CFPDX

Learning and sharing with the local and global community about the complexities of migration, immigration, sex work and labor; and how criminalization fuels stigma, discrimination, prison populations the break up of families and even death.

[cfpdx]

Rape Jokes, Crotch-Grabbing, and More Allegations Against Seattle Sheriffs

One sergeant is accused of grabbing a coworker’s crotch. Rape investigators joked about pleasing themselves to victims’ stories. That’s just the start.

In this latest lawsuit, initially filed in April 2015, two former King County deputies and one current sergeant seek damages from King County for gender-based harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. The complaint specifically calls out the actions of @Sheriff Urquhart, Major Sean Ledford, and Sergeant Dewey Burns.

[cfpdx]

How Has the Male Escort Industry Changed Since Its Biggest Website Was Shut Down? | VICE | United States

Rentboy.com offered sex workers a way to vet clients and a community. One year on, escorts who used it speak to the ways the industry has changed—mostly for the worse.

Knight said that "there is no sense of community" in his industry now that Rentboy is no more. He misses the ease of promotion Rentboy brought to his work. "And they provided a sense of legitimacy and respect," he said. "We are what we are and we deserve respect for what we do. And sometimes, we individually have to fight for basic day-to-day dignity."

[cfpdx]

D.C. group condemns raid on nat’l escort site

An Oct. 6 raid on the headquarters in Dallas of Backpage.com, a global classified ad website for male and female escorts and the arrest of its chief . . .

In a statement released on Oct. 7, HIPS said online advertising sites like Backpage.com provide a far safer way for individuals who engage in sex work as a means of economic survival to find customers.

[cfpdx]

There's just one big problem in all of this: the charges are almost certainly completely bogus, and Harris and Paxton are flat out ignoring federal law on this matter. Specifically, they're ignoring the law we talk about all the time: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Mike Masnick 

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161006/23395935732/details-charges-against-backpage-execs-pimping-look-totally-bogus.shtml

[cfpdx]

This has nothing to do with people being exploited. It’s a political ploy,” said Kristen DiAngelo, executive director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project of Sacramento.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/07/backpage-ceo-arrest-free-speech-sex-workers-rights

[cfpdx]

Backpage CEO Arrest

“It was pictures of a young woman, scantily clad,” he said. “The verbiage said something about needing a daddy.” Pacheco said that ad, and others, contained words that law-enforcement officers associate with prostitution.

According to the minutes, Pacheco asked if that was the type of ad that should be screened out. McDougall, according to the minutes, said there were gray areas.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/10/07/attorney-backpage-calls-raid-charges-against-owners-stunt/91753226/

[cfpdx]

Backpage Arrests

A 16-year-old girl, identified only as “A.C.,” said she was a sex trafficking victim who used the website to find “dates.”

Many of those meetings resulted in her having sex for money, according to the documents. When asked if she ever had problems posting ads, the girl replied, “Well no, because how are they supposed to know that I’m underage?” Her ads were found in the Sacramento postings, according to the document.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article106967707.html#storylink=cpy

[cfpdx]

Since 2013, they’ve had 1,517 allegations of bias against the cops, and zero has been sustained. So essentially we’re all a community of liars

Hamid Khan, campaign coordinator for the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a group that has accused the department of racial profiling 

http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/09/14/64642/lapd-commission-calls-for-closer-look-at-racial-pr/

[thinksquad-deactivated20190405]

Police forces across the United States are stockpiling massive databases with personal information from millions of Americans who crossed paths with officers but were not charged with a crime.

A person can end up in one of these databases by doing nothing more than sitting on a public park bench or chatting with an officer on the street. Once there, these records can linger forever and be used by police agencies to track movements, habits, acquaintances and associations – even a person’s marital and job status, The Post and Courier found in an investigation of police practices around the nation.

What began as a method for linking suspicious behavior to crime has morphed into a practice that threatens to turn local police departments into miniature versions of the National Security Agency. In the process, critics contend, police risk trampling constitutional rights, tarnishing innocent people and further eroding public trust.

Law enforcement agencies have for decades used what’s known as field interview or contact cards to document everything from sketchy activity to random encounters with people on the street. But the digital age has greatly expanded the power and reach of this tool, allowing police to store indefinitely reams of data on those who draw their interest — long after any potential link to a crime has evaporated.

“They pose a different threat than the NSA. … But they can reveal a much more invasive picture of a person’s life,” attorney StephanieLacambra of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California-based digital-rights advocacy group, said in response to the newspaper’s findings. “The public should be concerned.”

Some 35,000 people — roughly equal to a quarter of the city’s population – show up in the Charleston Police Department’sdatabase for field contacts, which includes everyone from suspected killers to toddlers and 99-year-olds. One man alone has more than 1,000 entries to his name.

Nearly 35,000 people - equal to about a quarter of the city’s population – show up in the Charleston Police Department’s database for field contacts. Chris Hanclosky/Staff

If you want to know what’s in those files, it’s going to cost you. Even though these are public records under South Carolina law, Charleston police has refused to fully open them for inspection unless The Post and Courier forks over nearly $200,000 - a fee the newspaper is fighting in court. In other places, public access is blocked altogether and mired in secrecy.

