The death of a pioneering judge found in the Hudson River is being treated as “suspicious” by the NYPD — which has a special contingent of cops investigating how she wound up in the water, The Post has learned.
“We’re looking at it as a suspicious death at this point,” NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis said.
“We haven’t found any clear indications of criminality, but at this point we can’t say for sure. We’re hoping if anyone could shed any light into the hours before her disappearance, it would help us establish what happened.”
Investigators have spent days poring over surveillance video in a vain attempt to trace the final movements of Court of Appeals Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam last week, sources said Tuesday.
Extra cops have been assigned to find and review additional video from stores, residential buildings and mass transit, sources said.
“The problem is that where she lives, there’s a dozen ways of going anywhere,” one source said.
She was last seen alive by a deliveryman who handed her a package at her apartment the morning of April 12, sources said, and she was reported missing by her husband after he got a call around noon saying she hadn’t shown up at work.
Her body was found floating in about three feet of water near 132nd Street around 1:45 p.m., sources have said.
The Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t determined the cause and manner of her death, but sources said an autopsy found water in her lungs, suggesting she was alive when she went into the river.
Some slight bruising was found on her neck, but her eyes didn’t show the type of bleeding consistent with strangulation, sources said.
There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle in her apartment at 113 W. 131st St., and she left behind her car, pocketbook, cash, MetroCard and cellphone, which are possible signs of suicidal intent, source said.
Without any evidence that Abdus-Salaam voluntarily jumped into the water, NYPD brass are “worried a video could pop up where a guy has her in headlock, or is dragging her, and it’s not a suicide,” a source said.
“God forbid someone a year from now says, ‘I killed the judge and this is how I did it,’” and police don’t have the evidence to support or refute that claim, the source added,
“That’s why they’re sending out these notices. It’s to cover their bases.”
I am going to do two articles on this one. The first deals with the crime, the second is about Timothy Caughman – the victim, and how the press has tried to de-humanize him as a black man. Funny how the Press and the courts can find so much sympathy for a white boy committing the most heinous of crimes…
But make excuses for the murder of an unarmed black man by sullying his reputation – such as to say somehow he deserved getting shot or stabbed in the back for doing nothing more than walking down the street.
“His intent was to kill as many black men here in New York as he could,” prosecutor Joan Illuzzi said as James Harris Jackson, 28, was arraigned in the slaying of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman. “The defendant was motivated purely by hatred.”
Illuzzi said Jackson was angered in particular by black men who date white women.
Authorities said Jackson traveled from his home in Baltimore last week, picking New York because he hoped to “make a statement” in the media capital of the world. He encountered Caughman, who was collecting bottles from trash cans, and stabbed him in his chest and back, authorities said.
He turned himself in at a Times Square police station early Wednesday, a day after the wounded Caughman staggered into a police precinct. The sword was found in a trash can.
Illuzzi said the charges could be upgraded because the killing was an act “most likely of terrorism.”
Jackson’s lawyer suggested that his client might be suffering from mental illness.
“What we’re going to do is take a few minutes, let the dust settle and figure out what the facts are,” defense attorney Sam Talkin said outside court. “If the facts are anything near what the allegations are, then we’re going to address the obvious psychological issues that are present in this case.”
Jackson told police he had harbored hatred toward black men for at least 10 years, authorities said….More Here…
Timothy Caughman was killed for being Black. He was 66.
A canner, who supported himself by gathering and redeeming bottles and cans, Caughman was doing his job–sorting through recycling–when a 28-year- old army veteran, James Harris Jackson, pulled out a 26-inch mini-sword and repeatedly stabbed him in the chest and back Monday night in Manhattan’s Hell’s kitchen neighborhood. Caughman died at a hospital.
Wednesday, Jackson turned himself in, telling police that he traveled from Maryland to New York City on Friday in order to “target male blacks,” according to Assistant Chief William Aubry of Manhattan South Detectives. “The reason why he picked New York,” said Aubry, “is because it is the media capital of the world… He wanted to make a statement.” The New York Post reports that “Jackson identifies as a white supremacist and told police he penned a manifesto about his racist views,” which included a plan “about an imminent attack on blacks in New York.” He was particularly disturbed by Black men who were in romantic relationships with white women.
