A 22-year-old bicyclist said he was brutally beaten by San Francisco police after being pulled over for apparently cycling while using his cellphone to get directions to deliver food as part of his job.

The cyclist, Donovan Reid, says that on January 3rd he was delivering a burrito in SoMa when an officer pulled him over.

Reid briefly records the encounter using his cellphone camera, but the camera goes off shortly after the officer instructs Reid to put his hands behind his back.

The video cuts out and there isn’t any footage until two witnesses, including one of Reid’s friends, begins to roll their cameras.

In the videos, Reid can be seen on the ground and it appears that one officer hits him in the knee.

Reid says the officers punched him in the stomach and held his legs down. Donovan said he has hospital photos that prove he was injured by police.

The San Francisco Police Department has said their Internal Affairs Division is investigating the incident and the Office of Citizen Complaints has been informed.

Reid said he thinks the officers were aggressive and that “They should be terminated.”

He said there was “No need for that to happen. Not to me. Not to anybody.”

Donovan posted the following update on Facebook after the encounter, explaining what happened.

The robots might one day rise up and take over, but a Palo Alto startup called Knightscope has developed a fleet of crime-fighting machinery it hopes to keep us safe.

Knightscope’s K5 security bots resemble a mix between R2D2 and a Dalek from Doctor Who – and the system behind these bots is a bit Orwellian. The K5’s have broadcasting and sophisticated monitoring capabilities to keep public spaces in check as they rove through open areas, halls and corridors for suspicious activity.

The units upload what they see to a backend security network using 360-degree high-definition and low-light infrared cameras and a built-in microphone can be used to communicate with passersby. An audio event detection system can also pick up on activities like breaking glass and send an alert to the system as well.

Malls and office buildings are also starting to employ the K5 units as security assistants. Knightscope couldn’t name names, but tells TechCrunch the robots are being used at a number of tech companies and a mall in Silicon Valley at the moment.

While Knightscope doesn’t think its robots will replace mall cops or security guards in the near future, the company does see them as assistants to human security teams. The startup currently rents each five-foot, 300-pound K5 unit out for $6.25 per hour (or less than minimum wage). However, teenagers or others tempted to kick or push the robots over may be shocked to find the robots can talk back to them, capture their behavior on film and alert authorities behind the scenes as well.

There’s more to these droids than becoming our future security forces, of course. Stephens invited me to Knightscope HQ for a behind the scenes look at an integrated security network the company is working on. This network is able to monitor and report suspicious activity in real time in public places based on robot observation and could possibly be used to predict and act quickly in tense and violent situations (possibly even mass shootings), according to Stephens.

Take a look at the video at the top for the behind the scenes interview with Stephens and to get a better sense of what these robots are capable of.

Following the officer shooting of 26-year-old Mario Woods last week, San Francisco residents are calling for the resignation of Police Chief Greg Suhr.

During a community meeting on Friday, an outraged group of Bayview residents demanded that Suhr step down, after he said the cops who shot Woods in the neighborhood were justified. Video footage captured by multiple bystanders shows that Woods was actually walking away from five officers who had their guns drawn. When one of the cops moved to stand in front of Woods, the 26-year-old kept walking. At that point, the five officers opened fire.

Referencing a blown-up photo of Woods holding a knife with his arm outstretched, Suhr argued that the 26-year-old was a threat to the cops at the scene. He maintained the officers fired “in defense” of themselves and other people in the vicinity, adding that they first tried to subdue Woods with pepper spray and beanbag rounds. But the video does not show Woods lunging or making aggressive movements.

People at the meeting yelled “liar” and “murderer,” saying Suhr needs to step down. They pointed out that the officers could have found another way to disarm Woods, since British police successfully took down a man wielding a machete without killing him. Last year, 30 cops spent close to six minutes trying to disarm the man without firing their guns, which showed that dangerous people can be subdued without lethal force.

“You think we’re actually stupid,” Bayview resident Asale-Haqueenyah Chandler said of Suhr’s comments.

