....but that does NOT mean it is GOOD for white Americans.

On an individual basis, all of these cases are horrific

... man, despite grand jury rebuffs:








http://keepusahonest.com/FortBendCountyDA/John%20Healey.html

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/fortbend-news/article/State-fines-DA-for-campaign-finance-report-1776929.php






This DA and this SWAT team would make the founding fathers vomit.

Yes, on an individual level there are good cops and good prosecutors .... but until they consistently come forward ...the entire sytem is a cess pool and we are effed!

are no better than the bad guys with badges. If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Part of that thick blue wall of silence that keeps injustice in the "justice" system.

He should sue for millions and the police chief should be fired.

Lying to a judge in order to incriminate an innocent man falsely? Those cops belong behind bars like the criminals they are.

That’s what made the Dec. 9 “Getting Criminal Justice Right” event both informative and thought-provoking.

State Rep. Ron Reynolds (D-Missouri City) organized the event to start the conversation on how Fort Bend County can avoid tragedies such as the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y.

Credit Reynolds for spearheading the effort and starting a conversation on solutions that will build trust betwe
en communities and their respective law enforcement agencies.

“Fort Bend County needs to be the model for America,” Reynolds said. “We can’t solve the problems in other cities, but we can solve ours here.”

The event was truly an exercise in democracy as every attendee who wanted to speak did so – with no time limit. It turned into a five-hour conversation of ideas and the sharing of real-life narratives.

It featured a wide variety of professionals – from Missouri City NAACP president Doc Holliday, Fort Bend Constable Precinct 2 Ruben Davis, Fort Bend District Attorney John Healey, Police Chiefs Mike Berezin (Missouri City) and David Rider (Fort Bend ISD), community organizer and former corrections officer Durrell Douglas, as well as several clergymen and defense attorneys.

http://www.fortbendstar.com/2014/12/17/listening-is-the-first-step-in-reconciliation/

Jacob Estrada sat in prison in 2012, trying to write music and dabbling in fiction, when a scandal broke involving a state forensic chemist who admitted to falsifying drug evidence. Thousands of pending and convicted drug cases were undermined, including Estrada's.

But Estrada wouldn't be released for another two years and now claims prosecutors in Fort Bend County delayed notifying criminal defense lawyers of the tainted evidence, as required by law.

When the Court of Criminal Appeals finally overturned his conviction in June and ordered his release, Estrada, 29, filed grievances with the State Bar Association against Fort Bend District Attorney John Healey and his chief narcotics prosecutor, Mark Hanna.

In them, he claims Healey's office, by dragging its feet, kept him in prison, knowing the evidence against him was not only tainted but actually had been destroyed, meaning prosecutors had no basis for ever retrying him.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Fort-Bend-DA-waited-months-before-notifying-5849410.php

Maybe people start losing incentive to stay law abiding themselves?

With the collapse of the welfare system and many public services, people at the lower end of the social scale are increasingly exposed to negative/stressful encounters with the police. This isn't just in regard to criminal activity - this relates to evictions, drug/alcohol escapism, suicide interventions, domestic disputes that weren't actually violence, noise/nuisance complaints, etc. As your life becomes more desperate, and there is nothing you can do about it (for lack of programs and advocacy options), the more the police are knocking on your door. They have become ad hoc social control.

And then there is the "welfare check", which is more or less a blank check for police to walk into your house in the name of privacy from your neighbors.

My consciousness was raised about this recently, because I have experienced it personally, and I am outraged to no end about it.

If you check some of my sig and my other posts, you will see that I have been through a horror story with Social Services. The petition in my sig doesn't even include the part about me losing Medi-Cal and the bureaucratic hell-wave that entailed. Anyway, I had to deal with a lot of Social Services hearings and paperwork - the whole thing was very nerve-wracking and time-consuming, and it took over my life at a time when I had just been on the verge of getting on with my life. When I finally got Medi-Cal back, the first thing that happened was the HMO that manages my Medi-Cal services rejected a procedure I had been working on getting for many months. I found out appealing involved *yet another* Social Services hearing.

