The Miami Herald, Sunday, 22 December 2002: “Interrogation is about getting confessions, not about solving the crime,” said Richard Ofshe, a false-confession expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s very simple why people falsely confess: because of police misconduct.”

ABC News, 25 September 2002: Chicago police took Bell in for questioning after he called 911 to report his mother’s death. At the police station, Bell says he was held for 50 hours, screamed at, roughed up, and wrongly told he failed a lie-detector test. Ultimately, Bell confessed on videotape to killing his mother.... Bell served 17 months in Cook County Jail before forensic evidence saved him. Blood and semen collected at the scene, and not tested for months, pointed to the guilt of another man.

The Washington Post, Sunday, 3 June 2002: “The detective said, ‘Well, thanks for making a confession...’” Longtin recalled. “I’m like, ‘What? I didn’t admit to anything.’... He said, ‘Yes, you did.’”... Eventually, other investigators—not the homicide squad—linked the DNA to a man they now say is the real killer. While Longtin was in jail, that man allegedly sexually assaulted seven women.

www.prisoners.com: To the public unfamiliar with the realities of the criminal-justice system, a confession is sure proof that a person is guilty. That’s seldom the truth of the matter. Almost all confessions are coerced by the cops. The police typically beat, intimidate, terrify and/or threaten suspects into giving false confessions.

The Washington Post, Tuesday, 5 June 2001: “I had been asking to get a lawyer when it appeared they thought I did it for real, and they weren’t going to give up until they got what they wanted,” Green said. “They said, ‘You are not getting a phone call until I hear what I want to hear.’”

The Washington Post, Monday, 4 June 2001: He said they slammed him against a wall, threatened him with execution and deprived him of sleep—until he confessed to a slaying that evidence later showed he did not commit.

Forensic Evidence: It was not until Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 56 S.Ct. 461, 80 L.Ed. 682 (1936) that the United States Supreme Court barred the states from using a confession that violated due process of law.... The defendants were beaten blind until they not only confessed, but confessed in every manner of detail as demanded by the law-enforcement officers present at those beatings.

Dave Kopel (strange bedfellow): ...there are about 6,000 false confessions for felonies every year in the United States. (Huff et al., “Guilty Until Proven Innocent,” Crime & Delinquency, vol. 32, pages 518–44, 1986). False confessions are one of the major reasons for the conviction of innocent persons.

