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The body parts were thrown in different areas of Pandav Nagar and East Delhi, officials added
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There’s never been a better time to be a white collar criminal in America, as prosecutions have hit a new low under the Biden Administration. Also, Procter & Gamble is being accused of discrimination after it was found they are paying a Black-owned contract company far less than the white-owned companies. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: […]
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A Capitol Rioter was busted after documenting his crimes in his day planner and another Capitol rioter who dressed up as a caveman on January 6th has been sentenced to 8 months in jail for his behavior that day. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please […]
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In the complaint letter dated November 23, 2020, Walkar also alleged that Poonawala used to beat her up and his parents were aware of it
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A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said it was a publicity interest litigation
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A Christian university is being investigated by the federal government for possible human trafficking violations. Then, Michael Avenatti has been sentenced to four years in prison for stealing from his client Stormy Daniels. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: A Christian […]
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A former Arby’s manager has admitted to urinating in the milk shake mix – as he’s being investigated for child pornography. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Also, as many as 27,000 Mainstreet Investors are at risk of losing part of their retirement or investment savings after GWG Declared Chapter 11 Bankruptcy last month. Mike Papantonio is joined by attorney Michael […]
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A judge in New York has upheld a law that would allow victims of gun violence to sue gun makers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Plus, the Supreme Court might be stripping American citizens of their Miranda rights, and that could be a disaster waiting to happen. Mike Papantonio is joined by attorney Michael Bixby to discuss. Transcript: *This transcript was […]
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Fearmongering about crime in Democratic states and cities was certainly central to the Republican Party’s midterm elections strategy (Vox, 11/3/22), although at this point it is hard to say how effective it was.As of this writing, Republicans look likely but not guaranteed to take control of the House of Representatives; the fate of the Senate is still anyone’s guess. Several governors’ races remain to be called, but so far Democrats have seen a net gain of two, aided by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul successfully fending off a surprisingly challenging run by Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Trumpian election denier (MSNBC, 10/27/22).
What is certain is that the Republican obsession with crime received major attention in the media, and the subject was not always handled with the proper context, often tipping the balance to the conservative partisan narrative.
Part of this is historical: Republicans—fans of heavy-handed policing and long prison sentences—love to paint Democrats and their bleeding-heart liberalism for allowing criminals to run amok, an electoral blueprint that goes back at least to Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign (AP, 8/27/20). Republicans have also driven a pro-police platform specifically against the Black Lives Matter uprising of the summer of 2020, which popularized the expression “defund the police” (CNN, 10/23/22).
‘Decades-long lows’
Violent crime rates are much closer to the trough reached in 2014 than they are to the peak hit in 1991. (Statista).
Has crime increased nationally while Democrats controlled the White House and Congress? According to the FBI’s report on crime statistics, the answer is complicated: “Overall violent crime volume decreased 1.0% for the nation from 1,326,600 in 2020 to 1,313,200 in 2021, which was up 5.6% from 2019.” In other words, in the one year we have data on since Democrats took over the White House and both houses of Congress, violent crime has gone down slightly.
Meanwhile, the “number of murders increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021,” thus signifying an “increase of 4.3% on top of the 29.4% increase in 2020”—so homicides have increased, but at a slower rate than before 2020’s Democratic victory.
The Marshall Project (11/5/22) put these recent shifts in historical context: “Since the 1990s, both violent and property crime reported to the police and estimated by survey research have declined.” It added that while “the violent crime rate increased slightly since the pandemic, it’s a little more than half what it was three decades ago.”
New York City, often depicted in the local and national media as the US equivalent of Beirut in the 1980s, has had a recent crime increase since the pandemic began, but this “obscures the fact that crime is still at decades-long lows” (Bloomberg, 7/29/22).
Crime is also not a Democratic problem, as the Brennan Center (7/12/22) noted:
Despite politicized claims that this rise was the result of criminal justice reform in liberal-leaning jurisdictions, murders rose roughly equally in cities run by Republicans and cities run by Democrats.
Looking at the geographic distribution of crime also muddies the Republican image: Eight of the ten states with the highest murder rates voted for Trump in 2020, and in fact none of those eight have voted for a Democrat for president in the current century.
‘Crime doesn’t feel complex’
Of course, the realities of crime data never stopped Republicans from painting Democrats as soft on crime, or blaming crime spikes—real or imaginary—on Democratic policies. In 2022, rather than combating such distortions, various media helped to amplify a simplistic depiction, becoming de facto propaganda arms for the Republican campaigns.
Democrats were haunted not so much by crime as by corporate media misrepresentations of crime (Yahoo News, 11/7/22).
Yahoo News (11/7/22) noted that while murders and rapes are down in 2022, aggravated assault and robbery are up, acknowledging a complex picture of crime. But Yahoo added, “Crime doesn’t necessarily feel complex to voters.” It said this perception has
benefited Republicans, who have been pressing crime as an issue for months, assailing Democrats for their supposed lack of empathy for both police officers and the victims of violent crime.
The idea is that Democrats are to blame not for the reality of crime, but for failing to comfort voter perceptions—an impossible expectation.
The New York Times (10/25/22), covering the governor’s race in New York, noted that while the truth about crime is “nuanced,” a
rash of highly visible, violent episodes, especially on the New York City subways, in recent months have left many New Yorkers with at least the perception that parts of the state are growing markedly less safe.
Ignore for a moment that the New York City mayor, not the governor in Albany, commands the city’s police department: This is another example of media suggesting that the myth of crime is as important as the actual numbers.
The Washington Post (10/26/22) studied the degree to which three major TV networks—CNN, Fox News and MSNBC—have driven this narrative. “Through July and August, all three networks were mentioning crime about as much as they did in the first half of the year,” the paper’s Philip Bump said. But by September, “mentions on Fox News began to soar,” and a month later, “mentions began to rise on CNN and MSNBC, too, in part as a reflection of the increased discussion of crime on the campaign trail.”
‘The grim reality’
When other outlets pick up on Fox News‘ politicized obsession with crime, Fox (11/6/22) trumpets that as proof that its fearmongering was reality-based.
This impact of right-wing, self-consciously political media on more centrist corporate media can be seen in individual reports. MSNBC (11/5/22) had a one-on-one interview with Hochul that focused heavily on her Trump-backed opponent’s obsession with the perception of rising crime. Immediately, this became fodder for the conservative media organs. Fox News (11/6/22) gloated, “MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle Clashes With Gov. Kathy Hochul Over Crime in New York: ‘We Don’t Feel Safe.’” The New York Post (11/5/22) and Newsweek (11/6/22) boosted the interview as well. Thus an ostensibly “liberal” network can effectively create news content for conservative competitors, but also allow conservatives to say, “See? Even the liberal media believe crime is out of control.”
In New York, the Rupert Murdoch–owned media worked tirelessly to sully Hochul’s record on crime. In a particularly comical and incestuous example, a Wall Street Journal (10/24/22) editorial scoffed at Hochul’s anti-crime record, counseling that in order to learn about “the grim reality, read the New York Post”—a sensational tabloid Murdoch also owns—“where America’s hardest-working police reporters cover America’s hardest-working criminals.”
The suggestion from the Journal, supposedly the most serious of Murdoch’s outlets, is that truth shouldn’t be found from facts and data, but anecdotes from its hard-right sister publication. If you don’t get your news from tabloid headlines, you may be aware that New York City’s criminals are actually underachievers, resulting in a homicide rate that ranks 80th out of the US’s 100 largest cities.
