Watch video by clicking on http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/up-to-500000-protestors-attend-anticuts-demo-2253791.html.

Half a million in London turn out against budget cuts/Getty Images

By Alan Jones, PA
Saturday, 26 March 2011

The Independent

Organisers of a huge protest against the Government’s public spending cuts tonight hailed the demonstration a “fantastic success” after hundreds of thousands of people joined the biggest event of its kind for over 20 years.

Between 400,000 and 500,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters, council and NHS workers, other public sector employees, students, pensioners and campaign groups from across the UK marched through central London to a rally where union officials and Labour leader Ed Miliband condemned the “brutal” cuts in jobs and services.

London protest/Getty Images

Violence flared away from the rally when a group of hundreds of activists, not connected with the union protest, clashed with police. They set off fireworks, threw paint and attacked shops in Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly.

Topshop and HSBC had their windows smashed, while paint and glass bottles were thrown at a Royal Bank of Scotland branch.

Covering their faces with scarves, they fought with police and disrupted traffic, throwing lightbulbs filled with ammonia at officers and lighting a fire.

Nine arrests were made and some police officers were injured.

UK Uncut, an anti-cuts direct action group, later occupied the Fortnum & Mason store in Piccadilly, claiming the firm had “dodged” paying taxes.

Marchers proceed down Whitehall St. in London/Getty Images

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said he “bitterly regretted” the violence, adding that he hoped it would not detract from the massive anti-cuts protest.

He told the Press Association: “I don’t think the activities of a few hundred people should take the focus away from the hundreds of thousands of people who have sent a powerful message to the Government today.

“Ministers should now seriously reconsider their whole strategy after today’s demonstration. This has been Middle Britain speaking.”

Mr Barber said unions would now step up pressure on the Government, especially MPs in their constituencies, and launch a series of protests next week in defence of the NHS.”

London Ambulance Service said 30 people were treated for injuries throughout the day, 11 of whom were taken to hospital, ranging from assault to collapsing with illness. Continue reading →

Joyce Moore

The Observation of Joyce Moore

Recently, there was a gathering of individual members of Citizens’ District Councils (CDC).  The reason for this gathering was because there is a need to re-establish the presence of Citizens’ District Councils in their communities and to consolidate their presence through the Coordinating Council on Community Redevelopment.   Citizens’ District Councils have the highest authorized citizens group that can participate in the development of their communities, such as rehabilitation of houses, new construction, creating job training programs to name a few, with the ultimate goal, to stabilize neighborhoods and the tax base they represent. 

The main discussion of this gathering was the upcoming election on April 5, 2011 for CDC’s.    According to Public Act 344, Section 125.74 (a) “Except as otherwise provided in this subdivision, for each district area, a citizen’s district councils of not less than 12 nor more than 25 members shall be selected in a manner that ensures that the citizen’s district councils are to the maximum extent possible representative of the residents of the area and of other persons with a demonstrable and substantial interest in the area.  The majority of the citizen’s district councils shall be composed of citizens living in the development area.” Each CDC must meet the minimum requirement of twelve members to be a voting, legitimate board.  There are three ways an individual who lives in the boundaries of a CDC can be placed on the board: 1.) by having their names placed on the ballot through petitions, 2.) as a write-in candidate by having their name along with their address written on a ballot and, 3.) as an appointee by the mayor.

Speaker confronts Mayor Dave Bing at first of last year's meetings on his down-sizing of Detroit plans; state law requires the participation of elected CDC's in any such plan involving "blighted" areas, but Bing has not complied

Another issue of concern was approximately $500,000.00 dollars proposed to be allocated for administrative services to CDC’s that are not funded.  These services can consist of flyers to be circulated within the boundaries of each CDC to let residences know of upcoming meetings.   Secondly, these services can provide for a newsletter to let residences know what’s going on and what kinds of programs are available to assist them with such things as utilities, taxes and rehabilitation of their homes.  Several in attendance indicated that these administrative services were not being provided by the City.  The issue then becomes, where is the money and who is getting it? 

If you are a CDC member and would like to participate in this effort, please contact Joyce Moore at (313)465-3299. 

Ed. Note: to read more about why Citizens’ District Councils are important, click on the following VOD articles regarding why Mayor Dave Bing’s “Detroit Works Project” violates state law requiring consultation with CDC’s: http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=757 and http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=824.