“You get up here [at these meetings] and you tell the same version of events,” said activist Adriana Camerena. “You tell a narrative that someone poses a threat. It’s the narrative you have to defend in court, but it’s a lie. So are you here to resign?”

An internal investigation of the shooting is ongoing. Charges against the officers are not on the table yet.

Wood’s shooting is just one of many excessive force cases this year. It may be the last straw for a community that has endured rampant racial profiling and police brutality for years.

Back in August, 14 officers forcefully took down a one-legged homeless man for allegedly waving one of his crutches in the air. In April, 23-year old Travis Hall was thrown out of his car and slammed on a concrete curb during an unlawful police interrogation. And last month, two officersrepeatedly clubbed 29-year-old Stanislav Petrov on the ground, following a high-speed car chase.

In 2014, four officers shot Alex Nieto 10 to 15 times, when they mistook a Taser for a gun. Nieto, a security guard, was carrying the Taser to work.

Police in the city also have a damning record of racial profiling. Back in March, the San Francisco Chronicle released racist text exchanges between five SFPD officers who talked about killing black people.

“I hate to tell you this but my wife friend [sic] is over with their kids and her husband is black,” read one. “Get ur pocket gun. Keep it available in case the monkey returns to his roots. Its [sic] not against the law to put an animal down.” Another said, “All n****** must fucking hang.” “N****** should be spayed,” read a third.

According to the California Department of Justice, black people in San Francisco are seven times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts.

From ThinkProgress.com

No one was inside  the home that authorities surrounded for more than 12 hours Monday in Desert Hot Springs, California.

Riverside County SWAT Team members entered the home in the 66-300 block of Sixth Street, but they did not find any suspects, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Investigators were looking for a suspect in an assault with a deadly weapon, but specific details on that incident were not released.

The standoff began at about 11 a.m. Monday and it lasted into Tuesday morning.

Earlier Monday, Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Michelle Ploesch said someone was inside a home with a gun. She said she did not know the suspect’s gender or whether anyone else was inside the home.

Authorities evacuated nearby homes shortly after the standoff began, Ploesch said.

For part of the afternoon, an officer on a megaphone warned occupants that the home was surrounded and told someone inside to “come out with your hands up.” A police helicopter circled overhead.

At that time, Desert Hot Springs resident Cece Worshan believed at least two children — her twin 2-year-old niece and nephew — were inside the house police are surrounding. Worshan said a woman who lives in the house was watching her niece and nephew.

“I’m upset about this,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

Richard Burkett lives across the street from the home police had surrounded. He believes a large family lives there.

“They’re really nice people,” Burkett said. “We’re more rowdy than they are.”

Burkett said he saw police with guns trained on the home before an officer asked him to leave the area.

By 6 p.m., Sixth Street residents began to wander past their street, wondering if they could return to their homes. Several Desert Hot Springs High School students said they were looking for families who had been evacuated, because their families wanted to offer them shelter.

As the evening progressed, several SWAT vehicles, an ambulance and a fire truck arrived at the scene. Law enforcement surrounded the house and a police helicopter returned to circle the scene. Neighbors began to gather at Sixth Street and Cactus Drive to observe.

Officers began repeating the call for occupants to exit the house around 9:30 p.m., announcing that they had a search warrant. No one left the house.

Over the next hour, officers threw three flash-bang grenades — weapons that stun but don’t seriously injure people nearby — toward the house. They sent a robotic vehicle inside. Finally, around 10:30 p.m., they struck the fence with a battering ram.

The Alameda County sheriff launched an investigation Friday after a video showing two deputies tackling and beating a man on the ground in San Francisco’s Mission District went public, raising questions whether there was an excessive use of force.

The San Francisco Public Defender’s office released the video Friday night after witnesses to the arrest contacted them with concerns. Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the two deputies clearly used excessive force in an encounter that was “reminiscent of Rodney King.”

The video shows the deputies chasing after a man at the corner of Clinton Park and Stevenson Street at about 2:05 a.m. Thursday. One deputy jumps on the man, knocking him down, and goes on to punch him twice while he was still on the ground.

