Christianist Sharia Law has come to America

Alabama Senate OK's church police bill

The Alabama Senate has voted to allow a church to form its own police force.

Lawmakers on Tuesday voted 24-4 to allow Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham to establish a law enforcement department.

The church says it needs its own police officers to keep its school as well as its more than 4,000 person congregation safe.

Critics of the bill argue that a police department that reports to church officials could be used to cover up crimes.

The state has given a few private universities the authority to have a police force, but never a church or non-school entity.

Police experts have said such a police department would be unprecedented in the U.S.

A similar bill is also scheduled to be debated in the House on Tuesday.

The Conservative Media Displays Blatant Hypocrisy Over The Murder Of NYPD Officers

Without fail, conservative politicians and conservative media have jumped all over the recent murder of two NYPD officers to further their narrative that those of us who want reform and better training in law enforcement are fomenting anti-cop violence.

Just this morning, Fox News ran a segment asking if America had lost respect for police officers – and you guessed it, they blame President Obama and New York mayor Bill DeBlasio, among others. Rudy Guiliani was on Fox News yesterday pushing the same message that protesters and politicians critical of the corrupt police officers were the problem, not the corrupt police officers and departments themselves.

It is worth pointing out that there’s a little truth to what they’re saying, although it is most certainly unintentional. There are some anti-government types, including members of Cop Block and Open Carry Texas such as Kory Watkins, who are most certainly trying to hijack a legitimate cause for their own political gain. These people have a very vested interest in making sure that distrust and hatred of all branches of the government burns high through slandering good cops so that they can then use the good intentions of protesters to erode government functions in a manner they can take advantage of. In other words, they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing, hoping for others to do their dirty work for them.

Tales of political deceit and subterfuge aside, no protester in their right mind should be celebrating, encouraging or even attempting to legitimize violence against police officers. My friend Chad R. MacDonald explains in this piece for Big Appled:

The actions of a few bad cops do not justify the death of anyone else, especially other police officers. The actions of a few hooligans should not cast aspersions on demonstrators against police brutality. Especially if a madman from out of the city wants to make a name for himself by killing New York cops. This after he shot his ex-girlfriend. 

Blaming protestors for the killings of these officers is shortsighted, as good and moral people are outraged by both of these recent and tragic incidents. You cannot blame the Mayor, or anyone else, for actions they were not involved in, just as you cannot blame all police officers for the death of Eric Garner. To say the protestors are to blame for subsequent violence against the NYPD is illogical. The true protestors are demonstrating against violence, not advocating for violence. To say otherwise is dishonest and/or ignorant. (Source)

Yet, that’s exactly what the conservative narrative is – that the very people who are demonstrating against police brutality are also encouraging lone wolf madmen to assassinate police officers. Legitimizing or trying to encourage violence against members of law enforcement – why does that sound so very familiar? Oh right, remember the Cliven Bundy incident earlier this year? Remember how Sean Hannity and other conservative pundits fawned all over the guy, right up until he made the “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro” remark? Yet despite his statement, Hannity still went on to say that Bundy’s cause was legitimate, racial language or not.

Don’t believe me? Here it is straight from the transcript of the show, from the Fox News website itself.

However, I also want to say this. The ranch standoff that took place out in Nevada was not about a man named Cliven Bundy. At the heart of this issue was my belief that our government is simply out of control. Now, to me, this was about a federal agency’s dangerous response to a situation that could have resulted in a catastrophe, and that means people dying and people being shot, kind of comparable to what we saw in Waco, Texas. 

It was about hundreds of armed federal agents and snipers and sharp shooters surrounding a family, and not because that family posed a threat to anyone else, but because their cattle happened to be grazing on the wrong patch of grass, and they were eating government grass. 

In other words, when I believe government officials, when they overstep their line, I think it’s my job to call them on it. And make no mistake about it, I’ll continue to do just that. (Source)

So we’ve learned that when a white, conservative rancher’s family and supporters in Nevada resist arrest and threaten government agents over land they haven’t paid grazing fees for in decades, it’s the government allegedly overstepping their boundaries. When right-wing, anti-government types kill innocent police officers, they’re completely ignored by conservative media as Media Matters pointed out.

Yet when a black man passively resists arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes in New York City, and dies as a consequence of being placed in a chokehold, the ridiculous argument from the folks over on the right is that he shouldn’t have resisted. According to them, it’s also the fault of us peaceful protesters and of course, President Obama when a lone madman guns down two cops and expresses anti-police rhetoric on the internet. Does anyone else see this as ridiculous and even racist, or just par for the course from the usual hypocrites over in the world of conservative media?