Mildred Gaddis

Aiyana Stanley-Jones

News and commentary by Diane Bukowski

DETROIT-

We are in trouble in Detroit. The trouble is not only the fault of the banks, the corporations, and the police (the first time this writer has admitted same).  The fact that many people in Detroit including Mildred Gaddis blamed Aiyana Stanley Jones’ family for the police bombing of her house last May 16 and the direct gunshot to her head by a white police officer from Grosse Pointe was one indication of the depth of the trouble we are in.

Another indication was Sheila Cockrel’s comment during a forum on the police consent decrees Mar. 17 that Police Chief Ralph Godbee is “doing a good job,” and a media observation that “Certainly people in the [police brutality] coalition aren’t talking about masses of people being shot or dying in their jail cells the same way they were 15 years ago.”

Imam Luqman Abdullah, killed by Joint Detroit-FBI task force 10/28/09

As the same media source said a week previously, Detroit police admitted to killing 10 people in 2010, including Aiyana Jones.* They also helped kill Imam Luqman Abdullah as well. Who is to say who killed all the unidentified corpses in the Wayne County Morgue?

But the ultimate abomination was the conviction of Jason Alexander Gibson Mar. 23 by a jury that may have had five Detroiters on it, since five of the jurors were Black. One of the jurors from Detroit told the Detroit News, “The prosecution put on a good case.”

Prof. Carl Taylor

Probably one of the same grown folks in this city that run around talking about the young people with their pants dragging down, saying they are terrified of them, and others from outside the city (e.g. Prof. Carl Taylor of Michigan State University, a gargantuan man) who say they are afraid to come to Detroit unless they are “strapped.” Maybe one of those Detroiters who proudly advocates “snitching,” per the following from the Dec. 5, 2010 issue of The Michigan Citizen:

“[Malik] Shabazz says the group [Detroit 300] is not only after those attacking the elderly but those participating in any form of crime, bringing down Detroit neighborhoods, ‘selling drugs, stealing hub caps, breaking and entering. We’re shutting it down …’ he said. He’s encouraging the people of Detroit to come forward with information on any criminal activity in their neighborhoods. ‘Don’t snitch, just tell,’ says Shabazz.”  

Fred Hampton

Tookie Williams

Ken Cockrel Sr. and Hayward Brown

Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, George Jackson, Tookie Williams, John Percy Boyd, Mark Clyde Bethune, Hayward Brown, and countless others from Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman on down must be turning over in their graves. They knew, as did the participants of the 1967 Detroit rebellion, that the police in Detroit are an occupying force there to protect the rich, not the people of Detroit.

Even the mother of 17-year-old Jarean Blake, whose murder was the excuse for the police assault on the Jones home, found that out when police rousted young people who were holding a memorial in honor of her son (see MC article by this author at  http://michigancitizen.com/mother-of-slain-teen-claims-police-brutality-p8783-1.htm.)

Many Detroiters have lost their minds, or at least their common sense.

Jameson house (l) next to 20263 Schoenherr

That is what both Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway and defense attorney Susan Reed told the jury to use in the Gibson trial for the killing of Detroit police officer Brian Huff last May 3. Many on the street and at least one in police administration ranks believed the address at 20263 Schoenherr to be a police-operated drug house that may have been guarded by neighbor Paul Jameson, using seven surveillance cameras on his own house.

Jameson testified he came out armed on May 3 with HIS .45 Smith and Wesson because he thought the “vacant” house was being broken into, even though he had told his wife to call 911. He testified he assumed a military stance on one knee next to a red tree in his front yard, with the gun held out in both hands, as police arrived. Curiously, said Reed in her closing argument, a .45 caliber casing was found by that tree but never accounted for. Jameson also testified he dissembled the gun before turning it over to the police later, giving ample time for a little cleaning job.

Sean Bell, killed on his wedding eve by NYC police, was also called "Bird"

Reed told the jury their common sense should easily show reasonable doubt as to Gibson’s guilt.

Common sense tells us—how does one man shoot a police officer twice, run out the front door into the gun sights of dozens of other police officers, shoot three of them while the officers are madly firing off their guns, leaving at least 40 bullet casings, most from the officers’ weapons, and end up alive?

