17 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

NYPD officers shot and killed a black man in his own home

all credits: COLORLINES
published: 13th January 2012

Details about NYPD Officers shooting an African-American male in his home Thursday still remain unclear but neighbors claim the victim had been innocent of any wrongdoing. Police say they arrived outside the home of 26-year old, Dwayne Browne after several 911 calls were made by a woman reporting a “robbery in progress.”

Family members say Browne was upstairs listening to music, when he went outside to check on a possible break-in after seeing two men running from the residence from his window upstairs.

Details are still developing but the New York Times’ City Room blog reports the latest:

Charles Barron, a city councilman, who was speaking at the scene on Friday morning, said people had gone into Mr. Browne’s house “to do some harm,” just before the shooting.

1 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Capital punishment on the decline in Texas

originally by: Star-Telegram
published: 26th December 2011

The American public’s opinion on the death penalty has been changing steadily in the past 17 years. A 2011 Gallup Poll showed that 61 percent of people in the country favor capital punishment, down from 80 percent in 1994. A majority of Americans still believe that capital punishment is a justified and proportionate option for those who commit the most heinous premeditated crimes.

But they also believe that if the state is going to exact a punishment from which there is no turning back, the criminal justice system must be as fair as humanly possible.

And when jurors are given an effective alternative to a sentence of death — life without the possibility of parole — they use it.

16 December 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Government responds to UFFC custody death reform demands

The following are excerpts from the full letter from Nick Herbert
(Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice):
7th December 2011

Thank you for your letter of 28 October to the Prime Minister about the United Family and Friends campaign: Deaths in state custody. I am replying as the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. I am sorry for the delay.

I can assure you that the Government regrets every death in state custody. The lndependent Police Complaints commission (IPCC) is a Non-Departmental Public Body, established in 2004 under the Police Reform Act 2002 to provide a specific service to the public on behalf of the Home office.

The lPCC is independent – by law – and they make their decisions independently of the police, Government, complainants and interest groups.