Stolen Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement (2nd edition) [Paperback]

National Lawyers Guild (Author), Anthony Baez Foundation (Author), October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0967513626 | ISBN-13: 978-0967513621 | Publication Date: September 24, 1999

Stolen Lives documents over 2000 cases of people killed by law enforcement agents throughout the U.S. since 1990. Information includes the victims' names, ages, race/nationality, date killed, location, and a description of the circumstances surrounding their deaths. Some photos of victims are also included. The book includes cases from 47 states and Washington, D.C.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As recently as 199l, 5% of the American people (approximately l2.5 million people) and 9% of all people of color in this country reported in a Gallup poll that they had been mistreated by the police. Under the Police Accountability Act provisions of the 1994 Crime Control Act, the Justice Department is required to compile and publish regularly detailed national data on police use of force. Such data is not, however, available in any satisfactory form. That private organizations have undertaken to begin such a compilation is highly commendable. But that they should have had to do so is both a tragedy and an indictment of the government. The only way the American public will ever demand an end to harassment and unjustified killings by the police is if they know the full extent and nature of the problem. The Stolen Lives Project makes a valuable contribution to that education. What is required now is to put our knowledge to work to stop the police violence t! hat has made this project necessary in the first place." -- Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International

"It is somewhat difficult at times for me to talk about my son and the situation that happened to him. He was l3 years old when he was gunned down by a police officer in a complex where we live out in Brooklyn [New York]. This happened in 1994. There was never any justice done in the case. It's always been hard for me to understand why justice can't be done when the people who are being killed are innocent kids. Stolen Lives means a lot to me because it is keeping alive the names of those who died. These are innocent people who are being gunned down and something must be done." -- Nicholas Heyward, Sr., father of Nicholas, Jr., African American, shot dead at age 13 by a housing authority cop for playing with a bright orange toy gun in the stairwell of his building

"Opening the new Stolen Lives edition is like uncovering a mass grave. This book is our declaration: BASTA YA, NO MORE!" -- Carl Dix in Revolutionary Worker, 10/17/99

"The Stolen Lives Project is a good project. It helps people keep in line in the fight to stop police brutality. Police brutality -- a NO NO NO NO NO!" -- Chuck D., Public Enemy, in a public service announcement video announcing the Stolen Lives book, October 1999

"The new edition of Stolen Lives: Killed by Law Enforcement gives life, face and context to more than 2,000 people killed by police officers since 1990. The powerful and chilling book... is a stark... documentation of circumstances surrounding the deaths of individuals killed by police officers. Reading this book resurrects these lives briefly and makes painfully clear the price paid first by those killed, but ultimately by all Americans, when we allow those hired to serve and protect to abuse their power and our trust. The victims of Stolen Lives cross race, gender, religion, geography and circumstance. Unknown to one another and to most of us in life, in death they speak with one voice. Their message is a simply one: No more lives should be lost as a result of police misconduct and brutality. The argument about how many rotten apples there are in law enforcement is absurd in the face of these stolen lives." -- Jill Nelson in USA Today, 10/22/99

"[Stolen Lives is] a large striking book...contain[ing] the pictures and short accounts of the deaths of 2,000 people killed by law enforcement in America, hundreds of them here [in New York City]. All but a couple of the victims were dark and the police were white and virtually none got into trouble until now.... Looking at the book yesterday, page after page of young dead, I was unprepared for the nightmare." -- Jimmy Breslin in New York Newsday, 10/13/99

"[Stolen Lives] provides important and compelling exposure of the nationwide epidemic of police brutality and murder. Speaking through the pages, [my son] Justin and more than 2,00 others who have been killed, our families, loved ones and communities under the gun tell their heart-wrenching and shocking stories. For people who don't deal with police brutality in their daily lives, this book of human tragedies shows that the phenomenon of beatings and killings by those sworn to protect us is more than just a 'few bad apples' or some 'isolated incidents,' as police would have us believe. As a mother whose youngest son has joined the spirits of these victims, I painfully relived Justin's unjustified killing...[in] each person's story." -- J. Andree Smith, mother of police brutality victim Justin Smith, associate editor of Daily Challenge, in Daily Challenge [Brooklyn, NY], 10/7/99

From the Inside Flap

Stolen Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement is dedicated to all those who have lost their lives at the hands of brutal law enforcement officers and to the families of victims who have inspired a movement to fight for justice and demand that police brutality stop.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 373 pages
• Publisher: October Twenty-Second Coalition to (September 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967513626
• ISBN-13: 978-0967513621
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,768,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very moving and important book, September 9, 2002

By 

Derrick Jensen (Crescent City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stolen Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement (2nd edition) (Paperback)

This book is a straightforward retelling of the stories of hundreds or thousands of people who have been killed by police in the United States. Many of those killed were nonresisting and unarmed. Many of them were children. The stories pile one after another, until the reader is moved to tears, and hopefully to action. I spent many days looking over these stories, learning about these lives lost--stolen--and it affected how I feel about the looming American police state.

