Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) re Police Violence

Below is a letter I wrote to Dr. Randolph Dupont regarding Memphis crisis intervention training (CIT) in March 2008. It was never answered. On Tuesday, April 29, 2014, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee will hold hearings about CIT in Washington, D.C. Unless and until accountability is demanded of police officers who injure and kill citizens who posed no danger to police officers or others, CIT training will not guarantee any Change in the number of mental patients who suffer injuries and deaths by police. The mentally ill comprise over 50 percent of the victims of police-related violence in this country, and most people who were injured or killed did not pose an immediate danger to anyone. Crisis intervention training is far from being a panacea to the problem of police violence against the mentally ill. In my experience, the mentally ill citizens' abuses and deaths that occur after police are taken through crisis intervention training may actually be covered-up to prevent embarrassment to the government.

I urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to do more than institute crisis intervention training. Whereas police officers who killed Kelly Thomas may not have received crisis intervention training, they certainly knew it was illegal to beat an unarmed, surrendered subject to death. Whereas police officers who fired 40 bullets into Milton Hall in Saginaw, Michigan may not have had crisis intervention training, they certainly knew it was not lawful to do capital punishment by firing squad on a man with a little pocket knife who had done no crime (Hall had reportedly argued with a store clerk, which was worthy of a "disturbing the peace" misdemeanor charge at the most). The police officers involved in these two incidents completely ignored the police training they had already received. Their crisis intervention training is likely to also be ignored in a system where police officers are allowed to ignore the human and civil rights of citizens without any fear of reprisal. Because Thomas was white, police officers were charged with murder, and some were fired.

Police officers involved in violent incidents should immediately be tested for drug and alcohol use, including steroids. In cases where arrested persons are shot to death in police cars, all parties - the victims and police officers alike - should also be tested at the scene for gunpowder residue. Investigations indicating that victims suffered wrongful deaths or police brutality should result in termination of police officers and criminal charges. The present climate of "anything goes" regarding police violence endangers the peace for all Americans. Sloppy investigations that omit gunpowder residue tests and police cameras that mysteriously quit working at critical moments could lead to social unrest (i.e., Chavis Carter's "suicide" while handcuffed and sitting in the back of an Arkansas police car after having been searched twice).

If police officers are trained in crisis intervention and choose to obey their training, what will that accomplish other than safe captures of mentally ill Americans to join the 1.25 million prisoners in this country who are mentally ill? I urge the passage of H.R.3717 - Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, which would improve mental heath treatment in America and reduce the crisis incidents prompting police intervention.

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee should do more to reduce police violence against our mentally ill and other vulnerable people than recommend funding of CIT. When police departments complete CIT training and the excuse of "untrained police officers" is eliminated regarding deaths of mentally ill people, will the justice system do more cover-ups like when Larry Neal, a lifelong mentally, physically handicapped Memphis man, was murdered after 18 days of secret arrest in Memphis, the birthplace of CIT? Will it then be necessary to interfere with survivors' Internet and phone usage, employ unscrupulous lawyers to defraud grieving families, and appoint agents to follow and terrorize them to prevent discovery?

March 24, 2008

Randolph T. Dupont, PhD
University of Memphis
School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Memphis, TN 38152-3330

Re: Secret Arrest and Wrongful Death of Larry Neal and Subsequent Cover-up

I have read with interest how police departments all over the country are modeling their police departments after the Memphis CIT model. I suppose it may be partly to protect this image that my family is the only American family in the 21st Century to have a member secretly arrested and returned to his family as a corpse with no explanation, apology, excuse, arrest records, inquest, or investigation. At least, I certainly hope this is an uncommon tragedy and denial of due process of law.

See "Wrongful Death of Larry Neal.com"
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

The Memphis CIT has never explained how Larry Neal, a life-long mentally ill heart patient, could be secretly arrested in mid-July 2003, incarcerated for 18 days while his family and social worker looked for him as a missing person while Shelby County Jail repeatedly and falsely denied having him incarcerated, until he died of a fatal heart attack.

The Memphis CIT has never explained why The (Johnny) Cochran Firm, which was managed by Julian Bolton, Esq., 20+year Shelby County Commissioner and past Chairman, would then contract with my family to act as our wrongful death attorneys against Shelby County Jail, withholding from my family information about Bolton's position with our intended defendant, the jail where Larry died.

