A pregnant Black mother of 4 Charleena Lyles,Shot Dead By 2 White Seattle Cops In Front Of Her Kids…

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  • KingLuciano
    KingLuciano Members Posts: 476 ✭✭✭✭
    Got damn shame they will get off as a community what do we do to protect ourselves from people that are ment to protect us?
  • D. Morgan
    D. Morgan Members Posts: 11,662 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Got damn shame they will get off as a community what do we do to protect ourselves from people that are ment to protect us?

    The police aren't meant to protect us.

    How long are black people going to keep believing in that fallacy?
  • blacktux
    blacktux Members Posts: 4,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Black people soft.

    Back to the daily programming.
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    https://www.gofundme.com/bdgbc8pg
    This morning Seattle Police Killed 30 year old woman CHARLEENA LYLES IN FRONT OF HER CHILDREN she called the police to report a burglary please help her family she was a mother four children and pregnant with her fifth child please help us come together to support her children and family during this tragedy.
  • Trillfate
    Trillfate Members Posts: 24,008 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2017
    D. Morgan wrote: »
    Got damn shame they will get off as a community what do we do to protect ourselves from people that are ment to protect us?

    The police aren't meant to protect us.

    How long are black people going to keep believing in that fallacy?

    Its not about black ppl believing it but that's the police motto.. its written on their cars and badges.. it should apply to all
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/hundreds-expected-at-vigils-tuesday-night-to-remember-charleena-lyles/
    Hundreds attend vigil for Charleena Lyles and call for justice in her fatal shooting

    The 30-year-old Seattle mother of four was shot and killed by police Sunday. As the investigation continues, people gathered to remember her and grieve.

    Family members, friends and community activists — some so angry they said they couldn’t even properly grieve — called Charleena Lyles a powerful woman at a vigil attended by hundreds of people Tuesday evening outside the apartment complex where she was fatally shot by police Sunday.

    They listened to speakers demand justice for the 30-year-old mother of four and called her death a double homicide, referring to reports from relatives that Lyles was pregnant when she was killed. Afterward, demonstrators marched for miles from Magnuson Park to the Montlake Bridge, chanting Lyles’ name.

    Late Tuesday night, the Seattle Police Department identified the two officers involved in the shooting as Steven McNew and Jason Anderson. Both worked in the North Precinct, district spokesman Sean Whitcomb said.

    Meanwhile, Seattle City Councilwoman Lisa Herbold announced there will be a public hearing regarding Lyles’ death, in the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, & Arts committee, but she reported no other details.

    Lyles had called police Sunday morning to report an attempted burglary and was speaking with two officers when police say she displayed two knives. She was fatally shot in her apartment at Brettler Family Place in Magnuson Park. Her family believes race was a factor — Lyles was African American, and the two officers are white.

    Lyles’ sister Tiffany Rogers called her a sweet, kind person who was full of life and whose kids were her everything.

    “I just want to grieve right now, but I can’t even do that because I’m so angry,” she told the crowd. “I’m scared of her so-called protectors. I was before, but I definitely am now.”

    James Bible, the lawyer for the Lyles family, called Sunday an example of “police murder.” He said that he had listened to audio of the shooting, and that the police weren’t in imminent danger because they had time to debate whether to use a Taser or a gun. Several times during his speech, he led the crowd in a chant of “murder is murder is murder is murder.”

    “Our community deems this was murder, and we expect our government to treat it as such,” Bible said.

    Others questioned why the police used lethal force, saying Lyles weighed under 100 pounds and wasn’t a threat. She was so small that her brother Domico Jones used to call her “String Bean Leen.”

    “She had four kids that came out of her, and I still don’t understand how she stayed the same size,” he said.

    Three of Lyles’ children attend three Seattle schools. The Seattle teachers union encouraged its members to wear Black Lives Matter shirts and stickers and said in a statement that it stands in support of the three schools “as they work within their communities to heal.”


    Dozens of Seattle teachers and school staff members gathered at Magnuson Park before marching to the larger rally outside Brettler Family Place.

    They listened to a handful of speeches by event organizers and educators to show support for mental-health awareness, teaching children about institutional racism and racial biases in policing, as well as to offer condolences to Lyles’ family and children.

    Stan Strasner, an educator in South Seattle, said he wanted to support the Lyles family and pointed to a need for quality teachers.