Common sense tells us—there is something wrong with a picture where Huff allegedly gets a “breaking and entering—shots fired” call and enters the house in question with his gun strapped in its holster, the only cop who did not have his gun drawn.

Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraid were stripped naked in public like Jason Gibson

Common sense tells us—there is something wrong when a civilian, Tonya Wright, called by the prosecution testifies that she witnessed Gibson’s clothing being cut off him in the street and placed on the back of a police car, but never saw a gallon bag of marijuana until the police threw the clothes in the street with the weed on top of it. And then Reed pointed out, she says she heard police repeatedly hollering down the street, “Have you found the weapon?”

Regarding that weapon, common sense tells us: why were no gunshot residue tests of Jason Gibson’s hands or body entered into evidence, if he fired the gun 10 times, as the prosecution claimed? A technician testified only that he found no GSR on Gibson’s clothes, but said it did not necessarily mean he did not fire a gun. The only evidence the prosecution introduced was a fingerprint of Gibson’s they claimed to have found on a .45 magazine–which magazine, from what gun, and how did the fingerprint get there? Gibson was previously convicted on a felony firearms count and spent two years in prison for it. 

Common sense also tells us–when the arresting officer, Gibson’s partner Joseph D’Angelo, did not see a gun by Gibson when he handcuffed him to a fence, even though he was using his magnum flashlight, how does a .45 Ruger with the serial number shaved off magically appear a foot from Gibson’s head later, “discovered” by Officers Christopher Champagne, Ernie Harris, and one Rayshaun (sp?) Gaines, who arrived after the action?

Detroit SWAT was an A&E special

Curiously, Champagne, who appeared quite nervous and had to be asked to speak up when he testified, was not among the hordes of police officers of every make and kind, from inspectors to sergeants to the gang squad to the multi-agency task force, to the four cops injured when Huff was killed, who packed the courtroom for closing arguments Mar. 22 in Gibson’s trial. Why? They hadn’t been there for the three weeks of the trial. Was it to intimidate jury and judge?

Most of the cops ,uniformed or in “plainclothes,” were armed with their guns, batons, pepper spray and every other device imaginable, except their SWAT team helmets, shields, and rifles. One of them told Gibson within the earshot of his defense attorney and the judge “I hope you rot in hell,” as he left the courtroom after the closing statements. His group did not even wait for the jury to clear the outside halls as sheriffs who regulate courtroom procedures usually require.

Cops in court were armed like this

Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway did not even bar that officer from returning, that’s how intimidated she was. While she was asking for peace in the courtroom, three of the armed officers standing behind Gibson’s mother, father and brother glaring directly at Hathaway. No sheriff asked them to sit down.

Prosecutor Thomas Trzcinski’s closing argument was a hodge-podge that included naming some of the 447 items entered into evidence, and mixing in names of the two undercover officers, Joseph Dunlap and Bryan Glover, who identified Gibson running from the house, with the names of numerous other officers who said they could identify no one in the darkness.

Trzcinski--prosecutorial misconduct?

It included Trzcinski calling diagrams drawn of the living room of the house “photos” showing Gibson standing by a side window aiming at Huff as he entered the house. The diagrams were no such thing—there are no photos of Gibson in the house.

 It included Trzcinski challenging the defense’s comments on evidence produced by technicians, saying she impugned their personal character. It even included him hypocritically telling the jury “God Bless” after Judge Hathaway specifically told both attorneys to avoid reference to religion during the trial.

It included constant appeals for the jurors’ sympathy for the cops who were injured, despite the judge’s instructions that sympathy must not enter into deliberations.

Jason Gibson with attorney Susan Reed

Trzcinski became hysterical, screaming in his rebuttal argument after Reed’s closing, during which she cautioned the jurors to distinguish evidence that should create reasonable doubt from the confusing mass of 447 items presented throughout the long, tiring trial.

As they say, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” In this author’s opinion, the massive evidence list, interspersed with gruesome statements from EMS technicians and cops which sent Huff’s wife sobbing into the hall, was meant to do just that.

Defense attorney Susan Reed called for a mistrial and accused Trzcinski of prosecutorial misconduct for his presentations, but was denied both recourses by Judge Hathaway. She said later that Gibson will appeal his convictions.