The Memphis CIT has never explained why Shelby County Jail neglected to send the Department of Justice an inmate fatality report regarding Larry Neal's death, when the jail was already under suit by the USA for previous violations of inmates' civil rights, and was required to send such inmate fatality reports under the terms of its Agreement with the USA.

Larry's family believes that his death was actually a euthanasia followed by an elaborate cover-up between The Cochran Firm and others to keep his wrongful death case out of court. Interested parties have also managed to keep his death and his family's quest for justice out of mainstream media, which likely would have led to investigation and closure for his family.

For years, I have written to:

• Shelby County Government officials,
• the U.S. Justice Department,
• Tennessee representatives, including the governor,
• United States Senators and Congressmen,
• mental health organizations,
• civil rights organizations,
• and civic leaders about Larry's death and the denial of any investigation and accountability.

No one has come forward with any investigation or reports to date -- over four years after Larry's death. At this point, the shroud of secrecy seems impenetrable to the point that Larry's family would be skeptical of any reports that ensued from an investigation. [We are now approaching the eleventh year anniversary, and answers are still denied.]

We have sued The Cochran Firm twice to recover damages for tricking my family while under contract as Larry's wrongful death attorneys (secret conflict of interest, fraud, malpractice), and we are hopeful of getting answers during discovery of our present suit in USDC, Northern District of Gerogia. On our first attempt to sue The Cochran Firm, we served the suit to the firm's advertised Atlanta office, the law office that conducted our initial client intake interview the day Larry died. Strangely, this law office which was widely advertised as The Cochran Firm's Atlanta office on television, MARTA, Internet, Bell phone books, etc., had our suit dismissed in May 2006 by claiming it is no part of The Cochran Firm. Larry's family certainly hopes that nothing so fantastic will happen in our pending USDC case against this law firm. [United States District Court Judge Timothy Batten ruled in January 2009 that whatever The Cochran Firm did to undermine justice regarding the secret arrest and wrongful death of Larry Neal was "immaterial," and he dismissed the case without trial.]

CIT is a good idea, and I hope it benefits mentally ill citizens in the Memphis area and around the country. However, when there is a failure in the system, as evidenced by Larry Neal's secret incarceration and wrongful death, that failure should not be covered up at the expense of justice.

Sincerely
/s/
Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill

Stop Memphis Police Terrorism and Murders

Help Request: Campaign to Stop Police Murders in Memphis

by

Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality

Dear Friend:

You may have seen the recent news reports about the police murders in Albuquerque, N.M. and how the U.S. Dept. of Justice has criticized the Albuquerque Police Dept. for a reign of terror, and forced the department into a series of measures to restrict police deadly force. Yet, as bad as the Albuquerque police are (killing 23 people between 2010 and 2014), the Memphis Police Department (MPD) is much worse, killing the same number of people in half the time (a total of 23 people in 2012 and 2013).

But why is there no equal fervor by federal authorities in the case of Memphis? There is a police and government cover-up in the city of Memphis, and this includes the local media and civil rights organizations. There is also massive fear of and intimidation of the local population by the MPD. There is the additional fact that Memphis is a black city and that most of the police murder victims were black and poor, and that most of Albuquerque's victims were white and Hispanic.

The feds must be forced to explain why there is no racism in their decision not to investigate the deaths of Memphis citizens. We are also convinced there is some political calculation about an investigation in Memphis because the U.S. attorney for Western Tennessee is so close to city politicians and police department administrators that he covers for their almost routine use of excessive and deadly force by police officers, and has never prosecuted any officer for taking the lives of civilians.

We are asking you to help us bring attention to these police crimes in Memphis and get these cops put in jail. We ask that you help expose the crimes and break the media blockade. We want more than reforms. We want all the cops who have outright murdered civilians to be prosecuted; the demilitarization of the police; and community control over the police and power in the hands of the people.

Memphis Black Autonomy Federation’s Police Brutality and Racial Profiling Committee

The Police Brutality and Racial Profiling Committee of the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation was created at the First Memphis Black Power Conference on June 9, 2012. Its purpose is to educate, organize and mobilize the black community and its allies to oppose police brutality, unjustified deadly force, and violations of the civil and human rights of African/black residents of Memphis and beyond and bring and end to this terror. Using a combination of litigation, street protests, educational seminars, and other grassroots actions and events, this committee is active in working to bring a halt to police crimes and their cover-up by the local media.