He gets off as the second deputy pulls out his baton, and uses it to strike the man on the head. The video jumps 10 seconds to both deputies using their batons on the man as he struggled on his knees and screamed for help.

The video jumps once more to show the man on his knees with his hands on his head, and one deputy pushing him to the ground so he and the other deputy could continue hitting him with their batons.

Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, said the encounter captured on video was the culmination of a 38-minute car chase from the East Bay.

Deputies approached the man, who was sitting in a reportedly stolen car in the parking lot of the Travelers Inn on Foothill Boulevard in San Leandro, about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Nelson said.

The man, who Nelson did not identify Friday, then used the car to ram two patrol cars, knocking down and injuring one deputy.

With one patrol car disabled, the second deputy was able to get into the other damaged patrol car and start the pursuit.

“Then we start on a 38-minute chase that went from San Leandro, to Oakland, through the streets of Oakland, onto the freeway, over the Bay Bridge and through downtown San Francisco and finally onto Stevenson Street, where the man crashes his car and gets out and starts running,” Nelson said.

Nelson said the deputies that chase after him believed the man was armed, and investigators later recovered a gun. Nelson said he did not know if the gun was on the man when he was arrested, or elsewhere.

The man was transported to San Francisco General Hospital for treatment, and has since been released and booked into custody at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

The deputies involved filed use-of-force reports disclosing that they deployed their batons, Nelson said, and indicated that they believed the man was on drugs and that they did not know what he was capable of.

“Unfortunately, the video doesn’t seem to be 100 percent complete,” he said. “We’re not getting the entire picture. With that said, the sheriff has ordered a complete and immediate investigation. We want to see if there is any other video, and if we can get the complete video without the breaks in it, as well as any other body camera video that might have been in play by those deputies, the other deputies that responded or by San Francisco police.”

But Adachi said the deputies’ actions in the video are clear.

“From what you can see on the video, he’s turning the corner and they’re able to subdue him,” he said. “They clearly had him on the ground. He didn’t pose any threat at that point, and they are clearly using excessive force and trying to seriously hurt him when he was on the ground and subdued. I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t be handcuffed and taken into custody. The blows, after they took him to the ground, were excessive by any measure, any standard. It’s shocking to see.”

Michael Codero was shot and killed by LAPD cops

Responding to reports of someone disturbing the peace, police shot and killed a man Monday afternoon in the Lake Balboa neighorhood of the San Fernando Valley.

The deadly confrontation occurred around 1 p.m. on Skagg Street between Andasol and Encino Avenues, where the LAPD said the man was behaving erratically.

Prior to firing, the responding officers used non-lethal force, deploying a stun gun and firing a bean bag round, in an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation, but that was not effective, said LAPD Lt. John Jenal.

The man had a history of public intoxication and previous encounters with police, according to neighbors and the man’s mother.  Maria Luisa Codero identified him as her 34 year old son Michael.

The man never carried a gun, they said, and Lt. Jenal said he had no information on whether a weapon was recovered.  It was not immediately revealed what prompted officers to use force.

“He was a peaceful drunk,” Cordero said in Spanish.  Neighbors said he was usually friendly, but at times became obnoxious and combative.

The call that brought officers came from a neighbor who reported the man was physically abusing a woman on the sidewalk, according to LAPD Capt. Paul Vernon.

The caller, who asked not to be identified, was in her car when she witnessed the man “harrass” a woman and  push her into a fence, she told NBC4.

“She looked at me–we made eye contact–she said ‘help me,” said the neighbor. She said she recognized the man, and as she drove up and told him to go home, the woman ran away. The caller said she drove off thinking the man was going back to the house where he had been staying.

That incident was reported near the intersection of Andasol Ave. and Elkwood St.  The encounter with police occurred a block and a half away.  An LAPD helicopter also responded

Before the confrontation, the man had been staying at the house of Kim Romo, she said.

“These cops know Michael,” Romo said.  “They know he doesn’t carry weapons.”

At one point, the man fell down in the street, and had to helped up, according to Michelle Johnson, who called him a friend.