In a first-of-its-kind review, the newspaper spent a year examining the field contact practices of the nation’s 50 largest police departments, along with some of the top law enforcement agencies in South Carolina. The investigation found a haphazard system with few controls and many concerns. Among the findings:

Police are collecting a bounty of intimate details from people during these encounters while often pushing to keep that information hidden from the public, hindering oversight.

Most law enforcement agencies hoard this information indefinitely, whether it leads to an arrest or not.

Police officers in some cities frequently fail to fully document their reasons for approaching and questioning people, raising concerns that the encounters violate Fourth Amendment rights against unwarranted government intrusions.

Privacy concerns are amplified by reports of police officers around the country misusing information from official databases to settle personal scores or help others do the same.

While some departments try to limit access to this personal data, others are sharing it with outside agencies. Maryland, for one, is working to create a statewide database of field interview information drawn from dozens of departments within its borders.

[cfpdx]

The law is not being applied equally. If these guys weren't cops, they would have been charged.

Leigh Davenport, a spokeswoman for the activist organization Anti Police-Terror Project

http://www.whio.com/news/national/activists-asking-police-will-charged-sex-scandal/SXqz0u8YjWSTTJuxkX8trL/

[cfpdx]

What we’re looking for in juvenile court is kids who are at risk for becoming involved in that lifestyle. And honestly, most kids coming through juvenile court are going to be considered at risk.

Holly McGinnis, a Caddo assistant district attorney who joined the office in 2014

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2016/03/11/diversion-program-offers-prostitutes-way-out-life/81102044/

[ahealthblog]

Exercise helps to protect areas of the brain from damage ➡ http://www.ahealthblog.com/regular-exercise-could-protect-the-brain-from-silent-strokes.html 

[postingwhileblack]

Prince William student handcuffed, suspended over 'stolen' $0.65 milk carton

Ryan Turk was has been suspended from school and charged with theft of his own milk.

As the result, we have another innocent Black kid with a juvenile record who will definitely have troubles getting into college or finding employment. Is it fair? NO. The system doesn’t accept Black kids who are successful and productive. The American society with the police at the head eliminates people of color by all means available.

Share this story, don’t let the police ruin Ryan’s life.

#SaveChildrenOfColor

[tiffanarchy]

Fuck public schools jfc

[cfpdx]

We will do all we can to detect, arrest, and convict anyone engaged in sex for money – both prostitutes, and Johns.

Chief Deborah Faulkner

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2016/04/30/four-men-charged-franklin-prostitution-sting/83743878/

[cfpdx]

When it comes to mourning has the media lost all perspective?

Has something gone adrift within the moral compass of our ‘news’ reporting? In the past week, 64 Afghans have been killed in the largest bomb to have exploded in Kabul in 15 years. At least 340 were wounded. The Taliban set off their explosives at the very wall of the ‘elite’ security force – watch out for that word ‘elite’ – which was supposed to protect the capital. Whole families were annihilated. No autopsies for them. Local television showed an entire family – a mother and father and three children blown to pieces in a millisecond – while the city’s

The 14-year-old boy in the black school jacket stared at his sneakers, his heart pounding, as the policeman accused him of stealing a piece of bread.

Even now, more than 30 years later, Choi Seung-woo weeps when he describes all that happened next. The policeman yanked down the boy's pants and sparked a cigarette lighter near Choi's genitals until he confessed to a crime he didn't commit. Then two men with clubs came and dragged Choi off to the Brothers Home, a mountainside institution where some of the worst human rights atrocities in modern South Korean history took place.

A guard in Choi's dormitory raped him that night in 1982 — and the next, and the next. So began five hellish years of slave labor and near-daily assaults, years in which Choi saw men and women beaten to death, their bodies carted away like garbage.

[cfpdx]

The Church’s Lingering Shadows on Sex Work in Ireland

Julianne Flynn speaks with sex worker Kate McGrew and members of Ruhama about the country's approach to sex work.

The Magdalene Laundries cast a long, dark shadow over the relationship many Irish women have with sex, transforming it into something shameful and guilt-ridden. While the last laundry closed in 1996, this shadow remains and is kept alive by a powerful force: Ruhama, an organisation for women affected by sex work.

[cfpdx]

Man Falsely Accused of Bank Robbery - TWICE -Finally Has Charges Dropped; 15 Million Dollar Lawsuit to Follow | Cop Block

Steven Talley has been dealing with a nightmare since being accused of bank robbery. Finally, after nearly two years, the charges have been dropped!

n May and September of 2014 there were two bank robberies in the Denver area that police were investigating. Steven Talley somehow become a suspect and after his ex wife stated to police that the robber in the video had to be her former husband he was arrested by Denver SWAT and FBI agents.

During that arrested Talley was beaten by police who were stating to him, “you don’t fuck fuck with the biggest gang in Denver” as noted in our original post in April of last year: