Two days after Bettie Jones was shot dead by Chicago police, it remains unclear why the 55-year-old grandmother of five walked to the front door of her West Side home, the spot where she became what authorities called an “accidental” casualty of a “domestic disturbance.”

But her daughter has a theory about the one-time crossing guard. She was “just being a good citizen,” Latarsha Jones told NBC News. “Trying to help out.”

Bettie Jones, along with 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier, her upstairs neighbor, who was also killed by police on Saturday morning, have become the latest symbols in a city roiled by anger over alleged police abuse.

Latarsha Jones and two of her sisters told NBC News on Monday that the events were “shocking” and “terrifying.”

Latisha Jones said her mother was probably just opening the front door for the police Saturday morning.

“She was probably thinking, ‘I’m going to open the door, let them in,” she said. “‘They’re going to go upstairs and handle whatever’s going on. I’m going to come back, close my door and get back in my bed.'”

Instead, Latisha added, “My mom wound up getting shot.”

Chicago police have said they “confronted a combative individual” just after 4 a.m. on Saturday. Friends and neighbors told NBC affiliate WMAQ that LeGrier — a college student at Northern Illinois University who was home on break — had recently shown signs of mental illness and was threatening his father with a baseball bat. When police arrived, they shot him seven times, his mother said.

His father, Antonio LeGrier, filed a lawsuit against the city Monday alleging that LeGrier was unarmed and “never posed a danger of threat or harm.”

Their deaths came just more than a month after the release of dash-cam videothat showed Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke firing 16 shots at 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Protests erupted over the city’s handling of the killing and whether the authorities — including Mayor Rahm Emanuel — tried to cover it up.

Chicago police released a statement Saturday saying Jones was “accidentally struck and tragically killed” and Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered the city’s Independent Police Review Authority — or IPRA — to examine the case. “I have asked that they determine the deficiencies in the current training, and determine what steps can be taken immediately to address them,” Emanuel said. “We will continue to ask tough questions of the police department, of the investigative agencies, and of ourselves, to drive the reforms the people of Chicago deserve and expect.”

The Jones family’s lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., assailed the authorities’ version of the incident, telling NBC News on Monday that “many” shell casings were found “down the street” from Jones’ home.

“That sort of activity certainly doesn’t comport with necessary and justifiable shooting when the shell casings are 15 to 20 feet away,” he said.

A Chicago police spokesman referred calls on the case to IPRA. A phone call to the authority on Monday was not immediately returned.

An Idaho rancher was “needlessly” killed by two deputies at the scene of an accident last week, according to family members present when he was gunned down.

Jack Yantis died Nov. 1 in a murky exchange of gunfire with two Adams County deputies along a dark, open stretch of highway. Yantis had responded to the scene after one of his bulls was struck by a station wagon after sundown. This much is agreed upon: at some point, something went wrong and Yantis was killed during an incident in which he and the two deputies all fired their weapons, according to authorities.

“In this case, I stood 10 feet away and watched two deputies escalate the situation and needlessly kill a man”

– Rowdy Paradis

But Yantis’ wife, Donna, and nephew, Rowdy Paradis, told the Idaho Statesmanon Saturday that the actions of police directly led to the death of the 62-year-old Council resident.

“In this case, I stood 10 feet away and watched two deputies escalate the situation and needlessly kill a man,” Paradis told the Statesman.

The family’s version of events begins with Yantis being informed of the accident around 6:45 p.m. An Adams County dispatcher told the rancher he’d have to go down to the highway and put down his 2,500-pound black Gelbvieh bull, whose leg was injured by the crash and who was becoming agitated. As Yantis was making the necessary arrangements to take care of the animal, the deputies began shooting at the bull, but failed to kill it, instead reportedly hitting it in the gut, prolonging its misery and causing the bull to become even more distressed.

