St Louis At The Precipice

In the span of a week this summer, juries opted against convicting three police officers charged in high-profile shootings that were captured on video. In each of those cases, the video and the case prompted protests and unrest. In each of those cases, prosecutors filed charges and decried what had happened. Each case ended with an acquittal, showing what law enforcement officials and experts say are the limitations of video evidence.

Remember, Missouri is the only state since the Civil Rights Era to be issued a “Travel Warning” by the NAACP for persons of color travelling through the State.With the reinstitution of Jim Crow by other means in the State, the Republican politician have created conditions where – you best go armed, and be ready to use it in my view.

Further street violence in Saint Louis is probable as people protest yet another murder by cop, even though we hope this doesn’t get into full scale rioting. What happened in LA in ’92 after the Rodney King verdict riot was a period of nearly 5 years of low-level warfare between the Police and community.So we have ample precedent for the path the white-right in Missouri is pursuing. When the government reacts to complaints by the citizens by exacerbating or increasing the reasons for the complaints…

At some point theng get really bad.

Welcome to Watts.

Police and protesters clash in St. Louis after former officer who shot black driver acquitted on murder charges

Demonstrators clashed with police officers Friday night in St. Louis after the acquittal of a white former police officer who was charged with murder last year for fatally shooting a black driver after a car chase.

In a video tweeted after midnight on Saturday, St. Louis police chief Lawrence O’Toole said at least 23 people had been arrested as of 6 p.m., and 10 police officers had suffered injuries including a broken jaw and a dislocated shoulder.

“Many of the demonstrators were peaceful. However, after dark, many agitators began to destroy property and assault police officers,” O’Toole said in a joint video statement with Mayor Lyda Krewson.

O’Toole said the protesters assaulted police with bricks and bottles, and officers responded by using tear gas and firing pepper-spray balls as a “less lethal option.”

Roughly 1,000 protesters descended on the mayor’s home, throwing rocks and breaking windows, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They were met by about 200 police in riot gear who tried to disperse them with tear gas. The mayor did not appear to be home.

The night of violence began with peaceful demonstrations earlier in the day after a judge acquitted former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley for killing Anthony Lamar Smith in December 2011.

In a court document submitted by the St. Louis circuit attorney, the investigator on the case said Stockley and another officer had been chasing Smith at speeds up to 80 m.p.h. when Stockley said he was “going to kill this motherf‑‑‑er, don’t you know it” and told the officer to drive into Smith’s slowing car.

The document said Stockley then approached Smith’s window and fired five times into the car, hitting Smith “with each shot” and killing him. In addition, prosecutors accused the officer of planting a gun on the victim: There was a gun found in Smith’s car, but it was later determined to have DNA only from Stockley.

Judge Timothy Wilson, the circuit judge who heard the case in a bench trial, acquitted Stockley on the murder charge as well as a charge of armed criminal action in a 30-page order released Friday morning.

Wilson wrote that he was “simply not firmly convinced” of Stockley’s guilt, saying that “agonizingly,” he went over the case’s evidence repeatedly. Ultimately, Wilson said, he was not convinced that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Stockley “did not act in self-defense.”

Following the verdict, Smith’s mother, Annie, said the judge made the wrong decision.

“Justice wasn’t served. I can never be at peace,” she told Fox2Now.

In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Stockley, 36, who relocated to Houston, acknowledged the hurt Smith’s family is feeling. “I know everyone wants someone to blame,” he told the newspaper, “but I’m just not the guy.”

When asked why he agreed to address the case, tears filled his eyes. “Because I did nothing wrong,” he said. “If you’re telling the truth and you’ve been wrongly accused, you should shout it from the rooftops.”

A West Point graduate who served with the Army in Iraq, Stockley said that his job as a St. Louis cop grew so dangerous, he began carrying unauthorized weapons with extra rounds.

“I accept full responsibility for violating the rules,” he said. “But it’s not a moral crime. It’s a rule violation.”

Local and state officials said they were prepared for potential unrest following the acquittal. Some schools in the St. Louis area were shuttered and events in the region were postponed as the verdict loomed.

In the afternoon, police used pepper spray on protesters blocking their path, while demonstrators smashed the front windshield of a police SUV, the Post-Dispatch reported.

