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4WardEverUK

Cops used out of date profile of Anthony Grainger, inquiry hears

Anthony Grainger
Anthony Grainger

source: Socialist Worker
updated: 17 February 2017

A police officer who built a profile of Anthony Grainger did not intend firearms officers to use it, a public inquiry has heard.

Anthony was shot dead by a firearms officer after police moved to arrest three men in a stolen Audi in Culceth, Cheshire, on 3 March 2012. It was part of “Operation Shire”, which Greater Manchester Police (GMP) had launched the previous year to investigate the group for suspected armed robberies.

DC Rachel Griffiths had produced a “pen profile”, an informal character description used by police, on Anthony that was used for Operation Shire.

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4WardEverUK

Ramarley Graham shooting: Five years later, family calls for action

Armed Sidearm police officersource: Patch.com
published: 2 February 2017

Five years after Ramarley Graham was shot and killed by a New York police officer, the case still isn’t settled. Graham’s family gathered in Foley Square on Thursday night, five years after the 18-year-old’s death, demanding that the officer who opened fire lose his job.

The various review procedures have taking years to process the case, and they still aren’t done: Police officials still haven’t decided whether to fire or discipline Richard Haste, the white officer who fatally shot Graham.

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4WardEverUK

The continuing collapse of the death penalty (Florida Supreme Court)

kill the death penaltysource: NY Times
published: 26 December 2016

Piece by piece, the death penalty continues to fall apart. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court invalidated between 150 and 200 death sentences — nearly half of all those in the state — because they were imposed under a law the United States Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional in January.

The law, which required judges and not juries to make the factual findings necessary to sentence someone to die, violated the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a jury trial. “A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for an 8-to-1 majority.

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