Yantis finally got his .204-caliber rifle and stood about 2 feet from the bull, prepared to shoot it when “one cop turned around and grabbed [Yantis’] shoulder and jerked him backward,” according to Paradis. The rifle’s barrel was still pointed at the ground at this point, the family contends, though Paradis does allow that the gun may have fired, perhaps accidentally. A deputy said later that he had been grazed by a bullet, according to a family friend also present, who contends he didn’t see any “blood,” “torn thread” or “powder burn.” The official statement on the incident also alleges that one of the deputies suffered a minor injury.

That discharge prompted the deputies to turn their guns on Yantis, shooting him in the chest and abdomen, ultimately killing him, the family said. When Donna and Paradis approached Yantis, the deputies “threw us on the middle of Highway 95, searched us and handcuffed us, and wouldn’t let us go take care of Jack,” Donna said. Paradis said one of the deputies pointed a gun at his head.

During the incident, Donna suffered a heart attack. She was in critical condition for several days before being upgraded to serious.

The bull was left to bleed out on the road, and police ignored their pleas to humanely kill the animal, the family said.

The deputies were wearing body cameras, Adams County Sheriff Ryan Zollman told the Statesman on Thursday, though it’s unclear whether they recorded the incident. A dash camera in the deputies’ vehicle was not turned on, Zollman said. The investigation is currently in the hands of the Idaho State Police.

“I’m a transparent person, I will give you the facts when I know the facts,” Zollman told KTVB. “I’m not hiding anything from anybody.”

It’s the “Strippers drugged me!” defense.

The Linden, NJ, cop who drove head-on into a tractor trailer on the West Shore Expressway in Staten Island last March — killing his fellow cop and another pal — is now claiming he may have been drugged with a date-rape drug at the borough’s notorious Curves Gentleman’s Club.

The lawyer for allegedly drunken wrong-way driver and suspended cop Pedro Abad raised the Hail Mary defense during an appearance on his aggravated vehicular homicide indictment in Staten Island Supreme Court Thursday, the Staten Island Advance reported.

The blame-it-on-the-strippers gambit does not take into account Abad’s two prior DUI arrests or the tests showing he had a .24 blood alcohol level after the fatal crash — three times the legal limit.

Abad’s lawyer, Mario Gallucci, said his medical expert believes Abad may have been drugged without his knowledge with GHB, and wants to test the cop’s post-crash blood sample for the powerful central-nervous system depressant, the newspaper reported. Abad used a wheelchair during his court appearance, and his lawyer said he still faces additional surgeries.

Outside court, Gallucci suggested to a reporter that the practice of drugging patrons is a known risk at strip clubs like Scores.

Gallucci had repped another client, Jared Reifschneider, who also caused a wrong-way crash in 2012 after also getting bombed at Curves — and the lawyer said his expert may be looking into that as a case of GHB drugging as well — though Reifschneider has already pleaded guilty and gone to prison.

The charges against Abad carry up to 25 years in prison. The crash immediately killed pal Joseph Rodriguez, 28, who was in the front passenger seat.

Frank Viggiano, 28, another Linden police officer, was seated in the back seat and died a short time after the crash at Staten Island University Center.

Abad’s partner, Patrick Kudlac, 23, was seriously injured but survived.

Sept, 29, 2015. San Diego, CA. USA| The Hi-Lite Theater’s alley way where police shot and killed a manI.|Photos by Jamie Scott Lytle.Copyright.

We’re awaiting a decision from U.S.  District Judge William Q. Hays on whether he’ll allow the release of a surveillance video in the April 30 police shooting of an unarmed, mentally ill man in San Diego’s Midway neighborhood.

If it’s made public, the video will provide insight into the city’s official version of what happened versus the perspective of those who have seen the footage. Beyond that, the situation opens a window into understanding how police officers’ use of deadly force is judged and what might have been done to prevent something like this from happening.

Lawyers for the city have said that Fridoon Rawshan Nehad threatened San Diego police officer Neal Browder with a metallic pen that looked like a knife before the officer shot and killed him in an alleyway. But an employee of a nearby boat equipment business who watched the business’ surveillance footage said the video shows Nehad didn’t threaten Browder. The shooting, the employee said, was hasty and unprovoked. Nehad’s family shares that opinion and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.

