Slow Jam with Mayor John Giles > He's Got Talent!

. . . Giles just Jammin'
Watch him make all his smooth moves with the MCC Jazz Band hitting him up.

Published on Apr 12, 2016

Views-to-Date: 659 (as of 15 Nov 2018)

Mesa Mayor John Giles opens the April 2016 Mesa Morning Live show with a slow jam, performing with musicians from Mesa Community College

Mesa PD: Excessive Use-Of-Force Tactics-And-Training Under Scrutiny >Tracking-The Data

At the same time that a new report by a team of three reporters working for The Arizona Republic gets published two days ago, your MesaZona blogger just happens to have been reading a book by Special Operations Police Force-Trainer  and  Private Military Contractor (PMC) Eric Prince that was printed in 2014 - "Civilian Warriors".
While this new local report by the team of reporters is welcome, it barely scratches the under-belly of the beast:
both the out-sourcing of police training and the hiring of former military and private paramilitary special ops personnel
to protect-and-serve the public - Case in point not cited at all: 
The Killing of Daniel Shaver by a Mesa PD Officer.
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Blogger Note: This brutal killing happened on January 18, 2016 more than two years ago. It has somehow managed to be "under-the-radar" now while Shaver's widow and his family have lodged in a civil case against the City of Mesa for potential liability claims amounting to $75-$130,000,000 depending on what the yet-unsettled outcome could be.
QUESTION: A Culture of Cover-Up here in Mesa behind a Blue Wall? 
See this from not a local reporting source, The American Civil Liberties Union

'You're Fucked': The Acquittal of Officer Brailsford and the Crisis of ...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal.../youre-fucked-acquittal-officer-brailsford-and

 

Dec 12, 2017 - Two words stick in my mind when I think of the video of Daniel Shaver begging for his life before he was shot and killed by Officer Philip Brailsford of the Police Department in Mesa, Arizona. The two words were written on the dust cover of the AR-15 rifle Braisford used to kill ...

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Mesa officers rarely disciplined in excessive-force investigations, police data show

Uriel J. Garcia,Lily Altavena and Agnel Philip,

Arizona Republic Published 6:00 a.m. MT Nov. 13, 2018

An analysis by The Arizona Republic finds it is rare for Mesa officers to face any discipline in excessive-force investigations. 

Mesa has shelled out more than $1 million to settle legal claims that officers used excessive force in the past four years, but only 2% of 158 internal-affairs investigations into such allegations were substantiated since 2014.

The team of investigative reporters also  analyzed similar data for five other metro Phoenix police departments and found substantiated findings of officers using excessive force is rare. When it did occur, discipline ranged from written reprimands to suspensions, although Tempe police fired one of its officers after an excessive-force investigation in 2017.

Valley police departments?

Source: Internal investigations data (2014 to present) and AZPOSTGraphic by Agnel Philip

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Police departments track excessive force investigations, but the data is not reported to an outside agency. The data should be publicly available with a public records request after the investigation is completed.

Please take the time to read the new investigative reporting by Urial J. Garcia, Lily Altavena and Agnel Philip >

Mesa PD Excessive Use-of-Force Data Reporting

Ending Veteran Endlessness? NO > The Actual Numbers of Homeless Vets Across The Valley Has INCREASED in The Last 5 Years

KJZZ takes a look at a program called H3 in a two-part special report “Homes for the Brave,” to try to explore why.

Homes For The Brave: Obstacles And Outreach For Homeless Vets

By Claire Caulfield

Published: Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - 11:50am

Updated: Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - 9:23am 

(For some reason the writer uses former Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton as the whipping-post, but Mesa Mayor John Giles also declared publicly that vet homelessness is 'effectively zero')

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[PDFMesa mayor tells conference there are no homeless in city 

Source: https://www.josephvguzman.com/articles-page/

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Arizona Housing Coalition - PROJECT H3 VETS

https://azceh.wildapricot.org/project-h3-vets

 

Since Veteran's Day 2013, Project H3 VETS has engaged every known chronically homeless veteran that was on our streets or in our shelter system; over 56 ...

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According to KJZZ's report, those  working on-the-ground have a less-than-rosy view

of what either politician boasted about hyping-up a success story when they need one.

