Posted 11/07/2008

According to a use-of-force police report obtained by the ACLU, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander to get pulled out of the crowd without blowing their cover. The commander knew they were working undercover, and the plan was to pull them out of the crowd and pretend they were under arrest so protesters would be none the wiser.

A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and used pepper spray on the undercover officers.

The report says that the commander and an undercover detective were sprayed, but it does not indicate how many others were affected. The report also doesn't say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police was the first deployment of chemicals that night or whether the riot was already underway.

Spies of Mississippi is a journey into the world of informants, infiltrators, and agent provocateurs in the heart of Dixie.

The film tells the story of a secret spy agency formed by the state of Mississippi to preserve segregation and maintain “the Mississippi way of life,” white supremacy, during the 1950s and ‘60s. The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC) evolved from a predominantly public relations agency to a full-fledged spy operation, spying on over 87,000 Americans over the course of a decade.

The Commission employed a network of investigators and informants, including African Americans, to help infiltrate some of the largest Black organizations like National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The MSSC was granted broad powers to investigate private citizens and organizations, keep secret files, make arrests, and compel testimony for a state that, as civil rights activist Lawrence Guyot says in the film, “was committed to an apartheid system that would make South Africa blush.”

The film reveals the full scope and impact of the Commission, including its links to private white supremacist organizations, its ties to investigative agencies in other states, and even its program to bankroll the opposition to civil rights legislation in Washington D.C.

Weaving in chilling footage of Ku Klux Klan rallies and government propaganda films alongside rare images and interviews from the period, Spies of Mississippi tracks the Commission’s hidden role in many of the most important chapters of the civil rights movement, including the integration of the University of Mississippi, the assassination of Medgar Evers, and the KKK murders of three civil rights workers in 1964.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Things got heated outside L.A. City Hall on Sunday when demonstrators rallying in support of police clashed with protesters on the other side of the street, and the issue.

Police arrested a man who got into an altercation with a woman rallying with the police supporters.

“I think it’s racism. They came over here to target black people. They’re arresting me because I’m black,” a man said to CBS2/KCAL9’s Greg Mills while he was being handcuffed by LAPD officers.

“I think they’re arresting you because you pushed her,” Mills said to him.

The man said, “I didn’t push her. She pushed me.”

The woman who pressed charges against the man said, “I was blocking his sign, just putting my arms out, and the gentleman elbowed me across the chest.”

There were other confrontations on 1st Street as a couple hundred police supporters, including off-duty LAPD officers, held their rally

“All Lives Matter,” in response to the “Black Lives Matter” protests and the growing backlash to police shootings of black men all over the country.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Mayor Eric Garcetti instructed Metro officials Tuesday to allow bus and rail riders to use electrical outlets at bus and trains stations to charge their phones after reports of people being arrested for the practice.

Three people were arrested at Metro stations this year after using the outlets to charge their phones, Metro officials said.

While the three people were stopped for electricity theft, they were eventually booked on warrants for other crimes, Metro spokesman Marc Littman said.

Garcetti, who chairs the Metro board, said he directed Metro staffers to “end the practice” of arresting people for using the outlets to charge their phones – unless it disrupts Metro’s maintenance work.

The Glendale, CA Elks Lodge is investigating a shocking incident that went down in the club a week ago Monday, when a performer sang a song celebrating the death of Michael Brown ... for an audience that included a number of retired and current cops ... and TMZ has the video.

The song was a parody of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." Gary Fishell, the performer and a member of the Lodge, changed the lyrics, which include:

Michael Brown learned a lesson about a messin'
With a badass policeman

And he's bad, bad Michael Brown
Baddest thug in the whole damn town
Badder than old King Kong
Meaner than a junkyard dog

Two men took to fightin'
And Michael punched in through the door
And Michael looked like some old Swiss cheese
His brain was splattered on the floor

And he's dead, dead Michael Brown
Deadest man in the whole damn town
His whole life's long gone
Deader than a roadkill dog

The event was the capper for a charity golf event, thrown by retired LAPD Officer Joe Myers, a 32 year veteran who left the force in 2007. We're told 50-60 people attended the dinner, and about half were cops, most of whom were retired. The others were civilians.

