I know that here at AfroDaddy.com we tend to rail on police and the legal system; exposing the many unreported cases of police brutality, institutional racism, prison misconduct and the like.  Today we are happy to report on a story we found that shows a different side of the police department, or at least of one individual within it.

A photo of a New York City policeman giving boots to a homeless individual has caught our attention and the attention of social media as well.  The photo below of 25 year-old officer Larry Primo assisting a fellow citizen on a freezing night is one that is helping to restore a little faith in the kindness and humanity of members of the NYPD.

An estimated 80,000 men, women and even children are being held in solitary confinement on any given day in U.S. prisons.

by Kanya D’Almeida and Bret Grote

“The torture technicians who developed the paradigm used in (prisons’) ‘control units’ realized that they not only had to separate those with leadership qualities, but also break those individuals’ minds and bodies and keep them separated until they are dead.” – Russell “Maroon” Shoats

Without a vote you have no power.  With 70% of the prison population being non-white this is how power is disproportionately taken from minorities in the US.

In addition, non-whites make up about 70 percent of the U.S. prison population.  There is no other logical explanation except for institutional racism in America. 

This week an INTERNAL police investigation ruled that the shooting death of handcuffed suspect Chavis Carter was a suicide.  Carter, an African American, was with two white boys when he was pulled over by the police in rural Jonesboro, Arkansas.  After the two white boys were let go, Carter was searched by the police, handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police car.  A few minutes later Carter is dead with a gunshot wound to the right temple; handcuffs intact.

The explanation immediately released by the police department is that the young man with no history of mental illness or suicidal tendencies killed himself.  A month later this has become the official version.  Case closed.  Another young black man dead.

There are far too many young black men in prison for marijuana possession and related offenses, and the city of Chicago has decided to do something about it. 

Yesterday the Chicago City Council voted 43-3 to approve a new city policy that would allow officers to give tickets to pot smokers instead of arresting them.

The new ordinance gives police the option to issue a ticket for possession of 15 grams of marijuana or less. Arrests would still be made however for anyone caught smoking weed in public or possessing marijuana in or near a school or in or near a park.

It has been 20 years since the LA riots sparked by a not guilty verdict for the police who savagely beat Rodney King.  It has been three years since police shot and killed Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22 year-old laying face down on the concrete.  This week the grand jury convened in the 2011 police beating and death of Kelly Thomas, an unarmed, mentally ill, 31-year old who begged for his life while the police literally beat it out of him (see the Kelly Thomas story here).

Many say we have evolved as a society, but those who are sworn to protect and serve us have a horrific track record of beating and killing unarmed citizens.  In many of these cases it’s 5 or more police officers against 1 civilian and if it were not for the advent of video this police brutality and gang violence would never be seen by ordinary Americans.

Most people living in America who are even mildly socially aware know that many young Americans smoke weed.  Recent studies by the National Institute on Drug Abuse show that nearly 20 million Americans over age 12 smoke weed on a monthly bais.  Of this group the racial breakdown is pretty consistent across racial, ethnic and social lines as over 70% of surveyed people who admit to smoking weed are white people.  What is not commonly known is that the rate of incarceration for marijuana possession and/or sale is extremely disproportionately slanted toward African Americans.  In fact, marijuana use and possession has been used for the past 40 years as a primary excuse for rounding up millions of African Americans, incarcerating them and effectively removing them from the employment pool, dating pool, the political process and the power structure of America.

By Charles William Wright III

I’m a Chicago native. On Sept, 7, 2010, I was thrown in what Los Angeles County sheriffs called a cell in the Century Regional Detention Facility, 11703 Alameda on the Mona Boulevard side. There was no toilet in the room. Instead of receiving a citation, I was handcuffed though not arrested – not read my rights – for not paying $1.50 train fare.

Sgt. Mario Rodarte waited until I was handcuffed in the car to pull out a Taser and spark it, trying to intimidate me. I responded by cursing and ended up at Century Regional an hour later, near 8:30 p.m. Arrested at Seventh and Metro on the Figueroa side, I was taken over 10 train stops away and thrown behind bars, although I remained silent, never showing ID.

Stop-and-frisk is a controversial police policy instituted in 1968 that allows the police to stop and detain a person based on "reasonable" suspicion. If the police "reasonably" suspect the person is armed and dangerous, they may also frisk him or her for weapons.  Stop-and-frisk reports are at an all time high for black men in major urban areas like New York and Philadelphia even though they result in arrest rates of less than 10%.