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‘He’s got a gun! Gun:’ Video shows fatal confrontation between Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge police officer

Coroner says “multiple” gunshot wounds to chest and back

BY MAYA LAU and BRYN STOLE

Updated, 11:28 p.m., July 6, 2016:

http://theadvocate.com/news/16311988-77/report-one-baton-rouge-police-officer-involved-in-fatal-shooting-of-suspect-on-north-foster-drive

Alton Sterling, 37, shot to death by white Baton Rouge cops

BATON ROUGE, LA — Alton Sterling, a 37-year old man who sold CDs, was shot and killed by a Baton Rouge police officer Tuesday morning outside a convenience store on North Foster Drive after “some type of altercation” with two officers, officials said.

Baton Rouge police did not provide much information about what escalated the incident between the officers and Sterling or what prompted an officer to fire his weapon. A witness, however, described police as “aggressive” and said Sterling was armed but was not holding his gun or touching his pockets during the incident. Police later retrieved a gun from the man’s pocket, said the witness, shop owner Abdullah Muflahi.

Around 12:35 a.m., Baton Rouge police responded to the Triple S Food Mart at 2112 N. Foster Drive after an anonymous caller indicated that a man in a red shirt who was selling CDs outside the store pointed a gun at someone, telling them to leave the property, Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely said.

East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner William “Beau” Clark said the initial results of an autopsy performed Tuesday show Sterling died due to a homicide and suffered multiple — meaning more than two — gunshot wounds to the chest and back.

People pour into the streets to protest Sterling’s death July 5. Photo: The Advocate

A 48-second cellphone video captured by a bystander — which circulated at a protest about the shooting later in the day — shows an officer firing at least one round into a man’s chest outside what appears to be the Triple S store, followed by the sound of at least four more shots as the camera veers away.

“Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” an officer is heard yelling in the beginning of the clip.

Two officers are seen wrangling a heavy-set man in a red shirt against a silver sedan before pulling him to the ground on his back.

Alton Sterling’s son Cameron Sterling, 15, weeps as his mother Quinyetta McMillan speaks at press conference July 6, 2016. Photo: The Advocate

One officer is seen pulling the man’s left arm down while he pressed down on the man’s chest. The man’s right arm is not visible in the video.

“He’s got a gun! Gun,” an officer says, prompting the lawman closest to the camera to draw an object from his holster.

“You f*****g move, I swear to God,” says an officer, before the second officer, farther from the viewer, is seen pointing a weapon down at the man’s chest.

There’s a flash from that officer’s weapon, accompanied by the sound of shots.

“They shot him?” a man’s harried voice, close to the microphone, says in the video. “Yes!” a weeping woman replies.

McKneely said he could not confirm whether the cellphone video shows the shooting in question, saying he hadn’t seen it until recently.

He asked anyone with video evidence to turn the footage over to the police.

Store owner Abdullah Muflahi re-enacts incident for reporters from The Advocate.

Abdullah Muflahi, the owner and manager of the Triple S store, said he was there around midnight when he walked outside and saw two officers trying to pin Sterling to a car parked in a handicapped spot. The officers hit Sterling with a Taser, but he didn’t initially get to the ground, he said.

At some point Sterling was tackled to the ground on his back, with one officer pinning down his chest, and another pressing on his thigh, Muflahi said.

Muflahi, who said he was two feet away from the altercation, said an officer yelled “gun” during the scuffle. An officer then fired four to six shots into Sterling’s chest, he said.

“His hand was nowhere (near) his pocket,” Muflahi said, adding that Sterling wasn’t holding a weapon. After the shooting, an officer reached into Sterling’s pocket and retrieved a handgun, Muflahi said.

“They were really aggressive with him from the start,” Muflahi said about the officers.

Sterling appeared to die quickly, Muflahi said. Just after the killing, the officer who fired the bullets cursed, and both officers seemed like they were “freaking out,” Muflahi said.

Baton Rouge police spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely. City’s population is 55 percent Black while police force is 30 percent Black.

The store owner said he heard one of the officers say, “Just leave him.”

East Baton Rouge EMS sent one ambulance to the scene at 12:46 a.m. and encountered a patient who was dead on arrival, agency spokesman Mike Chustz said.

McKneely said he couldn’t comment on the circumstances of the shooting, as the investigation is ongoing.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar C. Moore III said he was at the scene, but declined to say whether he thought the shooting was justified.

“It would be premature for me to make a comment one way or the other,” he said.

Sgt. Brian Taylor, the newly-installed leader of the Baton Rouge police union, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Police believe only one officer fired shots, McKneely said. He did not know how many shots were fired.

McKneely said both officers who were at the scene are on paid administrative leave, according to department policy.

He said he could not identify the officers Tuesday but would do so “first thing in the morning” on Wednesday.

Baton Rouge cop Blane Salomani

Baton Rouge cop Howie Lake

[CBS News reported today that Officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II have been placed on paid administrative leave as the shooting death of Alton Sterling is investigated by federal authorities. Salamoni has been with the Baton Rouge Police Department for four years, and Lake has been on the force for three years, according to police.]

Officers likely had not been interviewed by investigators, as the agency typically gives its lawmen 24 hours before questioning them after this type of incident, he said.

“We give officers normally a day or so to go home and think about it” before being interviewed, McKneely said. He said being part of a shooting is a stressful situation that can produce “tunnel vision” for the officers involved and might not lead to the best information.

Police interviewed a few witnesses who were at the store, he said. Muflahi said he was interviewed by police for most of the night, returning to his store around 8 a.m.

Both officers at the store were wearing body cameras and cars had dash cameras, McKneely said. Muflahi said police also took surveillance footage from his store and seized his entire video system.

McKneely said both body cameras came loose and dangled from the officers’ uniforms during the incident.

Friends and family protest outside store where cops killed Sterling. Photo: The Advocate

Friends and family of Sterling met outside the convenience store on Tuesday night to protest the shooting. At just about 6 p.m. around 40 to 50 people had gathered at the store, some carrying signs and chanting “Black lives matter” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.” The crowd swelled to more than 100 people by 7:30 p.m., with people, some waving homemade signs, gathered at each of the corners of the intersection of N. Foster Dr. and Fairfields Ave. Some mourners left notes and mementos on tables outside the convenience store.

Among the protesters were State Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, who sponsored the bill to equip Baton Rouge officers with body cameras when she was on the Metro Council, and local NAACP leader Michael McClanahan.

Protesters in Baton Rouge block street as night falls. Photo Hilary Schienuk The Advocate

Marcelle said she was concerned that the BRPD was conducting the internal investigation, saying that she had called Police Chief Carl Dabadie to express her desire that the agency allow the Louisiana State Police to conduct officer-involved shooting probes.

Several of Sterling’s relatives also attended the protest.

Sandra Sterling, an aunt who said she raised Alton after his mother died, was skeptical her nephew would be carrying a gun. She went to the store after receiving a call about the incident, saying police would not let her near the body. “I was devastated,” she said.

Sharida Sterling, a cousin who said she was raised with Alton and considered him a brother, said it was not in his character to fight the police. “He would have never fought the police, he wouldn’t have pulled a gun, he would have been too scared,” she said.