Demands:

An end to police murder(s) by police officers, and the cover-up by Memphis-Shelby County/federal government officials of these police crimes. The automatic investigation and prosecution of any officer who violated the civil rights of civilians, instead of cover-up by cops to protect officers. No Memphis officer has ever been prosecuted for murder or civil rights violations for beating or killing a civilian, even where it was plainly obvious that they were guilty.

An automatic public inquest into the death of any person who died in police custody. An inquest would require the police to testify under oath as to how a person died, force the medical examiner to testify under oath as to autopsy findings, and allow the family, activists, and the public to obtain records and testimony kept from them. Mainly, it is a way to expose the crimes of the police and not accept the cops' stories that are repeated in the media.

Community control of police and the creation of an elected police control board to restrict the use of deadly force and to monitor the police. As long as the cops can use a government-appointed body to cover up crimes by the cops, or force us to trust their “word,”every single murder will continue to be swept under the rug.

Stop the racial profiling of the African-American community, especially in the Beale Street entertainment district, where many have been arrested and beaten up by overzealous MPD officers, who want to discourage lack Memphis residents from patronizing white businesses in that area. Full investigation of the June, 2012, death of Christian Freeman killed by cops in the Beale Street area.

Total transparency in all police investigations and the public disclosure of all arrests and autopsy reports. All documents should be released to the public pursuant to state law, the Tennessee Open Records Act. As it is now, these documents are kept secret except to the mainstream media or other law enforcement agencies.

Proposal for a “Stop Police Murder: Prosecute The Cops” Campaign By the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation

Memphis police officers have killed 23 people since February, 2012, eleven people in 2013 alone. Yet, to this point, the opposition black human rights movement has not been able to assemble a strong enough mass protest movement to pressure the city government to change its deadly force policies or pressure the federal authorities to abandon their policy of deliberate indifference.

Since the summer of 2012, when the Memphis BAF started organizing against police brutality, we have held a number of marches and street demonstrations, rallies at the MPD police headquarters downtown, tribunals at public spaces, and other events. There are two key things we must do now:

Key Initiatives

1. Put together a mass local effort to enlist people into a Black Autonomy-IBWC Copwatch campaign in Memphis to report and monitor the cops on a daily basis. (Copwatch is already an international movement, and has been around for the last 20 years). We need to unite all those in Memphis and our allies in other cities who will stand up and demand justice in police murders that have taken place here.

2. During the 2015 IBWC conference, work toward a mass protest in Memphis, to involve anti-police brutality, anti-racist and civil rights activists from all over the city and Mid-South region. There are groups all over the USA and 19 countries involved in anti-police brutality work, who have been having demonstrations against police brutality on the “International Day of Action Against Police Brutality (IDAPB),” every year on March 15 since 1997. In 2013, we had a IDAPB demonstration in Memphis for the first time, and groups came from 10 other cities to stand with us. Now, we need to contact and inspire people in this city and get them to speak up against police brutality in Memphis. We must break through the silence and demand, “Stop Police Murder, Prosecute the Cops!”

In addition, protests at Memphis Police Department headquarters at 201 Poplar Avenue should continue, and we should try to get more people to participate locally. This summer, we should also hold a mass meeting and a community hearing about the problem of police murder, brutality and corruption in Memphis.

Finally, although we seek the prosecution of police officers who commit murders of black people, this campaign is not just about the federal authorities taking over the Memphis Police Department or an FBI investigation into an individual case. Our campaign is meant to build a new anti-racist movement for community control of the police. This is what the original Black Panther Party called for, and this is what we should fight for as well.

How You Can Help:

(a) Write to the U.S. Department of Justice in support of our demand that they open a civil rights investigation and prosecute the killer cops. Memphis is worse than Albuquerque, and needs to be investigated Make a phone call to the Civil Rights Division, and demand that they stop ignoring the reign of police terror in Memphis.(202) 514-4609 (Ask for Jocelyn Samuels, Acting Asst. Atty General). You can also contact them by email: AskDoj@usdoj.gov and give them the message.

(b) Join our "Million E-Mail March" and send letters of complaint to A.C. Wharton, Mayor of Memphis, TN. (mayor@memphistn.gov). Tell him that he has blood on his hands by his repeated failures to rein in his cops, covering up the causes of police murders of civilians and allowing police brutality to have a free hand.