    “I think that educators and the wider community can be a part of the next steps to hold police accountable in this city and make sure the family gets justice,” he said.

    Vickie Ramirez and Laurie Gold, two longtime friends, attended the rally to show their solidarity with Lyles as fellow parents and women. They said they’ve initiated discussions with their young children over issues such as race and inequality in light of the shooting.

    “This one was physically close to home,” said Ramirez, a mother of a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old who attend Bryant Elementary School. “It was just a rough weekend.”

    Gold said the conversations with her 6-year-old and 4-year-old have been delicate because she does not want to make them “afraid of the police in case they need help.” But she also said she does not want to excuse officers’ behavior.

    “Charleena is a member of the Seattle public-school community, and we stand with her and her family,” Jesse Hagopian, a Garfield High teacher, told the crowd. Her death “strikes our classrooms all across Seattle.”

    On Tuesday, the Seattle King County NAACP released a statement calling for the Seattle City Council and Mayor Ed Murray to hold a public hearing at which Lyles’ family and community members can question Seattle police Chief Kathleen O’Toole about the fatal shooting.

    “At the root of all of these interactions, is the dehumanization of people of color. The headlines immediately following Charleena’s death mentioned she was armed and had mental health issues,” the organization said in a statement.

    “But Charleena was much more than that. She was a human being; a mother, a sister, and a dedicated member of the community. She was scared. But even if she wasn’t any of those things, she was still a young woman who deserved to have her humanity recognized by the police that showed up at her door and ultimately killed her.”
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    http://www.krem.com/news/police-union-explains-how-officers-are-trained-for-knife-attacks/451094744
    Police union explains how officers are trained for knife attacks

    In the wake of the Seattle police shooting of a young mother, the police officers' union hopes to shed some light on the officers and their training, in particular, how they're trained to deal with a knife-wielding suspect.

    Seattle Police Officers' Guild President Kevin Stuckey says both officers involved in the shooting of Charleena Lyles have received more than a half-dozen death threats since the shooting.


    Stuckey has spoken to both of them. He's said they're very upset about the shooting and they have to undergo a mental evaluation before they are allowed to return to work.

    Many people have asked why Officers Jason Anderson or Steven McNew fired their weapons on Charleena Lyles, a petite mother of four who was reportedly wielding a knife.

    Stuckey personally sat in on Anderson's interrogation with the Force Investigation Team. He said Anderson had both a baton and pepper spray on him. But to use either of them on a knife wielding suspect would have been violating department policy.

    "You are supposed to meet deadly force with deadly force," said Stuckey. "If someone pulls a knife out on you, your mindset is that you're going to get cut. But you got to stop the threat, and you're going to use whatever force necessary to stop the threat. And there are times when to stop that threat, you are going to use deadly force."

    Stuckey points out that Seattle police officers are trained to have two officers for backup if they're going to use what they call "less than lethal force."

    "If I'm going to use my taser, baton, or pepper spray, then someone needs to be standing by with a lethal option in case that less than lethal doesn't work," he said.

    The third officer is needed to go "hands on" with a suspect to cuff them once they're down.

    Stuckey said he understands the uproar over the shooting. But he questions whether the court and mental health system failed Lyles, who struggled with mental illness.

    As an African American officer, he also understands the sense of racial injustice.

    "White officers shoot black female," he said. He gets it.

    All of that aside, no matter how small or slight a suspect may be, training teaches them that a knife-wielding person can cross 21 feet in the time it takes for an officer pull a gun.

    "It takes two and a half seconds to break leather on your firearm, pull it up and get it on target," said Stuckey. "And that's seconds with someone with a knife who is already moving. So it's a difficult decision but it's one that has to be made. Because at that point in time, a life is going to be taken."
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-police-release-statements-from-officers-who-killed-charleena-lyles/
    Seattle police release statements from officers who killed Charleena Lyles

    Seattle police Officer Jason Anderson told investigators Charleena Lyles suddenly pulled a knife out of her pocket and was “coming right at my stomach” during a burglary call Sunday that led to the fatal shooting of the 30-year-old mother of four in her apartment, according to statements released Friday evening.

    Anderson’s description was contained in 86 pages of transcripts of recorded interviews with Anderson and second officer Steven McNew, who shot Lyles after she summoned the officers to her Northeast Seattle apartment to investigate what she described as a burglary of her unit.


