Seni Lewis death: No action against police, prosecutors say

source: BBC News
published: 29 May 2015

No criminal action will be taken against police involved in the death of a man restrained by officers in a London psychiatric hospital. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.

Olaseni (Seni) Lewis, who had mental health problems, was a patient at Bethlem Royal Hospital, in Beckenham. He was restrained three times, first by hospital staff and then by police, in the 45 minutes before his collapse.

10 May 201520 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Questioning of Garner protesters renews concerns about police practices

Police vs People source: NYTimes.com
published: 28 April 2015

Last December, as people arrested during protests related to the death of Eric Garner waited to be released from Police Headquarters in Manhattan, an officer removed a 28-year-old woman from a holding cell there.

The woman, Leighann Starkey, a doctoral student who lives in Harlem, said recently that she was escorted to a separate area where she was asked by two detectives how she knew about the demonstrations, what social media she used to keep track of them and whether she was part of a protest group. One detective, she said, asked whether she had ties to terrorists.

4 May 201520 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Killing state capital punishment

source: Socialist Worker
published: 29 April 2015

Officials in Oklahoma and other states are scrambling to figure out a way to kill people. Concerned over a lack of access to lethal injection drugs, the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill in late April approving the use of the gas chamber for executions.

This comes on the heels of Utah’s move in March to bring back the firing squad as an alternative to lethal injection, an announcement that spurred another round of debate about executions. While the Denver Post editorial board wrote that the firing squad was “not a solution,” a Bloomberg editorial titled “Death by firing squad is more humane than lethal injection” circulated widely.

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