These are the big issues to understand before the potential release of any video.

How will the district attorney decide whether to prosecute Browder?

San Diego police have forwarded their investigation into Browder’s actions to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who is still weighing the case for potential criminal charges. Her decision to prosecute will be based on a relatively straightforward precedent from two U.S. Supreme Court cases from the 1980s.

Law enforcement officers can use deadly force if they believe there’s an imminent threat of deadly force against them or someone else. Crucially, the standard is taken from what a so-called “reasonable officer” would believe at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight. In this case, for instance, it matters less that Nehad didn’t end up having a knife and more whether a reasonable officer in the same position as Browder would think Nehad had one.

“It’s going to come down to whether there was a reasonable belief that he had a blade and that he was close enough to use it,” said Phil Stinson, a professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and an expert in officer-involved shootings.

What was Browder doing before the shooting?

Everything that Browder did before the instant he shot Nehad has no bearing on whether the shooting was justified under the law. Again, what matters is what Browder felt at the time of the shooting and whether that belief was reasonable.

Browder arrived at the scene in response to a 911 call saying that a man with a knife was threatening people. The city hasn’t said much about the officer’s actions prior to the shooting. But Wesley Doyle, the boat business employee who watched the surveillance video, said the police cruiser’s emergency lights weren’t turned on when Browder arrived in his car, Browder stepped out of the car around the driver’s side door leaving nothing between him and Nehad and took a relaxed stance before suddenly raising his weapon and shooting Nehad.

Even if Browder’s initial decisions aren’t considered factors in any possible criminal case against him, it doesn’t mean they were good ones. Police departments around the country are beginning to recognize this concern, according to a recent report from the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum, and are considering holding officers accountable if they failed to de-escalate a situation before it reached a point where deadly force was necessary.

Video recordings of police shootings from across the country are fueling this change, the report said.

“In many of these cases, the officers’ use of force has already been deemed ‘justified,’ and prosecutors have declined to press criminal charges,” the report said. “But that does not mean that the uses of force are considered justified by many people in the community.”

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman has not indicated whether Browder did anything wrong, though she did change departmental policy to require officers to turn on body cameras prior to initiating contact with suspects – Browder’s wasn’t on during the shooting. Browder also returned to active duty in early June.

What was Nehad doing before the shooting?

By contrast, Nehad’s actions before the shooting are important in any case against Browder. It matters whether Nehad was a threat.

Here, there’s a major discrepancy between the city’s take and others’. In its response to the lawsuitfiled by Nehad’s family, the city implies that Nehad was rushing toward the officer. Doyle said the video shows Nehad was slowing his walking and might have even stopped completely before the shooting. The lawyer for Nehad’s family, who has also seen the video, characterized Nehad’s pace as “strolling or ambling along” and said he stopped before he was shot.

How much does the distance matter?

Probably a lot.

For decades, law enforcement officers across the country have been taught that a suspect armed with a knife could stab an officer before a cop could draw and fire his gun if the suspect was within 21 feet. At a May conference of police chiefs, department leaders worried that officers have used the 21-foot rule by itself to justify shooting and killing suspects who were within that distance. That perspective, the chiefs said, was outdated and needed to change in favor of promoting de-escalation tactics.

Still, in this case, the distance between Nehad and Browder is a big point of contention. The city claims Nehad was 10 to 15 feet away from Browder when the shooting happened. Doyle said the two were about 15 feet away from each other. The lawyer for Nehad’s family says the distance was approximately 25 feet when the shooting occurred.

It’s unknown if the video footage will reveal the exact distance between Browder and Nehad when the shooting happened.

What is not in the video?

By all accounts, the video is high quality and provides a clear picture of what happened. It is, however, lacking sound. This is another cause of dispute. The city says Browder was yelling at Nehad to drop the knife. The Nehad family lawyer says Browder said he didn’t remember whether he said anything before the shooting.