Sharida Sterling said she remains skeptical about the 911 caller who said her cousin had pointed a gun, as well as the report about the body cameras coming loose. She called on law enforcement to conduct a transparent investigation, saying police should release the store surveillance video.

David Solomon and Calvin Wilson, who lived with Sterling at shelter, said they did not believe he carried a gun. Photo: The Advocate

Muflahi said he knew Sterling and he had been selling CDs outside his store and in the surrounding area for a few years. Sterling had recently started carrying a gun after a friend was mugged, he said.

Sterling had been living for the past few months at the Living Waters Outreach Ministries, a transitional living center and shelter at 4156 W. Brookstown Dr., two of his fellow residents said.

“Whatever he cooked, he cooked enough for everybody,” said Calvin Wilson, 56, who described the compound as a place for people to “get back on their feet.”

About five people live there full-time, Wilson said.

Wilson and another resident, 60-year-old David Solomon, said Sterling would spread the CDs he sold on a table from time to time in the facility.

“I never saw him coming in here with a weapon, and I never saw him drunk,” Wilson said, adding that Sterling had another job as a cook.

Memorial for Alton Sterling at store.

“He wasn’t a bad person,” Solomon said.

Records from the 19th Judicial District Court show that in August 2015 the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office issued a warrant for the arrest of an Alton Sterling who had registered as a convicted sex offender to live at the center at the Brookstown address. Sterling was convicted of one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile in Sept. 2000, according to the warrant.

While Sterling had registered at the address in July, a probation officer who checked on him in August was told by the center manager that Sterling hadn’t lived there for two weeks.

The DA’s office filed a failure to register as a sex offender charge against Sterling in April.

Sterling’s court record shows he was accused of several crimes dating back to 1996. He’d pleaded guilty to aggravated battery, simple criminal damage to property and unauthorized entry, as well as domestic abuse battery. His longest sentence appeared to come in 2009, when he was sentenced to five years on possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute and illegally carrying a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance.

But Darian Gardner, 38, who’d come by the store Tuesday afternoon to view a makeshift memorial for Sterling, which included a stuffed panda holding CDs, said his friend “didn’t cause any harm to the community.”

Gardner, who’d purchased CDs from Sterling, said the discs contained everything from music to movies.

“He was nice. He wasn’t a bad guy. He was respectable,” said Gardner, who called his friend’s death “tragic.”

Below is video of Alton Sterling’s family press conference July 6, 2016.

Video above: James Earl Jones read’s Frederick Douglas’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Celebrate 260 Years Profitable Genocide – African Slaves, Native Americans, Mexicans, Filipinos etc. 

By Jay Janson

July 3, 2016 

Independence Holiday in the USA becomes a time when citizens reflect on the nation’s 240-year history. It is a history typical of six European empires in the areas of genocide and plunder.

Genocide: 1. the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. plural: genocides (Google Dictionary).

(VOD: see updated UN Definition of Genocide below:)

Under this resolution, UN rapporteurs condemned tens of thousands of water shut-offs in Detroit as genocide.

Americans hoping to make US mass murderous crimes against humanity that are prosecutable under Nuremberg Principles law appear to be less than genocide, attempt to employ the old and outdated dictionary meaning of genocide wherein its scope and intention is defined as the utter and complete extermination of a group, race or nation.

The USA, like its parent colonial power the British Empire, before it, has had its undeservedly wealthy elite, through their private speculative investment banks, continually investing in genocide in order to both maintain its power over society, accumulate capital and extend its power wherever and whenever regardless of laws, regardless whether religious, common or statutory.

Genocide means killing people of a group, race or nation until a desired profitable arrangement is accepted by them. US banks have invested in profitable genocide non-stop over the entire life of the nation up to today and have their CIA and Pentagon laying plans for more genocide as we read.

Auction of kidnapped Africans forced into slavery, held in the U.S.

USA’s AFRICAN GENOCIDE 1776-1864

New England banks financed deadly but lucrative slave trade, forced labor in the North, before massive forced labor in South; a million died during seizure and transport from Africa and another million died in forced labor.

For the first time in the recorded history of slavery, inhumanity toward slaves as practiced in the USA and Colonial Powers, eventually became based on inculcating society with fear-fostered ignorance and a preposterous insistence of racial superiority, standing on its head white feelings of inferiority in the face of the far more accomplished cultures pale-skinned Europeans had conquered.

NATIVE AMERICAN 1776-onward: Genocidal theft of habitats of a thousand Native American nations instigated by banks speculating in land; forced captive marches, broken treaties, wars, deaths from malnutrition certainly reached more than one million deaths already long ago.

MEXICO 1836 US rapes away half of Mexico through merciless war. Mexicans are made aware that Americans will keep killing Mexicans until USA demands are met. “2014 U.S. ‘intelligence’ assistance is larger than anywhere outside Afghanistan” [Washington Post]

PHILIPPINES 1898-1902: Invasion and massacres during Filipino war for independence – upwards of a million lives savagely taken. The overseas investment community propagated the racist concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ make genocide tolerable.

CHINA 1900: murderous sacking of Beijing, orgy of killing and stripping away all the cultural treasures for sale that the American and British could load into a few boxcars of a train.

WORLD WAR I –in EUROPE and in European colonies world wide many millions die as US banks through the Federal Reserve financing and entry of US Armed Forces enable WW I to go on an extra year and a half; 1934-36 Senate Nye Committee investigates allegations that the U.S. entered WW I to make big profits. Senator Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America’s involvement in World War I; investigation of these “merchants of death” documents the huge profits that arms factories made during the war; found bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad; arms industry had been price fixing; held excessive war investor influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during the war.

U.S. troops in Vladisvostok, 1918. They did not succeed in crushing the Bolshevik Revolution.

SOVIET UNION 1917-20: Two US Armies invade along with armies of thirteen other capitalist nations to foster, aid, support and participate in civil war; seven to nine million new Soviet citizens die, three million just from typhoid. (VOD: the U.S. has continued its genocidal war against the people of the USSR since then. It began the “Cold War” against Soviet socialism after 27 million Soviet patriots died fighting Hitler’s forces in World War II; it was the Soviet Union, not the U.S., which defeated Hitler. The Cold War forced the Soviet Union to expand its military budget under threat of nuclear war from the U.S., at the costs of the needs of its people. After the collapse of the USSR, Third World nations from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East suffered genocide at the hands of the U.S. These nations, former colonies of the U.S. and Europe, had benefited from Soviet aid for decades and were now cast adrift.)