But Gibson’s conviction goes beyond his own personal case. WHEN WILL DETROITERS SAY NO TO THE BRAINWASHING THAT HAS BEEN PERPETRATED ON THEM BY THEIR ENEMIES? When will they listen to Jarean Blake’s mother, Lyvonne Cargill, who told this writer, “There are a lot of young people out there getting killed. Both Jarean and Aiyana are up there in heaven looking down and asking, ‘why did this happen?’  We gotta help our kids. They want jobs, they don’t have any recreation centers, nothing to do with their lives. I want to get a foundation set up to build a recreation center in Jarean’s name.”

Kym Worthy (l) interviewed by Mildred Gaddis

*The media source was author Curt Guyette of the Metro Times. This writer congratulates him for the excellent story he did prior to the consent decree forum as well as questions he raised about what good it did afterward. One item that should also be raised, however: POLICE WILL ONLY STOP THEIR KILLINGS, RAPES, BRUTALITY AND CORRUPTION WHEN THEY ARE CHARGED AND PUT IN JAIL. WHY HAS KYM WORTHY NOT YET CHARGED EVEN OFFICER JOSEPH WEEKLEY, WHO SHOT LITTLE AIYANA TO DEATH, LET ALONE OFFICER EUGENE BROWN, WHO KILLED LAMAR GRABLE AND TWO OTHERS, OFFICER EUGENE WILLIAMS, WHO KILLED 16-YEAR-OLD BRANDON MOORE AND TWO OTHERS, AND NUMEROUS OTHER COPS WHO HAVE COST THE CITY HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN LAWSUITS BUT REMAIN ON THE FORCE?

Regarding the current Coalition against Police Brutality’s contentions that police are not shooting and killing folks like they used to, read the following from today’s Detroit News:

Cops shoot after man pulls gun

Mar 25, 2011  Detroit News

COMPILED FROM REPORTS BY GINA DAMRON, JENNIFER DIXON AND MATT HELMS

DETROIT – Police shot a man in his mid-80s Thursday [Mar. 24, 2011] after he pulled out a handgun while officers were executing a search warrant, Detroit police spokeswoman Sgt. Eren Stephens said. She said police went to search the home on the 1000 block of Adeline about 12:45 p.m., looking for the Detroit man’s grandson, who is wanted for assault with intent to murder.

When police arrived, the grandfather pointed a handgun at officers, who fired at him, striking him in the arm and leg, Stephens said. She said the injuries are non-life-threatening, and the man is being treated at a hospital, where he is under guard.

(Ed. note: this is all that came out of reports from THREE writers? Ever since the issue of police brutality in Detroit was publicized at a City Council meeting in 1998, called for by the ORIGINAL Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, police and media have refused to publish the names of police shooting victims, as well as the names of the cops involved. Prior to that, it was common practice.)

And there’s more:

WOMAN FIRES AT COPS 

A woman opened fire on Detroit police officers Thursday in an attempt to keep Child Protective Services from taking her 13-year-old daughter, who has a mental illness, for medical treatment.

No one was injured. The incident unfolded about 5:35 p.m. on Blaine on the city’s west side and led to a standoff that continued into the night. Lt. Michael Nied of the 10th Precinct said a shot rang out after he and two officers kicked in the side door of the home.The woman offered to give herself up to a local minister, but negotiations were continuing as of 10:40 p.m.

(Ed. note: according to Channel 2 news this morning, the woman was taken into custody after community members intervened. Why should community members help the police arrest anyone? Why were police involved in the first place? Ch. 2 reported that the woman simply wanted to change her daughter’s doctors. There is a well-paid industry run by CPS to take children, especially Black children, away from their families and give them to “non-profit” foster care agencies who get a certain amount per head from the feds. Now the woman faces an unknown amount of prison time for trying to protect her daughter as she saw fit.)

• AS US NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY DESTROYS JAPAN AGAIN;
• 35,000 MEXICANS DIE IN ARMS-RELATED DRUG TRAFFIC
• US/UN BOMB LIBYA;
• BAHRAINI AND YEMENI PROTESTERS SLAUGHTERED;
• MURDERER OF PAKISTANI FAMILIES FREED;  
•  US THREATENS HAITI, PANAMA, CHILE

Reflections by Fidel Castro

In these bitter days we have seen pictures of an earthquake that reached 9 on the Richter Scale with hundreds of strong after-shocks, and a tsunami 10 metres high whose waves of dark waters dragged tens of  thousands of people between cars and trucks over homes and 3 and 4 storey buildings.

