Number of people killed by police hits 664 in U.S. this year

  

The number of police-related fatalities in the U.S reached 664 in 2015, making the country’s police force one of the deadliest in the developed world, according to data from The Guardian, a British newspaper.

In the first five months of this year, 19 unarmed black men were shot and killed by the police in the U.S. The Guardian compares that with Germany, where 15 citizens of any race were fatally shot in the two years from 2010 to 2011.

California led the nation in the number of victims. So far this year, 107 people died in police-involved incidents in the state, significantly more than Texas, which came in second with 67 deaths. Florida was the third most deadly with 46. Per capita, Oklahoma tops the list with 29 deaths.

People killed by the police in the U.S. in 2015

By race, whites accounted for roughly half at 321 deaths and blacks followed with 174. However, blacks were twice more likely than whites to be unarmed when killed by the police, The Guardian said.

Of the 102 unarmed Americans killed between January and May, 15% were white, compared with 31.9% for blacks and 25.4% for Hispanics and Latinos.

A vast majority of the deaths involved guns. Twenty-three involved a vehicle, and 27 people died in police custody.

The statistics were compiled from police reports, news outlets, research groups and open-source reporting projects such as Fatal Encounters and Killed by Police as part of the newspaper’s The Counted project.

“The database will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced information to build a more comprehensive record of such fatalities,” the newspaper said.

FBI: Child Abuse 'Almost at an Epidemic Level' in U.S.

The bureau rescued 600 children last year

Tens of thousands of children are being sexually exploited each year in the U.S., according to an investigation by the BBC.

Despite rescuing 600 children last year, the FBI says child sex abuse is at epidemic levels where tens of thousands of children are believed to be sexually exploited in the country each year. “The level of paedophilia is unprecedented right now,” Joseph Campbell of the FBI told the BBC.

Campbell, who works in the Criminal Investigation Division, has seen individuals from all walks of life engaged in both child pornography and child exploitation, calling it a problem “almost at an epidemic level.”

Hundreds of American children are also being sold into sex, according to the BBC, where poverty and neglect are thought to be some of the main reasons why young kids are vulnerable to sex trafficking.

Jenny Gaines, who works at Breaking Free, a Minnesotan-based advocacy group that provides support for former sex workers, says many “manipulate and take advantage of underage girls.” Half the women who visit the support group were under the age if 18 when they were first sold for sex.

Average US vehicle age hits record 11.5 years

In the age of Apple's CarPlay, a lot of cars on the road still have tape decks.

The average vehicle in the U.S. is now a record 11.5 years old, according to consulting firm IHS Automotive, a sign of the increased reliability of today's vehicles and the lingering impact of the sharp drop in new car sales during the recession.

Drivers behind the wheel of older cars aren't enjoying some of the latest advanced safety features or infotainment systems that effectively turn cars into cellphones on wheels. Then again, they don't have to worry about hackers finding their way in to the car's computer network through the cassette or CD player.

IHS said U.S. registrations grew to a record 257.9 million cars and trucks this year, up 2 percent from a year earlier.

The average age of vehicles has been climbing steadily since IHS began tracking the number in 2002. As quality and reliability have improved, people have been holding on to their cars and trucks for longer. The average length of ownership for a new vehicle is now almost 6.5 years, IHS said. For a used vehicle, it's five years.

Cars and trucks now have the same average age, says Mark Seng, IHS Automotive's global aftermarket practice leader. For many years, cars had shorter lifespans than trucks, but their quality has now caught up.

Experts say there's no rule for how long to hold on to an old car or truck. A car with good reliability can go for 200,000 miles or more, which can easily last a decade for some motorists, says Doug Love, a spokesman for Consumer Reports.

The magazine doesn't recommend driving older cars without two key safety features introduced more than a decade ago: electronic stability control and side curtain air bags.

The aging car population could mean that Americans will be slow to adapt safety and semi-autonomous features that have car company executives and experts heralding a new age of the automobile. Adaptive cruise control arrived in the U.S. market in 2006, for example, but nine years later only 6 percent of all cars have it, according to a recent report from Boston Consulting Group. It will also take longer for much-hyped advances like CarPlay - which gives drivers access to their apps through the dashboard - to become commonplace.