ITALY 1922 -1936: Fascist Mussolini frequently lionized in both the New York Times and Washington Post, Fortune Magazine; Morgan Bank’s Thomas Lamont, served as the international chief of Mussolini’s finances; Mussolini received great investment aid from US bankers; especially, Bank of America head A.P. Giannini and Otto Kahn, a leading banker with Kuhn, Loeb. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt expressed admiration for Mussolini. In 1935 Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia bringing death to more than a million Ethiopians, tens of thousands from mustard gas dropped from planes on civilian population. [Angelo Del Boca, The Ethiopian War 1935–1941 (1965)]

GERMANY 1933-37: US investments and joint-ventures of 50 largest US corporations build the Nazi Wehrmacht up to world’s #1, facilitating WW II and Holocaust, the magna return on investment making USA the single superpower, the investments and joint-venturing done in full knowledge of Hitler’s continually announced plans for ridding Germany of Jews and communists and to fulfill Germany’s historic ‘Drang nach Osten’ [Push to the East] into the Soviet Union; of the 40 million dead in Europe 27 million are Soviet citizens. 1945–US makes sure Nuremberg Trials do not indict Nazi industrialists and bankers with whom American corporations, investors and banks had partnered.

CHINA 1944-49: US funding and military aid draws out civil war. CIA incursions; many millions starve.

Hiroshima after genocidal bombing by U.S.

JAPAN 1945: Two cities of civilians Atom-Bombed, sixty fire-bombed, nearly one million civilian lives taken. At Tokyo Trials of Japanese War Criminals, a US general of highest rank, commented off the record, “If the Japanese had won the war they would have tried us.”

VIETNAM 1945-1960: Truman criminally brings back French Army (which as Vichy French, had murderously run its Indochinese colonies for the Japanese Empire profit during WW II), in US ships to reconquer a Vietnam declared independent by US decorated ally Ho Chi Minh with US major in attendance. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese are killed by the French, 80% funded by USA.

KOREA 1950-2014: Two and half million Koreas perish as US bombs both south and north flat, after US Army invaded, criminally cutting the nation in two, overthrowing a democratic Korean government and installing a murderous dictator in the south, whose police and special forces would butcher nearly two hundred thousand before the army of the north swept south reuniting Korea. Perhaps another million deaths as a result of crippling sanctions on the northern part. [see Prosecutable US Crimes against Humanity in Korea “Dissident Voice.org click here]

Palestinian women protest U.S.-Israeli genocide including torture of women, children.

PALESTINE: 1947-2014: US forces through UN approval of a farcical and outrageously thieving plan to partition the Holy Land, a colonial crime against humanity against the residents of the Palestine, in full knowledge that permanent civil war would result and obviously intended to create deadly conflict, permanent hostilities, destabilization and facilitate Western imperialist penetration.

The financial establishment in the US has its colony in the heart of Middle East oil reserves at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, some of which from families of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust denied US refuge before, during and after the Holocaust which itself would have been impossible without the heavy US investment and joint venturing in Nazi Germany. [US Economic Facilitation of Holocaust and Middle East Destabilizing Partition click here ]

USA ITSELF 1947 onward: Operation MOCKINGBIRD — CIA recruits news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. Washington Post becomes a major CIA player. Eventually CIA’s media assets include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more so media can fear monger the public into accepting genocides.

IRAN 1953 & 1980-88 1953  Oil coup; CIA and British M16 false-flag overthrow of Iranian democracy, many deaths./1980 air attack/1980-88 US backs Saddam Hussein invasion-war – more than half million Iranians lives lost/CIA and British M16 false-flag overthrow of Iranian democracy, many deaths/1979- US sanctions and threats of nuclear attack from US presidents.

GUATEMALA 1954 President ‘Ike’ Eisenhower ordered CIA overthrow bombing of first elected democracy; decades of massacres, mass murders follow. [Author performing on tour, is told horrific details in conversations behind closed doors.]

U.S. soldier grins over bodies of Vietnamese patriots killed defending their country.

VIETNAM 1955-1975: Upwards of 4 million die. Twice the bomb tonnage dropped in all of WWII/1973 CIA Operation Phoenix murders 20,000 Vietcong/ [1993-99 Author periodic Assist. Conductor Ho Chi Minh founded National Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi and on tours; every member of orchestra lost family “killed by Americans” spoken with Buddhist equanimity.]

TURKEY 1955: Istanbul Pogrom a false-flag plot by Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine anti-communist initiative created by the US; many Greeks, Armenians die; Turkish communists arrested/[Author visiting Istanbul forced to room in safe UK WMCA during provoked riots].

Laos 1957-63 The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. starts high-altitude carpet bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II; Tiny Laos will become the most bombed country in history; A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves. [Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html]

ETHIOPIA 1960s: US huge military arms sales build up for Emperor Selassie /1977 US switches and backs and arms Somalia invasion of People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia/Late 1980s US Heritage Foundation involvement ending in bloodbath civil war; for using Ethiopia and Somalia as pawns in Cold War an estimated million people starve to death. [Author on film shoot for African Development Bank during Mingustu socialist government in 1983 before it was overthrown with great loss of life by CIA organized attacks.]

Patrice Lumumba, revolutionary leader of the Congo, assassinated by the U.S.

WORLDWIDE 1960s-2014: CIA involved in lives-destroying illegal drug cultivation and trafficking has cause impossible-to-estimate loss of life worldwide [and at home]- also CIA hypocritical anti-narcotics programs mean to spread further CIA penetration and covert violence for political-economic control in Latin America.

CONGO 1961-2014: Assassination of popular Pres. Lumumba, CIA US Air Force Interventions, overt and covert operations, have fostered civil wars; it is estimated between 15 and 20 million have died from warfare and famine, and if one goes back to the US destruction of the new nation, all this was to retain Congo governance profitable88 for US investors.

If the reader wishes to go on revisiting the subsequent decades of US genocide for profit, see the OpEdNews published article the beginning of a very long list is taken: look at: click here July 4 Weekend Reality-Check Chronology of US Speculative Investment Banking Instigated Genocide

Shock and Awe: U.S. carries on war on Iraq. with massive bombing campaign

Before and after July 4, 2015, genocide for profit (in speculative investment driven Western Colonialism there never any other reason for it) is taking place thanks to participating and cooperating Americans in uniform and CIA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and surely further lives are being planned to be taken in the Ukraine and Venezuela and elsewhere as profits therefrom appear sure.

This article closes with a reminder that US genocides perpetrated after 1945 are prosecutable crimes against humanity under the Nuremberg Principles law and as US economic power wanes in the world economy, lawsuits for indemnity, reparations and compensation by survivors can be expected to be so enormous in number as to make American investment in genocide unprofitable and thus inoperable.

Americans show zero interest that GIs brought death to a million and half innocent Iraqi men, women and children with bombing, invasion and occupation war prosecutable under international law even within the US Constitution. Celebrating on the July 4th is pure criminal insanity in a mesmerized TV worshiping inhumane and de-civilized society.