The New York Times, 30 March 1998: As he would later tell his lawyer, Tobey Hockett, Louis had given up hope that telling the truth would earn him back his freedom. Broken in spirit, he thought that if he just told them what they wanted to hear, he could go home. He made two confessions, both wildly at odds with the crime scene and witness reports.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, 22 August 2001: At the core of the D.A.’s case are the allegations of Keith Batt. In the summer of 2000, Batt, then 23, was fresh meat, a rookie. Mabanag was his training officer. During his first nine nights on the job, Batt claims, he watched as Mabanag and pals savaged civilians and fabricated reports. They referred to the graveyard shift as the “dog watch.”... “You better not be a snitch. What goes on in the car, stays in the car,” Mabanag said, laying out the rules for Batt. It was Batt’s first night in blue. Mabanag wanted the rookie to prove himself. Mabanag expected Batt to beat the s--it out of somebody before the night was over. Mabanag introduced the new recruit to his buddies, Vazquez and Siapno. “F--k all that you learned in the academy,” Vazquez growled at Batt. “F--k probable cause. Just jump out and grab the m-----f--kers. If you’re a coward I’ll terminate you myself. If you’re a snitch I’ll beat you myself.... Snitches lie in ditches.”... At 1:45 AM Mabanag and Batt were responding to a stolen-car call. It was from Kenneth Soriano’s house on the 2500 block of Adeline Street. Soriano said his cousin’s car had been boosted. Soriano asked the officers to come inside. Mabanag didn’t want to. Soriano had a bunch of dogs. The cop was scared the animals would take a bite out of him. Told Soriano he’d shoot the dogs if they lunged. Soriano got heated. Started arguing with Mabanag. Mabanag wasn’t amused. The cop choked Soriano and forced him to the ground. Soriano’s head smacked the pavement and started bleeding. Mabanag cuffed him. Radioed for backup. Siapno and Vazquez showed up and gave Soriano the Rodney King treatment, kicking and punching him. Mabanag wrote up a fairy-tale incident report with a phony statement from Soriano: “I am sorry for giving the police a hard time. I apologize to the officer and they were not the ones who beat me.”... Delphine Allen was walking home alone along 32nd Street. It was 1:40 AM. Vazquez and Batt jumped out of an unmarked OPD van, grabbed Allen, and threw him to the ground. The cops dragged Allen into a patrol car. Siapno, Mabanag, and Hornung showed up to help “subdue” Allen. This involved yanking the guy halfway out of the cruiser, hitting the soles of his feet with a metal baton, blasting a can of pepper spray into his mouth and face, and of course, delivering the requisite kicks and punches. “We’re going to find something to put on you,” Mabanag informed Allen, according to a civil suit filed by Allen in federal court. Vazquez produced a twist of crack. Siapno put pen to paper and came up with some fiction: he watched Allen throw the rock to the ground. But the job wasn’t done. Siapno drove the cruiser, with Allen screaming inside, to a deserted lot underneath a freeway ramp near Wood Street in deep West Oakland. Siapno attacked the handcuffed man with his elbows, feet, and fists. Allen’s face was bloated and deformed looking. Allen couldn’t walk. Allen’s eye was full of blood. Allen was messed up. Bad. Had to be hauled over to Highland Hospital before being booked at the county jail. This was funny. Vazquez made a joke. “They’re gonna have to peel that guy’s cornea off Jude’s elbow,” he quipped. Mabanag wasn’t laughing. Batt didn’t do enough beating. Next time, he told the rookie, bludgeon the guy until I say “stop.”

From Gore Vidal’s book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002), pp. 67–69:

Nineteen ninety-two. Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Hartford Courant reported that the local Tactical Narcotics Team routinely devastated homes and businesses they “searched.” Plainclothes policemen burst in on a Jamaican grocer and restaurant owner with the cheery cry “Stick up, niggers. Don’t move.” Shelves were swept clear. Merchandise ruined. “They never identified themselves as police,” the Courant noted. Although they found nothing but a registered gun, the owner was arrested and charged with “interfering with an arrest” and so booked. A judge later dismissed the case. [James] Bovard [in his book Lost Rights (1994)] reports, “In 1991, in Garland, Texas, police dressed in black and wearing black ski-masks burst into a trailer, waved guns in the air and kicked down the bedroom door where Kenneth Baulch had been sleeping next to his seventeen-month-old son. A policeman claimed that Baulch posed a deadly threat because he held an ashtray in his left hand, which explained why he shot Baulch in the back and killed him. (A police internal investigation found no wrongdoing by the officer.) In March 1992, a police SWAT team killed Robin Pratt, an Everett, Washington, mother, in a no-knock raid carrying out an arrest warrant for her husband. (Her husband was later released after the allegations upon which the arrest warrant were based turned out to be false.)” Incidentally, this KGB tactic—hold someone for a crime, but let him off if he then names someone else for a bigger crime—often leads to false, even random allegations that ought not to be acted upon so murderously without a bit of homework first. The Seattle Times describes Robin Pratt’s last moments. She was with her six-year-old daughter and five-year-old niece when the police broke in. As the bravest storm trooper, named Aston, approached her, gun drawn, the other police shouted, “‘Get down,’ and she started to crouch onto her knees. She looked up at Aston and said, ‘Please don’t hurt my children....’ Aston had his gun pointed at her and fired, shooting her in the neck. According to [the Pratt family attorney John] Muenster, she was alive another one to two minutes but could not speak because her throat had been destroyed by the bullet. She was handcuffed, lying face down.” Doubtless Aston was fearful of a divine resurrection; and vengeance. It is no secret that American police rarely observe the laws of the land when out wilding with each other, and as any candid criminal judge will tell you, perjury is often their native tongue in court.