The New York Post, in addition to constant crime coverage, portrayed Zeldin’s crime platform as ecumenical, gaining support from both ultra-religious Jews (11/1/22) to a busker known as the Naked Cowboy (11/2/22). Unsurprisingly, the Post (10/28/22) endorsed the Republican, citing crime as a reason.
Botching the truth and failing to provide context, the Post (10/30/22) reported that in support of Zeldin,
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted New York Democrats for “coddling” criminals…and blamed their leadership for sending residents packing for the Sunshine State.
One problem: The homicide rate in Republican-led Florida (7.8 per 100,000 people) is higher than it is in Democratic New York (4.7).
‘Stories of stabbings’
But you don’t have to be Murdoch-owned to distort the crime story. In an otherwise insightful and well-reported story about Ronald Lauder’s enormous financial support to Zeldin, the New York Times (11/6/22) said that Zeldin’s impressive polling was partly due to “rising crime,” that Lauder feared “crime is driving people from the city,” and that Republicans “tie Ms. Hochul to a rise in crime”—not clarifying that statistics about the city’s crime rates paint a complex and mixed picture (AP, 2/1/22), one that doesn’t support a conservative agenda. Only after several of these references did the report finally say that pro-Zeldin messaging included “context-free claims about crime.”
Corporate media almost never admit that voters’ perceptions of how much crime there is depends on how much crime they’ve been shown by media–and that’s what determines whether a “crime message resonates” (AP, 10/25/22).
A number of major media outlets have occasionally tried to paint a more complicated picture of crime concerns, noting that much of the fear is driven by Republican propaganda and feelings about crime rather than data (Reuters, 11/1/22; NPR, 11/3/22; New York Times, 11/3/22; Atlantic, 11/8/22). But day-to-day political coverage still presents tales of rising crime as fact, as when AP (10/25/22) said that Zeldin’s anti-crime message resonated with voters as he “spent much of the year railing against a streak of shootings and other violent crimes, including a series of unprovoked attacks on New York City subways,” and “lamented stories of stabbings, people being shoved onto the tracks by strangers….” The AP did mention that the “reality” of crime rates is “often more nuanced,” but included these complicating details farther down in the story.
Newsweek’s editor-in-chief, Jonathan Tobin (10/4/22), gloated that a recent crime spike would be good for Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz. (Tobin is a former executive editor of Commentary, a neoconservative magazine.) In Georgia, Politico (10/30/22) editorialized in a news piece that incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp “linked” his challenger, Stacey Abrams, “to the now politically toxic ‘defund the police’ movement.”
Crime is like war. It’s an absolutely necessary subject for media to cover but, as in war, truth is often the first casualty. Shocking images and details of incidents often overshadow facts, data and history. Partisans can quickly capitalize on that emotional simplicity, crafting narratives that fit their aims—a phenomenon that responsible journalists should try to counteract rather than facilitate.
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The Enforcement Directorate has arrested two company executives linked to liquor trade
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Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins talks with Heather Digby Parton from Salon.com about what we can expect in next week’s midterms, and what surprises might be in store for both parties. They also discuss the disturbing response from the Republicans about the attack on Paul Pelosi.
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Janine Jackson interviewed Prison Radio‘s Noelle Hanrahan for a Mumia Abu-Jamal update for the October 28, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
CounterSpin221028Hanrahan.mp3Janine Jackson: TV snake oil salesman and Republican Pennsylvania candidate Mehmet Oz began a recent debate with opponent John Fetterman with reference to Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
Fetterman, Oz claimed,
has been trying to get as many murderers convicted and sentenced to life in prison out of jail as possible, including people who are similar to the man who murdered her husband.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
You could live in a cave and understand what Oz was trying to do there, but not everyone may recognize the particular dog whistle that is the reference to Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of fatally shooting Daniel Faulkner in 1983. (That was the conviction.)
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s conviction turned importantly on unreliable and conflicting testimony. It was significant that in taking up the case, elite news media went along for the ride, and sometimes drove the car—encouraging acceptance, for instance, of the fact that, though the guard assigned to Mumia immediately after his arrest reported “the negro male made no statements,” more to be believed was the other officer who subsequently came forward to say that, actually, from his hospital bed, Mumia had declared, “I shot the motherfucker and I hope he dies.”
Neither witness recantations or shifting accounts or evidence of jury-purging in Mumia’s case, nor the ever-expanding evidence of the terrible harms and injustices of the US prison system generally, seem to be enough to shake some media from their investment in the narrative of the “convicted cop killer,” and the need to keep him not just behind bars, but also to keep him and people “similar to” him quiet, to keep their voices and their lives out of public conversation and consideration.
Noelle Hanrahan is legal director at Prison Radio, where Mumia Abu-Jamal is lead correspondent. She joins us now by phone from Pennsylvania. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Noelle Hanrahan.
Noelle Hanrahan: Thank you for having me.
JJ: We can fill in context as we go, but please go ahead and start with what’s uppermost. What is the latest legal development here?
Guardian (10/26/22)
NH: When a defendant is trying to overturn their conviction—and Mumia has been in for 42 years—when they protest their innocence, they have to go to the local trial court. That, in Philadelphia, is the Common Pleas court. Mumia had fantastic new critical evidence that was just discovered two years ago.
There was a note in the prosecutor’s files that said, “Where was my money?” from one of the key [witnesses], and this happened right after the trial, implying that he was paid for his testimony.
There were also notes saying that the other key witness, their cases were being tracked, and that none of the outstanding charges pending against this witness were ever prosecuted.
The most dramatic evidence was evidence of taking Blacks off of the jury, and marks on the prosecutor’s notes about the racial composition of the jury, and also what was good and bad about which juror was selected, a white or a Black juror.
These were critical documents that many other people have gotten relief on. The jury notes are called Batson claims, the US constitutional claim. The suppression of evidence by the prosecution, burying evidence for 40 years, is called a Brady claim. These have gotten relief for many other defendants.
So now 42 years later, Mumia Abu-Jamal was before Judge Lucretia Clemons in the Common Pleas court, and yesterday she denied all of his claims.
She denied them procedurally. She refused to look at the merits of the body of evidence, and specifically this new evidence, and she denied it based on time bar waiver, due diligence.
And it’s just the Post-Conviction Relief Act, which is there only to deny inmates access to the court.
So I was Mumia’s producer. I’ve worked on Mumia with many of his books, including his latest trilogy, Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide and Manifest Destiny. We published those materials.
About five years ago, I went to law school. I passed the bar in Pennsylvania, and it’s unbelievable to see the level of stiff-arming accountability to the Frank Rizzo, Ed Rendell, Ron Castille era of literal torture of defendants and witnesses—literally torture, not figuratively. Literally. Think Jon Burge in Chicago. Think of the types of torture that have happened. That is typically what happened in the cases that I now investigate. Innocence cases, prosecutorial misconduct cases, cases where this kind of information is available to these judges.
I’ll give you one clear example. One of the key witnesses, Robert Chobert, was a cab driver who was driving without a license. He was on probation. He had thrown a Molotov cocktail into a school for pay. None of that material was before the jury.
There were pictures. He said he was right behind the police car and saw—yesterday, the district attorney in this case, Grady Gervino, on the other side, said, “Robert Chobert looked up from his cab and saw Mumia shoot the officer.”