Hot Cop of Castro ruled to be too hot to patrol the Castro area

Remember San Francisco's Hot Cop of Castro? The adorable officer Chris Kohrs who drove the gay internet wild?

Well, it turns out, he has revealed that his superiors have told him he is officially too hot to patrol the gayborhood.

'They prefer to keep me out of the Castro area just because it gets kind of crazy sometimes when I go down there,' he has revealed in a new video.

But if you're worried he's put down his badge for good, don't fret, he's still on the eye for trouble in San Fran. He's just been moved to the slightly less gay Haight-Ashbury station.

But Kohrs doesn't mind the attention, in fact he is giving back to the community as the new face of local men's clothes shop Blade + Blue.

A portion of the proceeds from his collaboration with the clothier will benefit the Officer Down Memorial Fund.

SAN DIEGO: Appeals Court To Hear Case Of Man Busted For "Indecent" Pride Outfit

A California appeals court is about to hear the case of Will Walters, a gay man arrested at San Diego's gay pride event in 2011 because his outfit did not fully cover his rear end. Charges were dropped after the man spent the night in jail, but Walters is suing on the grounds that police targeted the pride event while ignoring the far more skimpy outfits wore daily at the city's beaches. Via the San Diego Reader: 

The city attorney's office chose not to prosecute but the damage had been done. Walters wanted to expose what his attorney calls the city's "Gay Special Events Nudity Policy." "The city was asked to turn over copies of all public nudity citations and arrest reports issued by the San Diego Police Department over the last five years," attorney Christopher Morris wrote in the appeal. "The city produced 104 redacted citations and reports. In not one of those reports was a person arrested or cited for wearing a thong or a g-string type bathing suit bottom." Now, as the case makes its way through the courts, some have begun to speak out against the city's policy and the arrest. West Hollywood councilmember, attorney, and openly gay man John Duran wrote an op-ed for the Daily Journal, a legal publication for attorneys, denouncing the city's police force and the city for arguing that the arrest had nothing to do with sexual orientation or discrimination.

The date for Walters' hearing has not yet been set.

NYPD Sued Again Over Homophobic Entrapment Stings

The NYPD has a gross history of entrapping gay men in what it considers to be sexual situations only to slap them with charges of public lewdness.

We reported an account of the disgusting practice in May, when the department settled with a man who came forward claiming that he had falsely arrested for — as the NYPD claims — trying to engage a plainclothes officer in a sex act. The man, like many others, claimed he did no such thing.

This week, the Times consulted three of at least 12 victims of the NYPD’s homophobic practices who are now suing the department over their “aggressive and intrusive police tactics.” Represented by the Legal Aid Society, they all claim they were accused of masturbating while peeing at urinals in the second-floor bathroom at the Port Authority bus terminal.

Though Port Authority police commander Capt. John Fitzpatrick says “the bathroom is hardly a hotbed of sexual activity” and that sexual complaints are “few and far between,” the NYPD has arrested at least 60 men for allegedly masturbating there this year alone.

According to the report, at least two arrests are made each week.

Cornell Holden, a 28-year-old baker, describes his experience being arrested in one of the regular stings:

Mr. Holden, a 28-year-old baker, said he noticed that a bald man at the urinal next to him — who he later learned was a plainclothes police officer — was looking at him. A privacy divider, as well as a duffel bag slung over Mr. Holden’s shoulder, separated them. 

“While I’m using the bathroom, he stepped back and kind of looks at me and then walks off,” Mr. Holden recalled. As he left, two officers approached him, asking what he had just been doing. “I said: ‘Nothing. I was using the bathroom,’ ” Mr. Holden said. “They pulled me aside, asked for my ID and then put handcuffs on me.”

Holden suspects officers target men who “fit the description of a homosexual male,” and even says he heard a police officer refer to the plainclothes officer who arrested him as “the gay whisperer” during his arrest.

Another victim, identified as Miguel, also shared his account:

“You know how when you have a feeling someone is looking at you?” Miguel, 43, said of the episode, on July 9. “So I look over and see someone is smiling at me. It was like a smirk.” He described the man as stocky and wearing blue shorts. 

Miguel said he “paid it no mind,” washed his hands and left the men’s room. Walking toward his bus to New Jersey, he was arrested. The officer kept saying, “Oh, you know what you did,” when Miguel asked why he had been arrested. 

