NYPD police officer suspended without pay after allegedly using chokehold technique
A New York police officer has been suspended without pay after shocking footage emerged of him appearing to use the now banned chokehold technique to detain a man.
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Shocking video has emerged of a New York police officer allegedly using the now banned chokehold technique to detain a man.
The footage shows four officers attempting to restrain and handcuff the man before one of them appears to use the chokehold technique.
Bystanders can be heard yelling in the background, with one of them shouting “he’s choking him. Let go”.
The officer who used the apparent chokehold has been suspended without pay.
“While a full investigation is still underway, there is no question in my mind that this immediate action is necessary,” New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Dermot Shea said, according to the NY Daily News. “We are committed to transparency as this process continues.”
Officers arrested the man after they responded to reports that three men were allegedly harassing people and throwing objects at them at an area near Rockaway Beach in Queens.
One man reportedly approached them with a “small bag” that the officers thought he would throw, resulting in his arrest, according to WNBC. Police refused to confirm the reports.
The NYPD confirmed the man had minor injuries, while his lawyer who identified him as Ricky Bellevue, said he was still recovering at hospital.
“I want the officer who put him in a chokehold to be in the cell next to him,” lawyer Lori Zeo of the Queens defenders said. “This guy should be charged criminally, and fired.”
COPS NAME SHOCK SUSPECT IN ATLANTA FIRE AS HANGINGS STUN US
A woman named as the girlfriend of murdered black American Rayshard Brooks has been identified as a suspect in a fire that burnt down the Wendys fast food joint in Atlanta near where he was shot dead by a white cop.
The development comes as authorities in the US revealed they are looking into a string of hangings in the wake of the death of black American George Floyd.
Authorities are investigating six hangings involving black and Hispanic Americans after a sixth person of colour was found hanging from a tree in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota last month.
Since May 27, one woman, four men and a teenage boy have been found dead from separate hangings in Portland, Southern California, Houston and New York City.
So far officials have ruled every case a suicide, but each of the incidents have fuelled fears and suspicions about the possibility of lynchings as racial tensions continue to fester nationwide.
“People are on edge. They are nervous. This is a troubling, a challenging time for us. It is shocking in our community, and no death in that form should go uninvestigated,’ Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee said after a Hispanic man was found hanging from a tree in Houston.
Meanwhile, a man has died and 11 others have been injured in a shooting rampage kilometres away from a Minneapolis neighbourhood hit by rioting in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
Police said they believe there was more than one shooter, described only as “individuals on foot.”
Minneapolis police tweeted the incident about 3am local time Sunday, warning residents to steer clear of Uptown Minneapolis, with “various severity levels of injuries”.
Police are yet to confirm the name and age of the deceased man, and it is unclear whether anybody has been taken into custody.
Multiple people shot in area of 2900 block Hennepin S. Please stay away from this area. More info when available
— Minneapolis Police (@MinneapolisPD) June 21, 2020
The area police advised to avoid corresponds to a commercial district, near Landmark’s Uptown Theatre and several bars and restaurants.
Minnesota began allowing bars and restaurants to reopen with limited service on June 1 after some six weeks of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Footage and photographs of the incident shared on social media shows storefronts damaged in the shooting and blood splattered on the ground.
Screams were audible on a live video posted to Facebook showed the aftermath at the scene.
Blood on the ground after a 7 were hit in a shooting in Uptown, Minneapolis just now:pic.twitter.com/3nqiZmUOcU
— Kyle Hooten (@KyleHooten2) June 21, 2020
Small crowds of people gathered, with some crouched over victims lying on the pavement before police officers on bicycles showed up to attend to them.
The area where the incident occurred is about five kilometres west of the Minneapolis commercial area and neighbourhood hit by rioting in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25 death after being arrested by Minneapolis police.
Floyd’s death has sparked a move to overhaul the Minneapolis Police Department, with a majority of City Council members pledging support for dismantling a department that many community activists have called brutal and racist.
Shooting in Uptown Minneapolis pic.twitter.com/mAjYWBYmv0
— Mr Minnesota 🤦ðŸ¾â€â™‚ï¸ðŸ˜ˆ (@MrMinnesota24) June 21, 2020
That has prompted pushback from opponents who question how citizens will be protected from violent crime.
Even the most aggressive proponents for change have acknowledged it’s many months away and they’re not sure what it will look like.
Calls and emails to Minneapolis police seeking more information weren’t immediately returned. Further details weren’t immediately available.
ARREST WARRANT ISSUED FOR RAYSHARD BROOKS’ ‘GIRLFRIEND’
Authorities are investigating whether Rayshard Brooks’ possible “girlfriend” burned down the Wendy’s restaurant where he was fatally shot last week.
An arrest warrant has been issued for a woman named Natalie White, who was identified as a suspect in the arson attack on the fast-food location in Atlanta on June 13.
Brooks is the black American shot in the back by a white cop in a fast food joint car park in Atlanta after he ran away from police while brandishing a taser.
The murder charge for the cop in question has sparked anger among the city’s police force, many of whom are refusing to turn up for work.
Atlanta Fire and Rescue tweeted photos of 29-year-old White on Friday in a store, saying the warrant was issued by fire investigators in the Georgia city, but didn’t provide more information.
On Saturday June 13, the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was shot was burned down, according to fire officials, who have said several people are suspected of trying to set fires in the restaurant before the blaze finally spread.
Atlanta Fire Chief Randall Slaughter said protesters threw bricks and rocks at firefighters as they tried to get inside the Wendy’s, and said they couldn’t start fighting the fire until it had already destroyed the building.