Innocence Project: In a disturbing number of DNA exoneration cases, defendants have made incriminating statements or delivered outright confessions. Many factors arise from interrogation that may lead to a false confession, including: duress, coercion, intoxication, diminished capacity, ignorance of the law, and mental impairment. Fear of violence (threatened or performed) and threats of extreme sentences have also led innocent people to confess to crimes they did not perpetrate.

Border Patrol: May 20, 1998 Web posted at: 3:51 a.m. EDT (0751 GMT) MEXICO CITY (AP) — Amnesty International issued a broad condemnation of the U.S. Border Patrol on Tuesday, saying detainees — including U.S. citizens — are beaten, raped and mistreated. The report, based on an investigation conducted in September 1997, did not try to quantify the problem, saying only that numerous cases indicated that agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service believed themselves to be above the law. “There is credible evidence that persons detained by the INS have been subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including beatings, sexual assault, denial of medical attention, and denial of food, water and warmth for long periods....”

Muslimedia International: Travellers from Canada to the US have frequently encountered hostility and aggressive behaviour from US customs and immigration officials at the various land-border crossing points. In recent months, this has escalated dramatically.... the US government has slashed funding for many departments. Each department has been told to generate its own revenues. The cowboys at the INS and the US justice department under whose jurisdiction the customs officials operate, have resorted to slapping a ban on the entry of people. These travellers, if they want to enter the US, have to fight it out in a US court. This generates revenues for American immigration lawyers, not the most polite or honest breed. Travellers whose vehicles have been confiscated can appeal against the decision. Even if they get their vehicle back, they must pay towing and storage charges. It could take from two to three months before a vehicle is finally handed over to the owner. The charges could add up. If a vehicle is confiscated, it is auctioned off, bringing money into the department's coffers. On average about 10 cars are being confiscated daily at each border crossing with Ontario province alone.

The Niagara Falls Reporter, 11 March 2003: Bernadette Devlin McAliskey — a former member of the British Parliament who was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — was detained by immigration officials in Chicago on February 21 and denied entry into the country because of “national security” concerns. INS agents threatened to arrest, jail and even shoot the legendary Irish civil-rights advocate when she arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. McAliskey was then photographed, fingerprinted and returned to Ireland against her will on the grounds that she “poses a serious threat to the security of the United States.” The agents refused her request to see an attorney. “We were going for our luggage,” McAliskey told columnist Jimmy Breslin. “We were in Chicago because the cheap flight takes you to New York that way. We didn’t have to go through immigration, they pass you through in Dublin now. The loudspeaker calls out ‘McAliskey.’ We go up to your man and say yes, and we’re immediately surrounded by three men and a woman. They grab the passports out of our hands. One of the men says to me, ‘We’ve a fax from our agents in Dublin. It says you’re a potential or real threat to the United States.’” When she told them she was a former member of Parliament and had been coming back and forth to this country for 30 years, the INS agents weren’t impressed. “You’ve evaded us before, but you’re not going to do it now,” one told her. At various times during her captivity, agents told her she would be handcuffed and thrown into a cell, and threatened her with a story in which one of them had allegedly shot a Russian at the airport. When she said she had the right to be protected under the Constitution of the United States, one agent told her, “After 9/11, nobody has any rights.”... In Northern Ireland, McAliskey is revered by the Catholic minority in much the same way that Martin Luther King is here. And that might just be part of the problem. [U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft holds an honorary degree from Bob Jones University in South Carolina, a virulently anti-Catholic institution whose founder characterized Irish Catholics as the most dangerous of a dangerous breed. Another Bob Jones alumnus is the Rev. Ian Paisley, whose hate-filled speeches have fueled generations of Irish Protestant terrorists, some of whom attempted to assassinate McAliskey and her husband in their Derry home in 1981. The couple survived, despite being riddled with bullets. Such are the connections of our attorney general, who seems far more interested in curtailing civil liberties than in bringing scoundrels like Enron’s Kenneth Lay to justice. The war on terror seems to have morphed into a war on those whose beliefs conflict with Ashcroft’s narrow-minded worldview.