Advocates for homeless veterans across the Valley point to a myriad of obstacles faced by veterans when they leave the active service, many of which can lead to homelessness. The bureaucratic system of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is rigid, and even navigating the web of nonprofits and agencies offering help can be confusing. Add in an affordable housing crisis and fractured access to mental health care and advocates say it’s no wonder the number of homeless veterans has grown in recent years.

Phoenix brought national attention to the issue and used a “housing-first” model for those original 222 veterans.

“The housing first strategy operates on the premise that it is more effective to secure social services for the chronically homeless when they first have the stability of housing. . . . But Terry Araman, director of MANA house, a charity for homeless veterans run by formerly homeless veterans, said the model has some serious oversights . . .

Community Bridges Inc., MANA House and the city of Phoenix, along with 21 other agencies, nonprofits and organizations that provide services to homeless veterans in Arizona recently came together under a system known as “coordinated entry". . .

“We have finally said, ‘Listen, this is a community problem. We need to solve it as a community.’ And the only way to do that is to get everybody to the table,” Johnston said.

The magic of coordinated entry is basically just a giant spreadsheet.

In the first six months of this year, 998 veterans were placed in housing through this process. This is the first time this all efforts across the private and public sector were tabulated so there’s no comparable number.

. . . It's just that we feel we finally sort of figured it out and have better data to report on it,” he said.

Wright doubts the number will ever be zero

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READ MORE from KJZZ > Click here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Updates From Electronic Frontier Foundation

The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation.

FEATURED UPDATE

EFF Unveils Virtual Reality Tool To Help People Spot Surveillance Devices in Their Communities

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched a virtual reality (VR) experience on its website today that teaches people how to spot and understand the surveillance technologies police are increasingly using to spy on communities. “We are living in an age of surveillance, where hard-to-spot cameras capture our faces and our license plates, drones in the sky videotape our streets, and police carry mobile biometric devices to scan people’s fingerprints,” said EFF Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass. “We made our...

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THE LATEST

Press Release | November 13, 2018

EFF, Human Rights Watch y más de 70 grupos de la sociedad civil solicitan a Mark Zuckerberg que proporcione a todos los usuarios y usuarias un mecanismo para apelar ante la censura de contenidos en Facebook

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English version San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation y más de 70 grupos de derechos humanos y digitales pidieron hoy a Mark Zuckerberg que añadiera transparencia y responsabilidad real al proceso de eliminación de contenidos de Facebook. Específicamente, los grupos exigen que Facebook explique – claramente - cuánto...

Deeplinks Blog by Dave Maass | November 13, 2018

Federal Researchers Complete Second Round of Problematic Tattoo Recognition Experiments

Despite igniting controversy over ethical lapses and the threat to civil liberties posed by its tattoo recognition experiments the first time around, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently completed its second major project evaluating software designed to reveal who we are and potentially what we believe based...

Press Release | November 13, 2018

EFF, Human Rights Watch, and Over 70 Civil Society Groups Ask Mark Zuckerberg to Provide All Users with Mechanism to Appeal Content Censorship on Facebook

 

Spanish version San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and more than 70 human and digital rights groups called on Mark Zuckerberg today to add real transparency and accountability to Facebook’s content removal process. Specifically, the groups demand that Facebook clearly explain how much content it removes, both rightly...

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Deeplinks Blog by India McKinney, Adam Schwartz | November 12, 2018

EFF to U.S. Department of Commerce: Protect Consumer Data Privacy

On Friday, November 9, 2018, EFF submitted a letter in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce's request for comment on "Developing the Administration's Approach to Consumer Privacy," urging the agency to consider any future policy proposals in a users' rights framework. We emphasized five concrete recommendations for any...

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Deeplinks Blog by Aaron Jue | November 9, 2018

 

 

EFF's Newest Annual Report

For nearly thirty years, member support has allowed EFF to grapple with technology and its impact on the future of our civil liberties. When our eyes are so keenly focused on the horizon, sometimes we forget how far we've come. Our just-published Fiscal Year 2017 Annual Report includes a...

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Deeplinks Blog by Shahid Buttar | November 7, 2018

Principles for Corporate Platforms in the Gig Economy

From ride-hailing platforms like Lyft and Uber, to sites like Airbnb, FlipKey, or VRBO that enable occupants to rent properties, the so-called sharing or gig economy is expanding and disrupting industries from hotels to taxis. Cities across the U.S.—and the rest of the world—are facing a daunting array...

