Hate Bombings in Austin

The Trumpazoids continue their campaign of terror….

Three package bombings at Austin homes are linked, police say; two dead

Police have linked three package bombings that have killed two residents in Austin, Texas, over the last 10 days, raising fears that a serial bomber is targeting the city as hundreds of thousands of festival-goers flock to town for South by Southwest.

Two of the bombings happened in residential areas in the eastern half of the city on Monday morning, not at the festival, and police have not identified a suspect or given a possible motive as federal officials joined the investigation.

“We are not ruling anything out at this point,” Police Chief Brian Manley said at a televised news conference. “We’re imploring the community, if you know anything about these attacks, it is imperative that you come forward and let us know. We have innocent people getting hurt across this community.”

Before 7 a.m. Monday, residents at one home in east Austin found a mysterious package on their doorstep and brought it inside, Manley said.

When they began opening the package in their kitchen, the package exploded, killing a 17-year-old boy and injuring a woman who was taken the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Manley said.

Several hours later, shortly before noon and about five miles to the south, a 75-year-old woman found a similar mysterious package on her porch. “She picked up the package, and at that point, the explosion, the box detonated,” Manley said.

The day’s second bombing happened so soon after the morning’s first explosion that some officials went directly from one bombing site to another, Manley said. The elderly woman remained in critical condition Monday afternoon with life-threatening injuries.

The two bombings came a little over a week after a northeast Austin resident, Anthony Stephan House, 39, was killed in a “very similar” package bombing early in the morning, Manley said.

Police had initially deemed House’s death “suspicious” — saying it couldn’t be ruled out that he had assembled the package himself — but on Monday reclassified his death as a homicide.

The “average-sized” packages don’t appear to have been sent through traditional delivery services such as the U.S. Postal Service or UPS, and were left without ringing the bell, said Manley, who declined to give details about the devices but suggested they came in cardboard boxes.

“These devices can explode in many ways, either by being moved or being opened,” Manley said, also cautioning that the bombs “can be hidden in many different ways. … There is a certain level of skill required to put a device like this together successfully.”

Manley suggested that residents call 911 if they find a suspicious package and to leave their homes or wait in the rear until officials arrive.

“We will respond,” Manley said. “It make take a little while to get there because we are getting several calls.”

The victims of the first two bombings were black, raising fears early Monday that the Austinites were targeted because of their race, but a Latina was the victim of the third bombing, after which police declined to speculate on a possible pattern.

“We have no specific ideology or victimology behind this, and it will remain an ongoing investigation while we pursue any and every lead,” Manley said.

“We do not know yet whether the victims are the intended targets,” Manley said, adding that some homes had multiple residents and the bomber may have also targeted the wrong addresses.

 

Black Girl Bullied By Racists – School Does Nothing in Austin

Yeah…I know…Its Texas. The 999 great things you can say about the state are sadly mitigated by the 999 bad.

The issue here is the School Administrators are enabling racist behavior. Meaning they support it. Now, in the civilized world, these school administrators would be looking at some 1 on 1 meetings with the Superintendent…And based on those conversations…looking for new jobs.

 

Georgetown middle school girl called an ape, slave by fellow students

A girl at Tippit Middle School in Georgetown told an African-American girl in May that she looked like an ape and also referred to her as a slave and pretended to whip her, according to a written report from the school.

A male student also made a racial remark to the black student, the report said.

The father of the 12-year-old student who was harassed, Robert Ranco, said last week the school didn’t appropriately discipline the girl or other students who were involved. None of the students were suspended, said Ranco, who is a civil rights lawyer in Round Rock.

He said the district didn’t even refer to the incidents that happened as bullying.

“It makes me feel like the school district is sweeping this under the rug,” he said. “Georgetown ISD has had a least a few suicides in the last five years resulting from bullying. … I don’t have that concern for my daughter, but I’m sure other parents didn’t think their kids were suicidal, either.”

The Georgetown school district didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday. According to the school’s report, Ranco’s daughter “was a victim of more than one incident of racially harassing conduct from classmates.”

