Memphis Police Body Count

Memphis police officers shot and killed another black man. The most recent of six victims in 2012 was Christian Freeman, 19, a paranoid schizophrenic. He was killed on June 12 about 1:40 a.m. behind FedExForum near Fourth and Beale. Police claim Freeman charged at two officers with a knife and they shot him to death. That was Freeman's second encounter with police. He spent a month in a mental health ward after allegedly yelling and making obscene gestures at police officers in April 2012 at Fourth and Beale. Freeman's uncle in Texas, Todd Jones, said police should have tried to incapacitate and restrain Freeman rather than shooting him. Memphis Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is used as a model for intervention services regarding arrests of mentally ill people in crisis, but Memphis police do not use it.

In response to police violence in Memphis, a demonstration is planned for Saturday, September 8. Marchers will meet at 10:00 a.m. at the FedExForum and march to City Hall where they plan to have a rally. The Neal family is thankful that protest organizers from the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation are making people aware of the secret arrest and murder of Larry Neal, a 54-year-old schizophrenic heart patient who died in Shelby County Jail on August 1, 2003. See the protest announcement at the end of this article. Larry was secretly arrested, held 18 days in jail while police falsely denied having him incarcerated, and he was murdered under circumstances that the jail and the United States Department of Justice colluded with The Johnnie Cochran Firm to keep secret. Many other officials and the media participate in the murder cover-up that has continued for over nine years and through two lawsuits against The Cochran Firm for defrauding the Neal family to help Shelby County Jail escape accountability.

THE SECRET MURDER OF MENTALLY ILL INMATE IN SHELBY COUNTY JAIL

African Americans need to know about the new modus operandi of The Cochran Firm, a CoIntelPro program that defrauds grieving black families in Johnnie Cochran's name. During the Neal's second lawsuit against the firm, defendants claimed there is no Cochran Firm office whatsoever in Memphis. During the first lawsuit, defendants claimed there is no Cochran Firm office at all within the State of Georgia. Judges dismissed both the Neal family's lawsuits and prevented evidence of the lawyers' fraud from going to jury. The Neals' next lawsuit will be against the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ), et al., for helping to cover up Larry Neal's murder and allowing or doing censorship and terrorism to prevent disclosure about Larry's murder and to stop advocacy for justice for America's mentally ill. After the Neal family announced the lawsuit against the USDOJ, our home in Stone Mountain, Georgia was burglarized on August 11. The only things stolen were original Neals v. The Cochran Firm court records and evidence that Larry's family was prevented from presenting to a jury in the cases against The Cochran Firm, but we have backups for most of the records that were stolen.

Like Christopher Freeman, police in Memphis may believe Larry got off light when he spat on a nurse during a blood pressure examination two weeks before he "went missing." Larry was arrested for assaulting the nurse, then released to his social worker's care. A couple of weeks later, Larry was arrested secretly, kept from his vital heart medications by lying to his family and social worker, and then killed. One would hope, therefore, that Christopher Freeman was not actually killed for his conduct during his April crisis when he yelled and made obscene gestures at police officers. In 2006, an attorney filed lawsuits on behalf of numerous mentally ill black people who police brutalized or killed in Memphis, but the attorney had a heart attack and the cases were apparently stalled. This writer is sure there have been many other murders and brutality against the mentally ill since the three cases copied below from the WRONGFUL DEATH OF LARRY NEAL website at  http://www.wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/updates/updates03.html  It is challenging getting attorneys to file lawsuits after police-related deaths and abuses in Memphis, probably because law officials there have brutality insurance through the United States Department of Justice and are allowed to kill blacks and mentally ill people.

MORE BRUTALITY AND MURDERS OF THE MENTALLY ILL IN MEMPHIS

Jannie J. Williams, surviving mother of Kelvin A. Williams, Deceased, v. City of Memphis, et al. Filed 12/5/2006.  This case involves the death of a mentally ill adult while in custody. The lawsuit claims, in essence, that Kelvin Williams was assaulted by police officer(s). The assault continued after being taken into custody while on the way to the hospital in the back of an ambulance. Williams subsequently died of his injuries.

