Meg O'Connor
@megoconnor13
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Covering cops/prosecutors for @TheAppeal , a worker-run newsroom. Past @PhoenixNewTimes , @MiamiNewTimes . From NY, now in LA. she/they🏳️🌈 Annoyingly thorough.
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Police killed Jacob Harris. But his friends are serving decades in prison for it.
I've spent the past six months trying to unravel what really happened on the night of Harris's death—and what has happened to his friends and family members since then.
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police killed an 8 year old girl so the DA is charging two teens who did not kill the girl with murder, makes sense
Delaware County police officers shot and killed an 8-year-old girl after hearing gunfire a block away, and opening fire on a vehicle.
Now, the DA is charging the two teen boys who allegedly fired the shots down the street—which struck no one—with murder.
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Florida is charging formerly incarcerated people $50 a day even if they’re no longer in prison. The “pay to stay” fee is based on the length of the original sentence, so even when they're released they must keep paying for a prison bed they’re not using.
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Tomorrow Austin will vote on whether to buy two hotels and turn them into 140 units of low-barrier permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness. $6.5M in funding for the initiative comes straight from police budget cuts
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A Nebraska woman pleaded guilty to two felonies and one misdemeanor on Friday for helping her 17-year-old daughter get an abortion in 2022. Her daughter, now 18, was charged as an adult and also took a plea deal. They both face years in prison.
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NYPD kicked off pride by arresting a trans activist for "using a megaphone without a permit" at a rally protesting anti-trans laws and violence across the US.
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interesting how these guys are totally fine but Phoenix police & the Maricopa County Attorney's Office filed gang charges against BLM protesters for saying ACAB and carrying umbrellas
Pro-Trump rally starting at Arizona Capitol in Phoenix. At least one guy wielding military-style rifle. Some chanting “Shame on Fox”
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"My hands are up! My hands are up!" 22yo Dravon Ames says as a Phoenix police officer yells to "get your fucking hands up." The same officer later says "You're gonna fucking get shot!"
Ames says the officers stopped him after his child walked out of a Dollar Store with a doll.
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it's definitely just a matter of time until we see RICO charges against abortion funds
Prosecutors allege one man participated in a criminal enterprise in part because he signed his name as “ACAB” after an arrest this year. Although he faces other charges, they claim his use of the slogan was an “overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”
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"fired for third time"
Georgia Corrections Officer Fired for Third Time After Calling Inmate on Suicide Watch the N-Word via
@thedailybeast
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why is every mayor like this
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Prosecutors in Arizona are charging 15 Black Lives Matter protesters w assisting in a criminal street gang, rioting, & aggravated assault (all felonies) for carrying umbrellas & wearing black at a peaceful protest where some traffic cones were knocked over
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It was so exciting to see my work cited on
@LastWeekTonight
with John Oliver in their episode about how problematic the Law & Order franchise is, particularly Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
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Another angle of the incident filmed by a different resident of the apartment complex where Ames and his pregnant fiancee were dropping off their kids with a babysitter show a Phoenix police officer trying to yank the child from the mother's arms.
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If you are surprised by this boy do I have some bad news for you
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Update: Phoenix police released a statement indicating the officers didn't believe the family to be in possession of any weapons. Police say they pursued the family bc they allegedly stole food & underwear from a dollar store
Read the full statement here:
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Ames filed a $10m notice of claim against Phoenix. Phoenix police have refused to identify the officer who said "I'm gonna put a fucking cap in your fucking head" or the officer who tried to rip a baby from a pregnant mother's arms (he is still on patrol)
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if you're a reporter you need to read this piece by
@ZachWritesStuff
about how police absolutely are not overdosing from contact with fentanyl, and pedaling this false narrative is harmful on so many levels
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A year ago today, we published this investigation into the police killing of Jacob Harris and the incarceration of his three teenage friends, who are serving decades in prison for a murder committed by police officers.
Since then, a few cool things have happened (thread 🧵):
Police killed Jacob Harris. But his friends are serving decades in prison for it.
I've spent the past six months trying to unravel what really happened on the night of Harris's death—and what has happened to his friends and family members since then.
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The NYPD isn't botching sex crimes cases because they need more resources. They have a $5 billion budget. It is a choice to have only a few dozen detectives investigating sexual assault, but thousands of people stopping churro ladies and turnstile jumpers.
