WATCH: Cops Kidnap 11yo Black Girl at Gunpoint—While Looking for 40yo White Woman

An 11-year-old girl is now terrified of walking out of her home after police officers held her at gunpoint and arrested her while searching for a white woman.

Cops Hold 11yo Black Girl at Gunpoint, Cuff & Arrest Her—While Looking for 40yo White Woman

An 11-year-old girl is now terrified of walking out of her home after police officers held her at gunpoint and arrested her while searching for a white woman.

Disturbing Video Shows Cops Mistake Innocent Man for Criminal, Beat & Taser Him 21 Times

Because he had on red shorts, an innocent man was accosted by Kingston police, thrown to the ground, tasered 21 times, and then arrested and charged.

Cops Accuse Entire Family of Robbing their Own Home, Hold 4 Children at Gunpoint

A mother, father, and four children were swarmed by cops, held at gunpoint and handcuffed after being accused of breaking into their own home.

Cops Mistake 15yo Girl Holding a Baby for a Suspect, Taser, Assault, and Arrest Her

All too often, police officers, while hunting down a suspect, will find the closest person to them and attack or arrest them. All too often they are wrong. Fitting the description, we are told, is how the officers justify the wholesale assault and kidnapping of an innocent person. As the following story details, even children are not safe from these violent mistakes.

If someone wants to know just how seriously Canadians take police accountability, the following story serves as an indicator. Two Ontario police officers were charged and found guilty of tasering two individuals in a case of mistaken identity.

Constable Kenny Belanger, a six-year-veteran of the Ontario Provincial Police, who worked out of the Kapuskasing detachment, pleaded guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice in Kapuskasing on Friday, to two counts of assault with a weapon.

His co-accused, Acting Sgt. Daniel Lafontaine, a nine-year veteran of the OPP who worked out of the South Porcupine detachment, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault.

Both Belanger and LaFontaine were arguably doing their jobs to track down a suspect, in her 20’s, who had stabbed a woman earlier in the day. As they were going house to house to locate the assailant, they came across a young man and his 15-year-old girlfriend.

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It just so happens the young girl had the same name as the suspect in her twenties, but that was the only similarity. As officers do in the continental U.S., they entered the residence without a warrant, and snatched up the young girl. It didn’t matter that she was too young to be the suspect, that she was holding an infant in her arms, or that both she and her boyfriend kept telling the police they had the wrong person.

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So disturbed was the boyfriend that he went upstairs to wake the girl’s uncle, who began to describe the girl had a heart condition, a fact her boyfriend may not have known. As both the uncle and the boyfriend approach officers again dispelling any notion she was the suspect, and declaring the teen had a heart condition, things took a turn for the worse.

Officer Belanger, without issuing the mandatory warning that he was deploying his taser, zapped the boyfriend. The teenage girl was also zapped, even though officers were warned of her heart condition. While she was laying on the ground, officers took her photo and sent it to the stabbing victim, who promptly informed officers she was not the woman who stabbed her.

Belanger apologized to the teen but then informed her she’d be arrested for “resisting arrest.” Does this story sound familiar to our TFTP readers? The number is astronomical as to how many times U.S. police deploy their tasers often with deadly results.

As a result of the officers’ actions and being found guilty of assault in a court of law, the two Canadian officers were severely punished, even though it was only Belanger who deployed his taser.

Belanger received a two-year suspended sentence with two years of probation, and was ordered to complete 240 hours of community service. He is also prohibited from possessing a firearm for the next five years.

Lafontaine received a two-year suspended sentence with two years of probation, and was ordered to complete 180 hours of community service.

It was demonstrated in their trial that both officers had lied on their police reports in an attempt to cover-up their actions on that fateful day in May, 2016. Belanger has to serve six weeks (at 40 hours a week) of community service, and LaFontaine must serve four and a half weeks of community service for his role (supposedly he knew his fellow officer was out of line and he did nothing). According to the Timmins Press:

It was also revealed in court that neither of the officers conducted a criminal records check in regards to the identity of the woman they were intending to arrest prior to the arrest of the male and female victims.

Also neither of the officers asked the 15-year-old female for her identification nor was she informed of her rights during the arrest.

The court heard the officers who grabbed the teen did not have a warrant to enter the premises, nor had not been invited into the house.