Miguel said he was not sure whether he had been targeted. “Anyone who would have gone next to that man, who would have stood in that particular urinal, would have gotten the rap that I got,” he said.

The fine, upstanding officers of the NYPD: protecting and serving New Yorkers since… well, we’ll let you know when that starts happening.

Cop's Tip For Not Getting Raped By A Cop: 'Don't Get Pulled Over'

In response to the arrests of three law enforcement officials in Oklahoma for sexually assaulting women while on the job, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper told women they can avoid getting raped by a cop if they simply follow traffic laws.

Raw Story first pointed out on Tuesday that Capt. George Brown, a state trooper, shared a few tips for women in an interview with local NBC News affiliate KJRH. Brown told the KJRH anchor that women can keep their car doors locked and speak through a cracked window if a trooper approaches them. If the trooper asks a woman to get out of the car, Brown said, she can ask "in a polite way" why he wants her to do that.

But the "best tip that he can give," the anchor said on air of his interview with Brown, "is to follow the law in the first place so you don’t get pulled over."

In the past month, a Tulsa County Deputy, an OHP trooper and an Oklahoma City police officer have all been charged with repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting women while on the job.

Brown said Oklahoma law enforcement officials are working to retain the public's trust. "There are entirely more good officers than there are the few bad apples that exist out there, and we want people to know that," Brown told KJRH. "We have a lot of good troopers, a lot of good officers out there doing a lot of good things daily, and we want to continue that and have the public continue their trust in us."

Every Now And Then, A Flash Mob Really Makes You Stop And Think. This Is One Of Those Times.

The story in the beginning of this video left me, and many others, speechless with anger from the injustice and inhumanity. Fortunately, Broadway was able to find the perfect words.

Virginia is for Pervs!

Police in Manassas City, Virginia plan to force a 17-year-old boy to get an erection, so they can photograph it.

Why? Because the boy sexted his 15-year-old girlfriend after she sent him some photos of herself. Still not making sense? Read on. (“Sexting” is when you send a sexually-explicit text message to someone.)

The girl’s mom was unhappy about the sexting, so she called the cops, who are now charging the 17-year-old with two felonies: the production and possession of child pornography.

Yes, taking a picture of your own junk is now a felony in Virginia if you’re underage. Which means, there are an awful lots of felons in Virginia.

It’s really an unbelievably outrageous abuse of power by a state that has traditionally been at the forefront of the abuse of power, going to back to the days when Virginia went all the way to the Supreme Court in order to stop whites from being able to marry blacks. You might also recall that Virginia is the state that infamously took away the child of a lesbian mother several years ago.

Virginia is also the state where the GOP gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, (who thankfully lost) wanted to make oral sex illegal in the state, even between married heterosexual couples.

So, in order to prove that the video that was sexted was of the boy himself — and thus is “child pornography” – the police may have to inject the boy’s penis with a drug that induces an erection (one assumes it’s the same drug porn stars use (seriously)).

The police are now defending their decision to get a search warrant to force a 17-year-old boy to get a hard-on in front of them, while they photograph the boy’s erect penis.

Of course, it isn’t just the Manassas City police department that has some issues here, the Prince William County prosecutors are equally culpable, as they apparently gave the go ahead to move forward with this case. Anyone who’s dealt with local law enforcement knows how generally difficult it is to get police to move forward with anything, in part because local prosecutors usually don’t want to get involved unless it’s a violent crime and then some (at least in my experience).

So it’s rather telling that the Manassas police and the Prince William County prosecutors think the biggest threat to Virginia today is a boy sexting his girlfriend. And mind you, this is a sex crime. This boy may find himself listed publicly as a sexual predator for the rest of his life.

Particular opprobrium is due Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Claiborne Richardson, who is the one who reportedly came up with the idea to inject the boy’s penis in order to provoke an erection that the prosecutors and the cops can then photograph:

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Claiborne Richardson told her that her client must either plead guilty or police would obtain another search warrant “for pictures of his erect penis,” for comparison to the evidence from the teen’s cell phone. Foster asked how that would be accomplished and was told that “we just take him down to the hospital, give him a shot and then take the pictures that we need.”

Just unbelievable.

Cop Celebrates Pittsburgh Pride By Punching Lady

Here’s a disturbing video of a lady lurching around as a police officer punches her at Pittsburgh Pride.

It’s hard to tell from the video what’s going on. Presumably the cop didn’t just walk up to a random person and assault them for no reason.

