Former British Colony in Downward Spiral of Ethnic Violence, State Security Impunity

[Montmorency]

Boojahid was the killer, and an infiltrator to boot. To my knowledge the first killing associated with the creed.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...ornia-n1231187

An Air Force sergeant who was arrested in the fatal ambush of a Santa Cruz County deputy was charged Tuesday in connection with the killing of a federal security officer during George Floyd protests in Oakland last month, authorities said.

Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, was charged with murder and attempted murder in the killing of federal officer Dave Patrick Underwood, 53.

Underwood was one of two officers who were shot May 29 while guarding the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building. The other officer was critically wounded in the drive-by attack. Both were members of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service.

Authorities said Carrillo and a second man traveled to Oakland with the intent to kill police and believed the large demonstrations spurred by the death of Floyd in Minneapolis — which they were not a part of — would help them get away it.

"They came to Oakland to kill cops," said John Bennett, special agent in charge of the San Francisco division of the FBI.

Carrillo's alleged accomplice, Robert Justus, was also charged with murder and attempted murder.

The killing of Underwood set off a massive manhunt. Eight days later, officers showed up at Carrillo's home after they discovered an abandoned white van that belonged to him and contained ammunition, firearms and bomb-making equipment, authorities said.

Carrillo ambushed the officers, killing Santa Cruz County Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller and critically injuring another deputy, according to authorities.

Carrillo suffered a gunshot wound but managed to flee the scene on feet, authorities said. He carjacked a vehicle but was ultimately taken into custody, bleeding from his hip, authorities said.

He was charged with multiple offenses, including murder and attempted murder, in the attack on the Santa Cruz County officers.

Federal authorities said an AR-15 was recovered at the scene where Carrillo was arrested and linked to the Oakland federal courthouse shooting. The assault rifle used by Carrillo was privately made, had no markings and had a silencer attached to the barrel of the weapon, authorities said.

Investigators found inside Carrillo's vehicle a ballistic vest with a patch on it that featured an igloo and a Hawaiian-style print — symbols associated with the far-right extremist "Boogaloo" movement, according to his federal complaint.

Carrillo, prior to his arrest, used his own blood to scrawl the word “boog” and “I became unreasonable” on the hood of the vehicle he carjacked, the complaint says. Both phrases are also associated with "Boogaloo," a term used by extremists to reference a violent uprising or impending civil war in the U.S., the complaint says.

According to the complaint, Carrillo wrote in a Facebook group on May 28 that the unrest is “on our coast now, this needs to be nationwide” and that “it’s a great opportunity to target the specialty soup bois."

In Boogaloo groups on Facebook and Reddit, “soup bois” is shorthand for government agencies that are abbreviated in acronyms like “alphabet soup" such as the FBI and ATF.

Online Boogaloo communities frequently post memes about targeting federal agencies in advance of another civil war.

In response to Carrillo’s message, the complaint alleges Justus wrote “let’s boogie,” another reference to the Boogaloo movement.

In Boogaloo Facebook groups, the complaint says, Carrillo was even more explicit about taking advantage of protests to stir up unrest and violence against police.

“Go to the riots and support our own cause. Show them the real targets. Use their anger to fuel our fire. Think outside the box. We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage,” Carillo wrote in one Facebook group, according to the complaint.

Carrillo believed that the Boogaloo, or second civil war, was “kicking off now and if its not kicking off in your hood then start it,” according to the complaint.

Boogaloo groups are actively allowed on Facebook. Earlier this month, Facebook told NBC News it would stop recommending the groups in its recommendations algorithm, but the groups would be allowed on the site.

