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On April 4, 2016, a protest was held against the Erie County Holding Center and Sheriff Timothy Howard demanding answers and accountability for the murder of Rochester native and Buffalo resident India Cummings.
Rochester Police Department officers Christopher Kosch and Nicholas Thomas--the two officers that racially profiled Daryl Appleberry and brutalized Scean Gordon--were involved in another excessive use of force case that was settled before trial. The case involved these two officers and others who brutalized a man named Cardell Libbett. Kosch and Thomas are no strangers to exercising violence under the color of law.
Submitted by Rochester Indymedia / Take Back The Land Rochester on Sat, 2016-03-26 12:54
Below is a partial breakdown of the ongoing struggle Elizabeth McGriff has been going through with MidFirst Bank and the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. The videos are first with descriptions after. The breakdown starts with Liz and Take Back The Land protesting in front of and inside the Monroe County Sheriff's Office and ends with a video of Liz explaining her situation from July of 2015. Housing is a human right! Fight! Fight! Fight!
What makes the Syracuse model interesting, is that a) it's close to Rochester and within New York State, b) it has administrative subpoena power, which it can use without going through hoops, and c) it conducts a parallel and independent investigation, next to the police investigation, of all complaints.
Rochester's current Civilian Review Board, or CRB, lacks subpoena power, independent investigations (the police conduct the only investigation), and the final determinations of complaints and disciplining of officers is vested in the hands of the chief of police--regardless of findings from the Civilian Review Board. In short, our Civilian Review Board was built to fail to the people of Rochester.
In this edition of "From the vault," we've got six new videos for your pleasure!
#1: Advocates for Universal Health Care Rally at MVP Insurance
Advocates for Universal Health Care from the Rochester region joined with communities all over the country on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, in day of Action demanding health care for all. The protest targeted MVP insurance.
Feb. 3, 2016 - At the Monroe County Board of Elections, local supporters and delegates of the Bernie Sanders campaign filed petitions to get their candidate on the Democrat Party ballot. Only WXXI was there to cover the event. Local supporters collected 3 times the amount required to help get Sanders on the ballot.
Submitted by rbarnabas2016 on Sat, 2016-03-05 02:05
I worked with former channel 8 reporter Natasha Alford on this piece this past summer and she is now doing great work with The Grio now in NY city. This piece explores the over-policing invasion of schools. To counter the school-to-prison pipeline, alternative disciplinary practices such as restorative justice, have been introduced to the Rochester City School District by Metro Justice, the M.K. Gandhi Institute of Non-violence, and Teen Empowerment.
This is the press release from Raliek Redd's attorney Elliot Dolby-Shields. It tells the story of Mr. Redd's false arrest on February 22, 2016 by the Greece police as well as being racially profiled and detained by security at Macy's.
This is the amended complaint filed against the City of Rochester and the Monroe County Sheriff's Department having to do with Raliek Redd's false arrest and dehumanizing treatment (false arrest, strip search, sitting a public area for 4 hours) from November 27, 2013. The criminal charges were dismissed shortly after the arrest and he and his lawyer settled with the City of Rochester for an undisclosed amount of money in January 2016. A settlement with Monroe County Sheriff's Department is pending.
A copy of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department General Order regarding the searching of persons. The document was attained by Elliot Dolby-Shields, attorney for Raliek Redd, who was stripped searched, along with two other high school athletes, after they were arrested while waiting at a school bus stop to take them to a basketball game on November 27, 2013.
Submitted by T. Forsyth (photo: 13WHAM.com) on Wed, 2016-03-02 15:30
On February 22, 2016, Raliek Redd was shopping at Macy's at The Mall At Greece Ridge when he was racially profiled by store employees and falsely arrested for shoplifting by Greece, NY police. Mr. Redd and his lawyer, Elliot Dolby-Shields, are planning to file a lawsuit claiming that Macy's employees racially profiled and then wrongfully detained Mr. Redd because they didn't believe that he could afford to buy a $100 jacket. When security refused to listen to him, after showing them the receipts of his purchases including the jacket, the Greece police arrived and falsely arrested him for shoplifting.
