Last January, in Maryland, a man with Down syndrome was killed in police custody. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide but no charges were filed. An internal investigation - the sheriff is a Tea Partier and this isn't the first person his deputies have killed - clear the deputies of all wrong-doing.
It's been a slow process, but you can help us finally get an independent investigation and find out what really happen.
Here's the short version - please rec this diary so it doesn't vanish and go sign this petition. It has over 200,000 signatures and we're getting closer to pushing Governor O'Malley to investigate.
Below the fold, I have more resources.
Here's a list of recent articles (some of them mine) and posts on the case.
1. Heather Mizeur, a Kossack and progressive candidate for governor in Maryland, has championed the cause of better police training. You should go to her websiteand give her money, if you have the means.
2. CBS Local, ABC, and Yahoo! have all published pieces on the case lately. Share them with friends if you have a mind.
3. I have argued - most recently in The Nation, that this is not a story about disability. It's about the cult of compliance - the way the police demand compliance or respond with force. We see it in Stop-and-frisk, in the taser deaths, in the cases of police brutality across the nation, and in dozens of cases of police violence against people with disability. When police yell at a deaf man, and he doesn't hear them, so they taser and pepper spray him, we know it's a problem. You can read a lot more about this on my blog, especially here.
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