So, to recap, a self-identified white supremacist fatally stabbed an unarmed man because he was Black.
Yet, much of the mainstream media coverage has turned a story about the murder of an unarmed Black men into an investigation into the character of an unarmed Black man, as Adam Johnson points out at FAIR. The Daily News and New York Post reported on Caughman’s utterly unrelated and irrelevant arrest record. Even more remarkably, The Daily News thought it was appropriate to remind readers that, “In December 2014, Ismaaiyl Brinsley traveled to the city from Baltimore and assassinated Police Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, who were in the car near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Brinsley had made anti-police statements on social media prior to the murders.” Though tragic, a murder that took place over two years ago doesn’t seem germane. Johnson suggests,
This is a bizarre journalistic choice that appears to be some kind of attempt at “balancing” the coverage, suggesting that there could be a bit of score-settling going on: Yes, this black man was senselessly murdered by a white supremacist, but some other black guy killed cops two-and-a-half years ago, so….
To be fair, there is another angle here. Both crimes were committed by men who traveled from the state of Maryland to New York City. So there’s that.
Another important thing, according to the Daily News and New York Post, is that Caughman lived in transitional housing.
This isn’t the first time the media has tasked itself with scrutinizing and smearing the character of an unarmed Black murder victim. See: Michael “no angel” Brown, Freddie “he caused his own injuries (which he didn’t)” Gray, Trayvon “he smoked pot once and gave the middle finger in a photo once” Martin. The punishment for having once smoked pot is not, actually, execution at the hands of someone who failed the police entrance exam, beats his girlfriends and volunteers as a neighborhood watchman.
Curiously, the same media which is so quick to the judge victims, finds itself capable of extraordinary empathy and understanding when the perpetrator is white. Consider, for example, the story of Brock Turner, who was sentenced to six months (of which he’d serve three) for assault with intent to rape an intoxicated woman and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object. While some were disturbed by the rape and the light sentence, The Washington Post, worried that Turner’s promising swimming career would be disrupted by the conviction. The article, whose headline read, “All-American swimmer found guilty of sexually assaulting unconscious woman on Stanford campus,” featured a fresh-faced posed photo of Turner, not the traditional mugshot. and not his mug shot.
Caughman happened to be a collector of autographs, a passionate consumer of pop culture and a huge fan of Shari Headley, so outlets have also picked up the human interest angle of the story, which, though preferable, still manages to incorporate the irrelevant information from the smear-based reports. Even an additional article in The Daily News, whose headline reads, “New Yorker who was fatally stabbed by Maryland man loved meeting Hollywood stars,” includes the fact that he lived in transitional housing. Because so little information has been released about Caughman, even places like The Hollywood Reporter, included this irrelevant tidbit in its seemingly harmless listicle: “Timothy Caughman Stabbed To Death: 5 Things About The Innocent NYC Man.” The fourth thing you need to know, apparently, is that Caughman,
lived in transitional housing. Timothy resided in a transitional housing facility on W. 36th street, sources told New York Daily News. Transitional housing is a place for homeless people to stay, generally after they have suffered a crisis.
At least Bustle focuses on the positive in its meta piece promising that “The New Yorker’s Sense Of Optimism Won’t Be Forgotten.”
But there is another story to be found in Caughman’s biography. I first heard about Caughman when Benjamin Dixon, the host of the Benjamin Dixon Show, shared a selfie Caughman had posted of himself at 9:30 A.M. this past election day. It read, “Standing on line waiting to vote I love america.” Dixon added his own comment: “Wow. Timothy Caughman. Murdered by a white supremacist who specifically targeted black men.”…More on Timothy’s life Here...
A woman has been taken into custody after allegedly stabbing a transgender black man in his face when he offered his seat Sunday night on the subway, only to have her say, “I don’t want to sit next to black people.”
According to PIX11, Stephanie Pazmino, 30, was taken into custody and charged with assault as a hate crime, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon after assaulting Ijan DaVonte Jarrett.