On Friday night, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who had put the state’s National Guard on standby ahead of the verdict and potential protests, chastised those who engaged in violence, saying it “is not going to be tolerated here in the state of Missouri.”

Before the verdict was announced, Greitens stood with Christina Wilson, Smith’s fiancee, to deliver a joint message asking people to protest peacefully.

“If you feel like you want to speak out, speak how you feel,” Wilson said at the news briefing. “And whatever comes to you, just do it in a peaceful way.”

Greitens, speaking after Wilson, urged people who felt pain after the verdict not to “turn that pain into violence.”

“One life has been lost in this case, and we don’t need more bloodshed,” he said.

The problem Ms Wilson, is it isn’t just “one life” – there have been four trials of Police Officers in the area in 4 months…All of which have resulted in acquittals. It is now a Public and personal safety issue, created by a racist and corrupt government at every level. I am not advocating killing Cops or violence, no will I support that in anything but self defense…But if you must go there because you feel there is no other solution – then aim a little higher in the food chain. The Cops cannot commit crimes unless here are criminals supporting their actions. You can expect no support form a Jeff Sessions DOJ at the Federal level, because they are now in cahoots with local government racists and oppressors.

 

8 YO Black Boy Lynched in New Hampshire

Un-freakin’ believable!

And you wonder why people think Cops are racist.

Two clips on this incident. The first from a guy in Texas –

This one from Cenk –

 

Philandro Castile Murderer Gets Off

Yet another cooked jury…

Murder for hire.

Minn. officer acquitted in shooting of Philando Castile during traffic stop, dismissed from police force

The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop was acquitted on all charges by a jury Friday, a decision that came nearly a year after the encounter was partially streamed online to a rapt nation in the midst of a painful reckoning over shootings by law enforcement.

Officer Jeronimo Yanez pulled Castile’s car over in Falcon Heights, a suburb near Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the officer later said he thought Castile matched the description of a suspect in a robbery. The stop quickly escalated.

Yanez fired into the car, saying later he thought Castile was going for his gun, a claim Castile’s girlfriend, sitting in the seat next to him, disputed. She began streaming the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook Live.

Police officers are seldom charged for fatal on-duty shootings and convictions are even less common. Castile’s death came at a time of intense scrutiny of fatal police-involved shootings, and the viral video of his final moments spurred heated demonstrations that continued for weeks.

Outside the court, where a small group of protesters gathered Friday afternoon, Castile’s relatives denounced the jury’s decision. Castile’s mother called his death a murder and tied the verdict to what she described as systemic racism in Minnesota.

“The system continues to fail black people, and it will continue to fail you all,” Valerie Castile said, her anger building. “My son loved this city and this city killed my son. And the murderer gets away. Are you kidding me right now?”

Prosecutors charged Yanez with second-degree manslaughter in November, a felony, saying that “no reasonable officer” would have used deadly force in the same situation. He also was charged with two felony counts for intentionally discharging the gun. Jurors began deliberating Monday, and the verdict was announced Friday afternoon.

 

Florida Finally Apologizes for Legal “Lynching” and Murder of Groveland Four

The wheels of Justice only took 70 years this time… Took about 15 minutes to convict the boys of something they couldn’t possibly have done.

70 years to admit a wrong that only took 15 minutes to commit.

‘We’re truly sorry’: Fla. apologizes for racial injustice of 1949 ‘Groveland Four’ rape case

In the summer of 1949, a 17-year-old white girl named Norma Padgett accused four black men of kidnapping her from a dark road in central Florida and then, in the back seat of their car, taking turns raping her.

Neighbors quietly doubted the girl’s version of events, and others speculated that the elaborate, detailed account was merely a coverup for the bruises she’d collected from her husband’s suspected beatings.

But this was the era of Jim Crow, in the middle of Lake County, where the local economy was sustained by orange groves that white men relied on black men to nurture.

And there to ensure law and order was Willis V. McCall, a sheriff buoyed by his segregationist, union-busting, white supremacist reputation.