But Seng says the auto industry should take heart. Even though the average vehicle age shows no sign of reversing, it is starting to plateau, since buyers have returned to the car market in big numbers. Sales of new cars rose from 12.7 million in 2011 to 16.5 million last year and are expected to reach or exceed 17 million this year. IHS thinks the average vehicle age will hit 11.6 years in 2016 but won't climb to 11.7 years until 2018.

Ferguson Prisoner Beaten by Cops Has Won His Appeal: "The Ferguson cops charged Henry Davis with destruction of property because he bled on their uniforms when they beat him."

Michael Brown’s killing brought to light the horrific case of Henry Davis, who was beaten by Ferguson cops, then charged with bleeding on them. Now he’s finally allowed to sue them.

The Ferguson cops charged Henry Davis with destruction of property because hebled on their uniforms when they beat him.

Then, as if fearing it might be outdone in ridiculousness, a federal district court ruled that Davis could not sue the cops for violating his Fourth Amendment rights because they had not injured him badly enough as he lay handcuffed on the jailhouse floor, a working man arrested on a traffic warrant in a case of mistaken identity.

“As unreasonable as it may sound, a reasonable officer could have believed that beating a subdued and compliant Mr. Davis while causing only a concussion, scalp lacerations and bruising with almost no permanent damage did not violate the Constitution,” the district court ruled in tossing out the case.

Davis appealed and his attorney James Schottel responded to absurdity with legal reasoning. He argued that the decisive factor was not the seriousness of Davis’s injuries but the nature of the officers’ actions.

The district court had ruled that the officers enjoyed “official immunity” because they “acted within their discretion and caused only de minimis [slight] injuries.”

Schottel contended that official immunity “does not apply to discretionary acts done in bad faith or with malice.”

The appeals court could not have been clearer in its response on Tuesday.

“We agree.”

The court went on to say, “That an officer’s conduct caused only de minimis injuries does not necessarily establish the absence of malice or bad faith as a matter of law.”

In recapping the case, the appeals court noted that Davis had been arrested by Police Officer Christopher Pillarick early on the morning of September 20, 2009. Davis was brought to what the appeals court calls “the crowded Ferguson jail.” Pillarick and Police Officer John Beaird escorted Davis to a cell where the only bunk was occupied.

“Davis requested a mat from a nearby stack,” the court says. “Pillarick refused because Davis was not cooperating. Davis refused to enter the cell.”

The cops radioed for backup. Police Officer Kim Tihen and Police Officer Michael White responded, along with Sergeant William Battard.

“The deposition testimony differs dramatically concerning what happened next,” the court says. “It is undisputed that White pushed Davis into the cell and a short, bloody fight ensued.”

The court notes that there is no video of the incident, but there is “testimony supporting a claim that White, Beaird and Tihen each beat or kicked Davis after he was handcuffed and subdued on the floor of the cell.” 

The court further notes, “After the incident, Beaird completed four complaints charging Davis with the offense of ‘Property Damage’ for transferring blood onto the uniforms of Beaird, Tihen, White, and Pillarick.”

The appeals court then summarizes the lower court’s contention that “a reasonable officer” could believe that in beating their handcuffed prisoner they were not violating the Constitution.

Here, too, the appeals court could not have been clearer in its response.

“We disagree.”

One of the cops, Tihen, had gone on to become a City Council member from the First Ward, filling a vacancy left by a two-term incumbent who had resigned after being disbarred as a lawyer for “unprofessional conduct.”

At the time, four of the five sitting members City Council were white. Tihen made it five of six in a town that was 70 percent black.

She and the rest of the council were in smiling attendance when the Ferguson police chief presented Police Officer Darren Wilson with an award for making a drug collar.

Wilson became known to the whole country after his encounter with 18-year-old Michael Brown.

In the uproar following Brown’s death, the Ferguson police department came under scrutiny. The beating of Davis reached public attention.