Photo © Pedro P. Polakoff III.
There are pictures that just came out a few years ago from the Philadelphia Bulletin, that were taken 10 minutes after the shooting, that prove that Robert Chobert wasn’t there. His cab was not behind the police car.
Those photographs, the Polakoff photos, were denied into evidence. They were prevented from being put into the record.
So we have Robert Chobert being presumed to be this amazing witness with no problems… Literally the photos prove he wasn’t there, and nobody was able to be told in the jury that he was on probation for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a school for pay.
He came back to [county prosecutor Joseph] McGill, and asked, could he get his cab driver’s license reinstated? No promise—McGill said there was “no promise” of favoritism.
Then we discovered, two years ago, his note in the prosecutor’s files: “Where is my money for testifying?”
So the context, right? So that’s zooming in right now on what happened in court. The context, the things that haven’t been given to the court before, that haven’t been considered today?
We have a court reporter, Terri Maurer-Carter, saying, in front of another judge, Richard Klein, that [Judge] Albert Sabo said, “I’m gonna help them fry the N-word.” He said this in the first week of the trial.
JJ: Yeah.
NH: So this is America. That’s the kind of trial that Mumia Abu-Jamal had, where his original trial judge Albert “I’m gonna help them fry the N-word” Sabo presided.
And so we have a judge now who is saying none of this matters. He doesn’t get relief.
JJ: And you have to wonder what would be lost, on the part of journalists, to reexamine that, including reexamining their own role. What is it that they feel they’re going to lose?
There were many voices at the time calling out corporate media’s dereliction of duty; FAIR was one of them. But it was really remarkable.
Philadelphia Daily News (7/19/95)
NH: When Albert Sabo was presiding over the 1995 evidentiary hearing, the Philadelphia [Daily News]’ headline was, “Sabo Must Go.” He’s going to let Mumia off because he’s so blatantly racist. The headline was “Sabo Must Go.”
People know it. People know it. The daily news people know it. The courts know it. I interviewed Barbara McDermott, a criminal judge in the homicide division. She said Judge Sabo was the most racist, sexist and homophobic judge she’d ever met.
Everyone knows. It’s not unclear. They all know. They are preserving the system.
So [Philadelphia DA] Larry Krasner, in an appeal four years ago, said if they undid all of Ron Castille, a racist DA’s, opinions and judgments, it would question the entire system.
So they wanted to narrow it to a class of individuals, smaller class, that Mumia wasn’t included in.
Now this is a system, you have to remember, this is a system that is built on Black bodies. There’s an assembly line of Black bodies, through the Juanita Kidd Injustice Center, that is paying for the Fraternal Order of Police overtime.
Larry Krasner said it in an Atlantic article: It’s the linchpin. The majority white police force of 6,500 police officers, 6,500 retired officers, it is their pensions and it is their overtime to pay their Jersey mortgages.
This is not me saying “Jersey mortgages.” This is the legal director of Kenyatta Johnson’s office telling me, “Oh yeah, we know why we can’t do that. We know why we can’t fix the potholes, because the police overtime is out of control. But you know, they have to pay their Jersey mortgages.”
And really, at the last bump, when they need to go for their pension, that’s when all the overtime racks up, $50 million of overtime each year. That’s the linchpin, that’s the dynamic. It’s commodifying poor people of color for the service of the white, marginally working-class, middle-class police officers.
WHYY (4/24/21)
JJ: And let me ask you about part of how they sell that narrative, which does have to do with news media. Folks who remember coverage of Mumia’s original trial will remember how hard elite media went in on the idea, not just of accepting all of the malfeasance and problems and craziness around his case, but also there was a big overarching storyline about the idea that anybody who was incarcerated who was deemed political, anybody who was incarcerated who people on the outside were taking an interest in, was to be silenced, right?
And so even a sympathetic piece from Philly’s public TV station WHYY last year, around protests around Mumia, they led with the idea that the case “pitted…supporters, including a long list of national and international celebrities…against police and their supporters, who resent the attention” to the case.
So media have tried to turn it into not the particular information about this case, which, as you’ve said, the kind of information that has come out would lead to freedom, or to overturning of convictions, in other cases, they’ve made it a kind of litmus test about celebrity interest in incarcerated people, or about incarcerated people as issue, rather than as human beings.
NH: Let me just say, that’s like Inquirer-lite. The real issue here, and I live in Philadelphia, is fear. Fear of the police. William Marinmow knows better. The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists who live in this city, who have covered this city, they know and they are afraid. They are literally afraid.
People don’t realize that we have a classical radio station, WRTI, in Philadelphia, associated with Temple, for one reason: because overnight, they switched the switch and took off general public interest programming, led by Democracy Now!, one day, overnight, changed it to a classical radio station. That’s why we have classical radio here in Philadelphia.
So they do it, and they punish us. They punish the producers, they punish the journalists.
Linn Washington can tell you. Everyone knows. That’s the thing, is the courts know. The journalists know. They know that this is a scandal, a scheme. They know that the police threats of violence are exactly what keeps people in line. They threaten your job and they threaten your life.
Imagine if I had a news van and I painted it “Free Mumia” and I parked it on the streets of Philadelphia. It would be like a cop magnet to get destroyed, blown up, torched. All my tires would be slashed.
You could just prove it and do it. It would happen. Everyone knows it. They are terrified. People here are terrified of the police, and people who have jobs, who have comfortable livings, will not push the envelope. And that includes the editors of our major newspapers, and the staff at WHYY.
They will not challenge the status quo. They will not air Mumia’s voice, because there will be direct, both physical and economic penalties.
JJ: And let me just spell out for listeners who don’t remember: In 1994, NPR had plans to run a series of commentaries from Mumia, who was, after all, a journalist, a former head of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.
They canceled that series. They said it was because he was so controversial and such a big story, such a big story that they then proceeded to do zero coverage for the following year.
And then, as you’ve just said, when Democracy Now! was going to air those commentaries, Philadelphia’s KRTI canceled not just Democracy Now!, but all of Pacifica News, with the person in charge saying, “What’s good enough for NPR is good enough for me.”
NH: I was in Ellen Weiss’s office, the executive director of All Things Considered, when she looked out the window, and you could see the capitol, because her NPR office was right there, and she said, “I never thought I would look to the capitol and be censored. Yesterday, Bob Dole got up on the Senate floor and threatened our entire budget if we dared air this commentary.” And she then turned to me and said, “Can you bring me a more acceptable commentator?”
JJ: You know, folks don’t know what happens behind the scenes, and I’m really appreciating this exposure. Some folks, I imagine, think that journalists make a decision, who do we want to air? They put that person on, and then they deal with it. And it’s not at all how it happens.
But I want to bring us, for the final part of our conversation, to the other piece of that, because the efforts to silence, not just Mumia, the efforts to silence and close off all of the perspectives of people who are incarcerated speak to the power of those perspectives, right? It speaks to why we emphatically need to hear them.
And I just want to say, despite the name, Prison Radio is a multimedia production studio. And the whole point is to add the voices of people most impacted by the prison industrial complex to our public conversation.
And Mumia’s case is an especially emphatic example of the lengths that powers that be— legal, political and media—will go to to squelch those voices.
But we have work resisting that and countering that, and Prison Radio is part of that. And I just wonder if you’d like to talk a little bit about the project and why you do it.