Within days of Padgett’s accusations, three black men from the city of Groveland were in jail and a fourth, Ernest Thomas, was dead, shot and killed by an angry mob — led by McCall — who had chased him 200 miles into the Panhandle. In Groveland, black-owned homes were shot up and burned, sparking chaos so intense the governor eventually sent in the National Guard.

Based on little evidence, a jury quickly convicted the living three.

Charles Greenlee, just 16 at the time, was sent to prison for life.

Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, friends and Army veterans, were sentenced to death, but the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned their convictions and ordered a retrial. Before that could happen, though, McCall shot them both. Shepherd died at the scene, but Irvin — who played dead — survived, and his sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

The saga of the men who became known as the “Groveland Four” has spanned nearly seven decades, tarnished the reputation of the town that endorsed it, inspired a revelatory, Pulitzer Prize-winning book and became the subject of an online petition demanding that Gov. Rick Scott formally exonerate all four.

After 68 years, and several previous failed attempts, the state of Florida has finally found the words that justice had been waiting on all this time: “We’re truly sorry.”

On the floor of the Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday, lawmakers unanimously passed a resolution apologizing to the families of the “Groveland Four” and exonerating the men. It also calls on Scott to expedite the process for granting posthumous pardons.

None of the “Groveland Four” are still living.

“This resolution is us simply saying ‘We’re sorry’ understanding that we will never know nor be able to make up for the pain we have caused,” said Rep. Bobby DuBose, a bill sponsor, according to the Miami Herald.

Then he asked House members to stand and face relatives of the “Groveland Four” who were present.

“As the state of Florida and the House of Representatives,” DuBose said, “we’re truly sorry.”

The formal acknowledgment of the case, now widely considered a racial injustice, has been years in the making. A book by author Gilbert King, “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” revived interest in the decades-old case and unearthed new evidence from once redacted FBI files that cast doubt on Padgett’s version of events.

Then in 2015, after reading King’s book in a college history class, University of Florida student Josh Venkataraman was driving from Orlando back to campus when he passed the road sign for the city of Groveland.

The book had “touched him,” he told a Miami Herald columnist in 2015, but seeing the physical place made it real.

He reached out to Carole Greenlee, the late Charles Greenlee’s daughter, who was living in Nashville, and asked if he could help.

At first the woman was skeptical, but eventually gave Venkataraman her permission to start a petition.

“I’m in the mode of trying to get my father exonerated,” she told the Herald years ago, “and I need all the help I can get.”

“Exonerate the Groveland Four” was born, and in the two years since has garnered nearly 9,000 signatures…Read the Rest Here…

 

More of the Special Justice in Idaho

An extreme hate crime against a mentally disabled black kid…The perp walks.

The Trump zone.

Idaho teen football player walks free after sodomizing black disabled teammate with wire hanger

The white ringleader of a horrific sexual assault of a mentally disabled black teen will avoid jail time and escape classification as a sex offender after pleading guilty to a lesser charge, the Daily Kos reports.

John R.K. Howard plead guilty Friday to one felony count of injury to a child after leading two football teammates to help him carry out a a violent sexual attack on a black teammate with mental disabilities.

The attack occurred on Oct. 23, 2015, when Howard and Tanner Ward, along with a third juvenile student, pretended to offer the victim a hug, then held him down and sodomized him with a coat hanger. KTVB reports “a third attacker then kicked the coat hanger several times, forcing it farther into the victim’s body and causing rectal injuries that required treatment at a hospital.”

The assault followed several months of race-related discrimination levied against the victim, who was adopted by a Dietrich, Idaho family when he was a child. The 18-year old victim was reportedly called “Kool-Aid,” “chicken-eater “ and the N-word by his teammates. Howard, the ringleader, “also posted a confederate flag on the plaintiff’s computer and demanded he learn and recite a racist song titled “Moonman Notorious KKK,” KTVB reports.

Howard will avoid jail time for his offense, and will likely be able to have his conviction dismissed pending a successful completion of probation. Prosecutors recommend the rapist complete 300 hours of community service for his crime. As a condition of the plea, Howard is also able to maintain his innocence despite the evidence against him.

Deputy Attorney General Casey Hemmer’s said that while Howard’s behavior was “egregious,” it wasn’t a sex crime. “We don’t believe it’s appropriate for Mr. Howard to suffer the consequences of a sex offender,” Hemmer said. “But he still needs to be held accountable.”