It was also noted in court that both officers had falsified details in their notes and incident reports in an attempt to mitigate any hint of wrongdoing on their part.

We applaud the Canadian justice system for taking seriously the notion police officers should be held accountable for their unlawful actions. When police officers in the U.S. are accused of breaking the law and/or violating police department policy, all too often, police officers are investigated by their own fellow co-workers. Not surprisingly, the investigation concludes the officers did not violate the law or department policy and no disciplinary actions are taken. When officers are later sued in a court of law, it is the taxpayers, not the officers, who pay the settlement fees in civil rights litigation.

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We can only hope for the day when officers in the U.S. are held accountable for their unlawful actions.

Cops Mistake Small Teen Girl for Large Adult Male, Beat & Sic K9 on Her

Bakersfield, CA – Tatyana Hargrove, 19, was recently assaulted by police because she was mistaken for a large man who was seen carrying a machete. Hargrove in no way matched the description of the criminal that the police were after, but they singled her out anyway, as she made her way home from a local store.

According to Hargrove, on June 18th she had walked to the nearby Wooden Nickel Trading Company on Ming Avenue to buy her father a present for father’s day. However, she found that the store was closed when she arrived. Hargrove decided to go back home but on her way, she stopped for a drink from her water bottle since it was a very hot day.

That was when police swarmed around her with guns drawn, asking her what was in her bag. When she asked them why they wanted to search her and demanded a warrant, they became aggressive and threatened her with a dog. She handed over the bag, which had nothing illegal in it, and yet the police punched her in the mouth, allowed the police dog to bite her, and then arrested her.

Hargrove told reporters, “He put his other knee on my head, and I told him, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ and I started yelling out ‘Somebody help me, somebody help me, they’re going to kill me.’”

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To make matters worse, after cops beat her and allowed their dog to maul her, she was charged with suspicion of resisting or delaying an officer and aggravated assault on an officer.

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However, in a phone call with the family, the police admitted that this was a case of mistaken identity. Additionally, arresting officer Christopher Moore said in the police report that he didn’t know Hargrove was a woman until after he had arrested her.

The person who police were actually after that day was a man named Douglas Washington. Washington was described as a bald man who was nearly 6 feet and 170 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white T shirt, dark jeans and a pink or red backpack. The man was reportedly wielding a machete and threatening several people in the same area of the store that Hargrove had visited.

Conversely, Hargrove is a young female that is just over 5 feet and roughly 115 pounds. She was wearing a white shirt, blue jean shorts and a black hat with a red backpack.

“She appeared to be a male and matched the description of the suspect that had brandished the machete and was also within the same complex the suspect had fled to,” Moore said in the police report.

Moore went on to claim that she attempted to flee and push the police. Moore claimed that he believed the whole time that she had a machete in her bookbag, which is why he said he believed he was justified in using such an excessive show of force.

The Bakersfield police have refused to make a formal statment on the incent. However, BPD Sgt. Ryan Kroeker did tell reporters that criminal charges have been filed against Hargrove and that they dont believe that the officers used excesive force. The department will not even be launching an internal investigation into the actions of the officers involved.

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NAACP Bakersfield chapter President Patrick Jackson made a statement on behalf of Hargrove saying that the family believes she was wrongly targeted and should not have any charges against her.

“It’s becoming more and more of a pattern. She’s never been in trouble before, and all of a sudden you’re a heinous criminal in two seconds,” Jackson said.

‘Don’t Shoot Me’: Video Shows Cops Hold 5 Innocent Children at Gunpoint for Playing Basketball

Grand Rapids, MI — Outraged community leaders in Grand Rapids are demanding reform after five African American youths aged between 12 and 14 years were held at gunpoint — for no justifiable reason — as they walked home from playing basketball. Pressure on the department by The Grand Rapids Press through a Freedom of Information Act request finally forced them to release the body camera footage which is nothing short of horrifying. 

As the Free Thought Project reported last week, original video of the incident, taken from far away, shows a number of Grand Rapids Police Department patrol cars descended on the scene, as officers point loaded weapons at the youths, order them to the ground, and eventually place them each in handcuffs — after a vague call to dispatch suggested a large fight in the area, and the possibility a teen was in possession of a gun. 

None of the young teens in question were armed.

