PINAC News Top 3

Ten months after the shooting death of Michigan teen Deven Guilford, the Grand Ledge Chamber of Commerce shot down a parade request from community group Deven’s Voice, which attempted to include a float in Guilford’s honor in a holiday parade set to take place in Easton County.
Guilford, 17, was shot and killed earlier this year on Feb. 28 by Eaton County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Jonathan Frost after the teen flashed his high beam lights in the officer’s direction. Although Guilford was unarmed, Frost claimed self-defense as the reason for killing Guilford.

The Los Angeles Police Department is facing legal action for shooting an unarmed man in the head and leaving him with a collapsed skull, blindness and crippled.
Walter DeLeon waved a towel in his hands to flag down help in his neighborhood, when he encountered the two officers last summer.
DeLeon exchanged a few words and was quickly shot by LAPD officer Cairo Palacios on a Friday evening.
The horrifying and bloody viral video first posted to twitter on June 19th, 2015 by a witness.

 
Cops who patrol Boston public schools want permission to carry pepper spray while on duty, insisting they need protection from violence on campuses.
Because they are not allowed to carry firearms or pepper spray, they say they are unable to defend themselves from rebellious students and trespassers, leading to injuries and time lost from work, according to The Boston Globe.

At least eight San Francisco police officers were surrounding a man when several opened fire, shooting and killing the knife-wielding man in a hail of bullets earlier today.
Had it not been caught on Instagram video, this could easily have been reported as another case of a suspect “lunging” at the officers.
That, after all, is one of most commonly used words in police reports in cases where cops kill citizens carrying knives.

So many times, we have reported on cops shooting at fleeing vehicles by claiming they were standing directly in the path of the vehicle, only for video evidence to later prove them wrong, that we automatically expect cops to do this when the opportunity arises.
But here’s a dashcam video from last month showing Michigan deputies trying to apprehend a teenager in a stolen car, having ample opportunity to shoot and kill him, only for them to hold their fire.

Massachusetts has some of the weakest government transparency laws in the country, so state lawmakers decided to make them even worse.

As I dive deeper and deeper into the legal complexities of the right to photograph and record in public (I can quote Glik v Cuniffe so fast I will make your head spin), I have noticed a disturbing trend:
The reasons and excuses offered by police officers, firefighters, security officers, even teachers and principals, to keep you from taking a photograph are just plain pathetic.

A free speech chilling memo by the general counsel for a Florida police department advises cops that they can choose when to arrest citizens who record them in public, if those officers happen to be working undercover.

A Maryland cop who placed a gun against the head of a man because he had stepped out of an illegally parked car was convicted today.
And only because the incident was captured on video.
Prince George’s County police officer Jenchesky Santiago was found guilty of first-degree assault, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence.
The man, William Cunningham, was a passenger in a car that had parked in front of his home when Santiago pulled up, accusing the driver of parking illegally.

A New York state senator ordered a man to stop recording a public meeting Tuesday, telling him he did not have the right to record because he was not a resident of the county where the meeting was taking place.
Senator Sue Serino was wrong but that did not stop a Putnam County sheriff’s deputy from threatening the man with arrest.