According to Jarrett, he offered his seat to Pazmino who refused before turning to her companion and saying in Spanish that she didn’t want to sit next to a black person.
“I got up anyway and said to her that she didn’t have to sit next to me,” Jarrett,told the New York Daily News. “I took a seat across from her and just forgot all about it.”
According to Jarret, the woman attacked him by punching him as attempted to get off at his stop, and that he didn’t know he had been stabbed until bystanders stepped in to help.
In addition to being slashed in the face by Pazmino, Jarrett was also stabbed in his left arm. The police recovered the two inch knife Pazmino used to stab Jarrett when she was arrested in the street.
Jarret was taken to a local hospital and was listed in stable condition.
Workers were seen taking down the big gold “Trump Place” letters from one of the three buildings on the Upper West Side of Manhattan Wednesday morning.
The “Dump the Trump Name” petition, while not confirmed as the direct cause of the change, gathered 677 signatures after it was launched about a month ago.
“It’s nuts that we’re now living in a place that is advertising values that none of us believe in,” petition co-author Linda Gottlieb told CNBC. The petition cited Trump’s “appalling treatment of women, his history of racism, his attacks on immigrants, his mockery of the disabled, his tax avoidance, his outright lying,” that the name insults many of the minorities and immigrants who work in the building, and that the naming deal increases Trump’s net worth.
The three buildings were under contract to bear Trump’s name for a time, but that contract has ended, according to Marty McKenna, a spokesman for the buildings’ landlord, Equity Residential. The buildings will now be called simply by their Riverside Drive street addresses instead.
“Assuming a more neutral building identity will appeal to all current and future residents,” McKenna told HuffPost.
Montel Williams’s Political Director Jonathan Franks shared a video to his Twitter account on Wednesday afternoon of a young black male being stopped and frisked in Midtown Manhattan by two New York police officers in plain clothes.
The tweet read, “Welcome to being black in Midtown Manhattan… @NYPDnews I was there – no reasonable suspicion…” The video shows a boy on the street-side standing as an officer searches his pants pockets.
What’s especially important, as Franks notes, is there was no reasonable suspicion.
A New York Civil Liberties Union study found that since 2002, New York residents have been stopped, searched, and interrogated by police in the street over 5 million times.
The organization also found that black and Latino individuals are more likely to be targeted by this particular policing tactic.
While the prevalence of the practice has declined since 2012, the NYCLU found that between January and June 2016, New Yorkers were stopped by police 7,636 times. Seventy-seven percent of targets were innocent, 53 percent were black, 30 percent were Latino, and just 11 percent were white.
The 2013 case, Floyd vs. City of New York questioned whether the use of stop and frisk practices in New York City between 2004 and 2012 was constitutional.
Finding that “statistical and anecdotal evidence showed that minorities are indeed treated differently than whites,” as Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote in her opinion, the practice was deemed a violation of the 14th Amendment.
“Once a stop is made,” she wrote, “blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be subjected to the use of force than whites, despite the fact that whites are more likely to be found with weapons or contraband.”
Despite this 2013 decision, it appears that the racial policing practice of stop and frisk remains alive and well in the city of New York.
The US Court systems, especially at the state level and below have gotten pretty miserable. The system is so imbalanced and corrupted as to be contemptible. So much so, when something goes right justice wise…
It is hard to believe.
What was that old Red Foxx joke about the Karate guy and the local guy fighting in a bar…”Karate, Korea Tae Kwan Do 1957!” …”K-Tire Iron, 1958 Caddy!”
Wednesday, a court in Bronx, New York dropped charges against a man who killed an intruder who was trying to sexually assault his wife.
WABC reported Wednesday morning that the courtroom erupted in cheers when Judge Marc Whiten announced that he will accept a motion to dismiss manslaughter charges against 61-year-old cab driver Mamadou Diallo.
In May, police records say, just after Diallo left his apartment in the Bronx for work, a career criminal named Earl Nash went knocking from door-to-door in the building asking for water. Nash — whose police record showed more than 20 arrests for acts of theft and violence — reportedly tried to entice a little girl into the stairwell, but she ran away.