The reader is invited to check out the website of a strong lawsuit against American citizens by an Iraqi mother that is being assisted by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark at the lawsuits website below and spate of articles:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/support-first-us-iraqi-lawsuit-against-bush-administration-about-the-iraq-war#/story

Why an Iraqi Single Mom Is Suing George W. Bush for War Crimes

Jay Janson

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles (Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, Uruknet; Voice of Detroit; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; Mathaba; Ta Kung Bao; China Daily; South China Morning Post; Come Home America; OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign: (King Condemned US Wars) and website historian of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign. featuring a country by country history of US crimes and laws pertaining. Studied history at CCNY, Columbia U., U. Puerto Rico, Dolmetscher Institut München, Germany. Musician grassroots activist dedicated firstly to ending colonial power “genocide in maintenance of unjust predatory investments,” by Majority Mankind prosecution of Colonial Powers Crimes Against Humanity and Peace and mega immense compensation for wrongful death, maiming and destruction and magna theft of natural resources and forced labor and enslavement. Will be made possible when Martin Luther King Jr. demand that America, Americans, he included himself, [not government which he dismissed a greatest purveyor of violence in the world, not cause] because of being capable making atrocity wars and covert genocide unacceptable and inoperable through non-participation, non-support, not-acquiescence and conscientious objection, and that Americans would suffer at home as a result of killing the poor in countries already violated by colonial occupation. Dissident Voice supports the call to Prosecute US Crimes against Humanity Now Campaign with link bottom of each issue of its newsletter. http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com

Other related stories:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/08/08/american-genocide-middle-east-three-million-and-counting

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/its-been-50-years-biggest-us-backed-genocide-youve-never-heard  (Indonesian genocide)

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/broken-treaties-cultural-genocide-and-murder-here-are-5-ways-the-us-has-given-thanks-to-native-americans/

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/merchants_of_death.htm

http://www.globalresearch.ca/profits-ber-alles-american-corporations-and-hitler/4607

http://www.eu-facts.org/en/background/dark_roots_europe_lecture.html

DAREA members disembark from bus in Cincinnati June 15, 2016. In center is DAREA President Bill Davis, to his right is DAREA VP Cecily McClellan, to his left is retiree Ezza Brandon. They were allowed to wear their “Hands off my Pension” T-shirts in the 6th Circuit courtroom as arguments on bankruptcy appeals were heard. The bus was full, with over 40 retirees.

Detroit bankruptcy “Grand Theft” is not a done deal

6th Circuit Judges appeared generally favorable to retiree attorneys’ arguments

DAREA may return Aug. 4 for oral arguments on Phillips v. Snyder, which challenges Public Act 435, Michigan’s “Emergency Manager law”

 By Diane Bukowski, VOD editor, City of Detroit retiree

 June 27, 2016

DAREA members show their fighting spirit on the bus. The ride took a little over 4 hours, taking off from the parking lot of the Dearborn Public Library.

Cincinnati, Ohio – City of Detroit retirees are doggedly pursuing the battle to overturn the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, carried out in the largest Black-majority city in the country in 2014. On June 15, a busload of Detroit Active and Retired Employee Association (DAREA) members traveled to Cincinnati to hear oral arguments at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in five cases challenging the bankruptcy.

Impoverished by pension, annuity, and health care cuts that have led to a wave of similar cuts across the U.S., and angered that their city has been stripped of virtually all of its public assets, they said they wanted to be there to let the judges know, in the words of DAREA’s slogan, “We fight because we’re right!”

“We definitely made a major impact at the court,” DAREA president Bill Davis told VOD. “We packed the courtroom so thoroughly they had to bring out extra chairs for our people, and there were even a couple of us sitting on the floor. Many people wore our ‘Hands Off Our Pensions’ T-shirts in court.”

Demonstration during Detroit bankruptcy hearings.

Davis said DAREA will likely return to Cincinnati Aug. 5, when the Sixth Circuit will hear the appeal of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Michigan’s Public Act 436, known as Phillips v. Snyder. Without that act, better known as the “emergency manager law,” the state takeover of most of Michigan’s Black-majority cities, the declaration of Detroit’s bankruptcy by its Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, and the lead poisoning of the city of Flint its Emergency Manager cut ties with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department would not have happened.

That lawsuit was re-filed after U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh denied all but one argument in the suit, the fact that PA 436 has led to racial discrimination. See

“We’re willing to go and fight anywhere for democracy in Michigan,” Davis said.

6th Circuit Judge Alice Batchelder

Judge Karen Nelson Moore

Judge David McKeague

Sixth Circuit Judges Alice Batchelder, Karen Nelson Moore, and David McKeague are considering both oral arguments and briefs in the retiree cases.

The appeals were filed by five entities, the Ochadleus Group of Retirees, 146 strong, represented by attorney/retiree Jamie Fields (#15-2194), retiree William Davis, representing hundreds of DAREA retirees pro se (#15-2379),  attorney/retiree John Quinn (#15-2337), attorney/retirees Dennis Taubitz and Irma Industrious, (15-2353) and retiree Lucinda Darrah pro se (15-2371).

The groups involved have filled in a breach on the battle lines left by City of Detroit unions and retirement systems, which earlier withdrew their appeals of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes’ ruling that Detroit was eligible for bankruptcy and could cut pensions in violation of state law, the first time any judge in the U.S. had so ruled. They eventually agreed to adopt the disastrous bankruptcy plan of confirmation, with 70 percent of its cuts to creditors borne by retirees.

Ezza Brandon (r) tells Michigan AFSCME Council 25 Pres. Al Garrett it should not have withdrawn appeal of bankrupty eligibility decision, during protest July 31, 2014.

The unions and retirement systems ignored a scathing report by former Goldman Sachs banker Wallace Turbeville of DEMOS, which said Detroit was not bankrupt, that it only had a cash shortfall of $147 million, easily remedied. That report also said the city’s retirement systems, as independent bodies, should never have been included in the bankruptcy case. (See link below story.)

In withdrawing their appeal of Rhodes’ decision on bankruptcy eligibility, the unions and pension systems also wrote off powerful amicus briefs filed by the CalPERS, the largest pension system in the country representing California’s public employees, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and others.

“I think their withdrawal had a major impact on city retirees,” Davis said. “Had they gone through with their appeals, we wouldn’t have to be going through this using resources raised by just a few thousand retirees. Orr said we could not appeal the bankruptcy plan, but we have proven that is crazy. Of course you can appeal. How can you go into bankruptcy and lose all the city’s assets without being able to go to a higher court? This is nothing but a grand theft, and I believe we will ultimately find that a criminal conspiracy in violation of RICO [the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] was carried out by Orr, Snyder, and [former State Treasurer] Andy Dillon was carried out.”

Detroit retirees and supporters protest at Crain’s Detroit luncheon honoring Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, on Feb. 25, 2015.

U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman earlier denied all five appeals, based largely on a judicial doctrine known as “equitable mootness.” In layman’s terms, that means, “We’ve done it, it can’t be changed because that would cause financial chaos, and it’s too late to for you to do anything about it.”

The retirees in the five appeals do not agree. They argue that the bankruptcy plan should be considered on constitutional grounds by a higher court, and that it can be altered to exclude cuts to retirees by remanding it back to the bankruptcy court to make it comply with state constitution language protecting public pensions. DAREA argued in its brief that even PA 436 compels emergency managers to honor that the pension protection clause.

