Richard Engel and Robert Windrem of NBC News published a horrifying report today revealing that the CIA doesn’t always know the identities of the people it’s executing in drone strikes. Their findings are based on a review of 14 months worth of classified documents that describe 114 drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan beginning in September 2010.
About one of every four of those killed by drones in Pakistan between Sept. 3, 2010, and Oct. 30, 2011, were classified as “other militants,” the documents detail. The “other militants” label was used when the CIA could not determine the affiliation of those killed, prompting questions about how the agency could conclude they were a threat to U.S. national security. Read more
The Philadelphia School District’s (PSD) state-run School Reform Commission voted in March to close 23 public schools, nearly 10 percent of the city’s total, in a move they say is necessary to plug a $304 million budget deficit. Read more
This video shows a remarkable scene of police overkill in a Harlem subway station on the afternoon of May 13. What begins as two cops from the NYPD trying to handcuff a seemingly unthreatening black man quickly spirals into over two dozen officers flooding the station to arrest him.
The video opens with one of the two arresting officers repeatedly shouting, “Put your hands behind your back and stop resisting!” at the suspect, who they have pinned to the ground. The second officer, who looks extremely uncomfortable, gently asks his partner to “relax” several times.
The two officers then force the suspect—or, more accurately, the victim—to his feat and try to handcuff him up against the wall. But the suspect keeps planting his foot and hand on the wall and explains to the officers that he’s afraid they will slam his face into it. They assure him they won’t and they cuff him, at which point all hell breaks loose.
Around the 1:02 mark, two more cops come rushing in and literally grab the victim’s feet from under him, slamming his body to the ground as he screams “I haven’t done anything, I haven’t done anything!”
At the 1:30 mark, the handcuffed man is being held face down on the ground by all four police officers when cop comes storms in asking his fellow officers “You guys alright?” as though they were the ones who had just been brutally attacked. Still, more cops trickle and then flood into the station until the victim is completely submerged under what looks like an angry lynch mob.
The person recording the incident on his cell phone is then forced out of the station, which has been surrounded by a dozen police cars outside.
The video ends with witnesses telling the cameraman that the victim was just “standing there” when he was arrested for “no reason”.
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to live in an environment where this shit goes down on the regular? Make no mistake, the scene in the above video is routine in certain NYC communities where people of color are disproportionately stopped, questioned, frisked and harassed as a matter of policy. And the slightest sign of resistance, like instinctively protecting your face from being slammed into a wall, could land you behind bars for “resisting” or even “assaulting” a police officer, a label that brings on a world of trouble.
“The way St. Louis streets work, we’re afraid out here. We’re afraid of the police. We’re afraid of other youth who may want to pull a gun and fire on you. So, sometimes people have guns just to protect themselves, not with the intentions to do a criminal act with it.”
Those are the words of Carlos Ball, whose 25-year-old brother, Cary Ball Jr., was shot and killed by St. Louis police on April 24, after fleeing from a traffic stop.
Police, who “were on a special ‘hot spot‘ detail near Ninth and Carr streets in the Columbus Square neighborhood”, say they tried to stop Cary’s car twice but he kept driving and eventually crashed into a parked car. Cary exited the vehicle and ran, forcing police to chase after him on foot. Then, according to police, Cary pulled out an automatic handgun and pointed it at the officers, leaving them no choice but to open fire. He was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Read more
The United States isn’t officially at war with Pakistan. But that hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from bombing whoever they want whenever they see fit. Nor has it stopped the U.S. media from dutifully following up with celebratory applause as was the case this morning when news broke that a U.S. drone strike may have killed the Pakistani Taliban’s number two guy, Waliur Rehman, a claim the Pakistani Taliban explicitly denies.
Never mind that the strike destroyed a house and killed six other people in the process because according to the Associated Press, ”the death of Waliur Rehman would be a strong blow to the militant group responsible for hundreds of bombings and shootings across Pakistan.” I’m no expert on Pakistan but it seems to me that killing a handful of alleged militants and their commander might serve as a provocation for more violence rather than a “strong blow”. Read more
Hussain Al-Khawahir, a 33-year-old Saudi Arabian man and father of three, was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on May 11 after Border and Customs Patrol found a pressure cooker in his luggage. Al-Khawahir will remain jailed until his preliminary hearing on May 28.
Pressure cookers have been under increased scrutiny since they were used to make homemade explosives that killed three and injured over 250 people at last month’s Boston Marathon. But that doesn’t excuse throwing brown foreigners in prison on the flimsiest of charges, something the U.S. government tends to do to varying degrees in the aftermath of a terrorist attack (ever heard of Guantanamo?). Read more