SON OF MUHAMMAD ALI GIVES SHOCK VERDICT ON DAD’S ‘VIEW’ OF BLM
The tragedy follows boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s only biological son saying his father would be opposed to Black Lives Matter, calling the movement “racist” and the protesters “devils”.
Speaking four years after the death of boxer Ali, an activist who stood up against racism throughout his life, Muhammad Ali Jr says his dad would have been disgusted at how the protests have turned to violence, looting and vandalism after the death of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and Breonn Taylor.
“Don’t bust up s – t, don’t trash the place,” he told The New York Post in a shock assessment. “You can peacefully protest.
‘‘My father would have said, ‘They ain’t nothing but devils.’ My father said, ‘all lives matter.’ I don’t think he’d agree.”
Of the BLM movement, Ali Jr, a Muslim like his father, said: “I think it’s racist.”
“It’s not just black lives matter, white lives matter, Chinese lives matter, all lives matter, everybody’s life matters. God loves everyone — he never singled anyone out. Killing is wrong no matter who it is,” Ali Jr said.
He defended cops, who in the States have been the target of “de-fund” campaigns calling in some cases for entire police departments to be dismantled.
“Police don’t wake up and think, ‘I’m going to kill a n — r today or kill a white man,’” he said. “They’re just trying to make it back home to their family in one piece.”
Ali Jr said the killing of black man George Floyd under the knee of a white cop in Minneapolis was wrong. But he also said there was more than one side of the story.
“The officer was wrong with killing that person, but people don’t realise there was more footage than what they showed. The guy resisted arrest, the officer was doing his job, but he used the wrong tactic.”
The son of the man originally christened Cassius Clay said the far-left group Antifa had provoked violence during recent protests and said they should be labelled a terrorist organisation.
“They should all get what they deserve. They’re f – king up businesses, beating up innocent people in the neighbourhood, smashing up police stations and shops. They’re terrorists – they’re terrorising the community. I agree with the peaceful protests.
“Black Lives Matter is not a peaceful protest. Antifa never wanted it peaceful.”
Ali Jr is a father of two and at the age of 47 lives in Florida.
“The Greatest” had nine children — Muhammad Jr, eight daughters and an adopted son, Asaad Amin — with four wives. Junior was the fourth-born to first wife Belinda Boyd, who converted to Islam and now goes by Khalilah Ali.
After the retired champ married his final wife Lonnie Williams in 1986, relations between son and father began to fray and, in the last decade of Ali’s life, completely fell apart.
While Ali spent his final days at his estate in Scottsdale, Arizona, Ali Jr lived in a dingy two-bed flat in Englewood on Chicago’s crime-ridden South Side. He split from wife Shaakira shortly after his father’s death on June 3, 2016.
“Not all the police are bad, there’s just a few. There’s a handful of police that are crooked, they should be locked up,” he said. “I never had a bad scene with a cop. They’ve always been nice and protect me. I don’t have a problem with them.”
Ali Jr goes a step further calling out Black Lives Matter as a divisive movement.
“It’s a racial statement,” he said. “It’s pitting black people against everyone else. It starts racial things to happen; I hate that.”
Ali Jr said he supports President Trump and that his father — who went to jail for refusing to be drafted during the Vietnam War on the basis of his religious beliefs — would have too.
“I think Trump’s a good president. My father would have supported him. Trump’s not a racist, he’s for all the people. Democrats are the ones who are racist and not for everybody.
“These (Democrat politicians) saying Black Lives Matter, who the hell are you to say that? You’re not even black.
“Democrats don’t give a s – t about anybody. Hillary Clinton doesn’t give a s – t; she’s trying not to get locked up.
“Trump is much better than Clinton and Obama. … The only one to do what he said he would do is Donald Trump.”
SECOND ‘GEORGE FLOYD FOUR’ COP RELEASED ON BAIL
The second ex-cop who was one of four officers arrested over the killing of George Floyd is now a free man after posting bail.
J Alexander Kueng was released from the Hennepin County Jail on Friday night after being held in lieu of $A1 million bail.
Kueng is one of three former cops charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in connection with the fatal arrest of Floyd, who died on May 25.
Thomas Lane, 37, is the only other officer who has been freed after he posted bail.
The third officer, Tou Thao, also faces aiding and abetting charges but is still being held behind bars in lieu of $A1 million bail.
Meanwhile, arresting officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for kneeling on the Black dad’s neck for roughly eight minutes.
The 44-year-old remains in jail and his bail is set at $A1.75 million.
ONE KILLED INSIDE SEATTLE’S COP-FREE ZONE
One person was killed and another injured when a shooting erupted in Seattle’s autonomous zone, prompting police in riot gear to enter the “no-cop” zone to investigate.
Seattle police entered the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone to gather spent shell casings and assembled in riot gear at the border, Newsweek reported.
Some reports said police encountered hostile crowds after a large group assembled on the edge of the protest zone to secure the victim. But both victims – one dead, one injured – had been driven by private vehicles to a local hospital, according to a blog post.
Videos recorded inside CHAZ showed volunteers scrambling to help the victims.
Police confirmed the shooting in a Twitter post, but offered no additional details.
Two gunshot victims were treated at Harborview Medical Center, spokeswoman Susan Gregg told the Seattle Times.
One died, she said, and the other was in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit.
A security employee working in the area reported seeing the shooter arrive in a black SUV and a 911 caller told police a man left the vehicle toting a rifle in the early morning hours at the end of Juneteenth celebrations, according to a local blog post.