Noelle Hanrahan: “The culture of imprisonment tells a deeper story about America. We’re not going to get it if we don’t go to the prisons and get those voices out.”
NH: I first began recording Mumia, and I first heard a scratchy tape of his voice, when we were covering the Robert Alton Harris execution in 1992 in California. And we were trying to get people on death row—there were 600 at the time—trying to get their voices into the mix.
Look, if you can hear their last words stated by the warden, you can interview them. If we’re going to kill them, they have to be part of the story.
And so I went and tried to get somebody from San Quentin, and I couldn’t. But I had heard Mumia, he was in Pennsylvania. I went and I got him.
Now, Mumia is especially difficult for the mainstream media to grasp. He’s incredibly fluent in the king’s English. He’s actually fluent in French and German, and conversational in Spanish. He’s an incredible intellect and he was trained in the Black newsroom.
If America is going to incarcerate 2.3 million—one out of every 100 US citizens is in prison—that needs to be part of the story.
And I have dedicated Prison Radio’s work to bringing those voices, on every topic, into the public debate and dialogue, and we feel like it’s critical that those voices are heard.
As a journalist, if you’re covering prisons, you really can’t cover the story without that first person, without talking to the people that it directly impacts.
A lot of times, even my own stations at Pacifica would say, “No, we’re not going to touch that. No, we’re not going to talk to homeless people.” You’ve got to talk to prisoners. You have to give them agency. Because a lot of the prisoners, and a lot of the culture of imprisonment, tells a deeper story about America.
We’re not going to get it if we don’t go to the prisons and get those voices out. I’ve been doing it for 30 years. I became a lawyer and an investigator because it’s not enough to just broadcast people’s voices. We have to bring them home.
JJ: I’m going end on that human note. We’ve been speaking with Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio. You can find their work online at PrisonRadio.org. Noelle Hanrahan, thank you very much for joining us this week on CountersSpin.
NH: You’re welcome.
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By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape has sent his condolences to the family of the policeman killed in Hela province.
He called on the suspects to surrender and for witnesses to assist police with their investigation into the killing of Senior Constable Nelson Kalimda.
“I call upon all persons with information to come out. Arrests must be made to the criminals and the full story behind the officer going missing and [being] killed be established,” Marape said.
- READ MORE: Missing PNG cop found dead, police chief vows ‘swift justice’
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Hilda Kalimda, wife of the killed policeman Senior Constable Nelson Kalimda . . . messages of condolences and support from PM James Marape, Police Commissioner David Manning, Hela Governor Philip Undialu and others. Image: Loop PNG “My sympathies to the wife, children, relatives and rest of the members of the Royal PNG Constabulary.
“We will assist police to bring the criminals to justice. Going forward we will amend laws to bring higher penalties to those who offend [against] police personnel.”
Marape condemned the actions of the criminals.
“If police personnel are not respected, this is not good and police personnel must be given full respect and appreciation by the community.
Drove out by himself
For Hela’s case where the officer drove out by himself without letting his colleagues know and to be found dead a few days later, this demanded a full investigation from police, Marape said.“I appreciate the Hela provincial government led by Governor Undialu who assisted police with the investigation and location of vehicle and now the body .”
Hela Governor Philip Undialu and Koroba-Kopiago MP William Bando also expressed their sympathies to the family of the dead policeman.
Undialu said:“Hela people and the Hela provincial government are also in grief and share our deepest condolences for this gruesome killing.
“We condemn this animalistic behaviour in the strongest terms possible and appeal to police to come hard on those responsible.
“We have assisted so far and are committed to support the repatriation of the body back to the family and fulfill customary obligation.
‘State of shock’
“We are also committed to ensure that those responsible are captured and face the law.“The Police Commissioner [David Manning] in his press statement acknowledged our support so far and I assure the family and police force that we are with you in this time of sorrow, grief and state of shock.
“The police located the vehicle but communities identified the culprits and retrieved the body. Hela people will hold a haus krai in Tari and will hand over the body to the family.”
Bando strongly condemned the act and called for an investigation to be carried out to establish the cause and reason for the murder.
He said it was sad losing a life but not all Hela was “at war”, nor were they all responsible for the killing.
Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
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By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby
Local government officials in Papua New Guinea have offered a cash reward for information after the body of policeman Senior Constable Nelson Kalimda — whose body went missing in Tari, Hela — was found yesterday in Margarima.
The body of Papua New Guinean policeman Constable Nelson Kalimda — who went missing in Tari, Hela — was found yesterday in Margarima after the provincial government put up a cash reward.
Provincial police commander Robin Bore confirmed that the body had been found at the Andapali River in Margarima, near the Margarima-Kandep road.
How The National reported the story on its front page today. Image: The National “We have brought late Kalimda’s body back to Tari,” Commander Bore said.
Police Commissioner David Manning last night said that for those who wore the police uniform this was a personal loss.
“This is someone who has a family, who has served with us, below us or above us. He was one of us,” he said.
“We swore an oath to serve and we will continue to serve despite this loss
‘Our profession has risks’
“Ours is a profession that comes with risks.”Manning said investigations were being led by some of the most capable officers in the PNG police force to bring swift justice on those involved in the death of Kalimda.
“I issue them a clear warning to anyone involved with Senior Constable Kalimda’s death to not resist arrest when police catch up with them.
“If these suspects threaten police with weapons, our police personnel have full authority to escalate the use of force and to use all appropriate means necessary to take control of the situation.
“Police have made two arrests so far and there are four other persons of interest that are the subject of an ongoing search.”
Kalimda was part of a team that escorted exam papers into Tari and he went missing on October 20.
He was last seen driving out of a guest house in Tari. His car was found last Thursday, a week after he was first reported missing, in a deserted area at the Komo-Hulia district, near Ambua.
Police assisted with fuel
Governor Philip Undialu said the provincial government assisted police with fuel and funding in the search for Kalimda.Undialu said a suspect from the area had confessed to killing Kalimda in a phone conversation and said that he had thrown Kalimda’s body into the Andapali River.
He said that after the provincial government received the information, a reward was offered for the community to assist police and the PNG Defence Force to find Kalimda’s body.
“The body was recovered just this afternoon [Sunday] by a group of youths, and we will pay them a reward.”
Undialu also called on the suspect, whose identity is known, to surrender to police and appealed to the community to help bring in the suspect.
Rebecca Kuku is a journalist for The National newspaper. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Murder charges have been reinstated against the man suspected of killing French Polynesian journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, known as “JPK” — his byline, who vanished in 1997.
Francis Stein, a former head of the territory’s archive service, was first charged in 2019 but France’s highest court accepted his appeal last year that investigative magistrates had breached rules during his questioning.
The investigative magistrates have now revived their probe against Stein and Miri Tatarata, who was JPK’s partner.
The pair are both accused of killing JPK, an investigative journalist who was editor-in-chief of the French-language newspaper Les Nouvelles de Tahiti, whose body has never been found.
An investigation was first opened in 2004 after a former spy claimed that JPK had been abducted and killed by the government’s GIP militia, which allegedly dumped him at sea between Moorea and Tahiti.
Murder charges against two members of the now disbanded GIP were dismissed eight years ago, but kidnapping charges have been upheld.
French Polynesian journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, who disappeared in 1997. Image: RNZ Pacific/AFP This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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MEDIAWATCH: By Hayden Donnell, RNZ Mediawatch producer
A recent revival of local prime-time TV documentaries has highlighted some thorny social issues and raised awkward questions about justice and equality.