The victim still has a $10 million civil lawsuit pending against the district for its “deliberate indifference” towards the victim’s safety.

“Mr. Howard is a relative of prominent individuals in the community and, at least in part due to his athletic ability and community connections, the Defendants ignored or were deliberately indifferent to the behavior of Mr. Howard which included aggression, taunting and bullying of The Plaintiff and other students in the District,” the civil lawsuit reads. “With deliberate indifference, the Defendants did nothing to curb the vicious acts of Mr. Howard who brought with him from Texas a culture of racial hatred towards the Plaintiff.”

 

 

Special “Justice” fo “Special” People and The Case of Bresha Meadows

Just yesterday, a white man attacked a black man, dragged him from his car and shot him dead…And was released from jail without charges.

Bresha Meadows is a 14 year old girl, who after years of domestic abuse and beatings by her father, shot him dead. She was locked up immediately, and 6 months later is still incarcerated awaiting trial.

Once more “justice” in America depends a lot more on the color of the purported criminal…Than the commission of a crime.

Bresha Meadows Isn’t a Murderer. She’s a Hero.

After years of suffering abuse at the hands of her father, a 14-year-old girl picked up a gun and put an end to it all. Now, she faces a new monster: the criminal justice system.

Bresha Meadows knows what monsters looked like. 

She saw one daily, his presence unavoidable as he tormented her family through the shadows of the night and even in the broad daylight. She watched helplessly as he brutalized her mother, threatening and beating his children, hoping against hope that the looming horrors would end.

Jonathan Meadows, she says, repeatedly threatened to kill them all.

But when the then 14-year-old Ohio girl picked up a gun and shot her father in the head last July 28, ending a years-long campaign of terror, she woke to a new monster—one that was supposed to protect her: the criminal justice system.    

Bresha was arrested and held in a Warren County juvenile detention center, charged with aggravated murder. Warren County prosecutors fought to push to try her case into the adult system where she would face a possible life sentence. The district attorney reversed course Thursday, but the question remains: Should she face charges at all?

Like Bresha, I’ve met my share of monsters. There was my father who pushed my mother’s face through a plate glass window and, later, her live-in boyfriend forced me into a bathtub filled with scalding hot water. I was five years old at the time, but I can still see the redness and the yellow blisters that swelled on my pale bony legs. I can still hear my screams roaring in my ears. My then 14-year-old brother Donnie kicked down the bathroom door and pulled me from the tub. My sister Lori Ann, who was 12, called my mother at work.

Mama shot Tony in the leg that night, leaving him with a permanent limp. Years later, she brandished her pistol again after he threatened to kill her and dump her body in the Mississippi River.

She was arrested on a gun possession charge. Nearly four decades later, my mother thought the case was closed until it was discovered in a background check for a concealed carry license.

I will never forget the night that Tony beat her savagely, upending our living room furniture as she struggled to get away. My brother Christopher, best friend Debbie and I locked ourselves in a bedroom, stuffing metal and wooden toys into pillow cases and barricading the door. We were children– eight and nine years old– preparing to defend ourselves with anything we could get our hands on.

I ran away from home at least twice that year, trying to escape the madness. Debbie helped me pack an overnight bag with clothes, a few toiletries, my favorite dolls and a sandwich she took from her mother’s kitchen. But, at eight years old, I had barely enough money—between my allowance and hers– to catch a Bi-State bus down St. Charles Rock Road in St. Ann, Missouri and cross into the city limits of St. Louis to get to my Aunt Doris Jean’s house.

Tony circled the block, looking for me. I hid out in the county library, clutching the bus schedule, until the next one came by. I watched him turn the corner, then I hurried aboard, dropped two quarters into the slot and slunk down into the nearest seat. I didn’t feel safe until the bus reached the stop near Martin Luther King Drive and Taylor Avenue. I walked the last block, lugging my suitcase down an unpaved alleyway. 

Nobody was home when I got to my auntie’s run-down, walk-up apartment, except her feral old cat Samantha and a mutt named Lady. I waited on the porch with the dog until my Uncle Willie Byrd stumbled in drunk after nightfall.