(c) Join the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality, founded by the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation in 2013. In addition to Memphis and the Kansas City metropolitan area, IBWC chapters are now being organized in several other cities. The IBWC is the only group in Memphis which has held mass protests against KKK racism and MPD police brutality over the last two years, and is working on a online international boycott, petition drive, national demonstration, and other campaigns to obtain justice for the victims of this police terror.

(d) Please spread the message about police brutality and murder in Memphis by contacting news services, human rights organizations, anti-police brutality groups, citizen journalist websites, and many others that you are in contact with. We must break through the cover-up by the cops, local media, and political power structure in Memphis, and expose the awful truth.

(e) We need to use the Internet and especially online social media networks to the maximum extent possible, since it is inexpensive and reaches millions. In doing this, we can involve large numbers of poor and low-income black people and anti-police brutality activists and families of police murder victims. We need to create a blog of Memphis Police activities to expose their crimes, educate the masses of people in Memphis and beyond, and rally people into protests.

We cannot win this battle alone. Join with us in this fightback campaign against police terror.

Peace and love,
JoNina M. Ervin, Acting Co-Chair
Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality
(in care of) Memphis Black Autonomy Federation
P.O. Box 16382
Memphis, TN. 38186-0382
(901) 674-8430
email: organize.the.hood@gmail.com

The Cochran Firm Defines Fraud

The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm frauds say:

"Business fraud is, very simply, fraud in any business activity that resorts to deceitful practices to cause economic injury. Business fraud and consumer fraud are very closely related."

Would LYING to potential clients and claiming falsely to have conducted a conflict check regarding a wrongful death civil action in order to defraud the potential client qualify, you Cochran Firm Fraud lawyers? Would a law firm LYING and claiming falsely NOT to have a conflict of interest in representing a grieving family against Memphis Shelby County Jail qualify as "business and consumer fraud," you white supremacists? Larry Neal was kidnapped by police and held under secret arrest for 18 days until his murder by yet undisclosed means. Would the fact that The Cochran Firm held the Neal family's lawsuits secretly inactive until the end of the Tennessee statute of limitations qualify as "business and consumer fraud," you black Confederate soldiers?

The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm's website says:
"The legal definition of consumer fraud is as follows:

Consumer fraud occurs when, in the context of a business transaction, false statements of fact are made, the person making false statements knew that the statements were false when they were made, and that the other party in the transaction relied on the false statements to their detriment.

The elements of business fraud are:

• False representation of fact, 
• Made by another, 
• With knowledge that the representation was false when it was made,
• With an intention to get or induce the plaintiff to act or refrain from acting in reliance on the representation, 
• And damage occurred to the plaintiff as a result of the reliance

Sadly, business and consumer fraud have become epidemic in our society. Not a day goes by that we don't hear something about identity theft, credit card numbers being stolen, investors being defrauded, CEO's being accused of embezzling, and average Joe's being swindled at the local car dealership. One of the most shameful types of consumer fraud is the one that steals money from our retired Americans, living on a fixed income for which they have planned and saved for years, if not decades or even a lifetime.

If you have been hurt economically by consumer or business fraud, there is legal action to take. The experienced consumer and business fraud attorneys at The Cochran Firm, with over 25 offices nationwide, have the resources and experience necessary to fight your case and win."

*****

The Cochran Firm says itself that the most shameful type of consumer fraud involves stealing from "our retired Americans" like Hattie Neal, who was 80 years old when I took her to sign contract in the Memphis office of The Cochran Firm - an office which denied that it was a Cochran Firm office when we sued the frauds in federal court AFTER The Cochran Firm office in Atlanta denied it was a Cochran Firm office in Georgia Superior Court and prevailed based on that perjury. Of course, to white supremacists who are officers of courrupt courts, elderly African Americans are not quite human, and neither are their offspring.

See Hattie Neal's tears on the contract where she signed to have The Cochran Firm frauds represent her regarding Shelby County Government's secret arrest and murder of her disabled son, Larry Neal. It is under the documents tab on the website, Wrongful Death of Larry Neal.com:
http://www.wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/docs/Ex03_CochranFirmContract.pdf

The frauds rely on cyberstalkers and burglars to prevent this former client's fraud from reaching the public with the warning: Beware of The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm frauds.