Police
New Jersey Man Killed By Police During Traffic Stop
A Millville, New Jersey man is dead and witnesses are denying what prosecutors are saying what happened the night of the shooting.
Jerame Reid was killed by New Jersey police and witnesses are disputing what prosecutors are saying what happened the night of the shooting.
Traffic stop
Police in Bridgeton stopped a car about 9:20 p.m. for unspecified reasons in a residential neighborhood, and multiple people said they witnessed two officers open fire on 36-year-old Jerame Reid.
Prosecutors said “during the course of the stop a handgun was revealed and later recovered,” but investigators have not specified whether the weapon was found before or after Reid – a passenger in the car – was shot.
And witnesses share a slightly different tale on what happened that night.
Zakeeda Hill, 28, and her 12-year-old cousin, Josh Scurry, said they watched the traffic stop and shooting from a home across the street.
Hill told The Daily Journal that the car’s occupants insisted to officers that they didn’t have anything and asked police why they had been pulled over.
Suddenly, they said, officers opened fire. Hill and Scurry each agreed they heard at least seven gunshots.
Tahli Dawkins, 34, told the Press of Atlantic City that he watched officers approach the car with their weapons drawn and yell “don’t effing move” at the occupants before suddenly opening fire.
Denzel Mosley, 17, witnessed the incident from the attic of his house, which overlooked the shooting scene.
Jerame Reid had his hands up, witnesses say
He told KYW-TV that both of Reid’s hands were in “plain sight,” and the teen said he never saw a gun.
“They were telling him, ‘Get out the car,’” Mosley said. “(Officers were) like, ‘Stop!’ and they started shooting.”
The traffic stop was recorded on cell phone video by one witness and posted online, but it does not show the shooting directly.
Ben Mosely, a retired sheriff’s deputy, told WPVI-TV he watched the incident from his bedroom window.
He said Reid had gotten out of his car but then tried to get back into the vehicle when officers opened fire, but – based on his own police training — he does not believe the shooting was justified.
“I saw a disarmed man go down to the ground and get shot,” Mosley said. “That’s exactly what I saw.”
All the witnesses agreed that things escalated very quickly.
After Reid’s name was revealed, several media outlets conveniently cited Reid’s past as if any of that matters.
Reid’s wife admits her husband had a criminal record, but she said he walked out of jail a free man and didn’t deserve to die.
“I’m hurt, I’m disgusted,” said Lawanda Reid, the mother of Reid’s 3-month-old son. “My biggest fear has come true. I lost my best friend, my soul mate. The man that promised to love me indefinitely and beyond is gone.”
Reid served 15 years in prison for his conviction on attempted murder and aggravated assault.
The site also reported Reid filed a federal lawsuit three years ago claiming he was beaten by two Bridgeton jail officers in October 2009 in his cell while awaiting a transfer to another holding cell.
With very few details that have been revealed, the question remains whether the shooting was justified or not.
The officers involved, Officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley, have been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is being investigated.
The fatal shooting of Jerame Reid remains under investigation by the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office.
Photo Source : NJ.com
Police
Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement
The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.
Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement
Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.
The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.
In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
The incident
In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.
Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.
Wrongfully detained
But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.
Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.
And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.
Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.
Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized
Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.
After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.
The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.
Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint
One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.
However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.
To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.
Police
2023 saw a record year of killings by police in U.S.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
2023 police killings increased dramatically
Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group, dockets deaths at the hands of police officers. Last year, it recorded the highest number of killings since its national tracking began in 2013.
Statistics explained
The data reported that police officers killed 1,329 people in 2023, representing nearly a 19-percent increase over the 11-year span.
Nearly 90% of those killed were fatally shot, according to Abdul Nasser Rad, managing director of research and data at Campaign Zero, who runs Mapping Police Violence.
There were only 14 days without a police killing last year and on average, law enforcement officers killed someone every 6.6 hours, according to the report.
Meanwhile last year, the number of people killed by gunfire and officers killed in the line of duty declined, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. There was an increase in the number of police officers shot.
The newly released data suggests a grim reality and a systemic crisis, with an average of about three people killed by officers each day, with slight increases in recent years. In 2022, 1,250 were killed by police.
The data also reported that Black people were about 2.8 times more likely to be killed by officers than their white counterparts between 2013 and 2023.
Recording police misconduct
For decades, many Americans have suffered various forms of brutality and injustice at the hands of “bad” law enforcement officers.
When a civilian puts in a complaint against the officer only a small percent of complaints result in the officer being disciplined —partly because the accusations are hidden.
Half of the battle is knowing who the “bad” law enforcement are and proper action being taken.
Missin Peace, a national police misconduct database that collects formal civilian complaints against law enforcement, helps fill that void.
In 2022, we had a conversation with the creators, who urged those who filed a complaint against an officer, to upload it on their website as well.
While there is still much work to do, it’s a start.
Police
14-year-old boy with autism tased by police in what family says was case of mistaken identity
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
14-year-old autistic boy tased by police
In an interview with WLS Chicago, the family says that the teen, Avarius Thompson, suffered injuries, including a fractured hip, during an encounter with Dolton police on the morning of Nov.
Police’s incident report
According to the Dolton Police Department’s incident report, Dolton police were assisting police in the nearby neighborhood of Riverdale in the search for four Black males who had fled from a crashed, stolen vehicle, two of whom were allegedly carrying rifles and a handgun.
Dolton officers spotted two subjects, one of whom matched the description of a suspect sought in the incident, in a nearby backyard and pursued them, according to the incident report.
An officer pursuing Avarius ordered the teen to stop before tasing him, according to the incident report.
The incident was captured on the officer’s body-camera footage.
“Hands up! Hands up!” a Dolton police officer can be heard yelling in the body-camera footage as he runs toward Avarius with his Taser extended. After the teen jumps over a fence, the officer deploys the taser, the footage shows.
Avarius attempts to get up when the officer deploys his Taser again a few seconds later, the footage shows.
“Don’t move. Don’t move,” the officer says. “You move, you’re going to get some more.”
Avarius’ father, Eric Thompson, told WLS that the footage was “frightening.”
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