Dressed in a black suit with a bright, red, button-down shirt, Scean Gordon walked into Judge Ellen Yacknin's court for his Huntley Hearing on February 9, 2016, where the judge would eventually deny his motion to suppress statements he made to police before being brutalized and arrested by Rochester Police Department officers Nicholas Thomas and Christopher Kosch. What was of more interest that day was what the officers said, under oath, rather than the denial of Mr. Gordon's motion.
Several supporters—many apart of a new chapter of the Black Panther Party wearing t-shirts with the logo emblazoned on it—stood up. A bailiff called out for people to be seated. Mr. Gordon's supporters ignored the plea of the deputy and didn't sit down until he sat next to his lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Christine Seppeler.
Officers Thomas, in a gray suit, and Kosch, in uniform, stood in the lobby of the Hall of Justice waiting to be called by the Assistant District Attorney Hillary Levitt.
Judge Yacknin wasted no time once the proceeding began, an hour and 18 minutes late, and admonished the gallery. Anyone caught audio or video recording would be arrested, she threatened.
This posts stems from a conversation with Kyle Johnson after we watched Mad Max: Fury Road together. Thanks to Linda Quiquivix , Zoé Samudzi and William Copeland for feedback on the idea and draft to help make it vaguely coherent. In thinking about worlds I leaned heavily on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and Frank Wilderson’s Red, White and Black even where not cited directly. None of the above can be blamed for what follows. After completing the draft a couple of friends put me onto this great recent CBC conversation which also covers parts of what is below. Special thanks to Cass Chen who was a wonderful friend, host and conversationalist while I scribbled.
Jason came to an Enough Is Enough meeting on December 29, 2015 to share his police accountability experiences and insight with the Rochester community. He also spoke about abolitionist organizing in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Scean Gordon, represented by Assistant Public Defender Christine Seppeler, stood tall wearing his Black Panther t-shirt and navy blue button down as city court Judge Ellen Yacknin hemmed and hawed while she considered each of Ms. Seppeler's well-argued motions before denying each. The January 5, 2016 hearing was a last attempt for Mr. Gordon to take a plea deal before trial preparations commenced. Seven supporters of Mr. Gordon sat in court.
Mr. Gordon was brutalized and arrested by Rochester Police Department officers Nicholas Thomas and Christopher Kosch after video taping them mis-identifying and arresting his neighbor Daryl Appleberry on November 9, 2015. Mr. Gordon pulled out his cell phone and started recording the scene immediately after police said that his neighbor was under arrest. Officers at the scene were uncooperative with Mr. Gordon's questions as he tried to identify them. He was able to record some of their name plates, badge numbers, and car numbers. He told Mr. Appleberry to remain silent and maintain his rights.
As the cruiser was pulling away to the right with Mr. Appleberry in handcuffs in the back seat, officer Thomas stopped the vehicle—telling his partner officer Kosch “I have to get this guy for something [referring to Mr. Gordon],” according to Mr. Appleberry. Officer Thomas jumped out of the cruiser, told Mr. Gordon he was under arrest, and proceeded to tackle him, threw him into the pavement, used a Taser on him, pepper sprayed and choked him. Mr. Gordon was eventually handcuffed and put into the back seat of a different cruiser and taken away.
Mr. Appleberry was released shortly after Mr. Gordon was removed from the scene. When Mr. Appleberry asked to see the photo of the suspect, the officers remained silent. An unknown officer said, “Oh, you all look alike,” according to Mr. Appleberry.
Ms. Seppeler laid out a strong defense of her client. She entered motions to dismiss the disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration charges arguing that there was “insufficient” evidence for the charges to stand. She also entered a motion to dismiss the charges in the furtherance of justice after reviewing two videos of the incident in question. Her final motion asked the court to grant a jury of Mr. Gordon's peers from within the boundaries of the City of Rochester rather than Monroe County.
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