Stop Polygraph: The polygraph is a highly inaccurate device that is not capable of true lie detection. With minimal effort, the polygraph results are easily manipulated by either the polygraphist or examinee.... The polygraph industry falsely accuses innocent people of wrongdoing with no fear of administrative oversight. CNN reported in June of 1999 that, “Since the invention of the polygraph in 1921, intelligence officials can’t cite one high-level spy who’s been tripped up by the so-called lie detector test.”... When the door closes on the polygraph examination room, there are no witnesses.

AntiPolygraph.org: If you are a suspect in a criminal investigation, under no circumstances should you submit to a polygraph. You should remain silent and consult with an attorney. Many innocent individuals who become suspects in criminal investigations eagerly agree to submit to a polygraph in the mistaken belief that the “test” is highly accurate and will clear them from suspicion. Regrettably, this is not necessarily the case. “Passing” a polygraph “test” provides no guarantee of being cleared of suspicion. “Failing,” on the other hand, is likely to be highly prejudicial. Either way, agreeing to the “test” means agreeing to sit down and be questioned by a trained interrogator without the benefit of having an attorney present. Don’t do it.

Salon, 2 March 2000: ...The employees, many of them actual rocket scientists, hit the roof. They wrote letters of protest, thronged hearings to denounce polygraph testing, issued reviews of the scientific literature slamming polygraphs.... False positives — people whom the examiner says are “deceptive” but who are in fact telling the truth — are more common than false negatives — people whom the examiner says test “not deceptive” but who are in fact lying. Of one study situation Lykken says, “An accused person who is innocent who takes a polygraph test has almost a 50-50 chance of failing it.” Says Lykken, “Those odds are worse than Russian roulette!” Moreover, two examiners looking at the same polygraph charts will not always agree on what they mean. In fact, one study found that 10 to 20 percent of the time the same examiner may read the same charts differently if he reads them after a six-month interval. Thus polygraph testing gets poor marks for both reliability and validity. While the polygraph has always been wrapped in the trappings of science, scientists reject it. A 1997 poll of psychologists and psychophysiologists showed that most of them view it as junk science that should not be admissible in court.

Care2.com: “Woman Says Police Forced Her To Say She Wasn’t Raped”: A woman in Marion, South Carolina, claims that after being raped by a police officer, she was forced — by other police officers — to sign a statement denying that the assault was rape. The police officer who the woman claims was the perpetrator been suspended, but not charged with a crime, and none of the other police officers were suspended. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the woman recounted how, after being in a minor car accident, she allowed Officer Tyrone Reed to enter her apartment, thinking that he was there to talk to her about the crash. Instead, he asked her to enter another room, where he raped her and promptly left. She called her boyfriend, who called the police, but when officers appeared, they removed evidence from the apartment, read her her Miranda rights, and told her that she “didn’t look like a rape victim.” According to the woman, they threatened her with prison time if she didn’t recant the allegations....

Truth in Justice: I have noticed that one of the more difficult things in life is for a defendant in a criminal case to convince his attorney that he has a case. The notion that everyone who is charged with a crime is guilty is deeply ingrained in those who practice in the criminal-justice system, even many defense attorneys. If I were seeking legal counsel, I would want to be sure before I hired someone that they believed in my innocence. Moreover, I would also watch out for the lawyer who makes a good living by taking on a lot of cases and plea bargaining everyone — including the innocent client. This requires little work, and can be a good deal for the guilty, but the innocent need someone who is willing to fight for them.

These things can happen to anyone (except powerful politicians and billionaire industrialists) — and will almost certainly happen to you if you’re not lilly white and if you don’t have an Angled-Saxophone name. And you probably won’t believe me until it happens to you. If I knew what precautions to prescribe, I would prescribe them, but I don’t have a clue.