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Deeplinks Blog by Hayley Tsukayama, Jamie Williams  November 6, 2018 

 

 

If A Pre-Trial Risk Assessment Tool Does Not Satisfy These Criteria, It Needs to Stay Out of the Courtroom

 

Algorithms should not decide who spends time in a California jail. But that’s exactly what will happen under S.B. 10, a new law slated to take effect in October 2019. The law, which Governor Jerry Brown signed in September, requires the state’s criminal justice system to replace cash bail with...

 

 

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Deeplinks Blog by Ernesto Falcon, Katharine Trendacosta | November 5, 2018

The Unresolved Issue of Verizon Throttling Santa Clara’s Fire Department Shows Why ISPs Need Rules

In August, it was revealed that Verizon throttled the wireless broadband services of fire fighters in the middle of a state emergency and spent four weeks debating with the local fire department while trying to upsell them a more expensive plan. This week, the Santa Clara Board of...

McSally's Concession Speech - Dog Steals The Show

Deep purple thriller huh?

Published on Nov 13, 2018

Martha McSally (R-AZ) made a video conceding to Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in the Arizona Senate race, but viewers were more enthralled by her dog

Mass Casualties From Gun Violence: Doctors Treating Victims Share Photos

Published here on this blog for your interest: The NRA goes after "self-important doctors"

Doctors Respond To The NRA By Sharing Gruesome Photos Of Treating Shooting Victims

"I've never gotten used to telling a mother their child is lost to gun violence. I hope I never do."

Warning: This article contains graphic images.

Remy Smidt

 

"Medical professionals are sharing gruesome photos of what it's like to treat shooting victims in response to a tweet by the National Rifle Association that admonished doctors who were advocating for tighter gun restrictions to "stay in their lane."
"Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted last week, the same week a gunman opened fire inside a bar in Thousands Oaks, California, killing 12 people.
The NRA was criticizing a new paper by the American College of Physicians that details suggestions for addressing gun violence, but it set off a firestorm of responses from doctors who regularly treat shooting victims. . .
"Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane," Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist, responded on Twitter.
 "It’s my fucking highway."
Other medical professionals also challenged the NRA, sharing gruesome photos and anecdotes about what it's like to be on the front line of gun violence . . .
READ MORE > https://www.buzzfeednews.com
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Mass casualties, like the ones recently in Thousand Oaks and Pittsburgh, are unquestionably horrific events, but the truth is that each major city in the US sees a mass casualty of gunshot violence every week, . .  The public should understand that the majority of us in the medical community are not anti-gun; we are anti-meaningless, preventable deaths."
-- Adam Shiroff, the director of the Penn Center for Chest Trauma in Philadelphia, told BuzzFeed News he has treated shooting victims for more than 10 years.

Nail-Biting Over Mesa City Council Races Here in Downtown? 6 out of 10 Eligible Voters Don't Care!

That's the most recent tabulated data from the Maricopa County Recorder's Office as of 11/11/2018 yesterday that grabbed me: 38% Turnout here in District 4.
HOW BAD IS THAT??


Nail-biting is an oral compulsive habit

Now really just how bad is that when neither of the two candidates, Jennifer Duff or Jake Brown, could not muster more people who live here and are eligible to vote, just did not participate in the General Election. 
A few hundred votes can throw it either way! 
Looks like the majority of eligible voters just sat this one out. They just did not care enough to take the time to support either one of the two candidates.
What's even more surprising is that the tried-and-true old political machine could not deliver the usual game-changing results they wanted: Jake Brown was endorsed by incumbent Chris Glover [his 2nd cousin], District 1 Councilmember Mark Freeman and The Mesa Chamber of Commerce.
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS SO FAR:

Mesa-Council-Dist 4 (vote for 1)	Ballot Cast: 10891	Turnout: 38%
		BROWN, JAKE	4081	48% 48%
		DUFF, JEN*	4400	52% 52%

__________________________________________________________________________By press time last Friday this might have been the situation:
Mesa Council races remain nailbiters well after vote

By Jim Walsh Tribune Staff | 6 hrs ago

"Against the backdrop of thousands of uncounted ballots at the county Recorder’s Office, the races to fill two seats on the Mesa City Council could not be closer in early voting results.

At press time Friday and with 345,000 ballots yet to be counted countywide, Jen Duff was clinging to a 289-vote lead in District Four over Jake Brown . . . "
READ MORE > Jim Walsh's Story in AZCentral