Backgrounder by Robert Evans
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020...hat-you-think/

@Strike For The South

[Montmorency]

Updates in the Atlanta shooting introduced here by Hooah:

Here's some video compilation from the scene.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/0...ng-orig-kj.cnn

The shooting officer has been detained on charges of felony murder and more. His partner is facing aggravated assault charges. In response, many Atlanta officers have walked off the job in a self-abolishing tantrum.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-up...h-felony-murde
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/us/ra...day/index.html

The now-fired Atlanta Police officer who faces a felony murder charge for fatally shooting Rayshard Brooks last week kicked the 27-year-old man after he fell to the ground, Fulton County's district attorney said Wednesday. DA Paul Howard announced 11 charges against Garrett Rolfe, who five days ago fired three shots at Brooks, two of which hit Brooks in the back and another that hit a car with three people inside. After Rolfe shot Brooks, he exclaimed, "I got him," kicked Brooks as he struggled for his life, and failed to give timely first aid, Howard said. [...] The demeanor after the shooting "did not reflect any fear or danger of Mr. Brooks, but reflected other kinds of emotions," Howard said.

https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1273339116642537472

Fulton County DA Paul Howard: For 41 minutes and 17 seconds Rayshard Brooks followed all instructions. He was also never told he was being arrested for driving under the influence which police are required to do.

"Mr. Brooks never presented himself as a threat," Howard says.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. says one officer kicked Rayshard Brooks and another one stood on his shoulders as Brooks was fighting for his life on the ground after being shot.

Fulton County DA Paul Howard says former officer Garrett Rolfe is being charged with 11 charges including -- felony murder, three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, criminal damage to property, violation of oath, & aggravated assault (for kicking Rayshard Brooks).

A key detail: Fulton County DA Paul Howard says former officer Garrett Rolfe knew that the taser Rayshard Brooks was holding had been fired twice and didn't pose any danger to the officers when Brooks turned and tried to fire it at officers before Rolfe shot Brooks in the back.

Reminder that all cops are criminal scum until proven otherwise.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...142223872.html

Want to know why it’s so hard for #cops to be ‘good apples’...

It was 2007 and I was assisting a call with an officer I’d never met before. He was from another team working overtime. Right in front of me he broke a kids nose with a punch. The septum was clearly deviated and
blood was everywhere. The kid was handcuffed and the officer enquired of me “what should ‘we’ arrest him for?” “What did he do?” I enquired. “He called me a name.” he said. After 20 mins of him trying to persuade me we should fabricate a crime he had to let the kid go. “We need
to do notes, get our story straight” he then told me. I don’t need assistance in writing what happened. I found a quiet place and wrote the facts. As I wrote I was joined by a female A/Sgt who knew this officer. She spent 20 mins trying to convince me this kid was a “shitbag” &
my notes should ‘reflect the danger he posed’. I was disgusted. We don’t behave this way. I went to the Platoon Commander and provide a statement for the assault I’d witnessed. An investigation commenced, one which should have been forwarded to @SIUOntario. The investigator
asked me questions like “How do you know his nose was broken?” and “Where did you get your medical degree?” (seriously?) Then came the result, a phone call from the Suptintendent whilst I was home. “Paul, our investigation is complete and you’ve been found guilt of misconduct
in that you failed to communicate with a colleague. A verbal warning will be put on file. Be careful in the future.” When I got back to work I was move from my team, and away from my friends, to this officers team. Officers just point blank refused to talk to me and I went to
many calls by myself, without backup. Then a message from another officer on team to meet him. He told me how we “look after” each other on this team. “Don’t stab each other in the back.” Then for some fucked up reason, he dropped the ‘n-bomb’ out of nowhere. I just drove off
leaving him sat there. Then I was called into the Deputy Chiefs office, with the same Superintendent and my Union rep. In front of both he told me to “be careful what you say in the future or you might not get backup when you need it.” I was an A/Inspector when I left the Met in
2005 to move to #Canada, but my appraisal that year reflected incompetence and unworthiness of the position of constable. Every position or course I applied for I was refused. I continued to #whistleblow until the Chief told me “You really have no concept of brotherhood, do you?”
Then I whistleblew #anonymous. 2015ish after going off sick with #PTSD from an attempt murder I went public with everything, to be met with a ‘covert operation’ by not only senior management by member of the City council and lawyers, telling anyone who would listen I’m “nuts,
crazy and delusional.” This is how they deal with officers who tried to do the right thing. Two warrants on my home, numerous criminal investigation and one arrest later and I’ll still do the right thing no matter what they try and do to me.
The officer who broke that kids nose is now a Sergeant, probably helping others cover up their wrongdoings. Me, I’m off sick and will probably never find gainful employment again. Was it worth it. Fuck, no! Would I do the same? Fuck, yes! Would I advise other officers to break
the ‘blue wall of silence.’ Well thats for them to decide, but it will end your career.