NOTE ADDED IN MAY 2003: Well, I’ve been thinking about it for half a year or so, and maybe I do have a few helpful hints, but certainly not a full remedy. The first rule of conduct, which is completely counter-intuitive, is to clam up around all law officers. Say nothing other than “I will say nothing without my lawyer.” Yes, that will make it seem like you have something to hide, but remember, if a policeman knocks on your door, or orders you to go to headquarters to ask you some questions, you need to understand that it’s a trap. Period. If the police approach you, you can be assured that they have already spent some time secretly fabricating a case against you. If you’re naïve like me, you’ll be happy to help with any investigation, and will freely and honestly answer all questions they put to you. And then it’s too late, because you’ll realize that you’ve just been tricked. They have deliberately misinterpreted everything that you have said as a sure sign of guilt. Innocence is not a defense. If you are innocent, you have just wasted their time, and they will resent you for that forever. That’s why they need to prove you guilty. And they will prove you guilty. Further, since you are “voluntarily” answering questions, you are technically not under arrest, and once you open your mouth, you forfeit your right to a lawyer. And even though you’re technically not under arrest, you will not be permitted to leave until you have confessed to whatever crime they are trying to pin on you. (When I asked what charges had been filed against me and by whom, the police refused to answer.) And if they enter your home, with or without your permission, with or without a warrant, they will deliberately misinterpret everything they see as incontrovertible evidence of guilt, and believe me, they will claim to see things that aren’t even there.

Here are some examples. These are all adapted from what I went through, though I have universalized them somewhat in an effort to be helpful. And, as my lawyer explained to me, what I experienced was typical in every way. I infer from what she said that I experienced a textbook-perfect demonstration of standard operating procedure. If you have a copy of the local newspaper in your house, the police will leaf through it until they find a story about a crime similar to the one they are accusing you of, and will insist that the only reason you purchased the newspaper was to check on that story. If you have prescription medicines, say, painkillers for a workplace injury or antibiotics for a severe infection, that will be evidence that you are a drug addict or drug dealer. And heaven forbid that you have a videotape of Cinema Paradiso, because that will be proof that you are a child molester. If you have a history book about World War II, that will be ample proof that you are a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. If there is evidence that you regularly entertain visitors, that’s proof that those visitors are colluding with you. If there is evidence that you do not regularly entertain visitors, that’s proof positive that you are a dangerously antisocial misfit. And be sure to remember that the police put on a show of being good, upright, church-going Christians. That means that if there is evidence that you associate with people who are something other than good, upright, church-going Christians, you’re in trouble. If you have books on other religions, you’re in trouble. (Well, they won’t say so directly. To do so is apparently against the rules, and this is one of the few rules the police won’t overtly violate. But they’ll talk their way around it and rub your nose in it.) If you have books on freethought, you’re automatically guilty of all charges — and then some. If you have any possessions that the police interpret, rightly or wrongly, as “pornography,” that’s proof positive that you are predatory sexual maniac. (They would surely classify this web site as “pornography.” So be careful. In my case, they immediately looked at my computer and discovered that among the “Favorite Sites” were ten or fifteen porn sites. I had never noticed them before, because I had bought my computer used several months earlier, and the “Favorite Sites” came with it. Porn among the “Favorite Sites” is proof of criminal sexual deviance. Q.E.D. At the same time they discovered that I had no Playboy magazines lying about. They demanded to know why not. I explained that I don’t like Playboy, but that explanation didn’t sit well with them at all. No well-adjusted single male would not have copies of Playboy around, they insisted. Not to have them is proof of criminal sexual deviance. Q.E.D. You just can’t win.) And when the police demand to know why you possess items that you certainly do not possess, you will probably ask them to show you what they are talking about. They will refuse.