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The city of Los Angeles just approved a contract that will gives the LAPD another ~$1 billion, citing a need to increase police staffing. But crime has been falling in LA, even as the department reports having its lowest number of officers in decades.
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Ames and his family filed a $10m notice of claim against the city of Phoenix today:
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You can toggle over any dot on our map to find the campus name, number of arrests, prosecuting agency, prosecutor's response, and prosecutor's election year.
Prosecutors hold enormous power: they can brand these protesters with a criminal record for life—or let them go.
670+ arrests at protests against genocide nationwide
Demonstrations at 50+ campuses across 25+ states
We asked prosecutors in every jurisdiction with protests whether they will prosecute.
Their answers—alongside their election year—are documented here:
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holy shit this story
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Phoenix police have arrested 300+ protesters, but they still haven't named the trooper who shot & killed Dion Johnson. Traffic cam shows Johnson handcuffed & writhing on the ground after being shot. Medics were parked nearby, but waited 5 mins to approach
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The disciplinary review board recommended suspending Christopher Meyer. But Chief Williams has the final say, and she called Meyer this morning and told him she was terminating him.
"My hands are up! My hands are up!" 22yo Dravon Ames says as a Phoenix police officer yells to "get your fucking hands up." The same officer later says "You're gonna fucking get shot!"
Ames says the officers stopped him after his child walked out of a Dollar Store with a doll.
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here are some do's and dont's from people who have spent decades working in this space and fighting for reproductive justice
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If you’re Black and the police kill your friend you get charged for his murder and sentenced to decades in prison. If you’re white and you kill a Black person the cops let you go, protect your identity, & the DA charges you with second-degree manslaughter only after public outcry
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I’m at Eastlake Park where protesters have gathered to demand justice for Dion Johnson, who was shot and killed by a DPS trooper last weekend. Phoenix police are investigating the shooting. Trooper wasn’t wearing a bodycam, Dion was asleep in his car when the trooper approached
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Wow, following the John Oliver episode on Law & Order — particularly Law & Order SVU — laundering the reputation of police, the actress who played ADA Novak on SVU shared this comment
I agree. If
#OliviaBenson
#svu
were real, there would be a LOT more justice. I’m embarrassed to admit, I used to think the way it worked on the show was like real life. Then I found out the hard way I was wrong. Thank you for sharing the story of your real experience.
#iamsorry
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*correction, when Austin cut its police budget, it set aside $6.5M for permanent supportive housing & services. However not all the $6.5M will be used for these 2 hotels. At full occupancy (which won't happen this yr), services & operating costs at these 2 is about $3.8M
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Ok so around this time last year we —
• unionized
• got fired
• told mgmt we can't be fired for unionizing
• got unfired, then were told the The Appeal was shutting down 🥴
• negotiated to get everyone 4 months severance + The Appeal's intellectual property, website, etc
When we announced our takeover last year, more than 500 of you donated to help get us off the ground.
If you believe in The Appeal's work, you can invest in our future by becoming a sustaining donor today. Contribute $25+ a month and get a brand new “Fire Your Bosses” t-shirt!
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so Austin is planning on using millions of dollars taken from the police budget to fund permanent supportive housing services, they're just using a portion of it right now, not the whole lot
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I’m outside the Phoenix city council where
@PoderinAction
& others are holding a rally to defund Phoenix police &allocate more funds to the newly passed civilian oversight office. It is 108 degrees & my phone is dangerously close to doing that thing where it’s so hot it turns off
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Los Angeles County is locking up thousands of people with mental illness—then chaining them to tables for their "rec time" and not providing them with the therapy or group programming the DOJ has mandated the county provide.
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There ARE many untested rape kits across the US—but money isn't the issue. They're untested because police chose not send the DNA kits to a lab for testing. To suggest that police deserve more money to do something they simply chose not to do in the first place is insane.
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Nearly 200 New Orleans police officers were accused of sexual misconduct, intimate partner violence, or harassment from 2014-2020.
The NOPD investigated itself and sustained only 3 percent of complaints involving sexual or intimate partner violence.
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The NYPD isn't botching sex crimes cases because they need more money and cops aren't refusing to test rape kits because they need more money. Stop letting police and their propaganda shows like Law & Order spin the narrative
The NYPD isn't botching sex crimes cases because they need more resources. They have a $5 billion budget. It is a choice to have only a few dozen detectives investigating sexual assault, but thousands of people stopping churro ladies and turnstile jumpers.