“Now they’re saying they don’t like the police,” Ikeshia Quinn, mother of two of the teens, told WOOD-TV — intimating the boys did not feel ambivalent toward law enforcement until this traumatic incident. “They don’t want to be involved with the police. They should’ve been approached differently because they are young boys. They had basketballs in their hands.”

As the body camera footage begins, Officer Caleb Johnson pulls up to the boys and immediately points his weapon at them and demands they get on the ground.

“Get on the ground!” Johnson tells the boys.

Three of the children were so confused that they did not immediately comply. Luckily they weren’t shot.

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“Hey, get over here,” Johnson said, motioning with his arm. “Keep your hands where I can see them and get on the ground.”

“Can you please put the gun down?” one of the boys asked.

Another youth is heard saying, “I do not want to die, bro.”

“We are not about to die we didn’t do nothing,” another of the boys says to try and comfort him.

“Don’t shoot me,” one of the boys pleads with the officers.

The entire time, the boys are trying to explain to the police that they were not involved in any of this mess and they have the video to prove it.

“Calm down, calm down, it’ll be alright,” Officer Johnson says as he has his finger on the trigger of his police issued pistol as its trained on the boys. “They’ll give you directions, OK?”

As more officers arrived, the boys were instructed to stand up, put their hands on their heads, and walk backward slowly toward the car. They were then all placed in handcuffs while officers figured out they were assaulted with deadly weapons for the sole act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After being wrongly detained for 10 minutes, the officers then called the boys’ parents to come pick them up. When the parents got there, naturally they were shaken up and furious to find out their children had been held at gunpoint because police mistook them for criminals.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean no disrespect, but you all have to understand that’s my baby,” said Shawndryka Moore, mother of one of the boys, crying as she stood outside of the police cruiser with her son inside, as reported by mLive. “We don’t deal with police. I don’t have charges. We don’t do this. All this stuff that goes on in this world – I worry about my kids every day. That’s why I don’t let them go nowhere.”

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“We hate that it had to get to that point,” officer Troy Colegrove said. “We’re just doing our job because a lot of people out here have guns. We’re not saying that your kids have guns – we’re just doing our job,” Colegrove reiterated to the mother of an innocent child he just held at gunpoint.

Sadly, Colegrove is right. They were just doing their jobs — which requires the utmost attention to officer safety while acting in careless disregard for the citizens, even if they are children.

Although Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky and Mayor Rosalynn Bliss have since apologized for officers’ handling of the situation, fallout from the March 24 incident continues.

“The officers didn’t do anything wrong. They acted on articulate facts from a witness moments earlier who said he saw them hand a gun to each other,” Rahinsky said previously to The Press. “I think when the community sees what we’ve seen — with the body worn camera footage; I think they’ll have a different opinion. I respect their emotion. I think what we’re hearing is a lot of grief and frustration to systemic issues.”

A statement released by local police union leaders further exacerbated tensions between community leaders — who feel that if this incident represents standard protocol, change is imperative — and officers who see nothing of concern.

Local NAACP president Cle Jackson told local NBC News affiliate, WOOD-TV, “If this is protocol, in terms of how you detain and treat teens and youth, then there probably needs to be a change in that protocol.”

As mLive reports, this week the city announced results of a racial profiling traffic stop study showing bias in the police department who follows that very ‘protocol.’ Black drivers are twice as likely to be stopped by police in Grand Rapids than non-black drivers, according to a study done of 2013-2015 data.

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“The issue is not about having bad police officers,” LINC UP executive director Jeremy DeRoo explained. “The issue is there’s a protocol in place that is causing significant damage to the relationship between the people and the police department.”

He added, “No community can be safe and be effective for all people without strong relationships between both the police and the community and that’s what we really want to make sure happens from this incident.”

As there is nothing that these children can do to prevent further situations like this one from occurring, hopefully, this situation teaches police to use a little more discretion next time the profile a group of children. However, judging from their response — claiming they’re ‘just doing our job’ — that is highly unlikely.

‘Don’t Shoot Me’: Video Shows Cops Hold 5 Innocent Children at Gunpoint for Playing Basketball

Grand Rapids, MI — Outraged community leaders in Grand Rapids are demanding reform after five African American youths aged between 12 and 14 years were held at gunpoint — for no justifiable reason — as they walked home from playing basketball. Pressure on the department by The Grand Rapids Press through a Freedom of Information Act request finally forced them to release the body camera footage which is nothing short of horrifying. 