When honestly answering questions in a good-faith effort to be coöperative, the police will accuse you of lying. When they put the same questions to you for the fifth, tenth, twelfth, twentieth time, and you answer honestly as you did the first time, they will accuse you of playing “mind games.” In the end you will confess, because there is simply no choice. Their promises to beat you to a bloody pulp, to plant evidence on you, and to arrest you, are not bluffs. They will word their threats carefully, so as not to use the terms “beat” or “torture” or “plant.” In my case, they used such phrases as “full investigation,” “full assault,” “full attack,” and something like “once we lock you up, we will find evidence against you — we will.” The meaning was crystal clear. After three and a half hours of finding no real evidence whatsoever and of being unable to frighten me into confessing, they finally told me they had completely run out of patience, and promised to pursue these violent tactics immediately unless I confessed right then and there. They also promised to let me go if I confessed. Not wanting to have three large, strong bullies break my skull, and not wanting to have to defend myself against planted evidence (against which there is no defense), I gave in. They told me verbatim what to confess and coached me on it. To my surprise, they had actually told the truth about letting me go, and that’s exactly what they did as soon as I gave them my false confession. This leads to a tremendous problem: Once you “confess,” that confession stays on your record forever, and will haunt you for the rest of your days. Remember, even though nearly all rumors are false — absolutely false, in every detail and nuance — almost everyone on this planet believes all rumors unquestioningly. Your life will be ruined — especially when the police tell all your neighbors about your confession. And that’s just what the police want. (The good news is that, after undergoing such an ordeal, you will disbelieve all rumors forever on afterwards — and that’s a much healthier and much more realistic outlook. Further, you’ll never again believe any police report or anything that any law officer ever says about anything.) All in all, it’s as though the school bully, who spent all his between-class breaks beating the living daylights out of you, has suddenly been promoted to principal. And that, in essence, is exactly what has just happened.

As some of the above links state, taking a “lie-detector” test is a bad idea. Fortunately, I didn’t have to endure such a trauma, but I came awfully close. Check out the links to see how polygraphs are rigged. The interrogator will ask you to lie about, say, one of the top cards in a deck, and will demonstrate that the spike on the read-out indicated which one you lied about. Well, the deck was stacked. It won’t occur to you that a police interrogator has just fooled you with a simple amateur conjuror’s trick. The next batch of questions will concern not the crime of which you are accused, but about other crimes you have committed, for instance, driving 35mph in a 30mph zone. That will count against you. And then it just gets worse, with demands that you inform on your friends. No matter what you say, you’re guilty as accused. So don’t even go there.

In short, SAY NOTHING !!!!! As soon as a policeman says “We’d like to ask you some questions” or “Why don’t you follow me back to police headquarters?” demand to see your lawyer. Do not accept a police-appointed lawyer, because he is working for the police, not for you. If the police don’t allow you to see a lawyer, well... been nice knowing you.

Another helpful hint: If you are not lilly white, and/or if you have a name that sounds funny to most Americans’ ears, do NOT move to an all-white, or nearly all-white, neighborhood. Oh, yes, it can be pleasant at first, and the neighbors will probably like you for a while. But it will only be for a while. Move to a mixed neighborhood. That’s a much better idea.

In retrospect, especially after attending the Wrongful Convictions conference, I feel lucky. Very lucky. The police just wanted me out of town; arresting me would have been an extra bother. I’m certain they would have arrested me had I not caved in to their demands, though. Now that I’ve had a small taste of what so many tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of others go through, I am obligated to do something to reverse this horrible state of affairs. Also, in retrospect, if the police hadn’t forced me to leave town, I would never have gotten a good-paying job, I would never have been flown to Italy to interview my favorite filmmaker, I would never have had access to the documents I need to write the two books I’m writing, I would never have attended the Wrongful Convictions conference, and I would never have decided to move my life in the positive directions I’m now taking it in. Despite all that, I will never thank those sadistic psychos.

“The best way to combat dissent is not to enact policies that provoke it.”

PEPPER SPRAY: “The effects of pepper spray are far more severe, including temporary blindness which lasts from 15–30 minutes, a burning sensation of the skin which lasts from 45 to 60 minutes, upper-body spasms which force a person to bend forward and uncontrollable coughing making it difficult to breathe or speak for between 3 to 15 minutes” (“An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control,” European Parliament Scientific and Technological Options Assessment, 1998). It has also proved lethal in a number of cases.

University of California at Davis, 17 November 2011:

For the story, including the name and contact information of the officer who used the pepper spray, see YouTube and Care2.
Says UC–Davis assistant professor Nathan Brown: “When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized.” That particular action is not apparent in the above video. Perhaps other videos caught that. Perhaps not. Of course, there are plenty of people who argue that the police were justified because the students were blocking a sidewalk on a university campus without permission. Whatever. Police, in performing their duty “to protect and to serve,” have a marked tendency not to defuse a tense situation, but rather to inflame it. They clearly enjoy doing that.