Sophisticated mass media has been saturating our minds with the news of civil wars, arms trade
associated with drugs that in just five years have killed more than 35,000 people in Mexico, climatic changes in various countries, asphyxiating heat waves, mountains of ice melting at the poles, torrential rains, shortages and growing prices for foods. We really need some consolation and this has just reached us via that life-saving angel of our species, the United Nations Security Council and its colossal invention: good conduct certificates.

Of course we already know, through the Europa Press Agency, that the number of persons who died as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami were 6,539, and 10,259 were missing, “according to the latest toll”.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and Oakland Co. L. Brooks Patterson: We Believe in Detroit

Although we still do not know “the exact whereabouts of thousands of people”, the governor of a prefecture has suggested that the survivors ought to move to another part of Japan. (VOD editor note: maybe Detroit Mayor Dave Bing should create a nuclear catastrophe in the areas of Detroit he wants to force people from.)

“Damaged airports, ports and highways are being gradually repaired”, a Japanese news agency states.

The British agency Reuters was less optimistic when it stated that “a `Chernobyl solution’ could be the last resort” but authorities say that “it is still too soon to talk about long-range measures and that first we have to try to cool the plant’s six reactors and the fuel-storage pools.”

Professor Murray Jennex at San Diego State University in California said: “They (reactors) are kind of like a coffee maker. If you leave it on the heat, they boil dry and then they crack …”

Greenpeace protest against nuclear waste

“Putting concrete on that wouldn’t help keep your coffee maker safe. But eventually, yes, you could build a concrete shield and be done with it.”

Another dispatch from the European agency stated: “We launched a `race against the clock’ to cool down the reactors, declared General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano.”

“`We are dealing with a very serious accident’, said Amano after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, in reference to the Fukushima nuclear plant.”

Without a doubt, the world had been jolted by the unexpected accident in Japan, that moved even the foundations of the planet’s energy development; 442 nuclear plants were functioning, great need for repairs; the Chernobyl accident in 1986 had paralyzed construction programmes of new facilities which were about to resume and be extended.

Wouldn’t our concerns over NATO’s war actions in northern Africa to occupy the rich Libyan fields of light oil and ensure the enormous energy resources in the Middle East after the revolutionary eruption in Arab nations be exaggerated [according to U.S. reports on Japan]?

Serious threats of a new economic crisis were upsetting economists.

Bad news on the political front keeps on coming.

Funeral for Bahraini protester was fired on

AFP states that thousands of Shiite demonstrators were shouting anti-government slogans near Manama after Friday prayers, even though Bahraini authorities have prohibited crowds from gathering.

“Repression […] this week caused at least eight deaths: four demonstrators and four police.”

“`We are ready to sacrifice our blood and our souls for Bahrain’, shouted the demonstrators.”

“Bahraini authorities decreed the exclusion state this week […] within this small kingdom where the US has a base for its Fifth Fleet.”

AFP, March18, 2011

Shell casings from government gunfire during Yemeni protest

“More than 30 died and around a hundred were injured on Friday after demonstrators were shot at as they demanded the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh in Sanah, accordingto a new toll reported by medical sources.”

“`Most of those injured were hit by bullets to the head, neck and chest area’, a doctor told AFP.”

This is a close United States ally that also has the support of Saudi forces.

AP, March 18, 2011

“King Abdullah (of Saudi Arabia) spoke after Muslim prayers on Friday. He thanked residents and security forces for being `the hands’ of national stability.”

Pakistanis protest in Karachi against U.S. military operations and drone attacks in tribal areas

“Islamabad, March 18, (AFP) – thousands demonstrated on Friday in the streets of several Pakistani cities to protest against the American unmanned plane attack that killed 35 people this week and the liberation of a CIA employee who was being held for murder.” He had been set free after two million dollars had been paid to the relatives of the two men he killed in a Lahore street.

Why do we have the Security Council, the veto, the anti-veto, the majority, the minority, abstention, speeches, demagoguery and the solemn declarations of Ban Ki-moon?

