FERGUSON-ANNIVERSARY/FEATURE U.S. cities still reeling - one year after a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager

Record ID: 134661

  • Title: FERGUSON-ANNIVERSARY/FEATURE U.S. cities still reeling - one year after a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager
  • Date: 7th August 2015
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE - FEBRUARY 11, 2015) (REUTERS) SCOTT RYNECKI, ATTORNEY FOR KIMBERLY BALLINGER AND KIMBERLY BALLINGER, AKAI GURLEY'S PARTNER, AT NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 22nd August 2015 13:00
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  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8VWBUGRUUC20OCKFLI2HWB1YI
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: One year after a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed back teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking weeks of unrest and demonstrations, the subject of how to improve race relations still reverberates across the U.S.
    In August 2014, 18 year old Michael Brown was shot six times by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson after an altercation, where according to police, Brown struggled with Wilson before the fatal shots were fired.
    But witnesses to the shooting claimed that wasn't true, and that Brown had held up his hands and was surrendering when he was shot multiple times in the head and chest.
    Brown's family released private autopsy findings in August saying they did not trust local officials account of the incident.
    As the details of the original shooting event emerged from investigators, angry Ferguson residents took to the streets to protest. Peaceful protests quickly turned into looting and violence causing millions of dollars of property damage, leading police to set curfews and deploy riot squads.
    "Since Ferguson, do I think anything has changed? No," said Michael Garner, cousin of chokehold victim Eric Garner and president of One Hundred Black Men, Inc., an organization that fights for better opportunities for African Americans across the U.S.
    "I think it's getting worse. I think that you have to look at the underlining themes in this country. I think everything is driven by economics."
    Following the protests, police were sharply criticized for what was seen as a heavy handed response to the protests in the days after Brown's death - firing tear gas and arresting hundreds of people.
    The announcement of a grand jury's decision not to indict Wilson in the shooting death of the unarmed teenager Brown was met with chaos and widespread protests again.
    The extreme police response both after the shooting, and the grand jury's announcement, became the focus of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the policing practices of the Ferguson Police Department (FPD). In March 2015, the U.S. Justice Department announced that they had determined that the FPD had engaged in misconduct against the citizenry of Ferguson, by discriminating against African-Americans and applying racial stereotypes, in a "pattern or practice of unlawful conduct."
    Protesters and civil rights groups have said Brown's death was part of a national epidemic in which a disproportionately high number of unarmed black men are fatally shot by white police officers, an allegation police deny.
    In Baltimore, Maryland, Freddie Gray, 25, was arrested on April 12 following a foot chase by officers and suffered a severe spinal injury while in police custody.
    His death a week later sparked protests over police brutality and looting and rioting that drew national and international attention to the case.
    The State's Attorney's Office charged six officers involved in Gray's arrest and death. Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., the driver of the van, is accused of second-degree depraved heart murder.
    Three other officers are charged with manslaughter and two officers face lesser charges. The trial is set for October, and the officers have pleaded not guilty.
    Though Gray was loaded into the van on his belly, the medical examiner surmised that he may have gotten to his feet and was thrown into the wall during an abrupt change in direction, the Baltimore Sun said.
    He was not belted in, but his wrists and ankles were shackled, putting him "at risk for an unsupported fall during acceleration or deceleration of the van," the newspaper said, citing the autopsy report.
    "I think what you saw in Baltimore was not just that one incident, it was a building up of several incidents that exploded," said Garner.
    In North Charleston, South Carolina, police officer Michael Slager had stopped 50-year-old Walter Scott for a broken brake light on his vehicle on April 04.
    Scott had been hit by the officer's stun gun before fleeing to avoid further stun gun fire.
    A video shows Slager taking aim with a handgun before shooting eight times at Scott's back.
    According to a police report, Slager told other officers that Scott had taken his stun gun from him. At no point in the video, which does not show the initial contact between the men, does Scott appear to be armed.
    With Scott slumped face down on grass, Slager is seen placing him in handcuffs and then walking back to a spot near where he opened fire.
    In Prairie View, Texas, Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African-American, was pulled over in her car on July 10 by a white state trooper, Brian Encinia, for failing to signal a lane change in Prairie View, about 50 miles northwest of Houston.
    The family of Bland filed a wrongful death lawsuit on August 04 against the Texas trooper, a sheriff's office and her jailers, accusing them of being responsible for the woman's apparent suicide in a county jail.
    The suit, filed in a federal court in Texas, said officials violated her constitutional rights. The family said it was seeking financial damages, but court papers did not specify an amount.
    The discovery of Bland's body in her cell three days later with a trash bag around her neck in an apparent hanging provoked suspicions of racist treatment.
    "It's a national problem," said Garner.
    "If you look at South Carolina, if you look at Staten Island, if you look at other areas in the country, it's a reoccurring theme. I think that we need to get to a point in this society that blacks are treated with common courtesy and respect like anyone else. We've been through slavery, we've been through reconstruction, we've been through the arduous civil rights movement, and once again we're starting to see those reoccurring themes of a sense of frustration, of not being treated fairly."
    Nearly one year after Eric Garner's death on New York's Staten Island borough, his widow, Esaw Garner, his mother, Gwen Carr and his children are still reeling.
    A grand jury in December declined to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo, who placed Garner, 43, in a chokehold, a maneuver banned by the New York City Police Department. A video that a bystander took of the incident sparked protests across the country over police treatment of minority groups.
    Garner, a father of six, was accused of illegally selling cigarettes on a sidewalk when Pantaleo put him in a chokehold from behind and brought him down with the help of other officers. Garner complained repeatedly that he could not breathe.
    The city medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide, with asthma and obesity as contributing factors.
    New York City agreed to pay Garner's family $5.9 million to resolve the claim over his death.
    "I was at work and my aunt had called me, so I had a feeling of outrage and frustration," recalled Michael Garner, about when he heard the news of his cousin Eric's death.
    "And then when the clip went viral, it was like a deeper sense of frustration because if a man is telling you that he can't breathe, I mean when do you let him up or go? After the first time, second time, but not 11, 12 times. So it was a sense of outrage."
    The fatal shooting of Akai Gurley, 28, in Brooklyn in November was among a string of incidents that fueled widespread protests over what critics say is a pattern of lethal police misconduct toward minority groups.
    Scott Rynecki, the lawyer representing Gurley's girlfriend, Kimberly Ballinger, and their 2-year-old daughter, said Officer Peter Liang acted "recklessly" both in drawing his gun while patrolling the project known as the Pink Houses and in firing the fatal shot.
    In Cincinnati, Ohio, a body-camera video showed how the traffic stop of Samuel Dubose escalated into deadly violence. After failing to provide a driver's license at police officer Ray Tensing's request, Dubose tried to prevent Tensing from opening the car door as the officer ordered him to remove his seat belt.
    The car started slowly rolling forward as Tensing reached in and yelled for him to stop. The officer then pulled his gun and fired once, killing Dubose.
    The University of Cincinnati police officer was indicted on July 29 on murder charges in the fatal shooting of the unarmed black motorist who was stopped because of a missing front license plate.
    These incidents, Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Garner in New York City, Gray in Baltimore and Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, add to the continuing tensions between police and the African American community across the U.S. Prosecutors brought charges against officers in Baltimore and North Charleston.
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