So did Tihen’s role in the incident.

And that may have been part of her reason for not seeking a second term.

Three people campaigned for the seat. The victor was a high-energy, goodhearted black woman named Ella Jones, who won after spending weeks canvassing from house to house.

“Every door that’s in the First Ward,” she told The Daily Beast.

A black man named Wesley Bell won a seat in the Third Ward, which made the City Council three and three race-wise.

Ferguson also got a black police chief.

And on Tuesday, the court of appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling and said Davis could go ahead with his excessive-force suit.

This Powerful Homemade Light Saber Can Be Made For Less Than $100 (8 gifs)

Imgur user Lassann built this light saber all by himself for less than $100. He used a laser cutter and a diode to create a weapon that's almost as cool as the real thing.

You Won’t Believe What Wannabe Cops In Massachusetts Got Additional Points For

The Methuen Police Department in Massachusetts, which reportedly “gave higher points to applicants who said they wouldn’t arrest a family member or an officer they knew” who had been caught engaging in drunken driving.

As a result, job applicants like Michael Phillips, 26, were bypassed.

“The City turned the interview process upside down,” Christopher C. Bowman, chairman of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission, wrote in Phillip’s case. “There is simply no valid basis to award the highest points to candidates who express a willingness to apply one set of rules to strangers and another set of rules to friends and family members.”

According to The Boston Globe via Jonathan Turley, the department basically rewarded those aspiring cops who were willing to turn the other way in the face of corruption.

What’s even more shocking is the faulty logic they used to defend this stupidity. According to reports, for instance, when Phillip answered that “he would arrest his mother and father if he caught them driving drunk,” he apparently made department officials skeptical.

“This answer appears insincere and sounds like Mr. Phillips is trying to respond in the way he thinks the panel wants him to respond,” a letter regarding the department’s decision not to hire him read.

Furthermore, during a commission hearing, Police Lieutenant Michael Pappalardo (pictured below) bluntly admitted that “he wouldn’t believe anyone who claimed they would arrest their family and friends.” (H/T Photography Is Not A Crime)

This not-so-bright lieutenant seemingly believes that wannabe cops must possess a certain degree of corruption within them.

That makes zero sense whatsoever, but judging by his rhetoric, Pappalardo doesn’t have any common-sense to begin with!

1/5 of the Population of El Salvador and 1/4 of Mexico Now Live in U.S.

We know the illegal immigrant population of in the U.S. has exploded since the 1990s.  We also know it has grown dramatically since President Obama initiated his “open borders” policy to allow just about anyone to come here via the border with Mexico.

The “official” number of illegal aliens in the U.S. stands at 11 million, but now, new evidence suggests that that number is way below the number of those who are actually here.  Gateway Pundit reports:

Lax US border security and civil war in Central America have resulted in a massive influx of Salvadorean immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years.

One-fifth of the population of El Salvador now live in the United States.

Migration Policy reported:

Between 1980 and 1990, the Salvadoran immigrant population in the United States increased nearly fivefold from 94,000 to 465,000. The number of Salvadoran immigrants in the United States continued to grow in the 1990s and 2000s as a result of family reunification and new arrivals fleeing a series of natural disasters that hit El Salvador, including earthquakes and hurricanes.

By 2008, there were about 1.1 million Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. Salvadorans are the country’s sixth largest immigrant group after Mexican, Filipino, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese foreign born.

The immigrant population from this tiny Central American country is now nearly as large as the immigrant population from much larger China. (As reference, China’s total population is 200 times larger and its territory is about 500 times larger than El Salvador’s.)

More than half of all Salvadoran immigrants resided in just two states, California and Texas, although they are also concentrated in New York, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia (for more information on immigrants by state, see the ACS/Census Data tool on the MPI Data Hub)…

…About one of every five Salvadorans resides in the United States.

The 1.1 million Salvadoran immigrants in the United States represent about one-fifth (19.1 percent) of the total population of El Salvador (5.7 million in 2007 according to the Salvadoran Department of Statistics and Censuses).