Above all, why do we have NATO, its 5.5 million soldiers (according to highly qualified specialists) and its 19,845 tanks, 57,938 armoured vehicles, 6,492 fighter jets, 2,482 helicopters, 19 aircraft carriers, 156 submarines, 303 surface vessels, 5,728 nuclear missiles, tens of thousands of atomic bombs with the destructive power equivalent to hundreds of thousand times the capacity of those dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

There is more than enough of such stupid power, it wouldn’t be used, nor can it be used; we would need dozens of planet such as Earth. Its only purpose is to demonstrate the waste and the chaos generated by capitalism.

We can dedicate our time to other things, less sinister and more ludicrous.

For example, the DPA agency informs us:

Jean Bertrand Aristide ready to return to Haiti

“Port-au-Prince, March 18, 2011. The arrival of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Port-au-Prince this Friday cannot have taken anyone by surprise.”

 
“January 20: The American State Department is opposed to the return of Aristide before at least the end of the electoral process…”.

The State Department has gotten mixed up even in this: it was the US that gave birth to Papa Doc, and it had overthrown and expelled President Aristide to Africa 7 years ago.

A Notimex dispatch, dated in Panama today, March 18th, informed that WikiLeaks revealed the entry of US warships to Panama:

“January 19: From South Africa, Aristide published an `open letter’ where he says he is `ready’ to return to Haiti’ at any time to `contribute as a simple citizen in the field of education’…”

“The covenant was signed on April 15, 2009 so that military vessels could enter Panamanian waters between May 3rd and the end of Torrijos’ term on June 30th this year, when the president was succeeded by the right-wing Ricardo Martinelli.

“`Until now, the Panamanian government has always refused to do this requirement arguing that operations with the United States Army were a sensitive matter for Panamanians’…”

Another interesting tale about the trickery of US foreign policy is told today by AP:

“Chile and the United States signed a nuclear energy treaty on Friday, despite the fears of the spread of radiation in Japan”.

“The fear arises after a devastating earthquake and subsequent tidal wave severely affected the nuclear reactors in a plant on the north-eastern coast of Japan”.

“The treaty was signed on Friday morning by US Ambassador Alejandro Wolff and Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfredo Moreno.”

Obama in Chile Mar. 21, 2011

“…White House officials were not able to confirm the highly awaited signing which one supposes would be a notable event during the visit to Chile on Monday of President Barack Obama.”

But no matter, appearances can always be life-saving and public opinion can be manipulated by
appearances; White House officials emphasized “that the treaty focuses on training nuclear engineers and not on the construction of reactors.”

Since Japanese nuclear technology is basically Yankee, their technicians surely would acquire more experience studying what happened in that beleaguered country whose population was victim of a cruel and unscrupulous predecessor of the current president of the United States.

Who are Obama, NATO and Ban Ki-moon going to fool with good conduct certificates?

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 18, 2011
8:54 p.m.

Obama to visit Ghana as he bombs Libya

Posted by Ngone Aw on March 23, 2011 at 4:30am 

http://theblacklistpub.ning.com/

View Ngone Aw’s blog

 Written by Sekou Nkrumah, Chairman of the Pan African Improvement Organization. He has written two books,”Repatriation and Pan Africanism, the Suppression of Two Movements” and “Notes on White Supremacy and  Capitalism.”

Unfortunately many Ghanaians are being deceived by Barack Obama’s presidency and his scheduled tour to Ghana. Many Ghanaians think that Obama will be coming to help develop the country, provide money or establish friendly relationships with Ghana. All three reasons are far from the truth. The truth of the matter is the U.S. has economic interest in Ghana, which they must guard militarily. This economic interest and military action presupposes political control. The implementation of U.S. political control of Ghana is predicated upon terrorizing the leadership, and consequently the Ghanaian masses out of their resources.

Terrorism is defined as the use of organized intimidation systematically to evoke extreme, intense and overpowering fear with violence or the threat of violence. Obama represents a country, from its inception that waged state and international state terrorism against African countries and Ghana, aimed at intimidating them to the point of dispensing of their human and material resources; through slave raiding.

AFRICOM--tool of U.S. imperialism

Through the Africa Command (Africom) which became fully operational October 2008, by the Bush administration, terrorism is now being carried out by Obama in Africa. Although the U.S. foreign policy makers have stated, “Africom is about helping Africans build greater capacity to assure their own security” the actual fact is the U.S. plans to manipulate African militaries against their own people and interest.