As the Free Thought Project reported last week, original video of the incident, taken from far away, shows a number of Grand Rapids Police Department patrol cars descended on the scene, as officers point loaded weapons at the youths, order them to the ground, and eventually place them each in handcuffs — after a vague call to dispatch suggested a large fight in the area, and the possibility a teen was in possession of a gun. 

None of the young teens in question were armed.

“Now they’re saying they don’t like the police,” Ikeshia Quinn, mother of two of the teens, told WOOD-TV — intimating the boys did not feel ambivalent toward law enforcement until this traumatic incident. “They don’t want to be involved with the police. They should’ve been approached differently because they are young boys. They had basketballs in their hands.”

As the body camera footage begins, Officer Caleb Johnson pulls up to the boys and immediately points his weapon at them and demands they get on the ground.

“Get on the ground!” Johnson tells the boys.

Three of the children were so confused that they did not immediately comply. Luckily they weren’t shot.

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“Hey, get over here,” Johnson said, motioning with his arm. “Keep your hands where I can see them and get on the ground.”

“Can you please put the gun down?” one of the boys asked.

Another youth is heard saying, “I do not want to die, bro.”

“We are not about to die we didn’t do nothing,” another of the boys says to try and comfort him.

“Don’t shoot me,” one of the boys pleads with the officers.

The entire time, the boys are trying to explain to the police that they were not involved in any of this mess and they have the video to prove it.

“Calm down, calm down, it’ll be alright,” Officer Johnson says as he has his finger on the trigger of his police issued pistol as its trained on the boys. “They’ll give you directions, OK?”

As more officers arrived, the boys were instructed to stand up, put their hands on their heads, and walk backward slowly toward the car. They were then all placed in handcuffs while officers figured out they were assaulted with deadly weapons for the sole act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After being wrongly detained for 10 minutes, the officers then called the boys’ parents to come pick them up. When the parents got there, naturally they were shaken up and furious to find out their children had been held at gunpoint because police mistook them for criminals.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean no disrespect, but you all have to understand that’s my baby,” said Shawndryka Moore, mother of one of the boys, crying as she stood outside of the police cruiser with her son inside, as reported by mLive. “We don’t deal with police. I don’t have charges. We don’t do this. All this stuff that goes on in this world – I worry about my kids every day. That’s why I don’t let them go nowhere.”

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“We hate that it had to get to that point,” officer Troy Colegrove said. “We’re just doing our job because a lot of people out here have guns. We’re not saying that your kids have guns – we’re just doing our job,” Colegrove reiterated to the mother of an innocent child he just held at gunpoint.

Sadly, Colegrove is right. They were just doing their jobs — which requires the utmost attention to officer safety while acting in careless disregard for the citizens, even if they are children.

Although Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky and Mayor Rosalynn Bliss have since apologized for officers’ handling of the situation, fallout from the March 24 incident continues.

“The officers didn’t do anything wrong. They acted on articulate facts from a witness moments earlier who said he saw them hand a gun to each other,” Rahinsky said previously to The Press. “I think when the community sees what we’ve seen — with the body worn camera footage; I think they’ll have a different opinion. I respect their emotion. I think what we’re hearing is a lot of grief and frustration to systemic issues.”

A statement released by local police union leaders further exacerbated tensions between community leaders — who feel that if this incident represents standard protocol, change is imperative — and officers who see nothing of concern.

Local NAACP president Cle Jackson told local NBC News affiliate, WOOD-TV, “If this is protocol, in terms of how you detain and treat teens and youth, then there probably needs to be a change in that protocol.”

As mLive reports, this week the city announced results of a racial profiling traffic stop study showing bias in the police department who follows that very ‘protocol.’ Black drivers are twice as likely to be stopped by police in Grand Rapids than non-black drivers, according to a study done of 2013-2015 data.

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“The issue is not about having bad police officers,” LINC UP executive director Jeremy DeRoo explained. “The issue is there’s a protocol in place that is causing significant damage to the relationship between the people and the police department.”

He added, “No community can be safe and be effective for all people without strong relationships between both the police and the community and that’s what we really want to make sure happens from this incident.”

As there is nothing that these children can do to prevent further situations like this one from occurring, hopefully, this situation teaches police to use a little more discretion next time the profile a group of children. However, judging from their response — claiming they’re ‘just doing our job’ — that is highly unlikely.