Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The negative reviews are a testament to readers trying to prevent others from accessing this information and forming their own opinions. Living on the East Coast, we know Diallo Amadou, and Sean Bell were NOT criminals. Someone stated that they "went" to law school, well I am in "law school" and neither you nor I are lawyers. I have never witnessed a police shooting period, at least I will say that truthfully. But I am curious. Oh I did see someone thrown out of an 18th floor window in Weequaic Section of Newark in the 80's..the body passed by my 10th floor bedroom window and traumatized me. The Newark cops were after a drug dealer, (yes notice that unlike you people I give the truthful facts) that was in the 80's I just happened to mention it to an old cop in Newark and he informed me that the guy lived and is in a wheelchair (2010.) So the deal was tell us your supplier or out the window. Now,in those third world countries you like to put down? as barbaric, that is how they handle their law enforcement. I am not interested in left or right wing talk. The subject is police brutality in America, and I am going to buy the book just to be defiant and free from your repressive propaganda.

I don't do "parties" sheeples. And I do support the right to bear arms for every citizen. I have not read the book yet, I will rate when I do, but I had to rate it to write this intent.

Kaylyn Cotton-Dobie, 34, murdered by two Reno police officers on March 24, 1999. Kaylyn was my ex-husband's sister and I knew her very well - since she was a teenager. Facts about Kaylyn: she joined the military after high school with her boyfriend on the "buddy" system. They subsequently married and had a daughter. Her husband decided he didn't want to be married anymore and they divorced. Kaylyn was smart, funny, thoughtful, hardworking and a devoted mother. She was not a criminal, she was not violent and she was not suffering from a mental condition - she had an argument with one of her neighbors that was loud and the police were called. They shot her in the kitchen of her apartment, in front of her daughter. Point blank in the chest. What we believe happened is she made a sudden movement and the police shot her - the story given to the press was a cover up. The stab wounds to the police officers were supposedly superficial, not even requiring stitches...I don't believe for a second they received anything more than scratches, if that. When I tried to get answers from the Reno police they kept reading me the Department's Public Relations story. Kaylyn's MURDER is included in this book.

No research has gone into this book. Yes, there are many cases of over excess by the US police force, and I say this as an Englishman. However:

http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2515&mforum=board77

Twenty seconds on the internet gives me over 100 hits for "Arturo Reyes Torres": Here are the highlights:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/407750.stm
http://www.usatoday.com/money/mds021.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/guns_in_america/html/wp_shooting_orange.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991103/aponline013603_000.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/12/26/national/main259754.shtml

It even made the China Daily, if you go a few pages in.

Of particular interest were these:
http://www.vpc.org/ak47.htm
http://www.vpc.org/studies/wgun971218.htm

I'm sure many cases were OTT as we come to expect from the US response to many things, but to not research a book like this, knowing that it can hurt people, is just as bad as as killings themselves.

You know, lives are always affected by a killing, often more than the person who was killed. It's a shame the compilers of this book didn't think of that first.

The funny thing about this book is, three years ago I would have believed every single word. Now I know better. The man who shot my friends father, and killed three of his friends is in this book. If his life was justifiably taken, then how many others in this book were as well.

It is a noble thing to point out injustice, but it does no service to anyone, INCLUDING and especially the victims, to not have researched the facts beforehand. A list of names means nothing if it is not well researched. This book was most definitely NOT well researched.

The authors should be ashamed. They have done more harm than good, both for people who want to know the truth, and for people who really have been victims of police brutality.

This book is an important resource that documents the rampant police brutality that exists in the United States. It's full of hard data and personal stories that you can't get anywhere else. It brings me to tears and gives me strenth to fight injustice everytime I read it.

What a deceitful book.

I'm a cop featured in this book.

If my story is here, this book is not based in fact.

My story says... http://stolenlives.org/read/index.php?action=show§ion=area_washington_state.xml&display=WASHINGTON+STATE&area=51

November 25, 1998. Lakewood:
Mr. Lambertsen was shot by Pierce County Sheriff's Deputy Joe McDonald. He died at the hospital. Authorities claim Mr. Lambertsen's wife called 911 to report that her husband was threatening to shoot himself and police with his shotgun. Police arrived and shot him, claiming he refused to drop the shotgun and aimed it at the officers. The prosecutor ruled the shooting justifiable. Mr. Lambertsen is survived by his wife, Sue Marie Lambertsen

The call came out as a suspect armed with a shotgun was threatening his pregnant wife with a shotgun. His small child was also present. His wife is the one who called.

As the police were enroute he advised his neighbors he was going to "shoot it out" with the police and to stay in their homes.

The short of it is, is that he advanced on me and another officer after we arrived. We were 50 yards from his mobile home when he exited with his shotgun pointed at us.

My partner yelled at him to drop his weapon.

We retreated to cover. When he continued advancing on our enclosed position with his shotgun still pointed toward us I fired once stopping him.

Brutality on my part....I think not.

I know of the other incidents in this book involving my department and they are similarly unfairly included in this book.

There are as the saying goes "bad apples" but please do some research.

Anyone who has given blanket kudos to this book is one of the bad apples who now has no credibility at all.

This book is part of the problem not part of the solution.

Don't waste your money.

I only wish I had known this book was published when it was.

to the guy who wrote the comment "left wing lies" and how the violent "thugs" deserved to die. First off, the policemen are the ones who are the "thugs". They are the ones with the guns, night sticks, and pepper sprays. Your ignorant mind cannot understand that. The people that were killed didn't even have a weapon!! So how are they thugs??? The police are the ones acting like gangs, circling the victims, and beating them to death. I don't know what your problem is.....mabe your racist just like those cops so you shouldn't of even bought this damn book.
Anywayz this is a great book to find out the truth about what officers do.