The report said “all substantiated misbehavior by the involved students was addressed and consequences were assessed in accordance with our Georgetown I.S.D. Student Code of Conduct and with our campus restorative justice approach to discipline management.”

The document didn’t give details about the discipline except that the school “provided additional re-teaching to students who engaged in inappropriate behaviors.”

The incidents began in March when a girl followed Ranco’s daughter around a tennis court with a long piece of trash, “pretending to whip (the girl) and saying words to the effect of “You’re my slave now!” the report said. It said no one on the school’s staff saw the incident.

During another incident in March, Ranco’s daughter pointed out a male student in the cafeteria who had started a lunchtime dispute, the report said. The boy said, “It wasn’t me,” the document said. “You’re not really going to take the word of a BLACK person over the word of a WHITE person, are you?” he said, according to the report.

It said that after Ranco and his daughter met with a school counselor in March about what happened, the boy apologized to Ranco’s daughter.

The third incident happened in May, the report said, when the girl who had pretended to whip Ranco’s daughter on the tennis court walked into a classroom and asked a male student nearby why he was sitting there. It said the male student replied, “Because I don’t sit next to apes” and moved away from Ranco’s daughter.

The other girl then held up a photo of an ape on her cellphone and said to Ranco’s daughter, “This is what you look like,” the report said. It said Ranco’s daughter said, “That’s racist and mean. Stop it!”

The girl kept scrolling through photos of apes and “asking aloud which one look most like” Ranco’s daughter while other students nearby laughed, the report said.

Ranco said he asked the school’s principal to not allow the students to take part in an athletic competition the next day, but that they were allowed to do so.

He said he also asked the mother of the girl involved in two of the incidents to meet with him, but that she wouldn’t.

“It’s hard not to think kids learned this behavior from their parents,” Ranco said. “That’s part of the problem.”

 

Love Trumps Hate

Even the little ones “Get It”

 

And across the country the revolt grows…

 

Austin Cop Pepper Sprays Handcuffed Man

Here we go again. Absolutely no reason to pepper spray this guy who is already locked up in the “bus” on his way to be charged with whatever crime real or imagined got him arrested. This was at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Tx. where I am sure there was more than one drunk person walking around.

 

Naked, Unarmed Black Teen Shot and Killed By Austin Texas Police

Here we go again. How is a slight, unarmed teenager with what would seem to be an obvious mental condition a danger to a Police Officer?

The victim, David Joseph

Austin police: Teen shot by officer identified as David Joseph, 17

12:45 p.m. update: Austin police identified the person shot and killed by an officer on Monday in Northeast Austin as David Joseph, 17.

Police also identified the officer involved in the shooting as Geoffrey Freeman, a veteran officer who joined the force in 2005.

“All of our officer-involved shootings are tragedies,” Austin police Chief of Staff Brian Manley said.

Concurrent investigations are underway, Manley said, including a criminal investigation being conducted by the Special Investigations Unit and the district attorney’s office.

Manley confirmed that Joseph was unarmed when he was shot Monday morning.

Police had responded to a call in the 300 block of Yager Lane that a man was chasing someone through an apartment complex, Manley said. Officer Freeman had been talking to witnesses when he responded to a call nearby in the 12000 block of Natures Bend, he said. There, Freeman encountered Joseph and within seconds of the confrontation, he opened fire, Manley said.

Freeman provided an initial statement at the scene but is expected to provide a more lengthy statement for investigators later this week, Manley said.

Manley declined to talk about whether the victim had any previous police record or a history of mental illnesss.

“Now is not the day,” he said.

Earlier: A man fatally shot Monday by an Austin police sergeant was not armed at the time of the incident, three sources told the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV today.

Officials had said at the scene that they did not know whether the man, who was naked at the time, had a weapon when he was shot in North Austin.

However, the sources, who were not authorized to speak because of the ongoing investigation, said investigators have since confirmed the unidentified man did not have a weapon.

The revelation intensified questions about the officer’s decision to shoot. Austin police have called a noon news conference at Austin police headquarters to discuss the shooting.

The sources said a key issue in the case likely will be the distance between the officer and the man and whether or not the officer can demonstrate that he was in immediate danger.

Most officers in the department also carry stun guns.