That was 1976. 

Our physical wounds have healed, but the emotional scars remain. I was told that Anthony Gino Delgado died in prison after he was convicted on capital murder charges. My brother Donnie said Tony was in jail because he decapitated a man with the sickle.

Like my mother, I would later face down my own abuser. I repeatedly tried to leave and was stabbed in the back the day I finally got out. We were lucky.

“Approximately 75 percent of women who are killed by their batterers are murdered when they attempt to leave or after they have left an abusive relationship,”researchers found, and “women are 70 percent more likely to be killed in the two weeks after leaving than at any other time during the relationship,” experts say.

One in three women are victims of domestic violence, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the presence of a gun in the household increases the likelihood by 500 percent. “One in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90 percent of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.”

Children are not only witnesses, but are often victimized—as both Bresha and I were– by the same abuser. The impacts are life-long.  We are “six times more likely to commit suicide,” according to Brian F. Martin, who founded the nonprofit advocacy group Children of Domestic Violence.

Despite the facts of the Meadows case and the body of research that clearly spells out the dangers of domestic violence, prosecutors chose to charge Bresha in her father’s death. The announcement that her case will be tried by a juvenile judge was welcome news. However, if convicted, Bresha, who is the niece of a Cleveland police officer, can still be incarcerated until her 21^stbirthday.

“I am obviously thrilled with the decision by the prosecutor to keep Bresha’s case in the juvenile court,” defense attorney Ian Friedman said. “This doesn’t change our position that this was a self-defense scenario and we will press on with our effort to get Bresha home with her family right away. Today is a great day.”

There is a national movement to free Bresha. “Over 100 domestic violence organizations have endorsed a call to drop the charges against her and grant her an immediate release,” according to Huffington Post. “A petition with the same request has over 24,000 signatures.” 

Before the shooting, Officer Martina Latessa said Bresha ran away from home and opened up about her father’s brutality. She reportedly told her aunt that her father had beaten her mother and “threatened to kill the entire family.” Bresha, she said, was “suicidal.”

“We didn’t know for months what was going to happen,” she said. “Now we know she will not spend the rest of her life in prison, no matter what.” 

That isn’t enough. The charges should be dropped altogether and the family should be given the resources necessary to rebuild their lives. The profound and traumatic impacts to Bresha, whose mother called her a “hero,” will be long lasting. By the time Bresha makes the next court appearance on January 20, she will have spent nearly six months behind bars.

That will be six months too long.

 

Wrongful Justice…Is No Justice At All

Yet another case of 5 black men convicted of a rape and murder they didn’t do…

The Dixmoor 5 – In this case, 5 innocent teenagers (*Dixmoore Five*) were convicted of the rape and murder of 14-year-old Cateresa Matthews. DNA excluded all of them. The DNA found on and in this young girl belonged to Willie Randolph, a convicted rapist. In 2011, his DNA was matched to the DNA left at the crime scene, and he has yet to be charged with the murder of this innocent girl. He is a convicted sex offender, and is in prison for that a some other charges. Three were 14 and two were 16 when convicted (Sound familiar?)

The five men spent a collective 80 years in prison

The State knew 5 years ago that these men were innocent, and the identity of the real murderer…But did nothing. Losing a $40 million lawsuit to the 5 wrongly convicted in 2012, still didn’t move the state forward. Ain’t it funny how fast Justice can convict someone wrongly …But to correct an error takes years?

Sex offender to be charged in 1991 rape, murder of Illinois teen after men known as ‘Dixmoor Five’ had wrongly spent time in prison

A 58-year-old sex offender will be charged in the 1991 rape and murder of a 14-year-old suburban Chicago girl after men known as the “Dixmoor Five” had wrongly spent time in prison for the brutal crime.

Willie Randolph will appear in bond court on Thursday afternoon on charges of murder, kidnapping and predatory criminal sexual assault in the death of Dixmoor teen Cateresa Matthews. He is already serving a three-year sentence for drug possession in an Illinois state prison, but was to be released in a few weeks, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The “Dixmoor Five” reached a $40 million settlement with Illinois State Police two years ago after they were cleared of all charges in Cateresa’s death. They spent a decade or more in prison before DNA evidence pointed to Randolph, and not them.