Assuring African security is another fabrication of the truth because the U.S. has never helped Africans, much less African countries, become more secure. Africans in America have been terrorized by such groups as the Klu Klux Klan for over 100 years, and the U.S. government never took one step, passed one law, outlawing the organization, or ending the violence committed against African people. Even after chattel slavery the U.S. government facilitated the Black Codes, which supported the Klu Klux Klan’s reign of terror on African people.

The U.S. was conceived in terrorism by murdering over 100 million “Indians” Indigenous People of the Western Hemisphere, and by destroying families and villages throughout Africa with the slave raid. As a consequence, Africans were enslaved for over 300 years and over 100 million Africans lost their lives in Africa, during the middle passage, and on America’s plantations – NAKED TERRORISM!!!

The U.S. has supported Mobutu of Zaire (1965-1997), Houphet Boigny of Cote D’Ivoire (1960-1993), Ian Smith of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe (1953-1980), Said Barre of Somalia (1978-1991), Arap Moi of Kenya (1978-2003), Hastings Banda of Malawi (1962-1995), Omar Bongo of Gabon (1967-2009), and the military support given to the racist apartheid regime of South Africa (1910-1994) in which hundreds of thousands of Africans were tortured, raped, and murdered in cold blood.

Kwame Nkrumah

The (CIA) Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. has trained and armed reactionary movements that have murdered millions of Africans. These movements are and were directed toward the overthrow of legitimate governments in Africa. For example, Jonas Savimbi of UNITA in Angola, Afonso Dhlakama of Renamo in Mozambique, and the Selous Scouts in Zimbabwe. Since 1950, there have been 186 military coups in Africa, and 26 wars with many of them inspired by the CIA. In 1966, the CIA violently overthrew our first President Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Today Obama is covering up the torture by CIA interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The CIA murdered Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and aided BOSS, apartheid South Africa’s secret service, in the capture of Nelson Mandela which took 27 years of his life and forestalled the ending of apartheid. The irony of this is the U.S. labeled Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress (ANC) leadership as terrorists, while they were supporting the Apartheid government’s terrorism against Africans in Azania South Africa.

Patrice Lumumba

Sekou Toure

The CIA sought to overthrow the Revolutionary Republic of Guinea in 1970, by aiding the Portuguese invasion of the country, which was aimed at murdering President Sekou Toure and co-President of Guinea at the time, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. They planned to also murder the Pan Africanist and Revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral, of the African Independence Party of Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC), Kwame Ture of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and leader of the Black Power Movement in the U.S., and his wife Miriam Makeba, Africa’s premier revolutionary songstress—who recently died, may her soul rest in peace.

Remember Hanna Qaddafi

The U.S. shot down two Libyan jets on August 21, 1981, and bombed Tripoli and Benghazi on April 14, 1986, in an attempt to kill Qaddafi. The bombing killed Qaddafi’s daughter, Hanna, and were attempts to destabilize Libya (the country with the highest living standard in Africa). In 1989, the U.S. shot down two Libyan jets. In August 1998, the U.S. launched a number of cruise missile attacks on Khartoum, Sudan, killing innocent women, children, and babies. In December 1992, the U.S. invaded Somalia with 28,000 troops, slaughtering innocent women, children, babies, and elderly people, looking for a fictitious warlord who never raised one finger against America. In April 2007, the U.S. bombed Somalia from off its coast, along with using Meles Zenawi in the same year to invade Somalia, causing untold damage to the country and the loss of many lives. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe because Africans have taken their land back from a white racist illegal settler regime. Obama has continued the sanctions against Zimbabwe’s elected government, while he hasn’t imposed sanctions on the illegal military coup makers in Honduras, lead by
General Romeo Vasquez, who was trained by the U.S. military in the “School of the America’s.”

Obama is obligated to continue this U.S. foreign policy, which is international state terrorism, because he represents the American capitalist class, who has tentacles of exploitation in countries world wide. It is this interest of the capitalist class and the protection of their profits, which is the reason for all of the terroristic violence that has plagued Africa, which is what Obama will advance when he tours Ghana.

US-Israeli mass killing of Palestinians 2009

When Israel invaded Palestine in January 2009, it was with Obama’s full approval. Over 1,500 Palestinians died in one week, and hundreds of thousands have been systematically murdered and tortured over the years at the hands of the illegal white supremacist settler colonialist Zionist state of Israel.