The man went to the backyard of the home of a Romo relative, and it was when he came out the gate into the front yard that the confrontation occured with the officers, Romo said.

“He staggered over toward the (police) car and they shot him six times,” said Johnson.  She said she witnessed the encounter, but made no mention of seeing police using the stun gun or firing a bean bag round..

Aerial video showed what appeared to be the body of a person on the sidewalk covered by a white sheet.

No officers were injured during the incident.

LAPD’s Force Investigation Division brought in portable lighting and remained at the scene well into the night.

A man views a memorial for a man killed by police on skid row in Los Angeles, California, March 2, 2015.
Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

Saying officer-involved shootings have nearly doubled since last year, the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission called Tuesday for efforts to help reduce such shootings and other use-of-force by officers.

Matt Johnson said the increase from 23 officer-involved shootings last year to 45 so far this year is an “alarming development.”

“I believe we can work toward vastly reducing the number of use-of-force incidents through extensive training and modifying our tactics,” he said.

Fellow commissioners, along with Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck, threw their support behind Johnson’s proposals, which include looking back on the past 10 years of shootings and use-of-force by Los Angeles police officers, along with the changes in training and policies that have occurred during that time.

Johnson asked for a comparison of Los Angeles’ officer-involved shootings and other uses of force with those of other law-enforcement agencies around the country.

He also suggested taking a look at how the department might use more non-lethal weapons, such as stun guns and beanbag guns, during interactions with suspects carrying knives or other weapons that are not firearms, and with those who are mentally ill.

Also proposed was an annual reporting of use-of-force cases that would contain information to help the Police Commission review such cases and create policy. Johnson asked that a final draft of the reporting format be presented to the commission in 30 days.

Johnson also called on the Office of the Inspector General to monitor and report back on the effectiveness of police training programs and to create an audit plan for the department’s use of body cameras.

These steps “will be tools to guide us on how and where we can improve the department,” Johnson said.

“Once we have this information, it will be our collective responsibility — the department, this commission and the community — to use it to continue the reform efforts that began with the consent decree and to build the LAPD into the best trained, best equipped, most professional and most respected police organization in America,” he said.

Commissioner Kathleen Kim said she “fully” supports Johnson’s recommendations.

“In taking a critical look at use-of-force, it (Johnson’s proposal) not only aims to reduce uses of force for public safety, but also for officer safety, and I think that’s really critical to keep in mind,” she said.

She added she hopes “the role of race will also be looked at,” and that there will be a “fresh look and a critical evaluation of the legal standards and the policies in place” around officer shootings and use-of-force.

Beck said he has been guiding the department in the same direction outlined under Johnson’s proposal, and that it is “very heartening to see the commissioner and I share a vision of what needs to happen.”

He said it would be “a good thing to compare us nationally,” and also noted that while the number of police shootings has almost doubled, that number “is small compared to the number of contacts the police department makes.”

By Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou for DailyNews.com

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Sgt. Casey Day was skeptical. The chief of his rural Northern California police department wanted him to find out if an ancient martial arts weapon made famous in 1970s Bruce Lee movies could be used to subdue unruly suspects.

But it only took a few days of training with nunchucks to win over Day. The weapon — two solid sticks of plastic attached by a foot-long nylon cord — was recently added to the Anderson Police Department’s arsenal.

The department of 20 sworn officers about 200 miles north of San Francisco joined several other U.S. law enforcement agencies that use nunchucks as “less than lethal” weapons 20 years after their popularity peaked.

Day says the weapons have the impact of traditional night sticks but also allow trained officers to quickly bind wrists or ankles to control a suspect without violence.

“It’s a two-for-one weapon,” Day said, adding that it’s also easier to carry than a long night stick.

Law enforcement agencies were moving to adopt nunchucks in the 1980s, including police departments in San Diego and Los Angeles that used them to help break up chaotic protests at abortion clinics.