The DNA evidence against Randolph was discovered five years ago, according to the Chicago Tribune, but authorities did not bring charges against the sex offender until now.

“I kept meeting with them and meeting with them, and they said they were investigating,” Cateresa’s mother Theresa Matthews told the Tribune on Wednesday. “They said, ‘We don’t have enough evidence.’ And I said, ‘What more do you need? You have the DNA.’ It just didn’t make any sense.”

Randolph had recently made statements in prison to incriminate himself, and he made them “with much bravado,” a law enforcement official told the newspaper.

Cateresa vanished late in 1991 after leaving her grandmother’s home, and her body was found three weeks later, according to the Tribune.

The real killer

 

Painting Injustice in Louisiana

This one starts with the case of Mac Phipps, jailed in a state, Louisiana,  that incarcerates more of it’s citizens than any country in the world since Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

Her Son Is In Prison, And She Paints The Faces Of A Broken Justice System

The brushstrokes in Sheila Phipps‘ paintings tell the story of a broken criminal justice system in Louisiana — a state notorious for having the highest incarceration rate in the world.

It’s a mission that Phipps, a visual artist who’s been painting since the 1980s, took up after her son, McKinley “Mac” Phipps, a former No Limit hip-hop artist, wassentenced to 30 years in prison for a 2000 nightclub shooting.

“My son was wrongfully convicted in 2001 and is now serving time for a crime he didn’t commit,” Sheila Phipps said.

The visual artist said that in the beginning she could barely face the pain of her son spending such a large portion of his life behind bars. To cope, she went to her art room, took a brush in hand, and in a series of meticulous strokes captured the element missing from her life — her son — on canvas.

“I was frustrated, and it helped me deal with the stress of everything,” Phipps told The Huffington Post.

When Phipps finished the painting of her son, she initially viewed it as a personal accomplishment. After all, it was intended to be therapeutic — a brief escape from the harsh reality of the situation. However, an emptiness remained. It prompted her to capture not only her son’s story but also those of other inmates in Louisiana who are in similar situations.

“I knew my son was not the only one who was a victim of the criminal justice system,” she said. “So I started to research other cases where individuals were convicted with questionable evidence or received excessive sentences.”

Phipps said her son ultimately became the inspiration behind her series of portraits of incarcerated men. Although she never intended her personal expression for public view, she gradually began showing her paintings as they emerged, gathering them in a series titled “Injustice Xhibition.”

The exhibit features seven incarcerated men: McKinley “Mac” Phipps Jr., Warren Scott III, Jerome “Skee” Smith, Earl Truvia, Stanley Stirgus, Rogers LaCaze Sr., and Jamil Joyner. …Read More Here…

 

Baltimore…No Justice Expected

The American (in)Justice system has claimed any trust in the willingness of the State to deliver Justice.

What most people (and activists) miss, is this extends to the Civil Courts.

Baltimore Residents Never Expected A Cop To Be Punished For Killing Freddie Gray

Black Americans don’t have a lot of faith in the justice system, and history is on their side.

Aaron Sims knew a manslaughter conviction in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray was a long shot.

“There’s no justice,” the West Baltimore resident told The Huffington Post.

Sims believed Baltimore Police Officer William Porter, the first of six to be tried in Gray’s death, would likely be convicted of misconduct in office. But he figured Porter’s attorneys would maintain that the officer was simply doing his job and that the more severe charges — involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment — wouldn’t hold up.

Sims was right. After deliberating for three days, a jury informed Judge Barry G. Williams that its members couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on any of the four charges against Porter — including the most serious charge of manslaughter. Williams declared a mistrial.

Jurors split 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal on the most serious charge of involuntary manslaughter, according to The Baltimore Sun. The jury split 8 to 2 in favor of acquittal on second-degree assault, 7 to 3 in favor of conviction on reckless endangerment and 10 to 1 in favor of conviction on misconduct in office.

Cynicism like Sims’ is common. Forty-seven percent of African-Americans said they believed the officers would be punished too leniently, according to HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted in December while the trial was ongoing.

And 70 percent of black Americans believe the judicial system is unfair, based on data from a 2013 Pew Research Center survey.

