Vinod Khosla Can't Block Surfers From Martin's Beach, Judge...


The billionaire owner of a Peninsula beach was ordered Friday by a San Mateo County judge to open the gates to the sandy haven, which he insists is his exclusive property.

Judge Barbara Mallach issued her final order in the contentious case, specifically telling venture capitalist Vinod Khosla that he had to reopen the gate to popular Martins Beach, a crescent-shaped inlet 5 miles south of Half Moon Bay.

Khosla, who closed the gate four years ago, was told by the court in July that his failure to obtain a permit before blocking access to Martins Beach was illegal. Khosla, however, argued in legal briefs after the trial that he did not believe he had to open the gate until after he had made an application to the Coastal Commission and he had been told by commission authorities to do so. The gate has been closed since the trial ended five months ago, but surfers and other beachgoers have been walking around it.
Mallach said in her final judgment Friday that Khosla was wrong and that he had to immediately open the gate, said Joe Cotchett, lead attorney for the Surfrider Foundation, which filed a lawsuit demanding public access.
“It has been a long struggle, but the public access has been preserved thanks to our judicial system,” Cotchett said.
Khosla paid $32.5 million in 2008 for the property, which includes 45 leased cabins along the coastal cliffs. He closed the only public access gate in September 2010, citing the high cost of maintenance and liability insurance. Surfrider sued last year, arguing that the sandy shoreline had been open to all comers since at least 1918 and belonged to the public.

Hence Guiliani's recent racial meltdown. The protests are an indictment against his policies (and Bratton)


http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/12/the_big_idea_that_killed_eric_garner.htmlThe broken windows theory was introduced by two social scientists in a 1982 magazine article and gained traction in New York. It posits that poorly maintained urban environments with dirty streets, abandoned buildings and the like attract crime, while well-kept communities are more law-abiding.

Giuliani, who is largely credited with popularizing the strategy, could not be reached for comment on Friday. He said on Fox News on Thursday that the police response to Garner was justified because he did not cooperate with law enforcement.

But critics say police have stretched the theory beyond its original intent into an indiscriminate zero-tolerance policy.

“If the problem is a broken window they should fix the window,” said City University of New York law school professor Steve Zeidman. “But somehow we don’t fix the window, we just arrest people who start hanging out by the broken window.”

https://bangordailynews.com/2014/12/05/news/nation/ny-chokehold-death-focuses-public-attention-on-controversial-police-tactics/

--------

As WNYC’s Robert Lewis reported back in September, Pantaleo is a poster boy for broken windows policing. He’s been on the force since 2007, and in that time records show him as the arresting officer in 259 criminal court cases. They are overwhelmingly for minor crimes like pot possession; just 24 of them were for felonies. “Two-thirds of Pantaleo’s cases that made it to court ended with a dismissal or a guilty plea to a disorderly conduct violation,” Lewis reported, “which is a little more serious than a speeding ticket. He is one of the most active cops on Staten Island.”

This is what broken windows cops are supposed to do. They beef up their ranks in priority neighborhoods and get in folks’ faces over anything and everything. I’ve lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for about a decade. Our neighborhood has for many years been on NYPD’s list of target spots for broken windows—“impact zones,” as they’re called. It’s unexceptional here to swap stories of run-ins with bizarrely unreasonable cops—telling us stop lingering by the subway entrance, to get out of the street, to move along. Eric Garner’s frustrated response to that constant harassment will appear routine to anyone who’s lived in neighborhoods like ours. He’d just broken up a fight, and now here was NYPD in his face, again. “Every time you see me you wanna arrest me,” Garner snapped. “I’m tired of it. It stops today.”

NYPD brass had ordered the 120th precinct to make a priority out of interrupting the sale of untaxed cigarettes, according to a Daily News report just after Garner’s death. It was a recurring “quality-of-life” issue, a spokesperson told the paper. Garner had been arrested for violating New Yorkers’ quality of life in this way eight times. So Pantaleo and his colleagues were doing their job and doing it well. And when Garner pushed back on their outsized response to his petty alleged crime, they escalated further. After all, that is the oxymoronic premise of broken windows policing: the cops should escalate things in order to keep things under control, and that will keep us all safe.