The video also will provide just one perspective of the shooting. Indeed, Zimmerman has argued the video should stay sealed because it’s one piece of evidence, not the entirety of the case.

Liam Dillon is senior reporter and assistant editor for Voice of San Diego. He leads VOSD’s investigations and writes about how regular people interact with local government. What should he write about next? Please contact him directly at[email protected] or 619.550.5663.

Vermont is currently the only state where zero people have been killed by police in 2015, according to The Guardian‘s police violence database“The Counted.”

Zero people had been killed by police this year in South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Vermont before September. But The Guardian reports that Richard Cosentino of Rhode Island and Curtis Meyer, Rory Gunderman, and Patrick Lundstrom of South Dakota all had fatal encounters with law enforcement.

Gunderman was white, Lundstrom was of unspecified Native American/American Indian ethnicity, and Cosentino and Meyer’s races/ethnicities are listed as “unknown.” All four were men. Meyer and Gunderman were armed with guns, authorities said, and Lundstrom was reportedly armed with a “blunt object.” Cosentino died unarmed in police custody.

“The Counted” tracks the number of people killed by police in the United States and breaks down each killing by a variety of demographics. The Guardian launched its database because the U.S. government maintains no such comprehensive database—a fact brought to light by the#BlackLivesMatter and Black Lives Matter activism that followedMichael Brown’s fatal shooting by Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson, and Eric Garner’s killing in Staten Island, N.Y.

The Guardian is not the only organization to launch a database tracking police-related deaths in 2015. The Washington Post maintains a similar database that only records the number of people shot by police, and Samuel Sinyangwe, Johnetta Elzie, and DeRay Mckesson maintainMapping Police Violence, where they issue monthly reports detailing the number of black people killed by authorities in the U.S.

by John Walker for fusion.net

President Barack Obama vowed Monday to push for police officer safety after a Texas sheriff’s deputy was gunned down from behind and shot multiple times at close range.

Darren Goforth, 47, was killed late Friday in the Houston area, and local officials have blamed ramped-up rhetoric against police officers in the United States in protests against perceived police brutality.

The veteran law enforcement officer “was contemptibly shot and killed over the weekend,” Obama said in a statement after he spoke by telephone with the deputy sheriff’s widow Kathleen Goforth.

The president said he offered his condolences to the widow. Goforth, a white, 10-year veteran of the force, also left behind two children.

“I also promised that I would continue to highlight the uncommon bravery that police officers show in our communities every single day,” Obama added.

“They put their lives on the line for our safety.”

Shannon Miles, a 30-year-old black man with a long criminal history, has been charged with capital murder.

“Targeting police officers is completely unacceptable — an affront to civilized society,” Obama said.

“We’ve got to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of the wife who won’t rest until the police officer she married walks through the door at the end of his shift.

“That comfort has been taken from Mrs. Goforth. So we must offer her our comfort — and continue to stand up for the safety of police officers wherever they serve.”

The shooting came amid a wave of protests against a string of killings of unarmed black men by police officers, most of them white.

Starting with the gunning down of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Missouri one year ago, demonstrations around the United States have condemned law enforcement’s use of deadly force and called for reform of the nation’s police departments.

The protests that kicked off in Ferguson renewed a debate on race and policing in America and led to reform efforts leading all the way to the White House.

But the focus on condemning cops also caused police forces to say they were being unfairly targeted, increasing their risk in an already dangerous field.

A recent report from USA TODAY reveals that high-speed police pursuits kill an average of one person each day, including small children, teenagers, and the elderly.

During vehicle chases, police sometimes run red lights at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. TruthVoice reported one such incident earlier this week, in which a police officer received probation for killing a man while driving over 100 miles per hour in a 35 mile per hour zone.

The report from USA TODAY is available below:

More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The bystanders and the passengers in chased cars account for nearly half of all people killed in police pursuits from 1979 through 2013, USA TODAY found. Most bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.