Why do black people expect so little from the justice system? Experience. …Read the Rest Here…

 

Central Park 5 Rally For Teacher

The Central Park Five case in the early 90’s was a modern day lynching and serves as a template of how young black men are demonized, and ultimately denied justice by racism. The case remains as a Hallmark of racial justice and injustice in the United States on a par with the Scottsboro Boys sham trial and attempted executions.

Recently a NYC High School Teacher made the story of the Central Park 5 part of her lesson plan on history. She was promptly fired.

Central Park Five: Rehire Teacher Allegedly Fired Over Central Park Five Lesson

Administrators reportedly were concerned the lessons would cause “riots” among black students.

Two of the five men who were wrongfully convicted in the 1989 rape and assault of a woman in Central Park have expressed support for a New York City teacher who says she lost her job after teaching students about the case.

“We support her 100 percent,” Raymond Santana, a member of a group known as the Central Park Five, told The Huffington Post. “We’ll probably rally for her — go to the courthouse. I want her to keep doing what she’s doing. I hope this doesn’t discourage her.” He believes the teacher should be reinstated, he added.

Raymond Santana, right, Kevin Richardson, and Yusef Salaam, left, all members of the Central Park Five, react to supporters Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013, in New York.

Jeena Lee-Walker, who taught English at the High School of the Arts, Imagination and Inquiry in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, filed a federal lawsuit last week alleging that administrators at the school feared her lessons on the Central Park Five might “rile up” black students and cause small “riots.” They asked her to take a more “balanced” approach in teaching students about the case, her lawsuit claims.

“I was stunned,” Lee-Walker told the Daily News Friday. “I was kind of like, the facts are the facts. This is what happened.”

Students, she told the paper, “and black students in particular, should be riled up.”

Trailer for the Documentary –

Headline From the NY Daily News Creating the Term “Wilding” to describe out o control minority youth. A term which would enter the lexicon after being repeated again and again by periodicals and TV news around the country.

“It was awesome — they were so engaged,” she said of teaching her students about the Central Park Five, adding that they were “really moved” by a 2012 documentaryon the subject. “They really identified with the teenagers.”

Lee-Walker says she received a series of bad performance reviews, and was ultimately fired, in retaliation for pushing back against criticism from administrators over her Central Park Five lessons.

Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise — all black and Latino men — were all under 16 years old when they were each arrested in 1989 for the beating and rape of Trisha Melli, a 28-year-old investment banker. The brutal attack dominated headlines, with the city’s tabloids stirring racially charged fears of “wilding” groups of violent black and Latino teenagers across the city.

Police zeroed in on the five teens, all of whom had reportedly been in or near Central Park at the time of the attack.

Each teen confessed to the crime during 24 hours of interrogation, but later claimed their statements had been coerced by police. They were all nevertheless convicted and sentenced to prison in 1990. (At the time, billionaire businessman and current Republican front-runner Donald Trump called for their execution.)

Santana, McCray, Salaam and Richardson each spent nearly six years in prison. Wise spent nearly 13 years in prison.

The convictions against the men were vacated in 2002 after a New York inmate named Matias Reyes confessed to raping Melli. Then-Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced that DNA evidence from the crime scene matched Reyes’ DNA.

In 2014, the city agreed to pay the five men a total of $40 million to settle a federal lawsuit they had filed. …Read the rest Here…

 

Tamir Rice Murderer Let Off

Here we go again with special injustice…

No Indictment For Cop Who Fatally Shot 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice

The decision came nearly 400 days after the boy was killed while playing in a Cleveland park.

An Ohio grand jury has declined to indict the Cleveland police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black 12-year-old in 2014.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty announced the decision Monday afternoon, nearly 400 days since rookie patrolman Timothy Loehmann shot Tamir Rice after responding to the scene with veteran officer Frank Garmback. The grand jury also declined to indict Garmback.

In statements filed with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office, both officers claimed they repeatedly yelled at Tamir to “show me your hands.” But surveillance video shows that Loehmann opened fire within two seconds of emerging from the police cruiser driven by Garmback.

McGinty on Monday called Tamir’s death a “perfect storm of human error,” not a criminal act.