    The shooting of Lyles, an African American, by the two white officers has drawn condemnation from her family and sparked public outcry from others, who believe race was factor in the use of lethal force.

    Lyles had struggled with mental-health issues, according to her family and court records.

    Among the documents’ main points, Anderson reported he had both pepper spray and a baton and McNew had a baton (neither had Tasers), but they stated they were left with no choice but to use lethal force. The documents also included images of seven knives in the apartment, including one reportedly in her coat.

    During questioning Tuesday, Anderson said he jumped back and sucked in his abdomen to avoid getting stabbed in the stomach with a knife 4 to 5 inches long.

    Anderson, 32, who joined the department in 2015, said he drew his pistol, asked for fast backup on his radio and, along with McNew, told Lyles to “get back.”

    He said McNew, 34, a Seattle officer since 2008, asked him to Taser Lyles. Anderson said he told McNew he didn’t have a Taser.

    Lyles then began quickly advancing on McNew, Anderson said, describing himself as in “fear that she was gonna try and ? my partner um ’cause she was going after him.”

    As Lyles turned a corner to go after McNew, Anderson said, he fired from 4 to 5 feet away and saw Lyles fall to the ground.

    Anderson said he wasn’t carrying a Taser because the battery in his died two weeks earlier, but he told investigators he wouldn’t have used it anyway because he was trained to use lethal force when someone is attacking with a knife.

    As he maintained cover with his gun on Lyles, Anderson said, McNew picked up a small child grabbing onto Lyles.

    A third officer who arrived at the scene began giving first aid to Lyles, Anderson said, adding that he started to help before moving away as his hands were shaking.


    Anderson said he was the first officer called to the scene Sunday morning, and that he asked for a second officer after discovering there was an officer-safety caution on Lyles stemming from a June 5 domestic-disturbance incident. In that case, she displayed a pair of long scissors at officers before dropping them. But Anderson said there was no need to frisk her because it was a typical burglary call.

    Anderson said the conversation with Lyles began normally, involving what was missing in the apartment, before Lyles drew the knife as her “face changed completely.”

    He said he did not have time to employ de-escalation techniques.

    Video, audio releases

    On Thursday, police released surveillance video from the hallway outside the apartment, which shows no one other than Lyles left or entered her apartment in the hours before she was shot.

    The video was released by police along with audio of Lyles’ 911 call asking for an officer to respond to her apartment Sunday morning. In the call, Lyles told dispatchers that she had gone out that morning and came home to find someone had broken in.

    “I’d like to report a break-in. Can an officer come to my home?” Lyles asks in the call, which was made at 8:55 a.m. Sunday, about 45 minutes before she was fatally shot.

    “I just walked in. I noticed there’s some stuff missing out of my house. My door was open,” she said. She says she went out to the store earlier and came home to find her door ajar.

    However, the surveillance video of the hallway posted Thursday shows no one other than Lyles leaving or entering the apartment in the hours before the shooting, police say.


  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Children present

    McNew, who was interviewed Monday, said Anderson had told him that he had looked at Lyles’ past case when she had brandished scissors and tried to block or bar officers from leaving the apartment. He told Anderson that they weren’t “gonna let her get behind us or the door.”

    The two officers buzzed into the building and then entered the apartment, which McNew said was somewhat dark and in disarray, with clothes on the floor and old food, including a half-eaten meatloaf that he guessed was 3 weeks old.

    Two children were sitting on the floor as Anderson asked her questions about the burglary. She said she had gone to the store and someone had come in, but McNew noted that there was no sign of forced entry. Lyles was calm as she led the officers through the apartment. At one point she put her hand in the pocket of her black overcoat but didn’t pull anything out. He described her build as “somewhat slight,” much smaller than McNew, who is 6 feet 2 and 250 pounds.

    “The kitchen was in complete disarray and there’s, there’s kids rolling around and I’m just trying to take in the situation and kind of assess what’s going on and then very quickly … a knife gets produced.”

    McNew drew his gun and yelled at her to stop as he got on the radio that she had knives and they needed help. Anderson was separated from McNew by a bar, and the two were across from Lyles. McNew said Lyles pulled her hand back and he thought “ … you know she’s about to throw this thing.” McNew bent down expecting Lyles to throw the knife, but she instead made her way toward the area between the kitchen, living room and entryway, essentially trapping him in the kitchen area.

