ANOTHER MAN WAS CHOKED TO DEATH BY POLICE

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Police in Oklahoma City released new videos this week showing a handcuffed black man repeatedly begging for air before dying at a hospital last year.

He called out, “I can’t breathe," 42-year-old Derrick Scott, who was armed, told officers multiple times — using the same final words uttered by George Floyd, Eric Garner and other black men killed in police custody in recent years.

The latest videos, captured by the officers’ body-worn cameras, were made public this week after demands from the Oklahoma City Black Lives Matter group and local news outlets.

The disturbing footage has raised questions about the officers’ response and whether they did enough to try to save the suspect’s life.

 “I don’t care,” one of the cops told Scott after he pleaded for air.

“You can breathe just fine,” said another.

Police were responding to a report of a man brandishing a handgun near downtown Oklahoma City on May 20^th, 2019, when they identified Scott as a possible suspect. But the an took off running and struggled with the cops who were trying to arrest him, the videos show.

The officers eventually tackled the suspect, handcuffed him on the ground and found a loaded firearm in his pocket, according to the videos.

After pleading that he couldn’t breathe, Scott still tried to resist arrest before finally falling unconscious.

The officers called for an ambulance, but the father of two was pronounced dead a short time later, Oklahoma Police Capt. Larry Withrow told reporters at a news conference .

An autopsy later determined that the probable cause of death was a collapsed lung, with several contributing factors, including physical restraint, asthma, recent methamphetamine use and heart disease, local news station KFOR reported.

The medical examiner declared the manner of death as “unknown” and said there was “no fatal trauma” to Scott’s body, WI throw told reporters.

The officers were briefly placed on administrative leave at the time, but a district’s attorney review of the case cleared them of any wrongdoing.

The police  monitored his health throughout this incident and you can hear them narrate on the video that he continued to have a pulse and he continued to be breathing,” Withrow said.

Scott’s family and local activists are urging authorities to re-open the investigation and fire and charge the officers involved.

Body-cam video shows black man crying ‘I can’t breathe’ multiple times before dying in police custody in 2019 »

The Oklahoma incident is similar to another 2019 fatal arrest that made headlines this week.

Authorities in Texas also released a video this week showing the final moments before a 40-year-old unarmed black man died in police custody. Javier Ambler, who crashed his car after cops chased him over his alleged failure to dim his vehicle’s bright lights in March 2019, was repeatedly tased by sheriff’s deputies in Austin even after telling them he had a heart disease and was struggling to breathe. He cried out.  “Sir, I can’t breathe. Please Save me.” The police didn’t save him and he died in thr hospital.

The police acted illegally because choke holds by police are forbidden in New York City.

In  December 1994: Anthony Baez was fatally choked by New York Police Department officer Francis Livoti in the Bronx, following an altercation with him. In June 1998, Livoti was convicted in a federal court on charges of violating Baez's civil rights, and was sentence to prison. for seven and a half years.

In December 2006: Eugene Ejike Obiora, a Nigerian-Norwegian student, was killed during an arrest where Obiora had behaved aggressively toward personnel at the social services office in Trondheim. Obiora died en-route to a hospital after a police officer held him in a stranglehold. The case made headlines and three officers were accused of racism and excessive use of force, but they were cleared by police investigators and the chief prosecutor.

There are fifteen cities in the USA that permit police to use choke holds. This may change soon.

Like Floyd, Lyons was black. The officers met him with guns drawn and ordered him to face the car, spread his legs, and place his hands on top of his head. Not long after Lyons complained that a ring of keys that he held in his hands was causing him pain, one of the officers wrapped his forearm around Lyons’s throat and began to choke him. Lyons passed out. He woke up facedown on the ground, covered in his own urine and feces. The officers released him with a citation for the broken taillight.

Lyons brought a federal lawsuit against the city and officers who assaulted him. But that case, City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983), did not end well for him. Decades later, the 5-4 decision of thr Supreme Court  still stands as one of the greatest obstacles to civil rights lawyers challenging police brutality in cases like George Floyd’s.

As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his dissenting opinion, “The city instructs its officers that use of a chokehold does not constitute deadly force.” unquote  Nevertheless, “no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by an LAPD police officer,” 12 of whom were black men.

According to Justice Marshall, “the evidence submitted to the District Court established that, for many years, it has been the official policy of the city to permit police officers to employ chokeholds in a variety of situations where they face no threat of violence.”