Until you offer protection for ‘good apples’ you asking them to give up their careers b/c of someone elses wrongdoing.

#PoliceBrutality #blm #BlackLivesMatter #PoliceReform
Addition for naysayers; this is a very small story in a massive corruption scandal. I used this story b/c it showed every step of a system used to demoralize anyone who would report wrongdoing. The police have effectively stopped defending the lawsuit. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamil...suit-1.5289424

I've watched the whole show of force from all sides in the past month with a mixture of hope, cynicism and a good dose of reality that things will budge just a bit and won't move forwards that much.

Some of the results are definitely positive - removing statues of Leopold IInd (why is this still around????) - some results which were very questionable (defacing Churchill...uhh?), some results which were ideas with a certain intent but with a horrendously bad implementation (defunding the police).

Fact of the matter is, protesting is part of a healthy democracy and having them so lit up in the past month shows that people desperately want things to change. For good reason, mind you, but any single deviation from that mark (looting) is going to significantly hurt the desire for change for the general population. Because it often occurs that while Joe who owns a small business and heartily supports BLM is forced to shutdown because his store was defaced and looted, this is only going to bite you back.

Which is a shame because the concern of the protests is very, very valid.

The ethics or empirical effects of targeted property destruction are legitimate subjects of discussion - though I disagree, there are those who advocate for them as affirmatively good - but one who allows personal distaste at the sight of a broken storefront to displace their assessment of the underlying issues displays a weak commitment to addressing the causes of unrest.

This fellow is pretty upstanding, though he presents a rather high standard to rise to.

On Friday morning, as dawn broke through the smoke hanging over Minneapolis, the Gandhi Mahal Restaurant was severely damaged by fire. Hafsa Islam, whose father owns the Bangladeshi-Indian restaurant with members of his family, woke at 6 a.m. to hear the news. “At first, I was angry,” said Ms. Islam, 18. “This is my family’s main source of income.” But then she overheard her father, Ruhel Islam, speaking to a friend on the phone. “Let my building burn,” he said. “Justice needs to be served.” On Friday afternoon, after the fire stopped smoldering and the family came together, he repeated his support for the protests that had closed his restaurant. “We can rebuild a building, but we cannot rebuild a human,” said Mr. Islam, 42. “The community is still here, and we can work together to rebuild.”
[...]
“I understand why people did what they did,” she said of the demonstrators. “They had tried with the peaceful protesting, and it hasn’t been working.” Gandhi Mahal opened in 2008, during the Great Recession. Although Mr. Islam believes in nonviolent protest — he named his restaurant in honor of Mohandas K. Gandhi — he empathizes with the frustration of many Minneapolis residents. “I am going to continuously promote peaceful ways and nonviolent movement,” he said. “But our younger generation is angry, and there’s reason to be angry.”
[...]
“We were just trying to do what we could to help our community,” said Ms. Islam, who helped treat wounded protesters. “Sure, we had our business. Sure, we were trying to keep our kitchen open. But more than anything, we were concerned for our people.” The tension in Mr. Islam’s adopted city reminds him of his childhood in Bangladesh, when he lived through a dictatorship. Two of his fellow students were killed by the police, he said. “We grew up in a traumatic police state, so I am familiar with this type of situation,” he said.