33 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Judas Syndrome, January 20, 2000

By 

George Jaeger (I think I live in America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stolen Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement (2nd edition) (Paperback)

Peace Officer, a person emotionally sound with a desire to protect the weak from the more powerful and unjust people and to regulate the conduct of all people in order to level the playing field of life, utilizing the law fairly and equally.

Stolen Lives brings together information, that by it's numbers should make everyone act not just think about the tally.

In 1966, my first year in Law Enforcement as a beat cop, I worked with a senior patrolman who knew of a black couple living in an apartment in an exclusive white neighborhood. Each night he would drive by and put his spotlight in their window. After my last night under his training he told me why he was doing it.Later he shot a man under questionable circumstances, joined the fire department and retired. Last year 1999, he began a five year sentance for killing a petty theft suspect in a shopping mall parking lot as an ordinary citizen.

Throughout my career I was aware of seven killings where men in blue ran up and down the stairs at PAB talking to the Chief of Detectives, District Attorney and most importantly the City Attorney before restructuring the final account of the killings.

A thirteen year old boy playing with his friend running up the street ducking in and out of the shadows to hide when an enebriated off duty police detective fired his 44 magnum from his apartment porch hitting the boy in the head. While the child lay dying, the policeman took off with a friend and changed the barrel and firing pin on his gun and remained away on a fishing trip.

A black IBM executive killed running away from a police officer who always talked about capping, dusting and popin people and who with great pride would show you the dryed blood on his patrol car hood from the early morning arrest.

The seventeen year old shot in the back while wearing only a white t-shirt and levis and the officers coming to briefings throughout the day explaining their act while exhibiting their empty bullet belt loops like a western gunfighter.

The officer fired and repeatedly rehired who, no matter how far away his beat was, would always end up across town on a "man with a gun call" and eventually be the officer who killed the violent suspect, over and over again even when he was an officer in L.A. and had been fired there.

I could go on but the point is that as a civilian I watched as a mentally ill man on a roof was shot by an officer on the ground because he had a cork screw in his hand. Just before going on the roof his sargeant said "if he comes toward me cap him".

In a Days Inn in Monterey California a kid was shot because he had a "stabbing instrument".I didn't see it that way.

The book is asking you what happened and what is happening?

At the end of my career I had never hit a person with a nightstick, shot anyone or physically harmed anyone and my Internal Affairs file was empty, yet I was a Viet Nam Veteran before becoming a police officer and was everywhere, Berkley, SRI, S.F. State and face to face with the Black Panthers and the Hells Angels during some of their most riotous times. I even followed, stopped and cited 217 hells Angels on a freeway with the help of the CHP without incident or even having one of the citations contested.

This book has made me think deeply about the repeated conduct all over the country and the failure of the establishment, out of fear of retaliation,to punish and make examples of these very disturbed police officers who kill people.

The book is an excellent example of what I saw go unabated during my career and the conduct is not new as much as it is spreading.

15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Documenting an Epidemic, March 5, 2000

By 

"asb2000" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stolen Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement (2nd edition) (Paperback)

This book is an invaluable resource for anyone who is dedicated to fighting racism, class oppression, and oppression in general in the United States. While we must fight extreme acts of racist terror such as nazi attacks, we must dedicate great time into fighting institutionalized racism such as police abuse. We must question why cops get off for the majority of murders. Amadou Diallo is a recent example of an obvious and disgusting case of police abuse. 4 white cops shoot 41 bullets into an apartment vestibule at an unarmed Black man and get off! This is ridiculous! This book adds to and builds the growing fight against police brutality in this country. A must have if you care about those peoples whose voices and lives have been stolen by cops out of control. Also see Amnesty International's current report on US police brutality and www.ACLU.org.