I am a mild-mannered person who in the past let important things slip through the cracks at my medical clinic: at one point I lost my eyesight mainly because I wasn't speaking loudly enough about getting missing information into my medical record and getting treatment I knew I needed. As I viewed this situation: I was not going to go through one more Social Services hearing - I was going to demand my medical clinic find another way (either the doctor rewrite the referral, or they find another way to work with the HMO). I had to speak strongly because my medical clinic had a history of not hearing me, and in this situation there was a clock running on the procedure (the imaging for it was already a year old). Unfortunately for me, I put it in writing. I said up at the top why I felt I had to speak strongly. Then I said they had to find me another way. And then I said I would hold a sign and march out in front of city hall in traffic if they didn't.

Did this get me my procedure? Noooooooo. Actually helping to fix my medical problems might be giving into my spoiled little tantrum or some other psychological behaviorial crap. Instead they called the police to do a "welfare check".

This in itself is a very nerve-wracking encounter, even if you know you've done nothing wrong and aren't going to get arrested. The police are potent symbols of authority. You also have to figure that you're in their database and "on the grid" once they have to speak to you.

I had to let the police into my room, without any advance warning they were coming. My room was a mess.

I had to explain to all my curious neighbors why the police had come knocking at the door. I'm really glad my housemate wasn't around at the time.

I had been going to that medical clinic regularly for over 2 years. Not just for medical appointments: I went there almost weekly for acupuncture, women's health groups, nutritionist advice, social work, all the extra stuff they had. Will all the bureaucracy in my life, I did not need all those extra appointments. I had mobility problems - I was often struggling just to get there, and sometimes I used bus money even though I couldn't afford it. I'm an introvert: I'd much prefer to keep to myself, but I made that effort to keep going to that medical clinic. The ONLY reason I kept pushing myself to do it was when push came to shove, I wanted the people there to know my face, recognize me as a human being, and make a decision based on their knowledge of me as a person.

When that important moment came, they forgot I was a human being, and they fell back on their procedures. They treated me as an "it" that needed a "welfare check".

At least half a dozen people in that clinic should have known me well enough to understand what I had been through with Social Services, how I communicate, and what it would do to me if they called the police on me.

It's dispiriting to think how much time I wasted trying to develop some sort of human relationship with people there.

Anyway, this "welfare check" not only added a negative encounter with the police - it broke my relationship with my medical clinic as well. Think about that: people on the low end of the social scale may not have a lot of community ties. Do we need the police breaking the few they have left?

While the Berkeley PD does not have a bad reputation, there is some concern that a transgender woman named Kayla Moore died during a "welfare check" the police did on her last year.

Perhaps the police shouldn't be handling these "welfare checks". Perhaps they are a poor replacement for community outreach to isolated people with various needs.

(Because this comment became so involved, I turned it into a post here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025979931 )

For cases where the person is either drunk, on drugs, suicidal, or
having mental health crisis. Both of these have been very helpful
in situations involving one of my sons w/ mental health issues.

Both Portland and Eugene Oregon have separate distinct agencies who
contract with city to handle things like welfare checks, drunks, homeless,
etc. calls in vans with unarmed peacemakers skilled in conflict
resolution, dealing with addiction and mental health crisis situations.

Portland's is called Project Respond
http://www.cascadiabhc.org/behind-the-scenes-with-project-respond-and-the-portland-police/

Eugene's is Cahoots by White Bird
http://whitebirdclinic.org/cahoots-faq/

The police gave me a card for the "mobile crisis unit", but I'm under the impression that this is still the police - just a specialized unit. Probably the one that uses special tactics to drag you off to the loony bin, lol.

It sounds like Oregon has already realized that this is a bad idea.

I have to wonder what the the East Bay seriously does with a "welfare check" if someone says they need help, anyway. It's not like people are falling all over themselves offering services here. Feeling suicidal because you are about to be evicted? Tough cookies - there's no help for rent unless you can prove you have a regular income in the near upcoming future. Doing drugs because you just can't take the absurdity of all the bureaucracies poor people have to deal with? I suppose all "mobile crisis" will do is strongly suggest you get off drugs. No one will be addressing the underlying problems. Le sigh.

but it beats the hell out of being beaten up, shot dead, etc.

sometimes band aids come in handy.

Then a third party should get into it.

But if a person is living autonomously, just trying to escape their troubles however they can - Or if a person has merely "misbehaved" by someone else's standards, but not broken the law - they should be treated with the dignity of adults. Outsiders should ask to be invited into their home. And if they are unwanted, they should go away. Chances are, if they are offering genuine help, they will be welcome. But if they are offering faux help in the name of social control rather than any good for the person in question, then they should leave that person the heck alone in their own home if that's what that person wants. Practice that social control outside, if you please.