    McNew said he considered running out of the apartment but he couldn’t because she was visibly agitated with two knives and there were children at her feet.

    Anderson was closer to the front door, where McNew couldn’t see him, but McNew saw Lyles move toward him. He said he realized he was trapped in the kitchen area, with his back to a wall and Lyles blocking his exit.

    “She starts closing that gap to where she’s gonna cut off my, my avenue of escape and now I’m 3 feet from someone with two knives. And at that point fearing for what was about to happen, what she would do to me um, being stuck in that spot, I fired my handgun,” he said.

    After she fell, McNew said, one of the children crawled toward her and rested his head against her body.


    The officers hadn’t realized there was a third child, who came out of a bedroom. A third officer who arrived as backup eventually guided the boy out the apartment after McNew told him to shield his eyes from the boy’s mother.

    When the apartment was cleared, McNew grabbed Anderson and told him “they’re gonna have questions” and to not talk about the shooting.

    McNew carried a baton but didn’t have a Taser. Later in the interview, McNew said he felt like he didn’t have any other options.

    “At the point where I decided to use force, as I explained before, the subject had unabated access to me, to my person, uh, and she was armed,” he said. “I didn’t feel that there was any other … reasonable alternative.”


    Police released images of what appeared to be seven different kitchen knives of various sizes and styles. One of the knives, according to police, was found in her front coat pocket, along with a sheath, either in that pocket or another.

    The rest of the knives, some of which were serrated, were found in different areas of her kitchen.

    Anderson told investigators that instead of a carrying a Taser, he was carrying a baton and pepper spray as less-lethal alternatives — officers are required to carry at least one less lethal weapon.

    He acknowledged he didn’t report to department officials that he wasn’t using his Taser because “I hadn’t made that decision to, uh, give it up. My battery had died so … I had put in my locker.”


    According to the department manual, “Officers Who Have Been Trained and Certified to Carry a CEW (conducted electrical weapon) and Have Been Issued One Must Carry It During Their Shift. Officers must carry their CEW in a holster on their support side.”
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/seattle-officer-who-shot-charleena-lyles-under-investigation-for-leaving-taser-in-locker/
    Police investigate officer who shot Charleena Lyles after he left Taser in locker

    Seattle Police Department policy says officers who have been trained to use a Taser must carry it during their shift. But an officer involved in last week’s deadly shooting left his Taser in his locker for at least a week.

    One of the Seattle police officers who fatally shot Charleena Lyles is under internal investigation for violating department policy by leaving his uncharged Taser in his locker for more than a week leading up to the shooting, the Police Department’s civilian watchdog said Saturday.

    Officer Jason Anderson, on the force for two years, told investigators after the shooting that he did not carry his Taser during his shift June 18, when the shooting occurred, according to interview transcripts released by Seattle police.

    Seconds before the shooting, Anderson said, when Lyles pulled a knife, the other officer, Steven McNew, called out for him to use his Taser on her. Anderson replied that he didn’t have it, and within seconds, as Lyles began moving toward the two officers, Anderson said, they both shot her.

    The shooting of Lyles, a 30-year-old African-American mother of four, by two white officers has drawn an outcry from family and others, who say race was a factor.

    Anderson said after the shooting that even if he had other less-lethal weapons, he would have shot Lyles because she had lunged at him with a knife and looked as if she was going to try to stab the other officer. Anderson said he feared for his life and had to suck in his stomach and move back to avoid being stabbed.

    Anderson said that for the last couple of months he had been considering abandoning the Taser altogether, saying it was taking up too much space on his vest and belt for his slender frame. When the Taser’s battery died, he left it in his locker and didn’t get it recharged. He said it had been in his locker, uncharged, for one to two weeks.

    Seattle police policy says officers who are trained in using Tasers and have been issued one must carry it with them during a shift. Anderson said he told his squadmates about forgoing the Taser, but did not mention telling any superiors.


    Pierce Murphy, the civilian head of Seattle’s Office of Professional Accountability (OPA), said that after Anderson told detectives in interviews last week he had left the Taser behind, the department referred the case to the OPA for investigation.

    Murphy’s internal investigation team will look to see if there were good reasons to explain why Anderson didn’t have his Taser. They’ll give their findings and a recommendation to police Chief Kathleen O’Toole, who could discipline Anderson.