When he knocked on the Diallos’ apartment door, however, the cab driver’s 51-year-old wife — who has there at home with her sister — opened it a crack, which was all Nash needed to kick in the door and attack the women.
Nash smashed a chair down on Diallo’s wife’s head. When she crumpled to the floor, Nash began to rip her clothes off and tried to rape her.
With her sister’s help, the woman fought free and was able to call Diallo, who raced home in his cab and strode into the building brandishing a tire iron. He stepped off the sixth floor elevator, caught sight of Nash and attacked him, beating him in the head and body.
First responders arrived at the scene and transported an unconscious Nash to Lincoln Hospital, where he died.
A coroner’s report determined that Nash’s death was a homicide and prosecutors lodged manslaughter charges against Diallo.
He was released from custody in June and Diallo’s defense team submitted a motion to dismiss the charges, which Judge Whiten accepted.
Diallo told the New York Daily News after his release, “I don’t want to be a hero” for what he’d done. He said he only resorted to violence because his wife was in danger.
“Nobody’s happy when you fight with somebody and die,” said Diallo. “Nobody likes that. (But) you don’t mess with a man’s family, a man’s wife. Your family is your family.”
In the 60’s and 70’s there were a number of Pirate Radio Stations in the US – especially in New York City, where the maze of buildings, and low power transmissions typically limited the area in which the station could be heard to a few blocks. In those days, many of the Stations were either black, of broadcasting alternatives to the “Top 40” repetitive format broadcast by the licensed stations. Driving though New York you could pick up a marvelous tapestry of music you could never hear on commercial radio, as well as local talk shows dealing with issues in a specific community.
Starting with WHUR (Howard University Radio) in Washington DC, there was a 5 year trend to broaden the spectrum of music on the airwaves by licensed stations. HUR rocked the industry initially with a format that mixed every genre of black music in a commercial free format. The station was forced by economic needs to cave to commercial advertising in 1976, ending the fabulous experiment, and significantly narrowing the station’s playlist and style.
A Pirate Radio Station can be pretty small, and set up on a low budget.
With the elimination of local ownership rules by Republicans under Raygun, there was a massive consolidation of ownership of stations across the country, enabling behemoth’s like Clear Channel to own the majority of the airwaves, the rise of right wing talk, and the homogenization of playlists across the country. The consolidation killed local music, as well as the regional flavor of music across the country. Those appreciating music from the pre 80’s era will remember Atlantic Records and Southern Soul, Motown with it’s distinctive sound, and Philly Soul among others. Driving from region to region often presented an entirely different group of artists and sound palate. A combination of radio ownership consolidation, which was driven principally for political reasons, and the MTV-ization of America destroyed this creative landscape. And in the age of Hip-Hop – there are still some regional distinctions – to the exclusion of anything else.
Today’s Pirate Stations are driven principally by Immigrants, who are largely locked out of the broadcast community by a combination of cost, and audience size. Digital Broadcast Radio, once seen as a panacea for broadcasting is largely dead due to poor broadcast capabilities resulting in an inability to lock on to a station (poor coverage, much like the Digital TV failure), and the need for specialized equipment. Broadcast over the Internet has become hugely popular, but for poor communities, begs the issue of being able to afford an Internet Connection in the first place.
In the age of podcasts and streaming services, you might think pirate radio is low on the list of concerns of federal lawmakers and broadcasters. You’d be wrong.
They’re increasingly worried about its presence in some cities as unlicensed broadcasters commandeer frequencies to play anything from Trinidadian dance music to Haitian call-in shows. And they complain the Federal Communications Commission can’t keep up with the pirates, who can block listeners from favorite programs or emergency alerts for missing children and severe weather.
Helped along by cheaper technology, the rogue stations can cover several blocks or several square miles. Most broadcast to immigrant communities that pirate radio defenders say are underserved by licensed stations.
“The DJs sound like you and they talk about things that you’re interested in,” said Jay Blessed, an online DJ who has listened to various unlicensed stations since she moved from Trinidad to Brooklyn more than a decade ago.