But the weapons started to fall out of favor after the LAPD agreed in 1991 to stop using them during abortion protests to settle a lawsuit. Three years later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a similar lawsuit by San Diego abortion protesters, but departments were beginning to embrace high-technology, nonlethal gadgets by then — or returned to the trusty police baton — to control crowds and suspects without using guns.

Sales slumped significantly once departments began buying Tasers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to Kevin Orcutt, who says he’s the only nunchucks maker for U.S. law enforcement agencies.

“The Taser slowed everything down,” he said.

He provides three days of training and certifies officers as instructors to teach others in their agencies how to use nunchucks.

Orcutt said he hopes to spark renewed interest in the weapon now that he is retired from a 35-year law enforcement career and is devoted full time to his Denver-based company.

He said Bruce Lee movies from the 1970s stirred his interest in nunchucks, leading him to train in the martial art of Jukado and earn a black belt. He got a patent for his version of the ancient Japanese weapon in 1984 and persuaded the chief of Colorado’s Thornton Police Department, where he served, to formally adopt it.

Denver police nearby soon added the weapon to its nonlethal roster, and officers there still use nunchucks. A spokesman for the agency didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Orcutt estimates about 100 departments across the country have an officer certified to train others to use nunchucks, but he is not sure how many officers carry the weapon these days.

He says he hasn’t sold many of them in recent years but is hoping to branch out beyond police departments to prisons and airline security.

“There is still a place for them,” Orcutt said.

A Bakersfield cop is no longer part of the police force after allegations that he mishandled and joked around with the corpse of a man shot by officers.

Sgt. Joe Grubbs confirmed that Aaron Stringer “no longer works here” during conversations with media.

Other details weren’t immediately released.

Stringer, a senior officer, was placed on paid administrative leave after allegations regarding 22-year-old Ramiro Villegas, who was killed last November after a car chase.

Human resources staff did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was unclear whether Stringer was fired or if he resigned.

Stringer is accused of grabbing Ramiro James Villegas’ head and touching his feet as Villegas lay dead on a gurney at the Kern Medical Center, according to a lawsuit filed by Villegas’ family in June. He also reportedly told another officer he “loves playing with dead bodies,” then laughed.

The officer said “tickle, tickle” as he touched Villegas’ feet and then pulled on one of his toes, commenting that rigor mortis had not set in, the lawsuit alleged.

TheVillegas family first filed a claim against the city in April and in June filed a civil rights lawsuit against the department, claiming Villegas was unlawfully shot by officers and that his body was then “desecrated” at the Kern County coroner’s office by the officer.

The lawsuit also alleged that Villegas’ killing is part of a pattern at the Bakersfield Police Department of shooting to kill young, unarmed Latino men. Police shot Villegas, 22, on Nov. 13, after he led police on a pursuit and crashed into a light pole.

A trainee apparently was so disturbed by Stringer’s comments that she reported it to her superiors, the family’s attorneys said.

Stringer holds a 2009 Medal of Valor for saving his partner during a shootout in which both were wounded.

A Northern California officer suspended for posting inflammatory comments on social media that were critical of vocal and sometime-violent police abuse demonstrations is no longer on the force.

A San Jose Police Sgt. Enrique Garcia confirmed Thursday that Phillip White no longer works for the department but declined to say if he was fired or resigned. White didn’t return a phone call.

The department suspended him on Dec. 15 after an online news site reported the tweets amid heightened tensions across the country between police and communities of color.

“Threaten me or my family and I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you,” one tweet stated with the hashtag “#CopsLivesMatter.” Another tweet said he was off duty, attending a movie and would be armed.

“By the way if anyone feels they can’t breathe or their lives matter I’ll be at the movies tonight, off duty, carrying my gun.”

Community activists demanded his dismissal and the department and the police union condemned the posts. The San Jose Police Officers’ Association didn’t return a phone call Thursday.

The Santa Clara County district attorney’s office looked into the matter but declined to file criminal charges. Nearby Menlo College where White was an assistant basketball coach cut ties with him.

White was a 20-year veteran of the department who taught gang prevention classes to elementary school students.

The San Jose Mercury News first reported White’s departure from the department.