The shooting happened about 10:30 a.m. Monday in the 12000 block of Natures Bend in a small neighborhood south of Tech Ridge Boulevard near Yager Lane. Several residents had called police and said that a man was running around the neighborhood and acting erratically.

Both the suspect and officer in the incident are black. Nelson Linder, president of the Austin NAACP, said the incident highlights the need for police to review how they handle similar situations in the future.

“Once again it is very clear that this policy of response to resistance is not being enforced,” Linder said. “They need to rethink this whole approach, especially if there might be mental illness issues.”

Meanwhile, Jim Harrington, the longtime director and founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project who is retiring, condemned the incident in a statement Tuesday.

“It is almost incomprehensible that a young naked man would be considered dangerous such that a police officer would kill him,” he said. The social advocacy group has called for “a full, fair, and open investigation” of the shooting.

“This is the pattern that led to the U.S. Department of Justice investigation a few years back, and it appears that the pattern of police shootings continues,” Harrington said. “We intend to pursue this matter with the Department of Justice once more.”

 

Texas Cops Create “Honorary White People” To Avoid Racial Profiling

A small sample of “honorary white folks” ticketed by Texas cops. Misidentified in an effort to evade evidence of racial profiling in traffic stops.

If you picked Contestant #12…See your Optometrist…Soonest!

I got news for the station who found this…It isn’t just Hispanics.

Texas troopers ticketing Hispanic drivers as white

Senator says DPS ‘playing games’ with racial profiling data

DPS troopers are inaccurately recording the race of large numbers of minority drivers, mostly Hispanic, as white, according to a KXAN investigation. The agency’s traffic stop data reveals racial profiling reports are likely flawed, according to experts.

Sergio Raul Mejia got a traffic citation for having his license plate on the dash of his truck in Georgetown last May. The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who pulled Mejia over put his race as white on the ticket.

“That’s bad,” said Mejia. “I’m Hispanic. He was not supposed to put white people,” Mejia continued, speaking in broken English. “You don’t think you look white?” asked KXAN Investigator Brian Collister. “No, Hispanic,” replied Mejia.

A Texas law aimed at preventing racial profiling requires peace officers determine and document the race of every driver to whom they issue a written warning, traffic citation or arrest during a traffic stop. The statute says officers must report: “the person’s race or ethnicity, as stated by the person or, if the person does not state the person’s race or ethnicity, as determined by the officer to the best of the officer’s ability.” White and Hispanic are just two categories listed in the law, which treats race and ethnicity the same for purposes of gathering the statistics.

The Texas Racial Profiling statute requires race and ethnicity be treated the same for purposes of gathering the statistics: “Race or ethnicity” means of a particular descent, including Caucasian, African, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, or Middle Eastern descent.

But a KXAN investigation discovered DPS troopers across the state are inaccurately reporting the race of minority drivers who are African American, Asian, but mostly Hispanic, as white. KXAN uncovered the discrepancies while reviewing more than 16 million DPS traffic citation records dating back to 2010.

Richard Kai-Tzung Chang got a traffic ticket in Austin from a DPS Trooper last April. Chang is from Taiwan and says he believes its obvious he is Asian. But the trooper documented him as white on the citation.

“I was shocked,” Chang told KXAN. “It’s almost incomprehensible that I could be mistaken for a white male because I don’t look anything like a white male,” Chang continued.

Dominique Deshaun McGrew was arrested last April during a traffic stop near Victoria. In the dashcam video it’s clear that McGrew is African American.  But instead of recording him as black, the trooper recorded him as white.

Pastor Gonzalez Sosa was pulled over for speeding earlier this year in Caldwell County. In the dashcam video obtained by KXAN through an open records request, Sosa speaks Spanish to the trooper and tells him he is from Mexico. But the Hispanic trooper, who also speaks Spanish, documented Sosa’s race as white on the citation…

Lawmakers and media have scrutinized the race of drivers stopped by state troopers since the controversial arrest of Sandra Bland. A DPS trooper arrested Bland, who is African American, in Waller County this summer for a minor traffic violation. She later committed suicide in jail, according to the county coroner. The increasing number of Hispanic drivers reported in DPS racial profiling data has also been the focus of those legislative hearings and news reports. A KXAN analysis of the DPS traffic stop data confirms the number of drivers stopped by troopers and recorded as Hispanic has gone up annually since 2010, while the number of drivers recorded as white has gone down.