According to police, the woman was fighting with another guy, and about 50 people had gathered around them. The officer reported that when he tried to break up the fight, the woman punched him.

And allegedly, that wasn’t the officer’s first run-in with that woman. Earlier in the day, he says, he had to warn her “not to be so physically offensive” with other people.

So it’s kind of hard to say who’s in the wrong here. Was this woman picking fights with people and assaulting a cop who tried to calm things down? Or is this a cop who was looking for an opportunity to hit a woman in the chest?

Either way, it probably could have been worse. In Detroit, a guy at Pride was beaten up by a group of men shouting homophobic slurs.

Salt Lake City Police Officer Placed on Leave After Refusing to Work At Gay Pride Parade

An officer with the Salt Lake City Police Department has been put on paid administrative leave after reportedly refusing an assignment at this weekend’s gay pride parade, KSL News reports:

"We don't tolerate bias and bigotry in the department, and assignments are assignments," said department spokeswoman Lara Jones.

The officer is on paid administrative leave as the internal affairs unit reviews the situation, Jones said. He had been given a traffic control and public safety assignment.

The department has provided services at the Utah Pride Festival since its inception, as well as a host of other community events.

"We serve a variety of community events with similar functions, and to allow personal opinion to enter into whether an officer will take a post is not something that can be tolerated in a police department," Jones said.

Added executive director of the Utah Pride Center Steven Ha:

“Clearly the officer’s act was more than just smelling of bigotry, but I think the act was bigotry, choosing to not do a duty that is sworn by police officers to do,”

Arrested LGBT Activists In Russia: ‘Cops Beat Us, Said We Have To Suck Their Cocks’

The day of the opening of the Olympic Games, police in Russia arrested about 14 LGBT activists in two separate incidents. Ten of the activists were arrested in Moscow’s Red Square (video here) for singing the national anthem while holding a rainbow flag. They were taken to a local police station, where, they say, some were beaten and threatened with both sexual assault and acts of physical violence.

Buzzfeed is reporting that “Ulrika Westerlund of the LGBT organization RFSL, emailed to BuzzFeed a transcript of a text message exchange she had with Russian activists still in detention that reported at least two of the group had been beaten and threatened with sexual abuse.”

Here is a portion of the transcript, via Buzzfeed’s J. Lester Feder. The “Me” is Ulrika Westerlund:

From them: Yes, in cage. They beated [sic] two of us
Me: oh no, who? What can we do? Can you keep reporting? Are all of you in the same cage?
Them: Two queers. Before that they took us upstairs and said that we have to “suck their cocks” and that we have to be burned. When we said that we gonna complain. So they bring us back to cage. So we don't let them close it without paper, pen and their names. So they beat two of us and then used cuffs

Buzzfeed adds that one of the arrested protest organizers reported that “police officers almost broke two of the protestors’ arms by closing the door of the cage, some were kicked by police officers while handcuffed to the cage, and one protestor was momentarily choked by a police officer placing his arm across his throat.”

Most or all of the arrested are believed to have been released.

Police Shoot Mentally Ill Teen After Allegedly Stating ‘We Don’t Have Time For This’

On Sunday, January, 5, 2014, Keith Vidal, 18, of Boiling Spring Lakes, N.C. was shot dead in his home by police. A known history of depression and schizophrenia had troubled the young man in the past but never to the point of violence according to neighbors. The incident began while Vidal was sweeping the floor between the laundry room and the kitchen. He was carrying a screwdriver, but, the family said, never threatened anybody with it.

“He just wanted his screwdriver. It’s his screwdriver, he’s gonna keep it,”  said Vidal’s mother, Mary Wilsey.

ThinkProgress.com reports,

“During Sunday’s incident, Vidal had apparently picked up a small screwdriver — small enough that it couldn’t have caused serious harm, his family says, but enough that they sought law enforcement assistance”.

12:31 p.m. Police are called.

Mark Wilsey calls police for assistance. The first of three different police departments respond to a 911 call for assistance.

“We wanted him to put the screwdriver down because he does have schizophrenia and we didn’t know if he was gonna hurt himself,” said Mary Wilsey.