DAREA said in its brief, “A total of $5.5 billion, or 78 percent of the total bankruptcy relief, comes off the backs of city retirees.” Later it added, “The City of Detroit may have to find some alternative funds to make up the difference in the funding necessary to restore pensioners to their full payments. But that funding will be relatively small and can be provided without disrupting the plan of adjustment. The city can seek alternative sources of funding for blight removal. As has been done in cities, states and the federal government, the City of Detroit could go after the major banks, whose predatory lending policies led to the destruction of neighborhoods throughout Detroit, to fund blight removal, rather than taking funds out of the general fund.”

The court heard oral arguments on only three cases, those brought by actual attorneys, Jamie Fields on behalf of the Ochadleus appellants, John Quinn, and Dennis Taubitz. But it is reviewing all five appellant briefs before it issues its ruling. (See links to briefs below.)

Jamie Fields speaks about 6th Circuit appeals of bankruptcy at DAREA meeting.

Fields, whose group largely represents police and fire retirees, said in part, “The District Court’s finding of equitable mootness . . . .allows the bankruptcy court to exercise final judicial power that it cannot constitutionally wield. . . . The bankruptcy court did not have the constitutional authority to issue a final, non-appealable ruling on what Art. 9 Sec. 24 of the Michigan Constitution meant.”

Sec. 24 says, “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a contractual obligation thereof which shall not be diminished or impaired thereby.”

In supplemental briefs, both Fields and DAREA cited an Illinois Supreme Court ruling rejecting cuts to Illinois state employees based on almost identical language in that state’s constitution.

“The people of Illinois give voice to their sovereign authority through the Illinois Constitution,” Illinois Justice Lloyd Kormeier wrote for that court. . . . “the Illinois Constitution . . . expressly provides that the benefits of membership in a public retirement system ‘shall not be diminished or impaired.’”

Fields added, “Our argument is that Annuity Savings Fund (ASF) matter had no business in bankruptcy court period; it is not related to the bankruptcy at all.”

Public workers demonstrate as Illinois Supreme Court decides on pension cuts in 2015. It said they could not be cut, based on Illinois State Constitution protections.

Attorney John Quinn argued likewise regarding the ASF, which comprised the major part of his appeal. Both said the city had never even filed a “proof of claim” with regard to ASF cuts.

Detroit retirees who participated in the voluntary ASF plan put either 3, 5, 0r 7 percent of their paychecks into the ASF, in addition to their pension contributions, with no matching funds from the city. Those who retired in 2003 and afterwards were hit with huge cuts to their accumulated annuities under the bankruptcy, in addition to a 4.5 percent cut to their pensions and loss of health care benefits.

The city contended the ASF’s paid a set 7.9 percent rate of return even in years when the pension funds had lower returns. They cited as particular examples the years of 2008 and 2009, during which rates of return dropped drastically due to the global economic crash caused by Wall Street’s predatory lending practices.

DAREA protested with opponents of tax foreclosures in Detroit June 8, 2015.

Fields said that the bankruptcy court may have had authority to hear concerns about employees’ pensions, but its decision on those matters those would still be appealable under two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Stern v. Marshall, and Wellness International Network, Ltd., et al. v. Sharif. The second decision said bankruptcy courts could make final decisions on major matters, but only if both parties, creditor and debtor, agreed.

“If you take away [higher court] review on the merits . . .you are taking away the [limited] jurisdiction or authority the Congress gave the bankruptcy courts, . . .making equitable mootness a per se rule,” Fields said.

Attorney John Quinn argued likewise regarding the ASF, which comprised the major part of his appeal. Both he and Fields said the city had never even filed a “proof of claim” with regard to the ASF cuts.

Below is video explaining difference between Article I and Article III Courts. In USSC Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011),  the Court held that a bankruptcy court, as a non-Article III court (i.e. courts without full judicial independence) lacked constitutional authority under Article III of the United States Constitution to enter a final judgment on a state law counterclaim that is not resolved in the process of ruling on a creditor’s proof of claim.

Quinn pointed out, “The court is well aware that this is very important case. This is the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, and will have a major impact on the development of Chapter 9 law for some time to come. It is imperative that the issues involved be considered by an Article III court.”

Article III Courts are federal courts given full judicial authority under the U.S. Constitution, while bankruptcy courts are Article I courts, at the lowest level, and are given only limited authority.

One of many protests which took place during Detroit bankruptcy proceedings.

Quinn said, “Section1123A4 of the Bankruptcy Code requires that you get the same treatment in terms of percentages of all creditors in a particular class. The ASF recoupment applies only to some creditors in Class 11. The majority [of retirees] are getting only a 4.5 percent pension cut, but people subject to ASF recoupment are getting a 20 percent cut.”

He argued that nobody should have the 20 percent cut unless they agreed to it individually or the Detroit General Retirement System successfully litigated a claim against its members.

Marc Swanson of Miller, Canfield and Smith

Arguing for the City of Detroit was Attorney Marc N. Swanson of the firm Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, which played a large role in getting Detroit under emergency management, although the Jones Day law firm was viewed as the major actor in the bankruptcy case.

“This is a textbook case for the application of the doctrine of equitable mootness,” Swanson said. “No stay was obtained no stay was diligently pursued. This plan has been substantially consummated. The relief requested will cost the city $816 million in outside funding [A/K/A “The Grand Bargain}, burden the city with more than $3 billion in additional debt and plunge the city back into financial chaos, devastating its residents and returning them to an “inhumane and intolerable” situation as Judge Rhodes found.”

Sixth Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore conducted extensive questioning of Swanson with regard to the issue of “equitable mootness” and whether the appellants would have had to ask either the District Court or the Sixth Circuit to stay implementation of the Eighth Amended Plan of Adjustment.

“This assumes the doctrine of equitable mootness applies to Chapter 9 bankruptcies,” Moore said. “The cases in which this court has adopted equitable mootness are all Chapter 11. Don’t we have to have some kind of statutory basis or are you saying this is completely a judicial doctrine with no mooring in the bankruptcy statutes?”

DAREA members sign first bankruptcy appeal in Jan. 2015.

Swanson claimed that there is no statutory basis for equitable mootness in either Chapter 7, Chapter 9, or Chapter 11 cases, and therefore it is a matter of judicial decision. However, Moore countered by citing two statutes in the bankruptcy code that apply to Chapters 7 and 11.

She also noted, “Given the Supreme Court’s recent decisions that are telling courts don’t refuse to exercise their jurisdictions, shouldn’t we examine carefully the doctrine of equitable mootness in Chapter 9 when we don’t have any Sixth Circuit chapter 9 cases?”

Judge McKeague asked Swanson, “Why would equitable mootness apply to Chapter 9 cases if the bankruptcy court is not authorized to order the sale of city assets?”

McKeague thereby touched on a prime difference between Chapter 9 and the other bankruptcy chapters.

The Great Lakes Water Authority, an unelected regional body, took over the revenue and most assets of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department under the Detroit bankruptcy decision, despite City Charter guarantees that a vote of the people was required.

According to a summary of Chapter 9 on the U.S. Supreme Court website, Section 904 of the Bankruptcy Code limits the power of the bankruptcy court to “interfere with – (1) any of the political or governmental powers of the debtor; (2) any of the property or revenues of the debtor; or (3) the debtor’s use or enjoyment of any income-producing property” unless the debtor consents or the plan so provides. . . In addition, the court . . . cannot convert the case to a liquidation proceeding.”