“You call them up and say, ‘I want to hear this song,’ and they play it for you,” Blessed said. “It’s interactive. It’s engaging. It’s communal.”
Last year, nearly three dozen congressional members from the New York region urged the FCC to do more about what they called the “unprecedented growth of pirate radio operations.” So did the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, which said pirates undermine licensed minority stations while ignoring consumer protection laws that guard against indecency and false advertising.
The New York State Broadcasters Association estimates that 100 pirates operate in the New York City area alone, carrying programs in languages from Hebrew to Gaelic to Spanish. Many also broadcast in and around Miami and Boston; FCC enforcement data shows agents have gone after at least one pirate in nearly every state in the past decade.
The FCC has been discussing possible solutions, such as penalizing pirate radio advertisers, and last month urged landlords and government officials to look out for rogue broadcasters.
The alleged pirates include Jean Yves Tullias, a barber living in Irvington, about 15 miles from New York. The FCC claims he appropriated an unused frequency to broadcast his show, which includes church services, gospel music and a call-in program for fellow Haitians.
Tullias denies any wrongdoing. Cutting hair recently at his barbershop, he said a friend broadcast his Internet radio show without telling him he used a pirated frequency.
Tullias, 44, started his show because the local Haitian community “had no communication, nobody to help them,” he said.
“When you get that radio station, that prayer line, you feel comfortable,” he said of older listeners who speak little English and feel isolated. “You feel happy.”
Broadcasters are increasingly concerned because the FCC has gone after fewer pirates in recent years. The commission issued more than 100 warnings and fines against alleged pirates last year, compared with more than 400 in 2010.
That number fell despite a “significant increase” in the number of pirate stations, tallied by David Donovan, president of the New York State Broadcasters Association.
Donovan said the signals interfere with the Emergency Alert System, which relies on a phone-tree-like chain of stations listening to one another. Listeners also can’t hear the alerts, he said.
In his response to lawmakers’ concerns, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler cited a stagnant budget and its smallest staff in 30 years. Fines and seizures are not enough, he added, because pirates often refuse to pay and quickly replace transmitters and inexpensive antennas.
For about $750, pirates can buy equipment to broadcast at a range of at least 1 or 2 miles, experts say….More Here…
Peter Liang about 2 moths ago became the first NYC Law enforcement officer to be convicted of murdering an unarmed citizen in 10 years…Despite numerous egregious cases of police misconduct and outright murder in NYC – was Liang’s prosecution and conviction based on just timing, or race? NYC Police and Fire Unions have a long, long, history of racism. Such racism is even reported by Officers on the force.
Funny how only a minority cop can get convicted and go to a speedy trial without the Police Department “analyzing” the data for 2 years.
The case adds another twist to the intense debate about race and policing.
On February 11, Peter Liang became a rare statistic: He was the first New York City police officer in more than a decade to be found guilty of shooting and killing a citizen while on duty. Liang, who is Chinese American, was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and one count of official misconduct for the shooting of Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black man and father, during an encounter in a Brooklyn housing project. In the post-Ferguson era, the case has added another twist to the intense ongoing debate about race and accountability in policing.
On the night of November 20, 2014, Gurley and a friend had just entered an unlit stairwell on the seventh floor of their building. Liang, a 28-year-old rookie cop, was on the stairwell landing above with his partner, on a “vertical patrol” assignment. Liang had his gun drawn, his attorneys told jurors, because the stairwell was dark and police officers are trained that this can be dangerous—for New York cops on vertical patrol, lack of lighting is commonly perceived as a sign of criminal activity. When Liang heard a noise come from below, he testified, he was startled and pulled the trigger of his gun by accident. The bullet ricocheted off a wall along the landing below where Gurley stood, mortally wounding him. Liang told jurors that he did not realize he had shot anyone until he went down the stairs looking for the bullet. Liang said that when he discovered Gurley bleeding on the ground, “I was panicking. I was in shock, in disbelief that someone was actually hit.”