But a racial-profiling expert says what we uncovered reveals DPS statistics used to create its annual reports on traffic stops do not add up.

“The under-representation of Hispanics and over-representation of Caucasians on the contact data counts has a significant impact on the analysis of racial profiling trends,” said Dr. Alex Del Carmen, executive director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Strategic Studies at Tarleton State University in Fort Worth. “It is imperative that the citation count is accurately recorded and reported by all police officers that interact with the public. This is the only manner in which we can ensure an accurate representation of motor vehicle stops and trends.”… Read More on This Here…

 

Crossing a Closed Street While a Minority

Austin, Texas…Despite its conversion into a modern Hi-Tech capital, a lot of the old ugly still resides just below the surface…

In this case – being a minority while crossing a closed off street.

WATCH: Mob of Austin cops tackle and assault two unarmed men for jaywalking

A group of friends, Jeremy Kingg, Lou Glen, Matt Wallace, and Rolando Ramiro were walking home Early Friday morning when they crossed the street in a manner unfit for a police state.

“We were walking across the street, the sign said ‘do not walk,’ but lights were already turning yellow and streets were blocked off, so we kept walking,” Ramiro says.

“[Police] flashed their flashlights at us, asked us to show them our IDs. Matt and Jeremy said to f— off,” noting that the street was barricaded so the ‘crime’ of Jaywalking was a moot point when cars are unable to drive down the street.

However, the half-dozen officers attempting to assert their authority over group did not approve of Wallace and Kingg’s tone, so they felt a gang beating was in order.

All of the sudden, multiple Austin cops coming running from their bicycles and proceed to start punching, kneeing, and kicking two young men.

When asked what crime they committed, one officer turned up and said, “crossed against the light.”

This insanely violent response from police for crossing the street is the epitome of the divide in America today that continues to grow between the police and the policed. This is not how you treat people.

After the video began to go viral, the APD released the following statement:

“The Austin Police Department has been made aware of the incident that occurred Friday, Nov. 6 at 2:30 a.m. in the 600 block of E. Sixth Street. As is standard protocol, the Chain of Command will review the Response to Resistance and the incident to determine what led up to the events captured in the video and whether the officer’s actions were in compliance with APD policy.”

The APD is no stranger to violent arrests for jaywalking. Last year, 4 APD officers applied a ridiculous amount of force to a tiny college girl for jogging ‘against the light.’

When police were asked to issue a statement about the stop, which made world news, APD chief Art Acevedo implied that the girl should feel lucky that none of his officers raped her.

“This person absolutely took something that was as simple as ‘Austin Police – Stop!’ and decided to do everything you see on that video,” Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a press conference Friday, according to Austin NPR station 90.5 KUT. “And quite frankly she wasn’t charged with resisting. She’s lucky I wasn’t the arresting officer, because I wouldn’t have been as generous. … In other cities there’s cops who are actually committing sexual assaults on duty, so I thank God that this is what passes for a controversy in Austin, Texas,” Acevedo said.

 

 

Killer Cop in Texas

 

 

Will a killer cop go free in Texas?

ON JULY 26, 2013, Austin, Texas, police detective Charles Kleinert racially profiled Larry Jackson Jr., proceeded to chase him down over a crime he didn’t commit, and shot him in the back of the neck at point-blank range.

Last week, Larry Jackson’s family sat in a courtroom and listened as Kleinert took the witness stand and justified everything he did that day, including killing Jackson. “He showed no remorse,” said Larry’s sister LaKiza Fowler.

The police claim that they encountered Jackson while investigating a robbery earlier that day at the Benchmark Bank building. Jackson attempted to enter the bank, allegedly claiming to be someone else, but was stopped at the locked doors. He tried to run when Kleinert went to question him.