Police across the USA chase tens of thousands of people each year — usually for traffic violations or misdemeanors — often causing drivers to speed away recklessly. Recent cases show the danger of the longstanding police practice of chasing minor offenders.

A 25-year-old New Jersey man was killed July 18 by a driver police chased for running a red light.

A 63-year-old Indianapolis grandmother was killed June 7 by a driver police chased four miles for shoplifting.

A 60-year-old federal worker was killed March 19 near Washington, D.C., by a driver police chased because his headlights were off.

“The police shouldn’t have been chasing him. That was a big crowded street,” said Evelyn Viverette, 83, mother of federal worker Charlie Viverette. “He wouldn’t have hit my son if the police hadn’t been chasing him.”

Some police say drivers who flee are suspicious, and chasing them maintains law and order. “When crooks think they can do whatever they choose, that will just fester and foster more crimes,” said Milwaukee Police Detective Michael Crivello, who is president of the city’s police union.

Many in law enforcement, including the Justice Department, have recognized the danger of high-speed chases and urge officers to avoid or abort pursuits that endanger pedestrians, nearby motorists or themselves. At least 139 police have been killed in chases, federal records show.

“A pursuit is probably the most unique and dangerous job law enforcement can do,” said Tulsa Police Maj. Travis Yates, who runs a national pursuit-training academy.

The Justice Department called pursuits “the most dangerous of all ordinary police activities” in 1990 and urged police departments to adopt policies listing exactly when officers can and cannot pursue someone. “Far more police vehicle chases occur each year than police shootings,” the department said.

Police chases have killed nearly as many people as justifiable police shootings, according to government figures, which are widely thought to under count fatal shootings. Yet chases have escaped the national attention paid to other potentially lethal police tactics.

Despite the Justice Department’s warning, the number of chase-related deaths in 2013 was higher than the number in 1990 — 322 compared to 317, according to records of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which analyzes all fatal motor-vehicle crashes.

Many police departments still let officers make on-the-spot judgments about whether to chase based on their perception of a driver’s danger to the public. Officers continue to violate pursuit policies concerning when to avoid or stop a chase, police records show. And federally funded high-tech systems that would obviate chases, such as vehicle tracking devices, are undeveloped or rarely used due to cost.

While cities such as Milwaukee and Orlando allow chases only of suspected violent felons, many departments let officers chase anyone if they decide the risk of letting someone go free outweighs the risk of a pursuit.

At least 11,506 people, including 6,300 fleeing suspects, were killed in police chases from 1979 through 2013, most recent year for which NHTSA records are available. That’s an average of 329 a year — nearly one person a day.

But those figures likely understate the actual death toll because NHTSA uses police reports to determine if a crash was chase-related, and some reports do not disclose that a chase occurred.

Kansas, Michigan and Minnesota state records all show more chase-related deaths than NHTSA shows for those states.

“It’s an embarrassment,” said Geoffrey Alpert of the University of South Carolina, a leading researcher on police pursuits who has done numerous Justice Department studies. NHTSA records “are the only national database we have on these fatalities, and it’s been consistently wrong.”

The number of innocent bystanders killed is impossible to pinpoint because hundreds of NHTSA’s records fail to show whether a victim was killed in a car fleeing police or in a car that happened to be hit during a chase.

Analyzing each fatal crash, USA TODAY determined that at least 2,456 bystanders were killed, although the death toll could be as high as 2,750. The newspaper found that 55% of those killed were drivers fleeing police. They ranged from armed-robbery suspects to a 10-year-old boy chased as he drove a pick-up truck 85 mph on a county road before hitting a tree, killing himself and his 7-year-old passenger.

Injuries are even harder to count because NHTSA keeps records of only fatal crashes.

However, records from six states show that 17,600 people were hurt in chases from 2004 through 2013 — an average of 1,760 injuries a year in those states, which make up 24% of the U.S. population.

Those numbers suggest that chases nationwide may have injured 7,400 people a year — more than 270,000 people since 1979.

