Law and order, über alles.
Alito Memo Says Police Shooting Justified
The case grew out of a police shooting of a burglary suspect in Memphis in October 1974. Memphis police officer Elton Hymon saw 15-year-old Edward Garner running from a house and shouted for him to halt. When Garner started to climb a chain-link fence in the backyard, Hymon shot him in the back of the head.
Garner, who was carrying $10 and a purse taken from the house, died at the hospital.
His father sued police and the city, arguing the shooting violated the teenager’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. The city countered that police were acting under state law and a department policy allowing the use of deadly force in burglary cases.
Asked to prepare a memo on whether the Reagan administration should intervene and how the case should be argued, Alito wrote, “The shooting can be justified as reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”
The young lawyer contended that “a fleeing suspect in effect states to the police: ‘Kill me or let me escape the legal process, at least for now.'”
He added, “If every suspect could evade arrest by putting the state to this choice, societal order would quickly break down.”
Lawyer: Authorities were told student’s gun was fake
The eighth-grader is clinically brain dead and being kept on life support to harvest his organs, attorney Mark Nation said.
When Ralph Penley arrived at the school Friday to help police and school officials defuse the situation, he wasn’t allowed inside, Nation said. (Watch Nation explain the father’s frustration — 6:55)
Nation said Ralph Penley was “angry” because he had spoken to police before his son was shot and told them Christopher did not have a real gun. Christopher’s younger brother told school officials the same thing, Nation said.
Police fatally shot a knife-wielding man Jan. 3 because the man lunged at an officer who was falling, a police investigation concluded Thursday.
Peter Sablich, a Crandall Street man who police said had a history of psychiatric problems, was shot as he came at rookie Patrolman David Bidwell as Bidwell slipped and began to fall in the snow, police officials said Thursday. Upon the order of veteran police Lt. John Chapman, three officers on the scene fired a total of nine shots. Four struck Sablich, 54. The fatal shot entered through his back and pierced his lung and heart, Police Chief John Butler said.
Trial date for suits resulting from Monroe police shooting
MONROE, La. Two lawsuits accusing Monroe police of brutality for a shooting that killed a mental patient will be heard August seventh.
Fifty-eight-year-old William Mark Henderson was shot when he refused to put down a knife and chain during a confrontation with police in an alley on August 22nd, 2004.The shooting sparked an outcry from Monroe’s black community, but a Ouachita Parish grand jury declined to indict the five officers involved.State District Court Judge Jimmy Dimos will hear the civil suits together.
Questions follow fatal police shooting
As Anthony W. McGrath’s family arranged his funeral, the probe into his death at the hands of two Plymouth police officers continued yesterday, with investigators reviewing forensics evidence and awaiting autopsy results to verify whether the officers shot the 16-year-old in self-defense.
The two unidentified officers, now on paid administrative leave, have told their department that McGrath tried to run them down in a Toyota Camry in the predawn hours Tuesday.
Family tries to understand police shooting
Young’s relatives are still seeking answers — as they prepared for a viewing of his body Tuesday night before his cremation. They know Young was in and out of jail for possession of stolen cars and recently had become mired in methamphetamine use. But they do not understand why police shot the unarmed man seated in a car.
“There are great concerns,” said Young’s mother, Stephanae Ennis.
“All I know is he didn’t have any weapons on him,” Hetrick said. “If you shoot somebody in their car . . . I just can’t see it.”
Mother speaks out about police shooting boyfriend near toddler
Melinda James, the suspect’s girlfriend, will be the first to tell you that Tyrone Thomas’s behavior was way out of line. She says her chief concern today was that a gun was fired in the same room as her one year old son.
According to New Haven police, around 5:00 a.m yesterday, police were called to 200 James Street for a domestic disturbance.
Melinda James says her boyfriend was drunk and “acting scary.”
Police say Thomas had knives and lunged at them. James says otherwise.
While James believes her boyfriend needed to be subdued, she doesn’t understand why officers fired one shot at her boyfriend when she says her one year old son, on oxygen, was lying on the bed behind his father.
41 shots
Lena gets her son ready for school
She says “on these streets, Charles
You’ve got to understand the rules
If an officer stops you
Promise you’ll always be polite,
that you’ll never ever run away
Promise Mama you’ll keep your hands in sight”Is it a gun, is it a knife
Is it a wallet, this is your life
It ain’t no secret
It ain’t no secret
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living
In your American skinIs it a gun, is it a knife
Is it in your heart, is it in your eyes
It ain’t no secret
Police, or occupying army? In Alito’s America, where the Executive is above the law and police must be free to kill in order to prevent someone “escape(ing) the legal process”, is there a difference?