In the aftermath, New York Police commissioner William Bratton told reporters that the shooting appeared “to be an accidental discharge, with no intention to strike anybody.” But during the trial, prosecutors zeroed in on evidence that Liang failed to administer immediate medical aid as Gurley lay bleeding to death, instead arguing with his partner over whether to call their supervisor. Gurley’s friend attempted to give him CPR after receiving instructions from a 911 dispatcher. Liang testified that he tried to request an ambulance over the radio. Transcripts from radio calls, however, did not show him calling for one.
Liang, whose sentencing is scheduled for April 14, was fired from the department and initially faced up to 15 years in prison. In late March, however, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced that he would not seek prison time for Liang. Thompson instead recommended five years of probation, including six months of home confinement, citing “the unique circumstances” of the case. On Tuesday, Liang’s lawyers asked a judge to throw out Liang’s conviction, alleging jury misconduct.
In the view of his supporters and some former prosecutors, Liang’s conviction is a glaringanomalyamong cops who have killed unarmed civilians, the vast majority of whom don’t face criminal charges. Kenneth Montgomery, a former assistant prosecutor in Brooklyn and now a defense attorney, found the conviction somewhat surprising. “When you look at the spectrum of police shooting cases, this seemed to be—I want to be careful because all of these cases are of public concern—less egregious than Anthony Baez, Amadou Diallo,” he says. “It seemed to me that the defense had a lot to work with.”
Many believe Liang’s race was a factor. On February 20, in the wake of Liang’s guilty verdict, thousands of people—many of them Asian American—gathered in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, DC, to protest. Demonstrators charged that Liang was not afforded the same protections as other officers because of the color of his skin. Former New York City Comptroller John Liu echoed this sentiment in a speech to the crowd: “Shocking! This is not manslaughter…We kind of had a sense in our hearts that this was going to be the result, because for 150 years, there has been a common phrase in America. This phrase is called ‘Not a Chinaman’s chance.'” As the writer Jay Caspian Kang noted in a New York Times essay, the Liang protests marked “the most pivotal moment in the Asian American community since the Rodney King riots.”
Some of Liang’s supporters compared him to past Asian American victims of police brutality, and even went so far as to suggest that both Liang and Gurley were victims of the same kind of oppression. That rhetoric quickly drew heat from Black Lives Matter activists and supporters—includingmanyAsian Americans—who found it offensive and misguided. “[I don’t care] how many “black lives matter” signs were flying at the Peter Liang protest,” organizer Johnetta Elzie tweeted. “That’s rooted in anti-blackness + supporting white supremacy.” Kang described the reactions from some Asian Americans as “the stunted language of a people who do not yet know how to talk about injustice”:
The protesters who took to the streets on Saturday are trying, in their way, to create a new political language for Asian Americans, but this language comes without any edifying history—no amount of nuance or qualification or appeal to Martin Luther King will change the fact that the first massive, nationwide Asian American protest in years was held in defense of a police officer who shot and killed an innocent black man….And yet it would be catastrophic to ignore the protesters’ concerns altogether.
Liang’s conviction is indeed rare for cops. “Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have been prosecuted,” Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor, toldThe Atlantic. “And if he was, they would have acquitted him.”…Read the Rest Here…
Reverent Mack Daddy, Aka Pastor James David Manning of Atlah Worldwide Church and YouTube fame as a black conservative willing to attack President Obama…
Is going down. His Church is now up for Auction. Apparently being Hannity’s House Negro didn’t pay enough to pay the bills.
A New York state judge has ordered the ATLAH World Missionary Church to be sold at a public foreclosure auction, according to court records cited by DNAinfo New York. The church, which has been known to display messages like “Jesus would stone homos” and “Obama has released the homo demons on the black man” on its billboard, has reportedly amassed debts and tax liens totaling more than $1.02 million.
The Harlem church could prove to be a commodity in Manhattan’s cutthroat real estate market. But the Ali Forney Center, an advocacy group dedicated to homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) teens and young adults, hopes that an online fundraiser will help raise $200,000 to secure the property as housing for its clients.