Pepper-spraying High School Students

A letter from LaTonya Stearnes of Birmingham, Alabama:

I once trusted the Birmingham Public Schools. I sent my children to school thinking they were safe and protected. I found out different.

My 17-year-old-daughter Gloria was sprayed in the face with pepper spray by a Birmingham police officer assigned to protect students in the school.

She wasn’t being violent and she certainly wasn’t a threat to the officer. Gloria was upset because a boy had pushed her. While she was confronting the boy, the police officer grabbed her from behind, pulled out his canister of pepper spray, and sprayed her in the eyes, face, and mouth. My 15-year-old daughter Patrice saw her sister sprayed and ran to her side. As Patrice reached Gloria, the officer sprayed Gloria with a second burst of pepper spray. The second burst also hit Patrice in the face.

When I saw Gloria, I couldn’t believe how red and swollen her face was. She was crying out to me to help her and I couldn’t do anything. She had red welts all over her face and her eyes were red. Days later the welts turned to black scabs that took two weeks to go away. Every time she washed her face, she cried again because water only made the pain worse. For weeks she refused to come out of her room and fell into a deep depression. It was a nightmare knowing my child suffered physical pain and depression because she reacted emotionally at school. She’s a teenage girl, not a criminal.

After Gloria was sprayed, I was shocked to learn that this was not an isolated incident. Nearly 200 Birmingham high school students have been sprayed with pepper spray in just the last five years. The Southern Poverty Law Center hasn’t been able to find another school district that uses pepper spray on students for normal teenage behavior.

The Birmingham Board of Education and Superintendent know about the routine use of pepper spray in schools and have done nothing to stop it. Birmingham Mayor William Bell knows about and authorizes the use of pepper spray against our children. Birmingham’s elected officials, who are supposed to represent the interests of parents and residents, know this is happening and have done nothing to stop it.

We need to make it stop! Our children should attend schools without fear of being sprayed with dangerous chemicals and abused by police officers that should be protecting them. Help me tell Birmingham’s city officials that the police department needs to change the way it operates in schools. We want the Birmingham Police Department to:

1. Provide comprehensive and repeated training on dealing with young people and nonviolent conflict resolution to all officers stationed in Birmingham schools.

2. Adopt a specific policy on the use of pepper spray in schools, limiting when pepper spray can be used on children.

3. Institute screening procedures for officers before assigning them to schools.

Help me show my daughter that there are people willing to stand up for her.

I received the following email message today (Tuesday, 20 September 2011). Its author is Marlene Martin. For those who don’t know (i.e., for almost everyone in the US), Troy Davis, on no evidence of his guilt, and despite considerable and strong evidence of his innocence, was sentenced to death for the killing of a police officer. Despite knowing who the real killer is, despite over a million signatures on petitions from all over the world, and despite support from high-level dignitaries everywhere, the courts and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole have decided to carry out the execution. This is Democracy American-Style, where a handful of officials commit murder in the face of popular opposition, with complete impunity. As Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas argued, proof of innocence is insufficient grounds to overturn a death penalty. As has been pointed out, “the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether it is unconstitutional to execute an innocent person.”

From Campaign to End the Death Penalty
-----

A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE: TROY HAS BEEN DENIED CLEMENCY

Troy Anthony Davis has been denied clemency by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole. This means that Troy could be executed tomorrow at 7 p.m. if the board does not reverse its decision, and if no court intervenes.

Members of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty will not idly sit by while a murder is carried out in the name of the state of Georgia. We will be holding speakouts and rallies to demand that this execution be stopped and to urge the pardons board to reverse its decision. We encourage everyone to come out if they can and continue to phone, fax and e-mail messages to the board.