In the case of the Detroit bankruptcy, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr authorized the sale, (misnamed a “lease”) of virtually all of Detroit’s assets, including the revenues of the $6 billion Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Great Lakes Water Authority, and the conversion of the multi-billion dollar Detroit Institute of Arts collection to a bank trust no longer under control of the Detroit City Council.

Moore and McKeague also questioned Swanson’s insistence that the appellants must have requested a “stay” of implementation of the bankruptcy plan in order to prevail.

Detroit bankruptcy protest

“Another problem is that doctrine of equitable mootness means that there is no Article III court that ever considers any of these issues, that it is entirely up to an Art I bankruptcy court to decide how a city’s bankruptcy should be resolved,” Moore said.

Swanson countered that “the appellants contributed to that. They chose not to pursue a stay in the District Court, or in this court, chose not to ask the court for an expedited hearing, or request an interlocutory review of the bankruptcy court’s denial.”

McKeague countered, “[Attorney] Fields says it doesn’t matter whether stay pursued—it’s whether it was done.”

Swanson again stressed the problems with rewinding the Plan of Confirmation, saying, “Granting the appellants’ demands would leave city without a viable plan and force the dismissal of the case. The city would have to clawback $50 million in cash, $910 million in bonds to creditors, refund $220 million to the to the state, and somehow reverse its irrevocable transfer of the art collection to a charitable trust. It would again face race to the court lawsuits and crushing debt.”

Many bankruptcy opponents demanded complete cancellation of Detroit’s debt to the banks, blaming them for the city’s crisis.

Moore countered, “The points you’ve raised are very serious. They would guide an Article III court in equity in deciding what the appropriate remedy for appellants’ asserted wrong would be. There are serious factors about the amount of things that have happened already.”

With regard to Detroit’s “crushing burden of debt,” VOD earlier published an analysis of the city’s debt pre and post-bankruptcy, which found that Detroit’s outstanding debt is now 300 percent greater than it was before the bankruptcy, largely due to the issuance of new bonds to pay off its corporate creditors.

VOD wrote on March 1, 2015, “The Detroit Financial Review Commission (DFRC) published figures Feb. 16 that show the city’s total general fund long-term debt (LTD) from 2015-44 is now $3,008,162,089. According to the city’s last available Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of 2013, the general fund LTD then was $1,003,937,000.”

The Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association’s next general membership meeting is Wed. July 6, 2016, at 5:30 p.m., St. Matthews and St. Josephs Church, Woodward at Holbrook.

FUNDRAISING: To donate to DAREA’s LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, click on  http://www.gofundme.com/pensiondefensefund. Or checks can be made payable to the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), at P.O. Box 3724, Highland Park, Michigan 48203.

“Hands off my Pension” T-shirts are available for $10 each. DAREA baseball caps are available for $25 each. The fundraising committee will continue to sponsor events to cover legal fees and other meetings. DAREA has pledged to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

WEEKLY MEETINGS:  To receive notices of meetings, updates on the appeal and events information please provide your email address and phone numbers via email at Detroit2700plus@gmail.com or call DAREA at 313-649-7018.            

DAREA general membership meeting.

Related Documents:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Demos-Detroit-bankruptcy-report-highlighted-1.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/DAREA-Sixth-Circuit-Appeal-brief-12-28-2015-1.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Fields-Sixth-Circuit-appeal-brief.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Quinn-brief-6th-Circuit.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Taubitz-Industrious-6th-Circuit-brief.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Darrah-brief-6th-Circuit.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Pontiac-retirees-health-care-6th-Circuit.pdf

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Phillips-et-al-renewal-brief-2016.pdf

Related stories:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/03/02/detroit-long-term-debt-rises-300-in-bankruptcy-retirees-fight-back-with-protest-court-appeals/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/21/rhodes-says-detroits-unique-racial-composition-led-to-bankruptcy-ignores-cops-fraud/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/18/a-tale-of-two-elections-in-michigan-its-all-black-and-white/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/03/retirees-carry-on-the-battle-for-detroit-appealing-bankruptcy-to-higher-court/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/23/detroit-workers-retirees-filing-briefs-in-8-appeals-of-citys-bankruptcy-plan/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/12/detroit-retirees-announce-federal-appeal-of-bankruptcy-call-for-massive-support/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/07/appeal-of-detroit-bankruptcy-accepted-in-u-s-district-court-press-conf-thurs-jan-8-10-am/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/12/14/leaving-bankruptcy-detroit-takes-on-1-28-billion-of-new-debt/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/20/judge-denies-all-but-pa-436-lawsuit-equal-protection-claim-after-detroit-bankruptcy-over/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/15/detroit-bankruptcy-plan-genocide-in-usas-largest-black-majority-city-rich-get-95-9-poor-get-13-5/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/28/bankruptcy-did-little-to-stabilize-detroit-municipal-market-advisors/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/21/why-the-poor-are-paying-for-detroits-bankruptcy/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/17/detroit-bankruptcy-creditor-fgic-to-get-joe-louis-arena-billions-based-on-fraudulent-poc-deal/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/16/detroit-retirees-officials-blast-bankruptcy-plan-em-at-last-minute-hearing/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/09/10/detroit-bankruptcy-great-lakes-water-authority-to-steal-largest-asset-of-largest-u-s-black-city-4/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/09/06/racist-bankruptcy-plan-hearing-sanctions-theft-of-detroit/

Related from other sources:

http://www.bondbuyer.com/news/regionalnews/standard-and-poors-gives-detroit-one-investment-grade-rating-1068987-1.html

http://www.publicsectorinc.org/2014/02/detroit-pension-borrowings-what-a-tangled-web/

http://www.demos.org/blog/3/10/14/detroit%E2%80%99s-bankruptcy-laboratory-study-corruption-municipal-finance

 U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of U.S. banks, vulture hedge funds

Hedge funds raping Puerto Rico also attacking Detroit, Argentina

Movement on to cancel Puerto Rico’s debt to banks

By Lawrence Hurley

Videos: Brave New Films (photos, videos not part of Reuters story)

Jun 13, 2016

The Philadelphia-Camden Boricua Committee demonstrated Dec. 2, 2015 in front of the UBS Financial Services office in Philadelphia, part of a national appeal by the New York Call to Action on Puerto Rico to demand the cancellation of Puerto Rico’s debt and expose the criminal role of the banks and financial institutions that impose brutal austerity measures on the residents of the island. See

WASHINGTON  —  The Supreme Court on Monday refused to revive a Puerto Rico debt-restructuring law, putting the U.S. territory at risk of a messy default unless Congress this month passes legislation to help the Caribbean island survive its crippling fiscal crisis.

The justices ruled 5-2 that Puerto Rico’s 2014 statute, which would have let it cut billions of dollars in debt at public utilities over creditor objections, conflicted with federal bankruptcy law. The justices left in place a 2015 appeals court ruling invalidating the law, called the Recovery Act.