“The outcome will not cheer anyone,” McGinty said, but he noted that Loehmann’s assessment that he was about to be shot was “a mistaken but sincere belief” given the stress of the situation.

“It would be irresponsible and unreasonable if law required a police officer to wait and see if the gun was real,” McGinty said. 

On Nov. 22, 2014, Loehmann and Garmback were dispatched to investigate 911 calls about a “guy with a gun” pulling a weapon from his waistband and pointing it at people. The gun was later determined to be an airsoft pellet gun.

Officers said they believed Tamir to be a man in his 20s, given his size, and said the orange safety tip on his toy gun was missing. An expert hired by McGinty’s office conceded in a November report that dispatchers should have relayed to responding officers the 911 caller’s observations that “the guy with a gun” was “probably a juvenile” and that the gun was “probably fake.”

Tamir’s family reportedly was not briefed on the outcome of the grand jury investigation before Monday’s announcement, but it was an end they had anticipated. 

In a statement released immediately after the announcement of no indictment, Jonathan Abady, an attorney for Tamir’s family, said they were “saddened and disappointed” by the outcome, but not surprised. The family also renewed their calls for the Justice Department to make an independent investigation into the case.

“It has been clear for months now that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty was abusing and manipulating the grand jury process to orchestrate a vote against indictment,” Abady said in the statement. “Even though video shows the police shooting Tamir in less than one second, Prosecutor McGinty hired so-called expert witnesses to try to exonerate the officers and tell the grand jury their conduct was reasonable and justified. It is unheard of, and highly improper, for a prosecutor to hire ‘experts’ to try to exonerate the targets of a grand jury investigation.”

Tamir’s family and their advocates have been highly critical of McGinty’s office during what they considered an unreasonably lengthy and biased investigation.

McGinty’s office released three expert reports over the past few months, all of which concluded Tamir’s fatal shooting to be “reasonable.”

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) in a statement Monday called Tamir’s death a “heartbreaking tragedy” but urged the community not to give in to “anger and frustration.”

“We have made progress to improve the way communities and police work together in our state, and we’re beginning to see a path to positive change so everyone shares in the safety and success they deserve,” Kasich said.

The Justice Department said Monday it would continue its review of the case and “determine what actions are appropriate, given the strict burdens and requirements imposed by applicable federal civil rights laws.”

In May, the DOJ concluded an 18-month investigation into the Cleveland Police Department. Its scathing report found that officers in Cleveland routinely use unjustifiable force against not only criminals and suspects, but also innocent victims of crimes.

McGinty’s office on Monday took pains to note that officers face deadly threats in the line of duty and called for “deference” to the officer’s on-the-scene judgment of how much force is necessary.

 

Belafonte’s Moving Oscar Speech

Belafonte has been around a long long time…Nice that the Oscars are clearing up some past oversights.

This is a very powerful speech.

 

The New Jim Crow – The Extreme Court

Another 5-4 ruling, another strike against equal  justice in this country by the 5 Thugs in Robes. In yet another decision buttressing the New Jim Crow the justices decide against a defendant seeking to prove his innocence through a DNA test, which may not have been available at the time of his conviction or suppressed during his trial. Just ask the Texas Innocence Project, who state on their website –

The State of Texas is home to more verified wrongful convictions than any other state in the Nation.

The overwhelming majority of those cases being black and Hispanic defendants.

Lynching- Legalized under the New Jim Crow, as long as it's done in a courtroom.

Justices Rule Inmates Don’t Have Right to DNA Tests

WASHINGTON — Convicts do not have a right under the Constitution to obtain DNA testing to try to prove their innocence after being found guilty, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

 

Kickback Against Conservative “Justice”

Interesting article yesterday in the WashPo about the rising number of threats and violence against Federal Judges the last 6 years –

Threats to Judges, Prosecutors Soaring
Worried Court Personnel Resort To Guards, Identity Shields, Weapons

Threats against the nation’s judges and prosecutors have sharply increased, prompting hundreds to get 24-hour protection from armed U.S. marshals. Many federal judges are altering their routes to work, installing security systems at home, shielding their addresses by paying bills at the courthouse or refraining from registering to vote. Some even pack weapons on the bench.