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State doles out severe sentence for threatening speech while cops kill people with ketamine
With over 900 residents injected with ketamine while in police custody between 2018 and 2020, police in the state of Colorado have turned the public into “unwitting guinea pigs” of a deadly pharmacological experiment.
Body camera footage of Hunter Barr. Colorado Springs Police Department
From 2018-2020, over 900 Colorado residents were injected with the drug ketamine while in police custody, giving Colorado the grim distinction of administering the highest number of such injections out of any state in the U.S., with over 17% resulting in serious and even deadly complications. Hunter Barr, age 26, is one of the recent victims who died after police detained him and injected him with ketamine, a powerful dissociative anesthetic.
In this week’s PAR, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis investigate Barr’s death and the troubling expansion of law enforcement’s use of tactical pharmacology. Graham and Janis also counterpose the unjust killing of Barr, for which none of the perpetrators have been held accountable, with the harsh punishment of Eric Brandt, a veteran, anti-police brutality protester, and member of Occupy Denver, who has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for “retaliation” against a judge using graphic verbal threats.
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State doles out severe sentence for threatening speech while cops kill people with ketamine
by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, The Real News Network May 14, 2021
Host & Producer
Taya Graham is an award-winning investigative reporter who has covered U.S. politics, local government, and the criminal justice system. She is the host of TRNN's "Police Accountability Report," and producer and co-creator of the award-winning podcast "Truth and Reconciliation" on Baltimore's NPR affiliate WYPR. She has written extensively for a variety of publications including the Afro American Newspaper, the oldest black-owned publication in the country, and was a frequent contributor to Morgan State Radio at a historic HBCU. She has also produced two documentaries, including the feature-length film "The Friendliest Town." Although her reporting focuses on the criminal justice system and government accountability, she has provided on the ground coverage of presidential primaries and elections as well as local and state campaigns. Follow her on Twitter.
Host & Producer
Stephen Janis is an award winning investigative reporter turned documentary filmmaker. His first feature film, The Friendliest Town was distributed by Gravitas Ventures and won an award of distinction from The Impact Doc Film Festival, and a humanitarian award from The Indie Film Fest. He is the co-host and creator of The Police Accountability Report on The Real News Network, which has received more than 10,000,000 views on YouTube. His work as a reporter has been featured on a variety of national shows including the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries, Dead of Night on Investigation Discovery Channel, Relentless on NBC, and Sins of the City on TV One.
He has co-authored several books on policing, corruption, and the root causes of violence including Why Do We Kill: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore and You Can’t Stop Murder: Truths about Policing in Baltimore and Beyond. He is also the co-host of the true crime podcast Land of the Unsolved. Prior to joining The Real News, Janis won three Capital Emmys for investigative series working as an investigative producer for WBFF. Follow him on Twitter.
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