Passage of legislation now advancing in the U.S. Congress is likely the only remaining option to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt in a bid to avoid a default in the U.S. territory of about 3.5 million people that is burdened by a $70 billion debt load it has said it cannot pay.

The U.S. House of Representatives last Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation creating a federal control board to help Puerto Rico cope with its debt, and sent the bill to the Senate for consideration. The White House has urged the Senate to act promptly so President Barack Obama can sign the bill into law ahead of a looming July 1 deadline for Puerto Rico to make a $1.9 billion debt payment.

But the Senate’s Republican leaders have not yet revealed their plans for dealing with the legislation.

The proposed oversight board would be tasked with working with investors on restructuring Puerto Rico’s debt and would have the authority to push the island into a bankruptcy-like court process in which it could restructure debt without the agreement of creditors.

Puerto Rico does not have Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, unlike the 50 U.S. states. Puerto Rico’s governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, while supporting the bill generally, has expressed reservations about the broad powers it would give the oversight board.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Supreme Court, said Puerto Rico is not considered a U.S. state in one part of bankruptcy law, meaning it cannot authorize its municipal agencies to restructure debt. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

Puerto Rico, also hit by a 45 percent poverty rate and a shrinking population, faces economic calamity without measures that either change its laws or involve an agreement with creditors, which include U.S. hedge funds.

In 1984, Congress passed legislation that prohibited Puerto Rico, as a U.S. territory and not a state, from using laws that let states put struggling municipalities into bankruptcy.

Members of labor unions last year marched past the capitol in San Juan, Puerto Rico against an austerity plan to help the island’s debt crisis.

The reinstatement of the Puerto Rico law could have threatened a hard-fought, consensual restructuring at power authority PREPA under which creditors holding most of the utility’s $8.3 billion in debt agreed to take 15 percent reductions in payouts.

The Recovery Act might have allowed Puerto Rico to scrap that deal and instead put PREPA into bankruptcy, where it could impose deeper cuts and bind holdout creditors.

Two U.S. lower court decisions found the Recovery Act invalid after PREPA creditors sued. The Supreme Court heard arguments in Puerto Rico’s appeal on March 22.

“We are grateful for the Supreme Court’s careful consideration of the case, and are pleased that we now can put this litigation behind us,” said Matthew McGill, an attorney for one group of creditors.

The price on Puerto Rico’s benchmark 2035 General Obligation bond gyrated in the wake of the court’s decision. 74514LE86=MSRB

‘REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES’

Puerto Rico’s governor signed an emergency bill on April 6 allowing the government to halt payments on its debt, throwing into doubt broader restructuring plans to stave off a financial collapse.

“Preemption cases may seem like abstract discussions of the appropriate balance between states and federal power,” Sotomayor wrote in dissent. “But they have real world consequences. Finding preemption here means that a government is left powerless with no legal process to help its 3.5 million citizens.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor, whose parents were born in Puerto Rico and moved to New York before she was born, said Puerto Ricans “should not have to wait for possible congressional action to avert the consequences of unreliable electricity, transportation and safe water.”

Height Securities analyst Daniel Hanson said the ruling should be read in concert with a separate Supreme Court decision last week holding that Puerto Rico is not a separate sovereign entity from the United States for the purposes of bringing criminal charges.

The two rulings show that “Puerto Rico’s ultimate source of authority is the U.S. Congress, and the power to overrule what Congress has ordained – including in the Puerto Rico constitution – is non-existent,” Hanson wrote.

Puerto Rico’s governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla addresses the legislature about a billion-dollar cut in public spending and his new economic initiatives, in San Juan in this April 29, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Ana Martinez-Santiago/Files

That could make it harder for Puerto Rico’s governor to make good on his threat to default on debt backed by Puerto Rico’s constitution in the name of maintaining government services, Hanson added.

Only seven justices considered the case because Justice Samuel Alito recused himself and Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, has not yet been replaced.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington, Daniel Bases in New York and Nick Brown in San Juan; Editing by Will Dunham)

Related stories:

http://www.workers.org/2015/12/09/cancel-puerto-ricos-debt/#.V2gjKs_2bIU

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-puertorico-governor-idUSKBN0TX2HD20151214

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/05/27/sanders-pushes-dems-to-reject-puerto-rico-debt-deal-engineered-by-banks-which-destroyed-detroit/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/07/04/vowing-to-paralyze-this-island-puerto-rico-unions-call-general-strike-against-austerity/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/06/11/puerto-rico-unions-threaten-strike-against-austerity-budget-jones-day-law-firm-involved/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/15/detroit-bankruptcy-plan-genocide-in-usas-largest-black-majority-city-rich-get-95-9-poor-get-13-5/

To download copy of flier, click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/WAYNE-COUNTY-GENERAL-ASSEMBLY.pdf

For active links to internet addresses listed:

http://www.waynecountyassembly.com

waynecounty.assembly@gmail.com

Facebook.com/wayne.assembly

“I guess when I can finally hug Davontae I will know it is real. I haven’t touched or hugged him for 8 years.”—Mother Taminko Sanford-Tilmon

 “Kym Worthy has known for years of the real statements coming from the confessed hit man”—Bill Proctor 

Vincent Smothers confessed to Detroit Police two weeks after Davontae was sentenced; Sgt. Ira Todd was demoted for insisting on Sanford’s innocence

Worthy press conference held Thurs. June 9: falsely blames child’s lawyers for not challenging guilty plea, producing experts to testify to state of mind

Sanford family’s press conference Thurs. June 9, 2 p.m. at 13560 E. McNichols, Detroit

By Diane Bukowski

June 8, 2016, updated June 9, 2016

After 9 long years, Davontae Sanford can finally smile at his victory.

DETROIT – In a stunning turn of events that exposed the guilt of all who kept an innocent Davontae Sanford locked up since the age of 14, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Brian Sullivan vacated Sanford’s 37-90 year sentence for four killings on Runyon Street in 2oo7, and ordered his immediate release during a hearing June 7.

He should be home in his family’s arms today, away from the brutal prison life he endured, which included constant harassment and torture by guards.

The Detroit Police Department, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, and Judge Sullivan knew of self-admitted hit man Vincent Smothers’ detailed confession to the murders two weeks after Davontae was sentenced on April 4, 2008, but led what amounted to a criminal cover-up. In a perfect world, they would now be charged with obstruction of justice and jailed themselves.

Sanford’s mother, Taminko Sanford-Tilmon, her husband Jermaine Tilmon, and Sanford’s siblings led the excruciating battle to extract their son and brother from “the belly of the beast,” for the next nine years without pause.

Taminko Sanford-Tilmon speaks at well-covered 2012 rally for Davontae, demanding Kym Worthy drop charges; family surrounds her.

“There were days and times I never thought my son would ever see daylight again, my darkest moments, his birthday, or just because I would crawl in a corner on many days and didn’t want to come out,” Sanford-Tilmon wrote on Facebook.