When Lyons sued the city, he wanted more than just a sum of money compensating him for his injuries. He sought an injunction — a formal court order that would have forbidden the LAPD from using chokeholds “except in situations where the proposed victim of said control reasonably appears to be threatening the immediate use of deadly force.”

ut the Supreme Court held that Lyons could not obtain such an injunction unless he could show that he was personally likely to be choked by a Los Angeles police officer in the future. “Past exposure to illegal conduct,” Justice Byron White wrote for the Court, does not permit someone to seek an injunction. Rather, “Lyons’ standing to seek the injunction requested depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use of the chokeholds by police officers.”

When the US Supreme Court turns its back on injustice, there are deadly consequences.

 

It didn’t matter that nearly a thousand other Los Angeles residents were subjected to police chokeholds. To obtain a court order protecting future victims of police violence from being choked, Lyons would have to show that he was likely to be choked by an LAPD officer a second time.

White’s opinion went even further than that. To obtain an injunction, White wrote for the Court, Lyons “would have had not only to allege that he would have another encounter with the police, but also to make the incredible assertion either (1) that all police officers in Los Angeles always choke any citizen with whom they happen to have an encounter, whether for the purpose of arrest, issuing a citation, or for questioning, or (2) that the City ordered or authorized police officers to act in such manner.”

As Justice Marshall pointed out in dissent, Lyons made it so difficult to obtain an injunction preventing police misconduct that “if the police adopt a policy of ‘shoot to kill,’ or a policy of shooting 1 out of 10 suspects, the federal courts will be powerless to enjoin its continuation.”

Yons case did not foreclose lawsuits against rogue cops altogether. Someone like Adolph Lyons (or, for that matter, George Floyd’s survivors) may still sue cops who violate their constitutional rights, and they may potentially receive monetary damages from those cops and their police forces.

Of course, cities can pass laws prohibiting police officers from using choke holds.  The question is, will they do it? 

The Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks in a Wendy’s parking lot has been fired — and could face a murder charge, prosecutors say.  Garrett Rolfe, on the force since 2013, was fired, and his partner, Devin Bronsan, was placed on administrative duty on the early hours  of June 14^th.  of Police Chief Erika Shields subsequently  resigned from the police force.

Brooks, 27, was killed that Friday night during a struggle with the pair, who were e dispatched after a Wendy’s customer reported that a man was sleeping in his car in the drive-through. If the man was sleepy, why was it necessary to shoot him dead?

“Videos indicate that during a physical struggle with officers, Brooks obtained one of the officer’s Tasers and began to flee from the scene," the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

"Officers pursued Brooks on foot and during the chase, Brooks turned and pointed the Taser at the officer. The officer fired his weapon, striking Brooks.” He should have shot him in the leg instead.  

The police officer who fatally shot a young Black man suffering from schizophrenia at his family's home in Brampton, Ontario in Canada in April of this year has not agreed to an interview, nor turned over his notes to investigators of Ontario's police watchdog.   

The Special Investigations Unit, a civilian oversight body that investigates reports of deaths, serious injury or sexual assaults involving police, said in a news release that the officer involved in the shooting of D'Andre Campbell, whom it did not identify, cannot be legally compelled to present themselvesfor an interview to the SIU," nor must they submit their notes.  This cop can be fired from the police department and  the Crown attorney can charge the officer with a crime related to the death of the black man.

It was D'Andre who called 911. He said he wanted to be taken to the hospital," his mother Yvonne Campbell told The Fifth Estate's Mark Kelley in a recent interview. 

"He called out for help, and the system that was supposed to help him failed him," his sister Shenika Malcolm told CBC News in the days after his death. "There was no imminent threat and ... no de-escalation methods." The SIU has said police were called to the family's Sawston Circle home for a "domestic situation." 

"There was an interaction which included the discharge of conducted energy [Taser or Taser-like] weapons by two officers," according to an SIU news release in the hours after Campbell's death. "One officer then discharged his firearm multiple times. The man was struck. He succumbed to his injuries at the scene." 

The Fifth Estate reported that Campbell had been struggling with his condition, and the family had called 911 a handful of times in the past when they were concernedn captions on                      

In its news release, the SIU said investigators have interviewed all four officers designated as witnesses to the incident, along with four family members. 

From the scene, investigators recovered a knife, two conducted energy weapons and what they described as "firearm-related evidence." The officer's firearm was also taken as part of the investigation. "Many of these items" were submitted for forensic analysis, the SIU said. 

Asked what impact it would have on the investigation if the officer who shot Campbell refuses to speak about the incident, an SIU spokesperson said, "The more information the SIU gets during the course of its investigation — whether it be interviews or evidence — the better the SIU is able to determine what happened."

Meanwhile, Campbell's family has questions about the police response on that April day, including why no crisis intervention team was sent to the home. Peel Regional Police have said they are unable to answer that question, citing the ongoing SIU investigation. 

It is most unfortunate that our cities are  still plagued  with rogue police officers.