Activists Outraged Over New Dress Code For Dallas Pride Barring Public Nudity

Controversy has erupted over a new dress code being enforced at this year's Dallas Pride, The Dallas Voice reports. The move towards a dress code is intended to prevent "lewdness" and public nudity. Though Michael Doughman, executive director of the Dallas Tavern Guild, the group that puts on the pride parade, has attempted to downplay the controversy, insisting the dress code was not being imposed by the Guild but rather the city and reflects existing laws and ordinances governing lewdness and public nudity, others remain concerned. In a Facebook post rebuking the "new rules," activist Daniel Cates addressed head on why such restrictive regulations are troublesome in the context of a pride parade:

“The ‘queer’ is effectively being erased from our Pride celebration in favor of the most polished, heteronormative representation of our community as possible,” Cates wrote. “It should be noted that the rioters at the Stonewall Inn fought to break OUT of the damn closet! Our movement was built of sex positivity and our desire to BE WHO WE ARE! I urge you ALL to openly DEFY the Tavern Guild!”

The police for their part are taking the dress code seriously:

Jeremy Liebbe, a detective sergeant at Dallas Independent School District, will oversee 95 officers from DPD and DISD as co-commander of security for the parade and festival. Liebbe, who’s gay, said any floats in violation of indecency standards will be warned in the lineup on Wycliff Avenue prior to the parade. If they fail to comply before reaching the parade route, they will be removed from the parade and individuals may be charged with class-B misdemeanor indecent exposure. But Liebbe added: “If there’s an erection and a child is present that could see it, it is a felony, and we don’t want to see that happen.”

“My goal at all of these events is to have zero enforcement action taken,” Liebbe said. “But there are some people over the years who’ve tried to push that line to see just how far we could go.”

Dallas Pride will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

 

The New York Anti-Violence Project (AVP) is reporting on what they're calling a bias-motivated assault of three gay men by NYPD officers in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn on June 3.

Writes the AVP:

Three openly gay men, Josh Williams (pictured, below), Ben Collins, and Antonio Maenza, reported that they were walking past the 79th Precinct when an NYPD officer accused one of the men of public urination and attacked him, throwing him against a police car. The officer was joined by other officers who also attacked the man, throwing him to the ground and pepper spraying him while he was in handcuffs. The survivor was handcuffed tightly, causing lacerations. The survivor's injuries were treated at a hospital, where he was again restrained with wrist and ankle cuffs. The group of officers also arrested the other two survivors.

Representatives from AVP, the LGBT Justice Project of Make the Road NY, Streetwise and Safe, the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE, Communities United for Police Reform, Campaign to Stop the False Arrests, and the Brooklyn Community Pride Center is planning to hold a press conference on the incident on Tuesday afternoon.

The Village Voice has more:

The Voice has also learned that NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau started investigating after someone apparently associated with the precinct filed a complaint.

"This case is so extreme in how the encounter escalated so fast over something so silly and turned so violent," says Williams' lawyer Cynthia Conti-Cook. "Based on how the incident started, there's very little to justify such extreme action other than homophobia."

Slurs were used:

Maenza was watching the incident from the sidewalk and videotaping with his phone. "Josh is on the ground, he's surrounded by officers, he's been maced, and they pick him up and take him into the precinct," he says. "At that point, one of the officers called us 'faggots.'"

Collins recalled that the officer called them, "fucking faggots."

Handcuffed, temporarily blinded and bleeding, Williams was dragged into the stationhouse, and left in a holding cell. He was given a charge of resisting arrest. It took several hours for a paramedic to arrive to treat his injuries and by then, his wrists had swelled alarmingly.

While he was finally in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, he says an officer remarked, "We better not tell him where the soap is." After he was treated, he was taken back to the precinct, where he was fingerprinted and then sent to central booking and then arraigned at some point the following day, a Monday, more than 24 hours after the initial encounter.

More at The Voice...

Video of the Capture of the Boston Bomber

From AmericaBlog.com:

It’s an amazing video, filmed with a normal camera, infrared, and night vision (I think).

I’m not going to touch up the pictures in photoshop, though they could use it, since I want you tos see exactly what the police themselves saw.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, this is Suspect 2:

First a normal shot. You can clearly see the boat:

Then an infrared shot, I’m pretty sure, of the boat and the backyard – you can see that the boat is covered with a tarp – he’s inside:

Infrared shot, I’m pretty sure.

Then an infrared of either a robot, or a police vehicle with an arm, peeling the tarp off of the boat – at the top, in the boat, you can see the heat signature of Suspect 2 laying down.

 

The cops throw in a flash-bang stun grenade, after the tarp is removed:

Suspect 2 just laying there, though you can see his hand moving slightly – the round ball at the top is his head.  Clearly the guy was majorly injured and not going anywhere.  If they hadn’t found him that night, I wonder if he’d have survived.

And here’s the whole video (h/t Towleroad):