LAPD Officers Removed Antennas from Police Cars in Black Areas to Disable Recording Devices

Los Angeles police officers removed antennas from police cars in several predominantly Black neighborhoods to disable the recording equipment and avoid being monitored while on duty, according to an inspection by LAPD investigators.

The department review found about half of the 80 cars in the Southeast division—which includes Watts and the Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens housing projects—were missing the antennas that help capture what officers say in the field. The review discovered at least 10 more cars in nearby divisions also had antennas removed.

Members of the Police Commission, which oversees the department, said they were alarmed by both the actions of the officers and the failure of the department to reveal their actions when they were first detected.

“On an issue like this, we need to be brought in right away,” commission President Steve Soboroff told theLos Angeles Times. “This equipment is for the protection of the public and of the officers. To have people who don’t like the rules to take it upon themselves to do something like this is very troubling.”

But LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said the department did not purposely try to hide the matter from the commission and pointed out that he has always been a strong advocate of the recording devices. LAPD officials decided it would be futile to try to figure out which officers were responsible for removing the antennas, since so many of them use the cars during their shifts. Instead the department warned officers about removing the antennas and put checks in place to account for the equipment at the start and end of each patrol shift.

One of the main reasons a federal judge agreed to lift the Department of Justice’s oversight of the notoriously corrupt LAPD last year, after more than a decade, was because of safeguards such as the cameras.

The cameras turn on automatically whenever an officer activates the car’s emergency lights and sirens or can be activated manually. They are used to record traffic stops and other encounters that occur in front of the vehicle.

In addition, officers wear small transmitters on their belts that relay their voices back to the antennas in the patrol car. Sgt. Dan Gomez, a department expert on recording devices, told the Times that regardless of whether they are in front of the camera, officers’ voices can be recorded hundreds of yards away from the car—but that distance is severely curtailed by as much as a third without the antennas.

Dozens of Staffers Just Walked Out of Congress. This Powerful Picture Shows Why.

On Thursday afternoon, dozens of congressional staffers walked out in protest of the recent grand jury decisions failing to indict the two officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The result was an incredible display of solidarity, with staffers raising their hands in the air to invoke Brown's "hands up, don't shoot" image.

This Clip Opened My Eyes About Filming Crowds And Cops!

This was originally created when the Occupy Wall Street movement was very active and the police encounters that happened featured riot gear, jackboots, tear gas, and lots of violent force. I'm so happy those days are over ... oh, wait. Anyway, here's a guide on to how to film when the situation gets rough out in the streets. See you there?

Police Destroy LEGALLY Painted Mural of Mike Brown, Because It ‘Sent the Wrong Message’

Only two weeks ago a huge mural was created of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old who was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in spite of being unarmed and having committed no crime when police stopped to harass him.

The mural was created by artists in Trenton, New Jersey on the gate to a vacant storefront.

Permission of the proper authorities was even obtained before the mural was created, just to make sure that there was no reason for it to be destroyed later by police.

But that didn’t seem to thwart officers who decided to get involved, even though no laws had been broken by the artists who created the mural.

Monday afternoon, the mural was defaced, then painted over after Trenton police said that the painting “sent the wrong message about community and police relations.”

Watch the video of the illegal destruction of this legal artwork by police suppressing freedom of speech!

He Had A Dream!

Watch Scott Walker’s Police Illegally Arrest A Marine Veteran & Desecrate His Flag

Friday was the second day of the police crackdown to rein in daily protests at the Wisconsin Capitol building seeking to bring attention to Koch-sponsored Governor Scott Walker’s unprecedented attacks on Wisconsin's labor unions, minorities, the public sector, and the middle class.

After illegally declaring the peaceful demonstration an “unlawful assembly” the Wisconsin Capitol, which are under Walker’s control, have attempted to quell the demonstration by sending out waves of officers to unnecessarily arrest several peaceful protesters.

In the video below, they go as far as to arrest a completely peaceful US Marine Corps veteran, who had not yet been arrested, for “resisting arrest”, although he was simply standing there with a bandanna tied over his mouth, ensuring that he couldn’t possibly have been arrested for saying something disrespectful or threatening towards the police.

Adding insult to injury and providing a very fitting example of Governor Walker’s un-American trampling of his constituents First Amendment rights, the arresting officers either intentionally or inadvertently(it’s not clear in the video) stepped all over this ex-Marine’s American flag, trampling and desecrating it for all to see.

It’s important that all of America sees this video, so everyone can see just how brutal and un-American Scott Walker’s reign of terror is. Please do your part by sharing this literal trampling of American First Amendment Constitutional Rights on social media forums.