Thousands of off-duty police officers thronged around City Hall yesterday, swarming through police barricades to rally on the steps of the hall and blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge for nearly an hour in the most unruly and angry police demonstration in recent memory.

The 300 uniformed officers who were supposed to control the crowd did little or nothing to stop the protesters from jumping barricades, tramping on automobiles, mobbing the steps of City Hall or taking over the bridge. In some cases, the on-duty officers encouraged the protesters.

While the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association had called the rally to protest Mayor David N. Dinkins's proposal to create an independent civilian agency that would look into police misconduct, the huge turnout -- estimated by the Police Department at 10,000 protesters -- and the harsh emotional pitch reflected widespread anger among rank-and-file officers toward the Mayor for his handling of riots against the police in Washington Heights last July, his refusal to give them semiautomatic weapons and his appointment of an outside panel to investigate corruption.

"He never supports us on anything," said Officer Tara Fanning of the Midtown South Precinct, echoing the view of many in the crowd. "A cop shoots someone with a gun who's a drug dealer, and he goes and visits the family." Dinkins Denounces Protest

Protected by body armor, riot shields, a police dog and an armored vehicle, a fully militarized SWAT team feared for their lives when a small dog stepped into a front yard during a standoff, shooting the dog twice as the dog was retreating from them.

The incident was caught on a neighbor’s cell phone video, prompting outraged cries from the citizens watching the drama unfold from their home.

Racine Police Chief Art Howell said he was “saddened” by the incident but said the officers had to kill the dog to avoid unnecessary distraction.

"After the dog was released, the dynamics of this encounter changed. Officers, who for over three hours were focused on peacefully resolving this crisis through dialogue, were now forced to deal with the distraction and unpredictability of having the subject’s dog moving through the scene of this active encounter at a critical time."

The incident took place Saturday when the dog’s owner allowed the dog to defecate in a neighbor’s yard. When the neighbor demanded he pick up his dog’s feces, he simply kicked it over into a pile of leaves.

In the early morning hours of June 27, 2013, a team of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies pulled up to the home of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired engineer living in the rural outskirts of Los Angeles county with his wife Tonya Pate and stepson Adrian Lamos.

The deputies crashed through the front gate and began executing a search warrant for methamphetamine on the property. Detective Patrick Hobbs, a self-described narcotics expert who claimed he "smelled the strong odor of chemicals" downwind from the house after being tipped off to illegal activity from an anonymous informant, spearheaded the investigation.

The deputies announced their presence, and Pate emerged from the trailer where she'd been sleeping to escape the sweltering summer heat of the California desert. Lamos and a couple of friends emerged from another trailer, and a handyman tinkering with a car on the property also gave himself up without resistance. But Mallory, who preferred to sleep in the house, was nowhere to be seen.

Deputies approached the house, and what happened next is where things get murky. The deputies said they announced their presence upon entering and were met in the hallway by the 80-year-old man, wielding a gun and stumbling towards them. The deputies later changed the story when the massive bloodstains on Mallory's mattress indicated to investigators that he'd most likely been in bed at the time of the shooting. Investigators also found that an audio recording of the incident revealed a discrepancy in the deputies' original narrative: Before listening to the audio recording, [Sgt. John] Bones believed that he told Mallory to "Drop the gun" prior to the shooting. The recording revealed, however, that his commands to "Drop the gun" occurred immediately after the shooting.

When it was all over, Eugene Mallory died of six gunshot wounds from Sgt. John Bones' MP-5 9mm submachine gun. When a coroner arrived, he found the loaded .22 caliber pistol the two deputies claimed Mallory had pointed at them on the bedside table.

Mallory had not fired of a single shot. The raid turned up no evidence of methamphetamine on the property.