Over 1 million people have signed petitions in support of clemency for Troy. More than 3,000 people marched and rallied for Troy just five days ago in Atlanta — the largest demonstration of support for any death-row prisoner since the protests to stop the execution of Stan Tookie Williams in California in 2005. Global actions of solidarity were held all over the world, including Germany, Hong Kong, Belgium and Nigeria, and more than 300 actions that took place across the U.S.

Troy is supported by numerous civil-rights leaders, including NAACP president Ben Jealous, Jesse Jackson of Rainbow Push, and Al Sharpton of the National Action Network. Other prominent supporters include President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former FBI Director William Sessions, and former federal prosecutor and death-penalty supporter Bob Barr.

The question that has to be asked is: Why can’t the members of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles see what over a million people have?

No physical evidence connects Troy to the murder for which he was condemned to death, and seven of the nine witnesses against him at his original trial have recanted their original testimony against Troy. Brenda Davis, one of the jurors in that trial, told CNN in 2009, “If I knew then what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row. The verdict would be ‘not guilty.’ ”

Why isn’t this good enough to win clemency for Troy? For that matter, why isn’t it good enough to win him a new trial where the evidence of his innocence could be heard by a jury?

The answer is simple: It is good enough. People have won reversals in their cases for far less than what Troy has put forward.

So why are so many politicians and state officials in Georgia determined to kill Troy?

This case is not merely a matter of guilt or innocence. Race and class have everything to do with why Troy was arrested in the first place, and why he has had such a hard time getting a hearing in the courts ever since. Troy was a black man accused of killing a white police officer in a city of the Deep South, and he was too poor to afford good legal representation at his first trial.

Now that he does have lawyers who have been able to unravel the case against him, Troy is required under the law to prove his innocence in a court system that wants to accept the evidence as it was presented against him nearly 20 years ago. Without incontrovertible proof of innocence — like DNA testing that excludes him — it is very difficult to prove innocence in the eyes of the law. [My note: With no physical evidence, of course, there’s no DNA. In any case, the police frequently taint DNA samples by rubbing them over the people they wish to convict; further, DNA samples are usually lost or discarded or so poorly filed they they become degraded; they are seldom tested and are rarely admitted in court.]

It all comes down to this terrible truth, as Troy himself put it in an interview in the New Abolitionist: “Georgia feels it’s better to kill me than admit I’m innocent.”

If Georgia goes forward and executes Troy Davis, it will be very definition of a modern-day lynching.

When Blacks were lynched in this country, it was often based on a lie — that they were guilty of some crime and deserved their fate. And there was no recourse for them in the court system or wider power structure. The perpetrators of lynchings were almost never punished — only 1 percent of such cases ever went trial, and far fewer were ever convicted.

Troy Davis has been convicted and sentenced to death based on a series of lies — and he, too, has found no recourse. Because “Georgia feels it’s better to kill me than admit I’m innocent.”

For more information on Troy’s case and to keep posted on what you can do today and tomorrow, visit the CEDP website at http://nodeathpenalty.org. Send your messages urging reversal to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole — Call 404-656-5651, e-mail webmaster@pap.state.ga.us and fax 404-651-8502.

Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org

Questions and comments may be sent to claude@freedomarchives.org

HERE’S SOME STAGGERING AND UNDERREPORTED NEWS THAT I THOUGHT WOULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE BY NOW. IT HAS YET TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF WE ARE LUCKY, IT WON’T MAKE A DIFFERENCE. BUT JUST IN CASE, I LEAVE IT POSTED HERE. REGARDLESS OF HOW THIS TURNS OUT, YOU’D PROBABLY BE RIGHT TO WORRY.

AMY GOODMAN:     A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well. The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time” — time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment” — armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets....

From Joan Walsh’s 12 September column on Salon.Com:

I’ll get criticized as sexist for saying this, but I would say the same thing about a man who sounded this ignorant: Talking to Charles Gibson tonight, Palin sometimes reminded me of poor Miss South Carolina, who, asked why many Americans can’t find the US on a map, famously said: “I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps. And I believe that our education, like, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere, like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should help the US, or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children.”

(Thanks to The Buffalo Report for bringing this to its readers’ attention!)