Kleinert, described by a witness as “out of control,” then pursued Jackson, even commandeering a car to catch up to him. When he did, he beat Jackson. Kleinert then placed his gun to the back of Jackson’s neck and pulled the trigger.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

TESTIMONY AT the hearing last week confirmed many of the glaring flaws in the police story that have led Jackson’s family and their supporters to condemn Kleinert and the Austin Police Department (APD) for a racist murder and cover-up.

One witness, who worked at a hospital nearby, was the woman who had her car commandeered by Kleinert. She recounted how Kleinert stopped her, ordered her to unlock her door, got in and frantically yelled to drive down the street toward where Jackson was running. Kleinert was “red in the face” and so “reckless” that she wasn’t sure if he was a police officer, the witness said.

Another witness was David Dolinak, the then-chief medical examiner for Travis County, who reported the findings from Larry’s autopsy. There was a “dark muzzle imprint” around the gunshot wound, according to Dolinak, meaning that Kleinert’s gun was pressed to Larry’s neck when the fatal shot was fired.

Recounting her experiences in court during a panel discussion at the University of Texas at Austin that evening, LaKiza said, “Being in court today and hearing the expert testimony made us realize more how much Larry suffered.”

She and her family have been struggling for justice in this case for more than two years, and she has drawn a conclusion that the audience at the meeting resoundingly agreed with:

The system is unfair. There are clauses in the law to let cops get away with what they do. What you hear in the news is not true. They only give you bits and pieces, and a certain narrative–the police narrative. I want people to see Larry’s humanity. He had three children, a mother, a father, myself, his sister, his only sibling, my daughter, and many other relatives and friends.

This humanity is flatly rejected by the APD and its powerful allies, and has been since day one. The APD stalled for a full day before informing Larry’s mother of his death, even after she filed a missing person’s report. The woman whose car was commandeered expressed similar problems with the department–she attempted three times later that day to report Kleinert’s actions, but the police didn’t take her seriously.

In fact, Austin police were busy getting their story straight and preparing a smear campaign against Larry, joined by the local media and the courts. Kleinert’s lawyers have been attempting to paint Larry as a criminal and Kleinert as the hero cop who was simply carrying out his duties. In court, they pushed the medical examiner to talk about finding traces of PCP during Larry’s autopsy, suggesting that this made him act erratically.

Currently, Kleinert’s lawyers are attempting to get him off on a technicality. He worked on a federal anti-fraud task force at the time of the murder, and duties performed in that role are immune from state prosecution. In court, Kleinert said that he suspected Larry was at the bank to “commit fraud,”, and he thus had probable cause for the chase, justified by his federal duties. Prosecutors pointed out the absurd logic, since Kleinert didn’t even have probable cause to search Larry at the bank, much less chase him down and kill him.

However, LaKiza and other activists involved in the Black Lives Matter movement know the courts work on the basis of power, not logic. It wasn’t until May 2014, almost a full year after the murder, that Kleinert was even indicted. The charge was manslaughter, not murder, and only came after months of rallying and marching–organized the People’s Task Force, a local anti-racist organization–to put pressure on the Travis County district attorney.

Since then, the case has been repeatedly delayed in the courts, and Kleinert’s lawyers have attempted a series of legal maneuvers. The federal immunity claim is the most recent, and could lead to Kleinert going completely free.

 

Dead Confederate Memorials, and Living Bigots

The Southern Myth is rapidly imploding, with everything from Universities to Counties and States seeking to remove symbols of confederate racism and slavery…

University Removes Jefferson Davis Statue

Jefferson Davis (FINALLY) being carted off to a dustbin in a museum at UT Austin

A statue of Jefferson Davis was removed from its pedestal Sunday on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, days after a court rejected an appeal from a Confederate heritage group.

Crews were seen removing the statue of the Confederate president from its place near the university’s iconic clock tower.

Davis’ statue will eventually be displayed in the Briscoe Center history museum on campus, which university officials said is a more appropriate place for it. The Briscoe Center has one of the nation’s largest archives on slavery.

The statue has been a target of vandalism as well as criticism that it is a symbol of racism and discrimination. Confederate symbols nationwide are being re-considered following the recent mass shooting of members of a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Yale Has A College Named After A Racist, But That Might Change

Yale University’s leaders on Saturday urged a campus conversation about whether to change the name of a residential college named for 19th century alumnus John C. Calhoun, a U.S. vice president and senator from South Carolina who was an ardent supporter of slavery.

