Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Disability Is Not A Crime - Beating in SF, Trial in NM, Murder in Prison

This is just news from yesterday.

SFPD were filmed abusing a man with a prosthetic leg and crutches. Initially, the claim was that he was "waving sticks around like weapons" outside Twitter's hq. Since that claim has been debunked (notice a lack of sticks in the video), they are now claiming they were "helping" him through his mental health crisis.

In New Mexico, the killers of James Boyd will go to trial. A trial is a good and unusual outcome. I wish I were more optimistic that these men would be held accountable, even with incontrovertible video evidence. The police will say, "I felt threatened," and that statement of fear is both unprovable and usually enough to acquit.

And in New York, prison guards allegedly murdered a black, bipolar, prisoner. So far, there have been no arrests or internal disciplines for the guards.