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the media industry
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who could have predicted this
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Phoenix police said they are investigating and confirmed this all took place over a shoplifting incident.
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The lengths police went to to take Arizona's ex prison boss into custody safely — after he drunkenly pointed a gun at them — shows police can defuse dangerous situations without killing people. They just usually choose not to.
Arizona’s former prison director got drunk and pointed a gun at cops during a standoff. In the end, he went home like nothing happened. The two tiers of justice kept him from getting shot, and now they could save him from punishment, writes
@megoconnor13
.
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Pretty wild to see Mitchell blatantly saying here she will violate the governor's executive order so that she can prosecute abortion cases when a year ago she said dismissed concerns that people would be criminalized for abortion as "fear-mongering."
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said she'll ignore Governor Katie Hobbs' executive order on abortion: "We’re going to conduct business as we have. If a case is submitted we’re going to follow the same procedure that we follow for every other case"
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The first person to die from COVID-19 in Arizona said on Facebook that he had gone to urgent care in an attempt to get tested six days before he died, but was told he couldn't get a test there
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Huge hearing on abortion today in Arizona that will determine whether all abortions are banned in the state—or whether abortions will still be allowed up to 15 weeks.
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I'm so glad Last Week Tonight did an episode on how toxic Law & Order is because every single time I publish a story on how abysmal the real life Special Victims Division is, my mentions look like this
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Your regular reminder that Law & Order: SVU launders the reputation of the NYPD's actual SVU (which is so bad it's currently under a DOJ investigation) and steals stories from actual victims without their consent and turns the worst moments of real people's lives into shitty TV.
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Video of Christopher Meyer threatening to shoot an unarmed black man in the head in front of his family went viral & brought a national spotlight to Phoenix's troubled PD
Last week, I got 402 pages of Meyer's personnel records & there is...a lot to unpack
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BREAKING: The Department of Justice is launching an investigation into the NYPD's Special Victims Division:
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A woman reported a rape to the NYPD’s Special Victims Division. Three weeks later, the detective identified her attacker and notified the NYPD that he should be arrested on sight. No one arrested him. Six days later he murdered a 29yo woman in her home.
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absolutely disgusting coverage of this, reporter should be ashamed of themselves
#BREAKING
: The personal diary of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, an activist who died after exchanging fire with police near the site of the planned public safety training center, was filled with phrases such as “Cop cars love being on fire;” “Prisons were built to be burnt down,”…
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can't get over how fucking bananas it is that the chief of the Phoenix Police Department and her top cops are using an encrypted messaging app to send self-deleting text messages WHILE THEY ARE BEING INVESTIGATED BY THE DOJ FOR CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
BREAKING…
“Executive members of the Phoenix Police Department including Chief Jeri Williams used an encrypted phone app that allows users to secretly send and receive text messages without creating a permanent record of the conversations.”
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Phoenix just went from the largest city in the country without independent oversight of police to a city with one of the most powerful civilian oversight models in the country
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The term “backlog,” as
@meaghan_ybos
and
@heathermarlowe
have noted, implies that untested rape kits stacked up for reasons out of the department’s control, when that is simply not the case.
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White guy with a gun threatens a black woman half his age, calls her racial slurs. She calls police for help. When she begs police officers to let her speak with her children, one cop puts her in a headlock, tosses her to the ground, and arrests her.
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Police and prosecutors are claiming the 15 are part of a gang called "ACAB" or all cops are bastards, purportedly because some of the protesters used that phrase. Video footage of the protest contradicts officers statements
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670+ arrests at protests against genocide nationwide
Demonstrations at 50+ campuses across 25+ states
We asked prosecutors in every jurisdiction with protests whether they will prosecute.
Their answers—alongside their election year—are documented here:
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I often get rabid SVU fans in my mentions defending a millionaire celebrity when I talk about this, but the fact that Mariska Hargitay founded an advocacy org doesn't absolve her from laundering the NYPD's rep! In fact, her org only doubles down on spreading police propaganda.
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Local organizers have formed a community coalition dedicated to getting justice for Jacob Harris and freeing his incarcerated friends, Johnny Reed, Sariah Busani, and Jeremiah Triplett. It's called the Justice for Jacob, Free the Phoenix Three coalition.