The contradictions within this idea beg unpleasant questions: Who is us and what is danger? Commissioner Bill Bratton gave some indication of the us and them of New York City crime and safety not long after he took the department’s helm. In a March speech at the Waldorf-Astoria, Bratton reassured business leaders that he’d stand firm behind broken windows policing.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/protests-break-out-nationwide-for-third-day-1417825427

protestors were still gathering on the fly in some cities, but in other places it is clear that protesters have become organized in the months after spontaneous protests erupted over the death of Mr. Brown, the black 18-year-old shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

Protesters are setting concrete goals and gaining the attention of top political and police officials.

“We want to change policy. We want to change law,” said Teressa Raiford, who helps lead an Oregon coalition called Don’t Shoot Portland that organizers intend to turn into a formal, nonprofit group. “We’re working toward sustainability, creating an infrastructure that will not move.”

After the first Ferguson demonstrations, protesters there formed a network that grew into what is now called Ferguson Action. Among other things, it maintains a website that catalogs upcoming protests nationwide by date and place.

Ferguson Action allows for organic protest but provides basic coordination, said Mervyn Marcano, spokesman for the group. Organizers are now agreeing on locations for protest actions and setting up support squads to provide bail after arrests.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/nyregion/in-unpredictable-new-york-protests-organized-criticism-of-police.html?_r=0&referrer=

Some of the protesters are aware of the tactics employed by the Police Department when the Republican National Convention was held in the city in 2004 and hundreds of people were swept up in mass arrests if they congregated in one spot for too long.

To avoid that fate, these protesters keep moving. If the police keep them away from the Brooklyn Bridge, a contingent heads toward Times Square. If Times Square is cleared, they head to the Lincoln Tunnel.

The strategy, one protester said, has been borrowed from Genghis Khan, who forced his enemies to chase him across the plains.


------

Chief O’Neill said officers had the demonstrators’ safety in mind at all times. “We want to minimize the chances of people getting hurt,” he said. “We have to keep that in mind as we go through.”

He noted that the marches were shifting more quickly than messages shared on the Internet.

“It’s very, very quick,” he said. “Very fluid. I’m not even sure if the social media stays up with them; the decision to ‘make a right,’ or ‘make a left,’ or ‘go straight.’ It happens pretty fast.”

The New York Police Department officer who recently shot and killed an unarmed African American man in Brooklyn did not immediately call for help or report the incident, choosing instead to text a police union representative as the victim died.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced a grand jury will consider charges against the officer responsible for the November shooting.

According to a report by the New York Daily News, these details were revealed by unnamed law enforcement sources, and paint a clearer picture of what happened the night 28-year-old Akai Gurley was killed by rookie police officer Peter Liang in the stairwell of an apartment complex.

http://rt.com/usa/211971-nypd-kill-unarmed-man-text/

The report states that Liang, as well as his partner Shaun Landau, did not respond to calls from their commanding officer or the emergency operator, both of whom were trying to reach them for more than six and a half minutes after a neighbor called 911 to report a shooting. Since neither Liang nor Landau reported the incident immediately, police found out about the incident through the neighbor’s call.

Instead, Liang reportedly decided to text a union representative during that time. His text messages allegedly reveal that the officers did not even know the precise address of the building they were in.

“That’s showing negligence,” an anonymous police source told the Daily News, referring to texting decision. “The guy is dying and you still haven’t called it in?”

#t=25

Walmart commercial featuring line 'I can't breathe' being pulled from air in wake of Eric Garner grand jury decision
The commercial began airing earlier this year, but some people started taking offense to it following Wednesday's grand jury announcement that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo would not be indicted in the chokehold death of Garner.

A playful Walmart commercial featuring the phrase "I can't breathe" from a black father is being pulled in wake of this week's grand jury decision not to indict a NYPD cop in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

In the ad, a father can be seen giving his daughter a cellphone as a present. The girl reacts by screaming and embracing her father.
NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo has Eric Garner in chokehold on Staten Island in July. New York Daily News NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo has Eric Garner in chokehold on Staten Island in July.

"I can't breathe," her father jokes.


The commercial began airing earlier this year, but some people started taking offense to it following Wednesday's grand jury announcement that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo would not be indicted.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/walmart-commercial-featuring-line-breathe-pulled-article-1.2035035

Vandals write ‘rapist’ on Bill Cosby’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star
The graffiti surfaced a day after Los Angeles police announced they would probe decades-old complaints made against the comedian, as long as the alleged victim files a police report. Earlier this week, a woman filed a lawsuit claiming Cosby attacked her at the Playboy Mansion in 1974, but it does not appear that she also filed a complaint with police

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/lapd-probe-bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-article-1.2034699