[Montmorency]

Interesting study on a phenomenon I had never considered. "The property tax gaps are worst for low earners, but even the highest-earning black Americans pay more on average in property taxes than similarly well-off white peers living nearby."

Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families, new analysis shows

State by state, neighborhood by neighborhood, black families pay 13 percent more in property taxes each year than a white family would in the same situation, a massive new data analysis shows. Black-owned homes are consistently assessed at higher values, relative to their actual sale price, than white homes, according to a new working paper by economists Troup Howard of the University of Utah and Carlos Avenancio-León of Indiana University. African Americans have long said they bear a disproportionate burden for taxes that support local police, schools and parks, but nationwide measures of this type of systemic racism are hard to come by. To expose the structural and historical factors behind these discriminatory property tax assessments, the economists analyzed more than a decade of tax assessment and sales data for 118 million homes throughout the country. In almost every state, property tax assessments were higher in areas with more black and Hispanic residents. In city after city, the authors show it is not just differences in the buildings or land but also the racial composition of the neighborhood that matters. The gap between white families and minority households remains large — 10 percent — when you combine data for Hispanic and black families. (The authors excluded California because Proposition 13, passed in 1978, drastically changed how property is valued there.)

“During the Jim Crow era, local white officials routinely manipulated property tax assessments to overburden and punish black populations and as a hidden tax break to landowning white gentry,” said University of Virginia historian Andrew Kahrl.

Many county assessors intentionally overvalued black properties, sometimes in direct retaliation for black political action. Kahrl, whose has long researched the history of property tax discrimination against black Americans, has found white officials going to extreme lengths to hike black taxes. In one such case in 1932, a black North Carolina resident was taxed for the value of two stray dogs that had been seen on her property.

The values of black-owned homes tend to grow more slowly than values of white-owned ones. The white people who make up the vast majority of home buyers tend to avoid black neighborhoods, which cuts black sellers off from many potential buyers. That can drive down the sale price of black-owned homes. Given that difference in price appreciation, if an assessor assumes a black-owned home gains value as quickly as a white-owned home, the assessed value of the black-owned home will quickly outstrip its market value. Every year, the black family pays more in property taxes, even though the sales price of its home is not increasing as quickly. Nearby white families benefit from the opposite trend: Their homes increase in value more rapidly than their assessments, giving them an ever-growing tax break. While neighborhood and race are the biggest drivers of the property tax gap, the economists found others. In particular, the appeals process illustrates how much of the property tax system functions in a way that penalizes black wealth, even as it appears neutral on its face. As part of their study, the economists reviewed 3.4 million property tax appeals from Chicago and surrounding Cook County and found black homeowners were significantly less likely to appeal their property tax assessments. When they did appeal, black homeowners were less likely to win. And when they won, they earned smaller assessment reductions.

Hazel Shakur has sold homes in the well-off, mostly black suburbs of Prince George’s County in Maryland for the better part of two decades. She is one of Redfin’s top-selling agents in the county but still faces the ever-present frustration of potential bidders backing out when they see how high their property tax bills would be. Shakur has a business degree from American University, earned on a full scholarship, and has negotiated nearly 500 real estate transactions, yet said it had not occurred to her to challenge her own property taxes. She grew up in a renter household and was not taught about appealing property taxes or any of the other small strategies white homeowners have used to accumulate generational wealth. “Sometimes you’re so glad to finally get somewhere that you don’t want to make a lot of noise and create any unwanted attention — you’re just grateful to have arrived and made it, and you pay your bills,” she said. “Even if you’re not happy about your property taxes, it doesn’t occur to you to question.”

Also, a reminder that the nation's entire transport and housing infrastructure was explicitly, consciously designed to destroy and deny non-white wealth until maybe 50 years at best - at which point most of it was a fixed facet.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...acism-monument

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'm into humor lately so here's some funnies:

https://www.politico.com/video/2020/...nternet-079705

That other war movie starring Ken and Barbie in "Saving Private Property".