Willie Hester, Jr., by his next friend and mother Joyce D. Hester v. City of Memphis, et al. Filed 7/3/2006. This case involves the shooting of a mentally ill adult by Memphis police. Hester was shot 21 times, some of the bullets entering his body from the bottom of his feet and some from his buttocks. The lawsuit also alleges that Hester was not properly treated and medicated while at the Shelby County jail; Hester was transferred to the jail after three months in ICU.

Braxton Korvacea Moore, by his next friend and mother, Janie Moore, v. County of Shelby, et al. Filed 12/5/2006. This case involves the treatment, or lack thereof, of Braxton Moore, a mentally ill retarded child, while he was housed at the Juvenile Court Detention Facility and at the Shelby County Jail. The lawsuit claims Braxton was not properly treated, cared for, and supervised while he was incarcerated (with adults). The lawsuit also claims that Braxton did not receive his proper medications while he was incarcerated.

For information about the demonstration in against police brutality in Memphis on September 8, email   organize.the.hood@gmail.com or call (901)337-2492  . See an article announcing the march and rally organized by Memphis Black Autonomy Federation:

(Memphis, Tenn.) – A woman and a teen-aged girl killed in a car crash caused by a Memphis police officer were the victims of just another form of police brutality, say the organizers of a protest on Sept. 8.

“We will march and rally this coming Saturday to protest the deaths of Delores Epps and Mackala Ross, and the cover-ups of the deaths of the six black men who were shot to death by Memphis police officers or who died in police custody, ” said JoNina Abron-Ervin, acting chair of the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation, which is organizing the march and rally.

The march will assemble starting at 10 a.m. in front of the Fed Ex Forum in downtown Memphis. At 11 a.m., the marchers will proceed to Memphis City Hall, 125 N. Main St., for a rally. Speakers at the rally will include some of the family members of the six men who were killed.

Epps, 54, and Ross, 13, of Senatobia, Miss., died on Aug. 26 as the result of a car crash caused by Memphis police officer Alex Beard. According to witnesses, Beard was speeding at the time of the crash. He ignored police regulations to use the flashing lights and the siren on his car when he hit a car driven by Michael Ross, the father of Mackala Ross. Michael Ross was critically injured and remains in the hospital. A fourth passenger was treated and released. Beard, who has been suspended with pay, suffered minor injuries.

This is the third time in five years that Memphis police officers have caused a car crash that killed innocent bystanders. “Beard's criminal negligence is inexcusable, as is the police department's continuing failure to properly train officers how to chase suspects without endangering the public,” Abron-Ervin said.

About 360 people in the United States are killed annually in police chases, according to a 2010 report by USA Today, which cited figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The total number of deaths caused each year by police chases is likely three or four times higher than what is reported because police departments are not required to report deaths in pursuits, the USA Today report said.

The Memphis Black Autonomy Federation has compiled a special report, “The Body Count,” that calls into question the accounts provided by Memphis police of the deaths of Jermie McCraven, 20, William Howlett, 41, Dewayne Bailey, 38, Christian Freeman, 19, Hernandez Dowdy, 36, and Lorenzo Davis, 28. The six men died between Feb. 10 and July 3 of this year.

McCraven, Bailey, Freeman, and Dowdy were shot to death while being chased by police. The four men were killed in violation of a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlaws police from shooting fleeing felons in Tennessee, Abron-Ervin said.

Howlett and Davis were alive when police arrested them but died later under suspicious circumstances, according to “The Body Count.” The report maintains that the police beat the two men to death after arresting them.

The march and rally will also protest the death of Chavis Carter, whom Jonesboro, Ark, police claim killed himself while handcuffed following his arrest. [Thanks to the media blackout regarding numerous lawsuits against The Cochran Firm by its defrauded clients, Carter's mother is now "represented" by the backstabbers.]
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Congratulations to the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation for organizing a march and rally to protest police brutality. Many people think the Internet can be used to protest government and judicial corruption, and it could be except for cyberstalkers who are hired to contain information and protests regarding crimes against humanity in America. Protected murders are kept out of mainstream media reports, also. This writer has found that the only effective way to communicate about covered-up crimes is to take it to the streets.

Mary Neal protests the media blackout surrounding The Cochran Firm's continuous
 frauds against Africans in America to help police departments escape accountability
after brutalizing or killing black people