Among them was a revealing investigation this week showing the cost of white-collar crime dwarfs that of welfare fraud, but draws lighter punishments and gets a lot less scrutiny in the media than the kind of crimes that play out in public.
For years, the heyday of New Zealand TV documentary and current affairs seemed to be in the past.
Gone are the days of Mike McRoberts’ mellifluous voice introducing local investigative stories on 60 Minutes after a few seconds of distinctive clock-ticking. The popular franchise stopped producing local content some years ago.
20/20, while still on air, mainly releases repackaged content from the US these days and in spite of the continuing long-form journalism of TVNZ’s Sunday, documentaries have been fading from New Zealand screens for some time.
Lately though, TVNZ has revived the strand Documentary New Zealand with a series of eight new NZ On Air-funded films for TVNZ1 on Tuesday nights between Eat Well For Less and Coronation Street, and on the on-demand service TVNZ+.
Among the most engaging and often moving ones was No Māori Allowed, which aired last week.
Pukekohe discrimination
The documentary delves into the history of Pukekohe, where for decades Māori were subject to discrimination and sometimes, violence.It deftly navigates several tensions — first between local Pākehā and Māori who lived though an era of segregated movie theatres, but also between the people trying to bring the area’s past to light and the kuia and kaumatua who lived through it, and still bear the scars.
While No Māori Allowed highlighted historic racism and the legacy it has left, this week’s documentary Crime: Need vs Greed trains its eye on a more modern form of racial and economic injustice.
Host Tim McKinnel argues we’ve “sleepwalked” into a $5 billion white collar crime wave of costly fraud and deception offences while the attention of our justice system and media is turned toward often low level street crime.
“While society and the media fixate on gang crimes, ram raids, and other forms of street crime, white collar criminals have been robbing us blind. We’ve sleepwalked into a $5 billion crime wave that no-one wants to talk about. Instead we’re tough on crime and spend billions locking up the poor,” he says in Need vs Greed.
Not only have white collar criminals been robbing us blind — the documentary presents evidence they’ve been getting away with it.
Tax law specialist Lisa Marriot delivers some staggering statistics on the double standard. Her research found people convicted of tax fraud crimes averaging $287,000 have a 22 percent chance of receiving a prison sentence — while those convicted of welfare fraud worth an average of $67,000 are imprisoned 60 percent of the time.
The lack of consequences for white collar crime belies its scale and impact.
$1.7 billion fraud prosecution
A 2014 investigation by New Zealand Herald journalist Matt Nippert helped trigger a $1.7 billion fraud prosecution against the company South Canterbury Finance.In Crime: Need vs Greed, he says it’s “more than every Treaty settlement combined in New Zealand’s history” or “a hundred years of benefit fraud in one go”.
Given the relative figures involved, it’s worth asking why benefit fraud or street crime like ram raids get so much more attention.
Nippert says part of the reason is obvious: street crime is visceral and a lot more understandable to audiences.
“It’s the comparison between a Jerry Bruckheimer action flick and something much more slow and sedate like a documentary spread across, say, six episodes.
“I think ram raids are quite a violent, shocking act and should be covered. But they are also effectively a pre-scripted sort of action heist movie — with car crashes and getaways and splitting the loot — all condensed down to this one moment of action.
“But the white collar financial crimes often occur very subtly, very carefully, very deceptively over years, sometimes decades,” he says.
Fraud story legal threats
Fraud stories also pose legal difficulties, partly because the perpetrators can afford to hire lawyers and threaten defamation action.Nippert is routinely threatened with legal action over his investigations. The Herald‘s lawyers have to check almost everything that he writes.
One of many recent headlines citing a “crime wave”. Image: RNZ Mediawatch Meanwhile, street crime is more likely to come before the courts, and reporting on it is less likely to be subject to suppression orders and legal challenges from defendants.
“A lot of reporting comes from courts are a reflection of wider problem,” Nippert says.
“You will tend to get far more disadvantaged people in the District Court facing charges. On the other side of it, when you’re looking at sort of white collar crimes . . . I’ve run into suppression orders many, many times. So that not only maybe dampens down the reporting, but also slows it down enormously.”
Journalists have been highlighting inequities in the court system recently, with NZME running the Open Justice project and RNZ’s Is This Justice, which revealed — among other things — that Pākehā are discharged without conviction and granted name suppression at higher rates than Māori, that 90 percent of High Court and Court of Appeal judges are Pākehā, and that judges could be presiding over the cases of people they know.
Human brain ‘and zeros’
Another issue contributing to the comparative dearth of fraud reporting is that the “human brain does funny things when it sees zeroes,” Nippert says.“The difference between $10 million and $100 million becomes quite ethereal. But everyone can understand what $1000 in the hand looks like.”
Despite the inherent disadvantages fraud stories have in a click-based media economy, Nippert says more reporters should cover them because of the huge costs these crimes impose on victims and society.
That might mean doing a basic accountancy paper at university or downloading Google Sheets onto their phone, but the barriers to entry aren’t as high as some reporters might think, he says.
“I used to think I didn’t have that sort of brain [for numbers]. But then I was made redundant and the only job I could get was a business reporter in the NBR and you know, if you give it a go, I think you’ll find it’s a lot more straightforward than you’ve conditioned yourself to fear,” he says.
“It’s important to point out for readers that some of these cases are alarming and we should be paying close attention because that $100 million isn’t just $100 million from some insurance company — that’s likely to be a thousand families who have lost their nest egg, and whose financial future is extraordinarily precarious, probably for the rest of their lives.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Governors across the country are furious about President Biden’s cannabis pardons – but only because the private prison industry is telling them to be mad. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: Governors across the country are furious about President Biden’s cannabis […]
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By Marjorie Finkeo in Port Moresby
Eight policemen attached to Mt Hagen police division have been identified as suspects in an election-related shooting that resulted in four people killed and several others wounded on 6 August 2022.
The shooting took place in Anglimp-South Waghi electorate in Jiwaka province and investigations were completed last week.
The alleged shooting caught international media and election observers criticism, triggering the investigation.
Crimes division director Chief Inspector Joel Simatab said that primary reports — including the autopsy, post-mortems, eye witness statements and other evidence — had been compiled.
He said the public must be aware that investigations had been completed.
International observers’ ‘lot of noise’
“At that time we had international observers in the country who made a lot of noise about the security forces involved in the killing,” he said.“And we responded, sending our detectives — two from NCD [National Capital District] and four from the Highlands region — who carried out the investigations,” he said.
“We want to give assurance that we have done our independent investigations and [are] now working with the Coroner’s office, going through their process to serve [the suspects] to come and give their side of the story before arrests are made.”
It was alleged that youths from the area blocked off the highway over frustrations over how elections were being conducted, which resulted in police shooting at them.
Marjorie Finkeo is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Study says deployment of technology in public by Met and South Wales police failed to meet standards
Police should be banned from using live facial recognition technology in all public spaces because they are breaking ethical standards and human rights laws, a study has concluded.
LFR involves linking cameras to databases containing photos of people. Images from the cameras can then be checked against those photos to see if they match.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby
At least 32 people have been killed in an all-out war between Kulumata and Kuboma tribes in Milne Bay’s Kiriwina island.
Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr confirmed that the killings had erupted early last month after yam gardens were destroyed.
“A police team from Port Moresby was deployed yesterday morning to the island to contain and manage the raging war,” he said.
- READ MORE: PNG politician pleads for more police following island massacre
- PNG official confirms more than 30 dead in tribal clash in Trobriands
- 30 killed, many injured in PNG ‘island of love’ tribal massacre
“The Commissioner of Police David Manning is in charge of the operations and directives.
“He has advised me that he is taking swift and appropriate action.
“Police will help forge peace,” he added.
According to sources on the ground, the fight started in early September when a man from Kuboma tribe was killed in a fight over a soccer game in the remote Trobriand archipelago.
Situation still tense
The situation has remained tense since then and escalated on Monday, when the Kuboma villagers (seven villages inland that include Bwetalu, Yalaka, Buduwalaka, Kuluwa, Luya, Wabutuma and Gumilababa villages) allegedly destroyed all the yam gardens of the Kulumata villages (Kavataria, Mulosaida and Orabesi villages).The Kulumata villagers went up to the station to demand answers from the district development authority on why their yam gardens were destroyed and for authorities to address the situation when they were attacked by the Kuboma villagers who were already there waiting for them.
All-out tribal warfare with traditional spears and bush knives broke out between the two parties, that led to 26 people being killed from the Kuboma side and about six people killed from the Kulumata side.
Kiriwina island in the Trobriands . . . “Tribal fighting has always been part of our lives and culture. But normally when someone got killed, the fighting stopped.” Image: Scott Waide/RNZ Pacific Another source said it was “frightening to see such violence on their island” that is locally known or dubbed as the “island of love”.
“Tribal fighting has always been part of our lives and culture.
“But normally when someone got killed, the fighting stopped, they cease fire and start the traditional process of dealing with the death, and they do not just continue fighting like this.
“The Kulumata and the Kuboma people are all related to each other and it is heartbreaking for us as mothers, sisters, daughters to watch our people fight among themselves like this.”
“But you must also understand that our gardens are very important to us.
Painted in war colours
“Our yams are important and very valuable, to see them chopped off, destroyed — yes our men would be so angry, because we value our gardens.”They [men] painted themselves in the traditional war colors and went up to the station to show their frustration.
When they met the other party, they started fighting, and we ran away with our children.
“They will not harm women and children but it was just too frightening to watch, so we ran away,” the source said.
Attempts to get comments from the local MP and Deputy Opposition Leader Douglas Tomuriesa was unsuccessful yesterday.
RNZ Pacific’s PNG correspondent Scott Waide said the clash during the football match five weeks ago left two people dead.
He told RNZ Pacific Waves that in this week’s retaliatory attack a 13-year-old boy was among the dead and several women were wounded.
Kiriwina Island Area Manager Nelson Tauyuwada said in the lead-up to the massacre, crops were damaged, threatening livelihoods.
Rebecca Kuku is a reporter with The National in PNG. Republished with permission.
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By Finau Fonua and Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalists
More than 30 people have been confirmed dead by Papua New Guinea government official Nelson Tauyuwada following tribal fighting on Kiriwina Island in the Trobriand archipelago.
Tauyuwada, the Kiriwina Island Area Manager, said the death toll would probably increase.
He believes a soccer game clash that took place last month sparked the fatal incident that happened yesterday.
- READ MORE: 30 killed, many injured in PNG ‘island of love’ tribal massacre
- Other reports on PNG tribal fighting
“There are many layers to the rivalry between the two tribes involved, including political lines,” he said.
However, Kabwaku United Church Committee member David Mudagada said the fighting broke out from general election related issues.
“The fighting broke out from general election related problems. That triggered some other small issues, social issues that’s why they started the fight and it’s quite a mess right now,” Mudagada said.
“What I heard from those people around the scene is that they started fighting from the government station and then they moved the people towards their villages and they are slashing them with knives and all this — and then they retaliated,” he said.
Chaotic situation
He said the situation was chaotic.“The government authorities are also at the scene right now they are trying to stabilise the situation…..then get the police from the Alotau, capital of Milne Bay province, and then they go to the small island in the Trobriand Islands.
“We are not sure when they are going to arrive, there were a couple of police officers there but they were outnumbered,” he said.
PNG’s constabulary is still trying to get officers to the scene and is expected to update the media as more details come to hand.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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Thirty people are reported to have been killed and many seriously injured in the worst tribal warfare on Kiriwina Island in Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay Province yesterday.
The number of deaths will be the highest ever recorded during a tribal warfare on the island.
Douglas Tomuriesa, the member for Kiriwina-Goodenough and Deputy Opposition Leader, confirmed that 30 people were dead and many were seriously injured.
He was organising an airline charter to transport police personnel from Alotau to fly in to the Kiriwina, known as the “island of love”, in the Trobriand group, to bring the situation under control.
The situation is reportedly tense and may escalate further due to the number of deaths.
A villager said a worse case scenario by this morning might be other villagers taking sides and joining the warfare.
According to him the district has only two police personnel, despite a number of fully furnished houses for police personnel on the island.
Firearms discharged
He also alleged that firearms were discharged in the fight resulting in the high number of casualties.Confirming the fight in a WhatsApp message, Provincial Police Commander Peter Barkie said: “Yes, received info daytime today about fighting on the island but police don’t have a boat, only dinghies, so we secured NMSA boat but logistics was slow and captain advised that, not safe to travel at night so police team will travel 5.00am at East Cape to Losuia.”
How the Post-Courier reported the massacre today. Image: PNG Post-Courier Commander Barkie also requested for reinforcements to be on standby and that a decision would be made when the police team arrives on the ground.
A concerned women leader, Joyce Grant, has appealed to Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili for urgent government intervention, describing the number of deaths as the highest ever recorded in the history of Kiriwina society.
Her WhatsApp message said: “Although I am not mandated leader, however as concerned leader of my community, it is with the saddest of hearts that I write to your high office to appeal and ask for urgent government intervention.”
According to Grant, the fight began at approximately 11am yesterday, Monday, 24 October 2022.
Three main villages of Wards 19 and 20 of Kiriwina LLG approached the district office at Losuia to express their anger over the consistent destruction of their gardens by known perpetrators of neighbouring villages.
Gardens ‘a focal point’
“Gardens in the villages are the focal point of community existence. Without a garden, you are not able to sustain your family’s livelihood,” she said.“However, no government officials were on hand to mediate the matter, including non-presence of law-and-order committees as the police station is manned by limited police personnel only.
“The church elders were also present to assist to contain the situation but the neighbouring villages were also ready for confrontation, therefore the situation was not able to be contained.”
The issue had started almost two months ago, immediately after the 2022 national general elections, and involved a soccer match. That fight resulted with one death and several people seriously injured.
“A police mobile unit was sent to maintain peace however to date, no clear resolution was reached to mitigate the issue then,” Grant said.
“Please Minister, our people need the governments urgent intervention of Police presence on the ground for the sake of our people’s lives. People are dying and the question is ‘who is responsible?’
Tomuriesa appealed to both warring factions to lay down their arms.
He said that when police reinforcements arrive, they should be “honest with themselves” and assist police by identifying the original instigators to face the law.
Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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America’s Lawyer E27: President Biden said that he wants to re-evaluate our relationship with Saudi Arabia after the country decided to cut oil production. But this decision should have been made decades ago, and we’ll tell you why. A former manager at a Starbucks in New York says that higher-ups at the company told him […]
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A prominent lawyer is headed to prison after spending years defrauding his clients. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: A prominent lawyer is headed to prison after spending years defrauding his clients. God, another lawyer story. Outta California. Yeah. We just […]
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Philippine police have announced the arrest of a suspect in the killing of a radio journalist who was known for criticising President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his immediate predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
The suspect, identified as Joel Estorial, 39, gave himself up to the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos and was charged with murder two weeks after seasoned radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid) was gunned down in a suburb south of Manila, officials said.
Estorial surrendered “out of fear for personal safety following public disclosure of … CCTV footage revealing his face during the incident and naming him as [a] primary person of interest,” according to a statement from Abalos’ office.
- READ MORE: Assassins gun down Philippine broadcaster outside home
- Other Philippine media freedom reports
“This is a major breakthrough. He made an extra-judicial confession, duly assisted by counsel,” Abalos said, adding that the suspect had named three other accomplices who were subjects of “intensive follow-up operations”.
The gun used to shoot Mabasa was recovered and “positively linked to the crime scene” by the police forensics laboratory, according to the national police.
Estoral confessed that five others had allegedly participated in the planning and killing of the broadcaster, but he only managed to identify three.
Mabasa, who worked for DWBL radio station, was ambushed on October 3 as he drove his car toward a gated community in Las Pinas, a suburb in southern metro Manila. He was the latest in a long line of killings targeting members of the Philippine media.
Motive remains unknown
However, the motive for his murder remains unknown. Abalos did not answer reporters when they asked him about this on Tuesday.“Just give us a few more days. We have to get the mastermind, that’s very important. The investigation is ongoing right now, there are many more details. Let’s not jeopardise them,” he said.
The suspect in custody was presented at the press briefing, where he spoke to reporters.
Someone from inside the country’s main prison facility, whom Estoral did not identify, had ordered a hit on Mabasa, he said. He identified two brothers and a third man as fellow accomplices in the attack.
“I was afraid and conscience-struck for the killing of Percy Lapid,” said a handcuffed Estorial, who wore a helmet and bullet-proof vest.
“Our arrangement was for whoever got closest to Percy would be the one to fire the fatal shot, and I was in that position. I was threatened with death if I didn’t shoot Percy at that moment, so I did,” Estorial said.
The team was paid 550,000 pesos (US$9300) for the hit, he told reporters.
“I hope the family forgives me. I did not want to do it, I was just forced to do so,” he said.
Family thank police
Mabasa’s family issued a statement Tuesday thanking the police and saying they hoped his killing would not become just another statistic among murders of Filipino journalists dating back decades.“We hope this development leads to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the mastermind,” the family said.
Filipino activists light candles in memory of killed radio journalist Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid) during a demonstration in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Oct. 4, 2022. [Basilio Sepe/BenarNews]
The Southeast Asian nation ranks among the most dangerous countries for journalists worldwide. Dozens have been killed with impunity since the dictatorship of Marcos’ late father, Ferdinand E. Marcos, more than 36 years ago.
Mabasa’s commentaries were often bold and sharp as he sought to counter fake news spread on air as well as on social media. He had also hit out against a perceived attempt by supporters of the Marcos family to distort history and had been bitingly critical of the war on drugs by Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, which left thousands dead. During his six years in office, Duterte had said journalists were fair game if they were corrupt.
The Duterte administration worked to close down broadcaster ABS-CBN Corp. and convict Maria Ressa, the chief executive of the news website Rappler who was later named a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on cyber libel charges.
Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales in Cotabato City, southern Philippines, and Basilio Sepe in Manila contributed to this report.
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A Papua New Guinean businessman has been arrested and charged by police as the first of 15 “persons of interest” relating to post national election violence in the Southern Highlands Province earlier this year.
Police have confirmed the unsuccessful candidate for the SHP regional seat, Peter Nupiri, a former chair of PNG Power and a construction business managing director, has been arrested and charged over election-related crimes.
Police Commissioner David Manning confirmed the arrest and charging of Peter Nupiri.
A search warrant was executed by police as confirmed by Commissioner Manning.
“We are not time bound by the elections. If these candidates think that we are, then they are sadly misinformed,” he said.
Police also confirmed a candidate personally presented himself to Commissioner Manning and was interviewed by the Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) to ascertain whether he was criminally responsible for crimes committed in Mendi, SHP.
He was not charged but will be required if evidence permits.
200 ballot boxes destroyed
Police allege that Nupiri, 46, from Olea village, Mendi, Southern Highlands, communicated with individuals to destroy about 200 ballot boxes that were stored at the Mendi police station.Police allege his communication via mobile phone to several men led to the six-days violent destruction of Mendi town.
The ballot boxes were stored at the police station after supporters had disputed the counting of the 200 plus ballot boxes.
On August 18, several armed men allegedly entered the premises and fired several gun shots and threatened the duty officers.
They then took control of the premises and opened the two containers where the boxes were kept and took the boxes out and destroyed the ballot boxes by setting them on fire.
The result of the actions taken by the men led to the burning down of properties, killing of 15 people and destruction of other property.
Republished with permission.
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A judge in Michigan has dropped the criminal charges against seven officials involved in the Flint water scandal. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
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Rising violent crime rates all over the country could spell doom for Democrats in November. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: Rising violent crime rates all over the country could spell a problem for the Democrats in November. I saw this […]
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You know, when police start becoming their own executioners, where’s it gonna end? Pretty soon, you’ll start executing people for jaywalking, and executing people for traffic violations. Then you end up executing your neighbor ‘cause his dog pisses on your lawn.
— “Dirty Harry” Callahan, Magnum Force
When I say that warrior cops—hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge—have not made America any safer or freer, I am not disrespecting any of the fine, decent, lawful police officers who take seriously their oath of office to serve and protect their fellow citizens, uphold the Constitution, and maintain the peace.My concern rests with the cops who feel empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner.
These death squads believe they can kill, shoot, taser, abuse and steal from American citizens in the so-called name of law and order.
Just recently, in fact, a rookie cop opened fire on the occupants of a parked car in a McDonald’s parking lot on a Sunday night in San Antonio, Texas.
The driver, 17-year-old Erik Cantu and his girlfriend, were eating burgers inside the car when the police officer—suspecting the car might have been one that fled an attempted traffic stop the night before—abruptly opened the driver side door, ordered the teenager to get out, and when he did not comply, shot ten times at the car, hitting Cantu multiple times.
Mind you, this wasn’t a life-or-death situation.
It was two teenagers eating burgers in a parking lot, and a cop fresh out of the police academy taking justice into his own hands.
This wasn’t an isolated incident, either.
In Hugo, Oklahoma, plain clothes police officers opened fire on a pickup truck parked in front of a food bank, heedless of the damage such a hail of bullets—26 shots were fired—could have on those in the vicinity. Three of the four children inside the parked vehicle were shot: a 4-year-old girl was shot in the head and ended up with a bullet in the brain; a 5-year-old boy received a skull fracture; and a 1-year-old girl had deep cuts on her face from gunfire or shattered window glass. The reason for the use of such excessive force? Police were searching for a suspect in a weeks-old robbery of a pizza parlor that netted $400.
In Minnesota, a 4-year-old girl watched from the backseat of a car as cops shot and killed her mother’s boyfriend, Philando Castile, a school cafeteria supervisor, during a routine traffic stop merely because Castile disclosed that he had a gun in his possession, for which he had a lawful conceal-and-carry permit. That’s all it took for police to shoot Castile four times as he was reaching for his license and registration.
In Arizona, a 7-year-old girl watched panic-stricken as a state trooper pointed his gun at her and her father during a traffic stop and reportedly threatened to shoot her father in the back (twice) based on the mistaken belief that they were driving a stolen rental car.
This is how we have gone from a nation of laws—where the least among us had just as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as the next person (in principle, at least)—to a nation of law enforcers (revenue collectors with weapons) who treat the citizenry like suspects and criminals.
The lesson for all of us: at a time when police have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect”—and a “fear” for officer safety is used to justify all manner of police misconduct—“we the people” are at a severe disadvantage.
Add a traffic stop to the mix, and that disadvantage increases dramatically.
According to the Justice Department, the most common reason for a citizen to come into contact with the police is being a driver in a traffic stop.
On average, one in 10 Americans gets pulled over by police.
Of the roughly 1,100 people killed by police each year, 10% of those involve traffic stops.
Historically, police officers have been given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons.
This free-handed approach to traffic stops has resulted in drivers being stopped for windows that are too heavily tinted, for driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s tires, and leaving a parked car door open for too long.
Motorists can also be stopped by police for driving near a bar or on a road that has large amounts of drunk driving, driving a certain make of car (Mercedes, Grand Prix and Hummers are among the most ticketed vehicles), having anything dangling from the rearview mirror (air fresheners, handicap parking permits, toll transponders or rosaries), and displaying pro-police bumper stickers.
Incredibly, a federal appeals court actually ruled unanimously in 2014 that acne scars and driving with a stiff upright posture are reasonable grounds for being pulled over. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that driving a vehicle that has a couple air fresheners, rosaries and pro-police bumper stickers at 2 MPH over the speed limit is suspicious, meriting a traffic stop.
Equally appalling, in Heien v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court—which has largely paved the way for the police and other government agents to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance—allowed police officers to stop drivers who appear nervous, provided they provide a palatable pretext for doing so.
Black drivers are almost two times more likely than white drivers to be pulled over by police and three times more likely to have their vehicles searched. As the Washington Post concludes, “‘Driving while black’ is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon.”
In other words, drivers beware.
Traffic stops aren’t just dangerous. They can be downright deadly.
Patrick Lyoya was pulled over for having a mismatched license plate. The unarmed man was shot in the back of the head while on the ground during a subsequent struggle with a Michigan police officer.
Reportedly pulled over for a broken taillight, Walter Scott—unarmed—ran away from the police officer, who pursued and shot him from behind, first with a Taser, then with a gun. Scott was struck five times, “three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart.”
Samuel Dubose, also unarmed, was pulled over for a missing front license plate. He was reportedly shot in the head after a brief struggle in which his car began rolling forward.
Levar Jones was stopped for a seatbelt offense, just as he was getting out of his car to enter a convenience store. Directed to show his license, Jones leaned into his car to get his wallet, only to be shot four times by the “fearful” officer. Jones was also unarmed.
Bobby Canipe was pulled over for having an expired registration. When the 70-year-old reached into the back of his truck for his walking cane, the officer fired several shots at him, hitting him once in the abdomen.
Dontrell Stevens was stopped “for not bicycling properly.” The officer pursuing him “thought the way Stephens rode his bike was suspicious. He thought the way Stephens got off his bike was suspicious.” Four seconds later, sheriff’s deputy Adams Lin shot Stephens four times as he pulled out a black object from his waistband. The object was his cell phone. Stephens was unarmed.
That police are choosing to fatally resolve these encounters by using their guns on fellow citizens speaks volumes about what is wrong with policing in America today, where police officers are being dressed in the trappings of war, drilled in the deadly art of combat, and trained to look upon “every individual they interact with as an armed threat and every situation as a deadly force encounter in the making.”
Keep in mind, from the moment those lights start flashing and that siren goes off, we’re all in the same boat. Yet it’s what happens after you’ve been pulled over that’s critical.
Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly.
Survival is key.
Technically, you have the right to remain silent (beyond the basic requirement to identify yourself and show your registration). You have the right to refuse to have your vehicle searched. You have the right to film your interaction with police. You have the right to ask to leave. You also have the right to resist an unlawful order such as a police officer directing you to extinguish your cigarette, put away your phone or stop recording them.
However, there is a price for asserting one’s rights. That price grows more costly with every passing day.
If you ask cops and their enablers what Americans should do to stay alive during encounters with police, they will tell you to comply, cooperate, obey, not resist, not argue, not make threatening gestures or statements, avoid sudden movements, and submit to a search of their person and belongings.
Unfortunately, in the American police state, compliance is no guarantee that you will survive an encounter with the police with your life and liberties intact.
Every day we hear about situations in which unarmed Americans complied and still died during an encounter with police simply because they appeared to be standing in a “shooting stance” or held a cell phone or a garden hose or carried around a baseball bat or answered the front door or held a spoon in a threatening manner or ran in an aggressive manner holding a tree branch or wandered around naked or hunched over in a defensive posture or made the mistake of wearing the same clothes as a carjacking suspect (dark pants and a basketball jersey) or dared to leave an area at the same time that a police officer showed up or had a car break down by the side of the road or were deaf or homeless or old.
More often than not, it seems as if all you have to do to be shot and killed by police is stand a certain way, or move a certain way, or hold something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or ignite some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.
Now politicians, police unions, law enforcement officials and individuals who are more than happy to march in lockstep with the police state make all kinds of excuses to justify these shootings. However, to suggest that a good citizen is a compliant citizen and that obedience will save us from the police state is not only recklessly irresponsible, but it is also deluded.
To begin with, and most importantly, Americans need to know their rights when it comes to interactions with the police, bearing in mind that many law enforcement officials are largely ignorant of the law themselves.
A good resource is The Rutherford Institute’s “Constitutional Q&A: Rules of Engagement for Interacting with Police.”
In a nutshell, the following are your basic rights when it comes to interactions with the police as outlined in the Bill of Rights:
You have the right under the First Amendment to ask questions and express yourself. You have the right under the Fourth Amendment to not have your person or your property searched by police or any government agent unless they have a search warrant authorizing them to do so. You have the right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, to not incriminate yourself and to request an attorney. Depending on which state you live in and whether your encounter with police is consensual as opposed to your being temporarily detained or arrested, you may have the right to refuse to identify yourself. Not all states require citizens to show their ID to an officer (although drivers in all states must do so).
As a rule of thumb, you should always be sure to clarify in any police encounter whether or not you are being detained, i.e., whether you have the right to walk away. That holds true whether it’s a casual “show your ID” request on a boardwalk, a stop-and-frisk search on a city street, or a traffic stop for speeding or just to check your insurance. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re essentially under arrest from the moment a cop stops you. Still, it doesn’t hurt to clarify that distinction.
While technology is always going to be a double-edged sword, with the gadgets that are the most useful to us in our daily lives—GPS devices, cell phones, the internet—being the very tools used by the government to track us, monitor our activities, and generally spy on us, cell phones are particularly useful for recording encounters with the police and have proven to be increasingly powerful reminders to police that they are not all powerful.
Knowing your rights is only part of the battle, unfortunately.
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the danger arises when the burden of proof is reversed, “we the people” are assumed guilty, and we have to exercise our rights while simultaneously attempting to prove our innocence to trigger-happy cops with no understanding of the Bill of Rights.
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