“But God!!! [kept] giving me the strength to fight n God Blessed us with people that wanted to support n fight n love Davontae like he was theirs. I’m blessed, numb, overwhelmed and full of joy and nervous all at the same time. It doesn’t seem real due to all the bumps we hit in this case. I guess when I can finally hug Davontae I will know it is real. I haven’t touched or hugged him in eight years. If you’re going through something just know God is able. Your presence support and love has truly blessed us. Dinner will be coming but first my job is to protect my son, alone with his family and his true supporters. Davontae is our main force and priority. He will be with us tomorrow.”

In video below, Sanford-Tilmon speaks out during press conference sponsored in 2015 by two Innocence Clinics seeking to free Davontae.

Former Channel 7 News reporter Bill Proctor covered the case in its early years, even opening his own Innocence Clinic.

“We revealed the misconduct of the Detroit Police Department way back when this happened,” Proctor told Channel 7 reporter Simon Chayket in the video at the top of this story.

Prosecutor Kym Worthy

Judge Brian Sullivan

“And the fact of the matter is the prosecutor’s office, Kym Worthy, has known for years of the real statements coming from the confessed hit man, in fact she structured out a deal for him to essentially send him off to prison without including this case,” Proctor said.

“She has known for years. Finally Davontae Sanford, his mother, his siblings, are all going to get justice, but they have known for all these years that the wrong person was in prison and that the right man had confessed. Vincent Smothers had a lot more credibility for these killings than anyone else on this planet.”

An appeals court ruled Sept. 26, 2013 that Smothers must be allowed to testify at post-conviction hearings in front of Sullivan, along with experts on coerced confessions, the evident lynchpin in Sullivan’s decision to free the young man. Sullivan had repeatedly refused to allow his testimony during earlier hearings where Sanford was represented by Attorney Kim McGinnis of the State Appellate Defender’s Office.

Davontae Sanford family and supporters after appeals court hearing August 6, 2013. Mother Taminko Sanford Tilmon and stepfather Jermaine Tilmon at right; paralegal Roberto Guzman in front; Detroit News reporter Oralandar Brand Williams at left taking photos.jpg

“He’s not guilty. He didn’t do it,” Smothers told AP reporter Ed White in a prison interview. “I understand what prison life is like; it’s miserable. To be here and be innocent – I don’t know what it’s like. He’s a kid, and I hate for him to do the kind of time they’re giving him.”

Smothers’ account of the murders matched forensic and ballistics evidence at the scene perfectly, while Davontae’s confession as a child of 14, naming three young friends who were never tried, was grossly inaccurate.

Self-described hit man Vincent Smothers also campaigned for Davontae’s freedom, at risk to himself.

Prosecutor Worthy’s office issued a statement, saying in part, “Today, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and the defense attempted to file a stipulated order to dismiss all charges against Sanford, without prejudice. However, Wayne County Third Circuit Court Judge Brian Sullivan signed an order vacating Sanford’s conviction and sentence, and directing that the Michigan Department of Corrections immediately release Sanford on his own recognizance. The court ordered the People to file a Motion to Dismiss the Case, which the court will review.”

A motion to dismiss charges WITHOUT prejudice means they can be brought back again when and if the Prosecutor desires. Worthy said SHE decided to call in the Michigan State Police to re-investigate the case, nine years after the fact, after Sanford’s attorneys from two Innocence Clinics filed a motion for relief from judgment in 2015.

“One year later, on May 20, 2016, the State Police submitted a report of their investigation,” the release says. “Included in that report is a recorded interview in which former Deputy Chief James Tolbert contradicts his sworn testimony that Davontae Sanford drew the entire diagram of the crime scene, including the location of the victims’ bodies, while being questioned by the police.  This called into question Tolbert’s credibility in the case.”

The statement says she will hold a press conference tomorrow, Thurs. June 9, at 10 a.m. in the 12^th floor conference room of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, located in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, 1441 St. Antoine Street, Detroit, Michigan.

Kevin DeMott is a mentally ill inmate with bipolar and personality disorders. Corrections officers at the Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility chained DeMott to his bed and secured a padded helmet to his head after he refused to stop banging his head against the wall, which is stained with blood. This is the prison where Davontae was held after the age of 15, at level 5./ Michigan Department of Corrections

Roberto Guzman, a paralegal who worked on behalf of the family, told VOD, “Worthy is not confessing wrongdoing . She knew about it all the time but she claims surprise now.”

He added that Sanford needs to “file a Section 183 claim for wrongful conviction, a claim for legal malpractice. They took away this child’s life. He’s going to need intense psychotherapy when he gets out. His damages are in the millions of dollars. He goes in there as a child and comes out as a man. Keep in mind the post-traumatic stress syndrome he will be suffering. It was a torture chamber in there for him. He was beaten up for breakfast, lunch and dinner by the guards.”

Taminko Sanford-Tilmon said Davontae and his family, with their attorneys, will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 9 at a church in the Matrix Human Center, located at 13560 E. McNichols, in Detroit.

Above is video of Kym Worthy’s press conference filmed by Fox 2 News. This reporter was denied access to the press conference for having arrived 5 minutes late and then being told she would have to wait until an escort came down from the prosecutor’s office. It is clear from the video that the press conference started late, so there was no reason to deny this reporter access.

VOD’s commentary on the content of this press conference will be published later. Meanwhile, the stories VOD has done over the years, including coverage of the post-conviction hearings in front of Brian Sullivan and the Court of Appeals hearing, are listed below. They contradict many of Worthy’s allegations at the press conference.–Diane Bukowski

Related stories:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/06/04/child-killers-corrupt-and-killer-cops-and-kym-worthy/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/03/09/prayer-brunch-to-free-davontae-sanford-sat-march-12-falsely-convicted-as-child-of-14-now-23/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/04/19/davontae-sanford-moves-giant-step-closer-to-freedom-as-innocence-clinics-come-to-his-aid/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/12/23/mother-of-davontae-sanford-supporters-decry-pros-worthys-continued-persecution-of-her-son/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/10/22/families-demand-no-police-state-under-detroit-chief-craig-top-cops/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/09/27/victory-for-davontae-sanford-in-appeal-of-conviction-at-age-14-for-four-murders/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/08/10/davontae-sanfords-family-hopeful-after-appeals-court-hearing/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/08/04/free-davontae-sanford-appeals-court-hearing-tues-aug-6-2013-10-a-m/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/04/28/free-davontae-and-charles-justice-for-aiyana-and-trayvon/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/04/24/sanfordjones-rally-receives-broad-coverage-hit-man-signs-affidavit-to-free-davontae/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/04/24/stop-the-war-on-our-youth-davontae-aiyana-and-dad-trayvon-kenny-snodgrass-production/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/03/25/davontae-innocent-being-tortured-in-prison-judge-refuses-to-allow-real-killers-confession/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/02/07/ap-newsbreak-detroit-hit-man-says-davontae-sanford-is-innocent-will-testify/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/08/02/witness-detroit-hit-man-vincent-smothers-said-convicted-teen-davontae-sanford-had-no-role-in-slayings/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/07/19/davontae-sanford%e2%80%99s-innocence-v-detroit-police-and-prosecutors%e2%80%99-reputations/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/05/02/free-davontae-sanford-frank-murphy-court-tues-may-10-9-a-m-to-12-noon/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/01/15/free-davontae-sanford/