Episodes
Monday Dec 15, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.15.14
Monday Dec 15, 2014
Monday Dec 15, 2014
Prisoner Rights Advocates: Torture in U.S. Prisons Pervasive, Condoned
Departmental Hearing for Chokehold Cop A Shadow Legal System That Must End
The Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s scathing report on torture of alleged terror suspects the U.S. government had detained after the 9-11 attacks has generated equally vehement criticisms and denials of its findings. No matter which side of the fence key players in this sordid, still-unfolding debacle are on, however, they nonetheless seem to be in unanimous agreement that torture of prisoners in U.S. custody has only now come to their attention.
Bonnie Kerness, director of the Newark, N.J.-based Prison Watch, a project of the American Friends Service Committee, tells Leid Stories that torture not only is pervasive—and, in some cases, routine—throughout the U.S. prison system, for decades it has been condoned. Prison Watch has produced several reports documenting torture in U.S. prisons and jails.
Daniel Pantaleo—the NYPD officer seen in a cell phone video using a banned chokehold maneuver on Eric Garner in a violent attempted arrest that claimed Garner’s life—is taking a break from desk duty to talk to NYPD investigators. A Staten Island grand jury on Dec. 3 found no reason to indict Pantaleo in connection with Garner’s death, and there are no indications that the case will be re-presented to a second grand jury.
Leid Stories contends that departmental hearings are a shadow judicial system that illegally assigns to the police commissioner and the police department power and authority in criminal matters that properly belong to elected officials of the city government and courts of law. Departmental hearings, which focus on administrative procedures, are no substitutes for public trials.