Carl Siciliano, who is the Ali Forney Center’s founder and executive director, said in a press release that repurposing the church to house homeless LGBT youth would “truly be a triumph of love over hatred.”
“The biggest reason our youths are driven from their homes is because of homophobic and transphobic religious beliefs of their parents,” he said. “Because of this, it has been horrifying for us to have our youths exposed to Manning’s messages inciting hatred and violence against our community. It has meant the world to us that so many Harlem residents have stood up to support our young people, and are now urging us to provide urgently needed care at the site of so much hatred.”
LGBT rights activist Scott Wooledge, who is working with the Ali Forney Center to raise the funds to buy the church and has raised over $200,000 for homeless youth over the past two years, echoed those sentiments.
“We, as a community, have a golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn what was once a center of appalling hate into a home where our youth can be safe, nurtured, supported and thrive into self-sufficient adults,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. “Let’s seize the day, and turn the page on an ugly chapter in Harlem’s history.”
Stacy Parker Le Melle, founder of Harlem’s “Love Not Hate” Movement, told The Huffington Post, “When the ATLAH story broke on Thursday, immediately I heard from neighbors: Wouldn’t it be amazing if an LGBT group could acquire the property? What if it were the Ali Forney Center? We all knew that this would be poetic justice. We need to care for those kicked out of homes, often on religious-based grounds. We need to care for those most vulnerable to ATLAH’s hate speech.”
ATLAH’s pastor seemed to downplay his parish’s debts in an interview withDNAinfo New York, and vowed to cite the church’s tax exempt status in its fight against the foreclosure order, which he called a “land grab.”
“I assure you, it’s about a water bill and a tax that can’t be levied against this church,” Rev. James David Manning, who made headlines in 2014 when he argued that Starbucks flavored its coffee drinks with “sodomites’ semen,” told DNAinfo.
A New York City taxi driver who black NBC “Today” show weatherman Al Roker said passed him by in favor of picking up another fare for racial reasons has pleaded guilty to a service refusal violation and has been fined.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission says driver Mahabur Rahman made his plea last month and was fined $500.
Roker had filed a complaint in November and wrote on social media he and his son had been ignored for racial reasons. He said the driver picked up a white man a block away.
The commission says it was the driver’s second refusal violation. The driver hung up a phone Monday when called for comment.
The TLC says Roker was notified of the outcome. NBC hasn’t answered an email seeking comment.
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.
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…
A New York City police sergeant is facing internal disciplinary charges for her role in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man whose fatal police encounter in 2014 spurred nationwide protests.
Sergeant Kizzy Adonis was served with departmental charges on Friday, police officials said, and placed on modified duty. Adonis is the first officer to be formally charged with wrongdoing in connection with Eric Garner’s death.
Adonis was supervising officers at the scene and the department did not specify the exact charges she faces.
Garner died on July 17, 2014, after Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed his arm around Garner’s neck. Police had stopped Garner on a sidewalk in the New York City borough of Staten Island on suspicion of selling loose cigarettes. His final words, “I can’t breathe,” were captured on video and became a rallying cry for protesters.
The Garner case was one of several high-profile instances in which unarmed black people died in police encounters, opening up a national debate over race, violence and policing.
A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo in December 2014, sparking renewed protests throughout New York. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the incident as a potential civil rights violation.
The police department had put its internal review on hold at the request of federal prosecutors. But police said the decision to bring departmental charges against Adonis was prompted by a disciplinary statute of limitations that applied to her case but not Pantaleo’s.
“All further proceedings concerning the Garner inquiry will continue to be stayed until the conclusion of the federal investigation,” the department said in a statement.
The sergeants’ union did not immediately comment.
The city agreed in July 2015 to pay Garner’s family $5.9 million to settle wrongful death claims. A lawyer for the family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A white Army veteran accused of randomly killing a black man on the streets of New York by stabbing him with a sword was charged Thursday with murder as a hate crime.
Timothy Caughman was killed for being Black. He was 66.
A New York City police sergeant is facing internal disciplinary charges for her role in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man whose fatal police encounter in 2014 spurred nationwide protests.
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