    Murphy said the case was unusual and there aren’t set guidelines for disciplining officers found to be violating the Taser policy.

    “There’s no cookbook here,” he said.

    “Nothing but his gun”

    Lyles had called police to her Northeast Seattle apartment to report a burglary last Sunday. Three children were inside during the shooting, including one who crawled onto Lyles after she was shot in the midsection and fell facedown on the floor, according to the police transcripts.

    A day after the shooting, Lyles’ sister, Monika Williams, brought up the Taser issue and asked whyofficers couldn’t have taken her down without shooting her.

    “Why couldn’t they have Tased her?” Williams said.

    Following the release of the transcripts of the officers’ interviews, Williams’ sentiment was echoed Saturday by another sibling and the president of the Seattle-King County NAACP.

    “The Taser would have helped,” said Domico Jones, Lyles’ younger brother. “I think any of those (less-lethal) weapons would have saved my sister’s life. My family wouldn’t be mourning today.”

    Gerald Hankerson, the local NAACP president, called the revelation that Anderson did not bring his Taser “astonishing.”

    “At the end of the day, this young lady is dead because this officer left his Taser in his locker,” Hankerson said. “He was ill-prepared and irresponsible to deal with the public, and this just shows he would rather go out in the community believing he needs nothing but his gun. That speaks volumes about his mentality.”

    Hankerson added the officer’s claim that he would have used his gun even if he had the Taser isn’t supported by the audio recording of the shooting.

    “Why would one officer call for a Taser during the incident?” Hankerson said. “That tells you right there the other officer apparently believed or knew less-than-lethal force was the only response that was necessary.”


    Taser, baton, pepper spray

    The City Council will hold a public hearing on the shooting at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Room 130 of the University of Washington’s Kane Hall.

    Council members said Saturday they could not comment on the case, citing a new law they passed barring them from making public statements on police investigations until they are complete.

    The investigation, including whether Anderson could face any discipline, could run until December.

    Murphy said Saturday it was too soon to predict what his office’s report might find or if other aspects of the case might bring additional investigations.

    The 86-page transcript of detectives’ interviews with Anderson and McNew shed more light on the police account of what happened. But it also led to more questions.

    For instance, Anderson at one point said he had not received training in how to disarm a person with a knife.

    Later in the interview, he said he received training that calls for Taser officers dealing with someone with a knife to drop their Taser and pull out their gun.


    Both officers said they have received crisis-intervention training.

    Officers must carry at least one nonlethal weapon with them on duty. Anderson said in the interview that he had a baton and pepper spray, while McNew said he had a baton.

    The shooting took place in close quarters, near the kitchen and doorway of Lyles’ two-bedroom apartment: Both officers said they were within about 5 feet of Lyles, and were not injured. They yelled “get back” before firing their guns.

    Anderson noted that when he arrived, he saw an officer warning in his computer because police had reported an earlier incident with Lyles in which she allegedly pulled out scissors and told officers they couldn’t leave. Police drew their guns during that June 5 call.

    Anderson said that incident prompted him to call for a backup officer before entering the apartment last Sunday, but he didn’t think it was necessary to call in an officer with a Taser because Lyles had reported being the victim of burglary.

    A lawyer for the Lyles family did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/seahawk-michael-bennett-to-host-benefit-in-honor-of-charleena-lyles/
    Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett to host benefit in honor of Charleena Lyles

    Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett and his wife Pele will join the family of Charleena Lyles to host a rally and benefit for the late mother and her kids at Judkins Park on July 29 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., according to an event posted to Facebook.

    The event notice says it is sponsored by The King County NAACP and the nonprofit Not This Time. It notes that “the family of Charleena Lyles, Giovonn McDade and other family members of lost loved ones will be in attendance.”

    Lyles, 30 and a mother of four children, was killed in her Northeast Seattle apartment on June 18. Lyles was shot after she had called Seattle Police Department for help.


    The event notice says speakers are still to be announced.
  • skpjr78
    skpjr78 Members Posts: 7,311 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Y'all have to stay focused on what's important. A white woman was killed by a black, Muslim, immigrant cop in Minnesota. Stop wasting time on unimportant incidents that happened to unimportant people. A white woman was killed!!! Stay focused!