Debate over the name began this summer with a petition circulated after nine black worshippers were slain in a Charleston, South Carolina, church. The petition said the Calhoun name, in place since the 1930s, represents “an indifference to centuries of pain and suffering among the black population.”

President Peter Salovey and Dean Jonathan Holloway said in a letter to alumni that weren’t taking a position on the question but urging a discussion in welcoming speeches to first-year students, and “we encourage you to take part as well.”

“Any response should engage the entire community in a thoughtful, campus-wide conversation about the university’s history, the reasons why we remember or honor individuals, and whether historical narratives should be altered when they are disturbing,” the letter said.

Salovey and Holloway posted their remarks to the students on the university’s website, along with suggested scholarly readings and an internal comment site.

And -It appears there may be still a ways to go in getting the living bigots out of positions of responsibility…

Teacher Was Fired After School Found Out She Was With Black Man: Suit

A white Florida teacher claims she was discriminated against for having a black boyfriend and associating with black staff members.

A lawsuit filed by former Edgewater High School math teacher Audrey Dudek against Orange County Public Schools last week alleges that she was fired in 2013 after school administrators found out she was dating a black man, to whom she is now married.

A copy of the lawsuit obtained by WESH says that at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, principal Michelle Erickson learned that Dudek’s boyfriend was black.

“Upon encountering Dudek with her boyfriend, Principal Erickson appeared shocked and offended,” the lawsuit said. “After that encounter, Principal Erickson treated Dudek differently.”

The lawsuit also claims that on another occasion, then-vice principal Anthony Serianni berated Dudek until she cried. When Dudek confided in a black security guard after the incident, Serianni allegedly complained about the teacher being associated with “those” people, referring to black staff members.

Dudek also says that during a talent show, school staff members, including Erickson and Serianni, took part in a racist skit in which staff wore “black face,” “weave hair extensions” and gold teeth in a “pejorative display of ‘black’ culture.”

Dudek was fired in 2013 on the basis of her race, gender and who she associated with, the lawsuit alleges.

A representative for the Orange County school district could not immediately be reached for comment. But in a statement sent to the Orlando Sentinel, the district said Dudek was not discriminated against.

“The district denies all allegations of discrimination by Ms. Dudek,” spokeswoman Shari Bobinski said in an email. “The district will not comment any further due to pending litigation.”…

 

Another Domestic Tea Bagger McVeigh Terrorist?

Once again we are confronted with what may be an act of domestic terrorism. The typical denials and excuses are in place, whenever a white, middle age guy does something tragic and stupid killing a few dozen or hundreds of his fellow Americans. But the fact the “terrorist” in this case destroyed the back trail (his home) prior to crashing an airplane into an office building 911 style – raises a few questions.

The “terrorist” in this case apparently left a suicide note.

This one is developing…

Official: Plane crash pilot left anti-IRS Web note

Aftereffects of 9-11 Style Attack on Federal Building

AUSTIN, Texas – A software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service plowed his small plane into an office building housing nearly 200 federal tax employees on Thursday, officials said, setting off a raging fire that sent workers fleeing as thick plumes of black smoke poured into the air.

A U.S. law official identified the pilot as Joseph Stack — whose home was set on fire just before the crash — and said investigators were looking at an anti-government message on the Web linked to him. The Web site outlines problems with the IRS and says violence “is the only answer.”

Federal law enforcement officials have said they were investigating whether the pilot, who is presumed to have died in the crash, slammed into the Austin building on purpose in an effort to blow up IRS offices. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

“Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer,” the long note on Stack’s Web site reads, citing past problems with the tax-collecting agency.

“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well,” the note, dated Thursday, reads.

At least one person who worked in the building was unaccounted for and two people were hospitalized, said Austin Fire Department Division Chief Dawn Clopton. She did not have any information about the pilot. About 190 IRS employees work in the building, and IRS spokesman Richard C. Sanford the agency was trying to account for all of its workers.