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Arizona prosecutors are dropping the charges against the Black Lives Matter protesters they had accused of being in a fictitious criminal street gang called “ACAB” based only on the fact that the protesters wore black, carried umbrellas, and said ACAB
1 of 2: Statement from
@AllisterAdel
Regarding Case Stemming from Arrests on Oct. 17, 2020: The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has filed a motion to dismiss case CR 2020-139581. The office is re-evaluating the evidence that has been and continues to be submitted for review.
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Austin just voted to buy a second hotel and turn it into permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness.
The city will pay for operating costs and support services at the hotel using money cut from the police budget
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Five minutes after we emailed management asking them to voluntarily recognize our union, The Appeal's executive director, Rob Smith, emailed staff saying there will be layoffs.
We have reason to believe mgmt was aware of our plans to unionize and that this was retaliation.
Today we are proud to announce our union representing employees of The Appeal as part of
@news_guild
. Together, we will make The Appeal better — for the people who work here and for our readers.
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Here's some of the reporting Last Week Tonight pulled from for this piece: this story from last December documenting the dysfunction and chaos at the real life Special Victims Division
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pretty sure there's a video of Pantaleo choking the life out of Garner but OK
BREAKING: The NYPD’s chief surgeon determined that police officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Eric Garner in 2014, never put Garner in a choke hold, and argued against disciplining him, Pantaleo's attorney said today.
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The protesters and their attorneys say many of the 15 don't even know each other, they just responded to a flyer on social media advertising the protest. One wasn't even at the protest, he's just a photographer from Prescott who was downtown taking pictures while it happened
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Insane story by
@s_lavarco
: 46 states paid a co. called Street Cop to train cops. Training involved:
• comparing Black people to monkeys
• calling suspects "live tissue labs" to "practice on"
• sharing photos of human trafficking victims in lingerie
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The Joyful Heart Foundation claims to fight to “end the backlog” of untested rape kits sitting in police departments nationwide. But JH propagates the false narrative that the so-called backlog exists because cops needs more money to test rape kits.
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And this commentary piece also from last year calling out the Law & Order franchise and in particular, Mariska Hargitay, for spending years laundering the NYPD's reputation
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Another update: Phoenix police released a report yesterday afternoon detailing the incident. The officer involved is Christopher Meyer. His report failed to document that he twice threatened to shoot Ames & tried to rip a baby from a mother's arms
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and yet, saying ACAB, wearing black, and carrying umbrellas is somehow enough for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to charge 15 people with participating in a criminal street gang
Maricopa County Attorney will not file criminal charges against Phoenix Police officer who threatened to shoot the Mayor: "cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Poulos’ statements constituted a “true threat” as defined by Arizona Law and the U.S. constitution."
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Los Angeles' decision to give LAPD ~$1 billion in raises to increase officer retention comes at a time when 22 other city departments have higher vacancy rates than the LAPD. Those departments include sanitation, youth development, & workforce development.
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this is so gross. NYC's real SVU is under a DOJ investigation lol
the
@MTA
says it's issuing 50K
@lawandordertv
SVU MetroCards to mark the show's 25th anniversary.
they'll be available starting Friday at vending machines at 47-50 Sts-Rockefeller Ctr, Times Sq-42 St, Grand Central-42 St, 34 St-Penn Station, and 42 St-Port Authority Bus Terminal
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The Mesa police union's move to oust Batista shows what happens when a chief tries to reform toxic departmental culture. A survey obtained by New Times shows Mesa cops excoriating the chief for starting "irrelevant" implicit bias & de-escalation training
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But just last week, Adel’s office declined to bring charges against the Phoenix cop who threatened to shoot Mayor Kate Gallego, stating that they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer’s statements constituted a true threat
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The groups include the Anti Police-Terror Project, Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro, Decarcerate Arizona, and more. They've organized letter-writing events for Johnny, Jeremiah, & Sariah, held rallies, & packed the court when Roland appealed his wrongful death lawsuit against Phx
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Austin also voted to move the forensics lab out of the police dept today. ~$12M will be moved out of the police budget & will be used instead to create an independent forensics lab that is not run by the police department, tho its functions remain the same
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Almost all abortions are now banned in Arizona. A judge allowed a Civil War-era law to go back into effect today.
The law requires two to five years in prison for people who provide abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person.
A Pima County judge lifted an injunction that was placed on AZ’s abortion statute. We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue. I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans.