The uncertainty about the death and injury tolls obscures the danger of police chases, said Jonathan Farris, who became an advocate for pursuit safety after his son Paul, 23, was killed in 2007 by a motorist being chased for an illegal driving maneuver. “If the public understood the number of pursuits that were going on and the number of people who were being injured or killed, there would be a much better dialogue as to what types of crimes should be pursued,” Farris said.

(Video available below)

Police accountability blog Cops Caught on Tape has assembled a new video montage which appears to show a number of law enforcement agents throwing, beating, and assaulting people in wheelchairs.

From the video’s description:

Please note, there was one video in particular that would have shown the death of a disabled man. I elected not to show that portion, but use the original video up to that point, then used a still image and the unedited audio.

The video is available below:

In addition to the coverage brought to you by TruthVoice, we recommend readers follow Cops Caught on Tape for breaking coverage of police brutality and corruption.

A Chicago CBS affiliate shared new details in the case of Sandra Bland, the civil rights activist found dead in her jail cell last week after her controversial arrest.

The report says police claim to have found a litany of evidence that points in the direction of Bland having committed suicide, including a history of suicidal statements, wrist scars, and the presence of marijuana in her system.

Posts on social media remain skeptical of the police story, and say the revelation that Bland allegedly had THC in her system is a smear tactic used steer the blame in her death away from police, who kept her in their custody.

The original report is below:

Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis told CBS News reports he ordered an autopsy are not true, but a toxicology report revealed she had a substantial amount of marijuana in her system when she died. He also told CNN autopsy results indicate she had cutting scars on her arm.

The family has hired a medical examiner to conduct an independent autopsy, but the results of that autopsy have not yet been released.

Meantime, newly released booking documents reveal Bland told a deputy at the Waller County jail in Hempstead, Texas, that she once tried to kill herself within the last year by taking pills after she had a miscarriage.

In her handwritten jail intake form, there are check marks in the “yes” category next to questions asking if she ever felt very depressed, or if she feels that way now. In a computer-generated form produced a few hours later, the same questions are marked “no,” though both forms do show Bland previously attempted suicide.

Despite that, jail officials never placed her on suicide watch.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has found the cell where Bland died to be deficient and non-compliant with minimum jail standards. The commission said guards were not properly trained in suicide prevention procedures, and failed to observe Bland at least once an hour while she was in her cell, as required.

After she was jailed, Bland apparently called her friend, Lavaughn Mosley, and left a voicemail message, which was obtained by a Houston television station, but has not been independently verified by CBS News.

“They have me at a $5,000 bond. I’m still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this? I don’t even know,” she apparently said.

The Waller County Sheriff’s office has said Bland committed suicide by hanging herself with plastic trash bags, but Mathis has said it’s too early to determine if her death was a suicide or homicide, and he is treating the case like a murder investigation. Mathis has said he will send the case to a grand jury to decide the manner of Bland’s death.

The Texas Rangers and FBI are investigating, but Hempstead Mayor Michael Wolfe Sr. said he’s worried many people already have made up their minds about a case still under investigation.

“We don’t have these issues that are being presented in terms of extreme racist tensions,” he said.

Bland’s family and friends have said they don’t believe she would kill herself.

“She was making plans to get out of jail,” Mosely said.

Bland had been arrested on July 10, after a routine traffic stop became heated, when both Bland and the state trooper who pulled her over began shouting at each other, and Bland ignored repeated orders to get out of her car, until the trooper threatened to use his stun gun.

“Quite frankly, I’m disgusted that we’re even having a discussion about an autopsy, because she was pulled over for something so insignificant, and because of an officer who felt like maybe his ego was bruised, but when you tell me that you’re going to light me up, I feel extremely threatened and concerned, and I’m not going to get out of my car,” said her sister, Sharon Cooper.

Bland’s family said they won’t comment any more, as they are preparing for her funeral on Monday in Lisle.

