The County: the story of America's deadliest police
Police in Kern County, California, have killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015. The Guardian examines how, with little oversight, officers here became the country’s most lethal
Part one of a five-part series from The Counted
Seventy-five years after Kern County’s leaders banned The Grapes of Wrath from their schools and libraries, complaining that John Steinbeck’s new book portrayed their policemen as “divested of sympathy or human decency or understanding”, officer Aaron Stringer placed his hands on the body of James De La Rosa without permission.
De La Rosa had just been shot dead by police officers in Bakersfield, the biggest city in this central California county, after crashing his car when they tried to pull him over. He was unarmed. Now the 22-year-old oilfield worker lay on a gurney in the successor to the coroner’s office where Tom Joad’s granma awaited a pauper’s funeral in the 1939 novel.
Stringer, a senior Bakersfield officer whose plaudits for once saving a colleague in peril had been overshadowed by his arrest for a hit-and-run while driving under the influence of prescription drugs, reached under the bloodied white sheet and tickled De La Rosa’s toes. Then, a junior officer reported to commanders, he jerked the head to one side and joked about rigor mortis.
“I love playing with dead bodies,” said Stringer.
It was only the most remarkable act in recent times by a police officer in this rugged territory, where law enforcement officers have this year killed more people relative to the population than in any other American county recorded by
The Counted, a Guardian investigation into the use of deadly force by police across the US in 2015.
But this article hits home for me.
Coatesville was flooded with undercover ATF and undercover State Troopers to catch arsonists and the the Crips, Bloods and SUR-13 moved out.
I saw the graffiti, first the Crips on a barn on South Caln Road, Caln Township and in a few months Crips, Bloods and SUR-13 all over Coatesville & Valley Township.
The Coatesville PD "chief" who was a retired Baltimore Housing Authority cop was seemingly unaware of a gang problem in Coatesville. "Chief" Matthews proposed laying off 6 Coatesville officers one of them turned out to be a lieutenant, Matt Gordon:
Coatesville City Council February 22, 2007 Two hundred police officers and police officials attended that meeting.
District Attorney Joe Carroll, "I need Matt Gordon back!"
Joe was responding to Coatesville City Councilperson Kurt Schenk. Joe Carroll is a very easy going person. Joe’s hands were shaking as he said this. I have never before or since seen Chester County Joe Carroll as angry as he was that evening:
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FROM:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2009
Some previous actions of Coatesville Police Chief Matthews and Coatesville City Manager Harry G. Walker:
I saw the guy wearing the LA Dodgers cap.
Sustainable development lasts longer than all the profit that comes from drug dealing. I hope your Coatesville is doing better now.
ReplyDeleteI think the Chester County District Attorney's Office would have an explosive response if the new Coatesville City Council of 2018 tries to force out Detective Thompson and Chief Laufer.
Delete.