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When armed rightwingers went to the county elections office in Nov to “stop the steal,” the police presence was noticeably less intense. No tear gas, no arrests. Present then was Jake Angeli, who last week stormed the Capitol (which led to the deaths of five people)
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Police in Miami arrested over 2,000 homeless people for offenses like panhandling, drinking in public, & possession of a stolen shopping cart in 2017. That same yr, cops arrested ~1,400 people for rape, murder, and robbery, though 5,825 were reported
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Melissa Morales was riding her bike when Steven O'Leary stopped her for not having any lights. He searched her purse, where he found a rock. He said it was meth. She spent months in prison before O'Leary was fired for falsifying dozens of narcotics arrests
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This story is so nuts, this guy was arrested in June 2013 for battery, tampering with evidence, and false imprisonment. He also has 40 internal affairs complaints against him, including 16 for excessive use of force
Cop who’s been arrested 3 times and fired 6 times can go back to work, magistrate rules
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Today is
#DenimDay
, a day of solidarity with survivors of SA.
It's named for a court ruling that overturned a rape conviction bc the victim wore jeans.
Cops have co-opted the day, but the case shows why victims need non-police options after an assault.
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The 15 are facing serious consequences. They now have arrest records. They could spend years in prison. They're spending $ on lawyers. If convicted, it will be harder for them to get jobs, housing, & some gov't assistance. If convicted of a felony, they'd lose the ability to vote
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“It’s outrageous,” said Paul Gattone, an attorney for three of the protesters. “I was shocked when I came on the case and saw they had charged them with organized street gang activity. They are trying to say that ACAB is an organization like the Crips and the Bloods."
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Last month we unionized. Management tried to fire people. We got them to pause the layoffs & recognize our union.
But a few weeks later, they said they were shutting down The Appeal.
The Appeal they led is closing, but we, the workers, are relaunching a worker-led news outlet✊
🚨 We have big news 🚨
First, the bad: Management is shutting down The Appeal, effective today.
The good: Our union secured a generous severance package for our coworkers and negotiated with management to let us relaunch as a worker-led news outlet.
Here's our full statement:
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"Last month, a 33-year-old clinical toxicologist & emergency-medicine pharmacist named Ryan Feldman co-published a case study about the time he accidentally spilled a mammoth dose of pure liquid fentanyl all over himself at work; he simply washed it off, with no adverse effects."
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The coalition and the families of Jacob, Johnny, Jeremiah, and Sariah have also been in touch with the Department of Justice, which is investigating the Phoenix Police Department, regarding Jacob's killing and the trio's incarceration.
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In January, Arizona State Senator Anna Hernandez introduced legislation to repeal the state's felony murder law, which has repeatedly been used to imprison bystanders for killings committed by police officers—as is the case for Johnny, Jeremiah, & Sariah.
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perhaps you should not have simply published a police press release in the first place
UPDATE: We followed up on this story, and the LAPD spokesperson now says the officers were evaluated at the hospital only as a precaution after meth was recovered at the scene. More details:
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For those of you watching one of the biggest prosecutor races in the country:
• Two candidates will prosecute abortions if Roe is overturned. One won't
• The incumbent could prosecute abortions as soon as Roe is overturned under AZ's fetal personhood law
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Law enforcement officials have made false or inconsistent statements about the circumstances surrounding the shooting. A prosecutor falsely told a grand jury Harris "exchanged gunfire" with police. The Phoenix Police Department's own investigation proved that did not happen.
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Breaking: Footage shows Rochester police tackling & pepper-spraying a woman holding a 3yo child. Police confronted the woman after a store accused her of shoplifting. The woman showed police everything in her purse, but was tackled when she tried to leave
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Four LAPD cops pulled guns on unhoused folks and mutual aid organizers in Van Nuys. Then they handcuffed the activist filming the violence. LAPD says cops responded to "man w a gun" call but won't give any details. No one went to jail (so likely no gun) 🧵
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Some of the 15 have been offered plea deals, but it’s unlikely any will take it: it requires them to plead guilty to two felonies, including the street gang charge. In AZ, those charges cannot be expunged or later downgraded to a misdemeanor & puts them in a higher sentencing cat
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Aerial footage of the shooting shows Harris running away from police for all of two seconds before he is felled by a hail of gunfire. We are sharing footage of the shooting at his father, Roland's request.
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