According to a report from The Baltimore Sun, a fundraiser to help cover legal costs for the cops responsible for Freddie Gray’s death originally included a blackface performance. Original report below:

A Glen Burnie venue on Wednesday abruptly canceled a planned fundraiser for the six Baltimore police officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray after the scheduled entertainment — a former Baltimore officer singing in blackface — drew sharp criticism.

Bobby Berger, 67, who was fired from the city police force in the 1980s after his off-duty performances in blackface drew the ire of the NAACP, had said he wanted to revive the act to help the families of the officers.

He said he had sold 600 tickets at $45 each to the bull roast scheduled for Nov. 1 at Michael’s Eighth Avenue, where he and several singers planned to perform as guests dined.

In his performances, Berger impersonates Al Jolson, a white entertainer from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s best remembered for his blackface performance of “Mammy” in the film “The Jazz Singer.”

But after news of the event began spreading Wednesday, Michael’s posted a statement on its website saying the event would not be held there.

“No contract was signed with Mr. Berger,” the venue wrote. “Michael’s does not condone blackface performances of any kind. As an event venue, it has not been the practice of Michael’s Eighth Avenue to pre-approve entertainment that is planned as part of a contracted event. This policy will be carefully and thoughtfully reviewed.”

Berger’s plans drew criticism earlier in the day from the NAACP, the city police union and an attorney representing one of the officers charged in the Gray case.

Ivan Bates, who represents Sgt. Alicia D. White, called the planned entertainment “racist and in poor taste.”

“My client will not participate. We will not accept a single solitary dime from this sort of action,” Bates said before the show was canceled. “This is the type of racist behavior that we do not need and do not want.”

Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, called the show “disgusting.”

“Right now, with all the things that are going on in Baltimore and also with all the issues with the Confederate flag, this is just putting more salt in the wound.”

Michael Davey, an attorney who works with the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police, said the union was unaware of the event.

“We don’t endorse it. We do not support it, and we will accept no funds from anything involving this event,” Davey said.

The police union issued a statement Wednesday saying it has “much respect” for Berger and another retired officer organizing the event but does not condone “any performance representing the iconic racist figure that is Al Jolson” or any fundraising for the officers that does not come directly through the union.

Berger could not be reached for comment after Michael’s canceled the event, and it is unclear what will be done for ticket holders.

Earlier, Berger said there is not “one iota of racial overtones” in his blackface performance and that thousands of African-Americans have seen his performances and enjoyed them. He said he organized the fundraiser because he knows how it feels to be suddenly without a paycheck from the department.

“I’ve been through what they’re going through and I know they need the help,” he said. “Look at yourself as having a wife and two kids and a mortgage and school payments and everything that comes with it, and a guy comes up to your desk and says, ‘We’ve got to let you go.’ How do you survive?”

Gray, 25, died in April after suffering a spinal cord injury in police custody. His death sparked protests across the city. On the day of his funeral, rioting, looting and arson broke out.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby filed charges against the officers that ranged from second-degree murder to misconduct in office. All of the officers — three black and three white — have pleaded not guilty; trials are scheduled for October.

Berger began squabbling with the Police Department over his performances in 1981. The next year, a performance at a downtown hotel led to protests by the NAACP.

The Police Department ordered him to stop performing in blackface. With the backing of the ACLU, Berger sued the department, saying the order violated his right to free speech. He lost in court and was fired.

A federal appeals court later ruled in Berger’s favor. When the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, a federal district judge ordered the department to rehire Berger and give him more than $108,000 in back pay, legal fees and compensation for humiliation and stress.

After he rejoined the force in 1986, Berger said, he was given a desk but was denied a gun and a badge and given nothing to do. He sued again in 1989, and settled with the department for $200,000 more.

Scott Wagner, vice president of Michael’s Eighth Avenue, said before the cancellation that Berger was a friend of his late father and has a good spirit, and that he had decided to let Berger hold the event because it was intended to benefit families.

“Mr. Berger had a plan to help these families because he’s been through similar issues,” he said. “That’s what captured me.”