XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: slumlord@chicago.com   
      
   The racist pro-nigger Obama administration on Thursday issued a   
   report accusing the Cleveland police department of using   
   excessive and deadly force against citizens in violation of   
   their constitutional rights. The finding was the latest   
   development in a growing national debate over the fairness of   
   local police tactics, especially in minority communities.   
      
   According to the Justice Department report, Cleveland police   
   engaged in a “pattern or practice” of unnecessary force, —   
   including shooting residents, striking them in the head and   
   spraying them with chemicals. The Justice Department and the   
   city agreed to establish an independent monitor to oversee   
   reforms in the police department, including better training and   
   supervision of officers. And the Justice urged Cleveland civic   
   leaders to hold police accountable for their improper actions,   
   when necessary.   
      
   Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. traveled to Cleveland to   
   announce the reform measures in person. He set them against the   
   backdrop of the recent deaths of three African Americans at the   
   hands of police, including last month’s fatal shooting of 12-   
   year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland. Mr. Holder’s announcement came   
   a day after a New York City grand jury declined to bring charges   
   in the death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old man who died in   
   July after police placed him in an apparent chokehold during an   
   arrest.   
      
   “In recent days, millions of people throughout the nation have   
   come together — bound by grief and anguish — in response to the   
   tragic deaths of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric   
   Garner, in New York City,‘‘Mr.  Holder said at a press   
   conference. “The tragic losses of these and far too many other   
   Americans . . . have raised urgent, national questions. And they   
   have sparked an important conversation about the sense of trust   
   that must exist between law enforcement and the communities they   
   serve and protect.‘‘   
      
   Mr. Holder spoke amid growing public anger over the decision   
   that no criminal charges will be filed against the officer in   
   the Garner case, which itself rapidly followed another grand   
   jury’s decision not to charge white Ferguson police officer   
   Darren Wilson in Mr. Brown’s death. Both decisions triggered   
   nationwide protests.   
      
   >From the halls of Congress to the streets of New York City,   
   demonstrators, Democratic politicians and some prominent   
   conservatives called for a re-thinking of police and   
   prosecutorial tactics and firmer guidelines in determining when   
   officers can use deadly force against the citizenry.   
      
   ‘‘The way we go about policing has to change,‘‘ New York City   
   Mayor Bill De Blasio said as he announced a wholesale re-   
   training of more than 20,000 officers, including a three-day   
   course in how to handle confrontations on the street. “People   
   need to know that black lives and brown lives matter as much as   
   white lives,” addedMr.  De Blasio, who campaigned in part on   
   reforming police tactics that he said had unfairly targeted   
   minorities.   
      
   Protests over the criminal justice response to the deaths of Mr.   
   Garner, Mr. Brown and others continued in downtown Washington on   
   Thursday, with several hundred demonstrators gathered in front   
   of the Justice Department. There were also protests in Boston,   
   Chicago and New York .   
      
   The department said this week it will investigate Mr. Garner’s   
   death, and is already probing Mr. Brown’s killing.   
      
   The escalating developments reflected a decades-old history of   
   tension between police and the communities they serve,   
   especially those in minority areas, experts in policing said.   
   Nearly a half-century after the Kerner Commission investigating   
   the devastating urban riots of the 1960s warned that the nation   
   “is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate   
   and unequal,‘‘ mistrust of law enforcement remains widespread in   
   some communities, they said.   
      
   Police-community relations have varied by state and community,   
   from the community policing model popularized in the 1980s and   
   90s — in which officers walked the beat in neighborhoods and   
   worked with community leaders — to the tougher, more   
   intelligence-based approach that gained favor after the Sept.   
   11, 2001 attacks.   
      
   Tensions have exploded at times, such as during the 1992 Los   
   Angles riots that followed the acquittal of white police   
   officers on trial over the videotaped beating of Rodney King, a   
   black man. Five years later, New York City police beat and   
   sodomized Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima with a broken-off   
   broom handle, a case in which Loretta Lynch, now nominated to   
   succeed Holder as attorney general, was the senior prosecutor.   
      
   Today, even though police-community relations “are a lot better   
   than they were 20 years ago,‘‘ the recent police-involved   
   killings reveal new fault lines, said David Harris, a law   
   professor at University of Pittsburgh and an expert in police   
   misconduct. “If anyone thought we were out of that era in which   
   some groups feel the law and policing are not applied equally to   
   them, clearly we are not,‘‘ he said.   
      
   Much of the recent tension has been in New York City, where   
   former Mayor Rudy Giuliani famously implemented in the 1990s   
   what is known as the “broken windows” philosophy of policing.   
   That approach involved zeroing in on small crimes, such as   
   breaking windows or jumping subway turnstiles, to deter larger   
   ones.   
      
   His successor, Michael Bloomberg, became known for stop-and-   
   frisk, in which police stopped virtually anyone deemed   
   suspicious, and crime rates fell for years in the city as they   
   have nationwide. A federal judge last year ruled that the policy   
   discriminated against blacks and Hispanics, and Mr. De Blasio   
   has embraced reforms and touted statistics showing stop and   
   frisks are substantially down this year.   
      
   But the changes came too late for Mr. Garner, who died after a   
   confrontation with police over the unlawful sale of individual   
   cigarettes, the kind of minor offense that has been the focus of   
   the department’s aggressive approach for years. “We’re dealing   
   with a kind of continuing legacy of the Giuliani and Bloomberg   
   years,‘‘ said Mr. Harris, who added that the eight-year officer   
   who fatally choked Garner, Daniel Pantaleo, likely based his   
   actions on “the standards and training he learned” when he   
   joined the force.   
      
   The Justice Department report released in Cleveland Thursday   
   cited a series of examples of what the department called   
   “unreasonable and unnecessary” use of police force. In one   
   incident, the report said, 13 Cleveland police officers fired   
   137 shots at a car, killing both of its occupants.   
      
   In another, it said, an officer “tased a suicidal, deaf man who   
   committed no crime, posed minimal risk to officers and may not   
   have understood officers’ commands.   
      
   Officers were also accused of repeatedly punching a handcuffed   
   13-year-old boy in the face several times. He was already under   
   arrest for shoplifting.   
      
   “Accountability and legitimacy are essential for communities to   
      
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