Obama even laid a reef at the holocaust memorial in 2009 for Jews that were murdered during WWII by Hitler, although Hitler murdered them with the help of some Zionist organizations and agencies who are running the state of Israel today (read Ben Hecht’s book, Perfidy). In the same vein he has no remorse for the Palestinians who are being massacred by the terrorist state of Israel. This provides evidence of how Obama supports racism, even against African people,
because he refused to allow American participation in the 2009 U.N. World Conference Against Racism, in Geneva Switzerland, because of possible condemnation of Israel for its crimes against the Palestinians and the demand for reparations by Africans for the U.S. crime of enslavement.

U.S. war on Afghanistan

Obama has stepped up his war in Afghanistan by providing an additional 20,000 troops in search of the CIA trained Al Qaeda, while killing untold numbers of Afghan women, children, and babies. Obama was shooting Drone missiles into Pakistan while bribing President Zardari, which forced him to break a truce and wage a war against his own population near the Afghanistan border, in search of the Taliban. All of this is a result of U.S. international state terrorism, to satisfy the unquenchable thirst of the U.S. oil cartel. In Iraq Obama is nowhere near his campaign promise of pulling out U.S. troops, who are killing Iraqi’s like flies. There are hundreds of thousands that have been raped, tortured, defiled, and have lost their lives, and millions of Iraqi’s scattered throughout the Middle East as refugees.

Likewise it is clear, through Africom that Obama is planning to turn Africa into a war zone, by using international state terrorism to crush any movement by thepeople to take control of their resources in Africa, and distribute them equitably to the African working masses.

This is the same type of terrorism that Obama and the U.S. will bring to Ghana.
By 2015, America plans on getting 50% of its oil from Africa. The Bush administration and Obama has continued his policy, which defines African oil as a “strategic national interest.” This policy has caused, among capitalists, Africa’s status to go up in U.S. national policy and military affairs. That is, the U.S. is prepared to go to war over Africa’s resources in the interest of their national security. The inference is that taking Africa’s oil in the interest of U.S. national security is more important than Africa’s resources being used to provide food, clothing, housing, education and health care for Africa’s own citizenry. Continue reading →

REPORTS FROM MEETINGS

What a Joke, the Sad Part is I am not Laughing!! 

By Sheila Crowell

Mark Schrupp

I was at the meeting on March 22nd, when Robert Bobb was brought to the public as a pawn, he had to be playing along with this game. After all, Robert Bobb is not going to do anything without it helping only Robert Bobb.. I have been asking R.B and Mark Schrupp for some time to meet with our neighborhood. Not just me but the people, families, parents, youth, of our 48210 Claytown Neighborhood, but nothing have I heard except a few emails from Mark Schrupp with promises to let me know what is going on, sad to say I am still waiting.

Maybe R.B. feels we’re not worth talking to, after all the Skillman Foundation did put a label on the people of our Claytown families. “Low income,” they even went as far as to use the words we are below “property value level, adding we have the highest teenage births. Even if this is true, it doesn’t mean we are worthless. Some have jumped on the band wagon of ‘let me get a grant, grant, grant.’ I am not saying it’s wrong to ask for help, but you must be able to do for yourselves. Think of it like this, what would you do if Skillman ran dry, or they just don’t like it because you want to take the help you received, and try your best with others in your neighborhood to make it on your own, wouldn’t they be proud that their help, had instilled the desire to better our community for all involved?

Robert Bobb sighting

Elvis Presley sighting

The other night’s meeting was a plan: if the word was put out that Robert Bobb was going to be at the meeting just watch and see how many people show up. Give them what you said would be in the flier, Robert Bobb. He will answer a few questions that had been written out ahead of time, with no surprises. A white board was held up for all to see, after he gave his answers and spoke for a few minutes, then Robert Bobb became Elvis, leaving the building with his merry men following by his side, what a joke.

Then a woman and a man came to the mike, played out a scene about a bus trip, and how much it would cost to go to Washington DC, for equal rights never saying a dollar amount. As I sit down in the front on the floor, I  I saw youth with signs and the ministers standing next to or behind the youth. All at once I saw Marie Salines of NCDI was holding a gold pot up in the air, they were asking for money, donations. Where was Skillman?

tudents and parents protest closing of O.W. Holmes, first proposed in 2007

We were told at a parents’ meeting at OW Homes, the meeting was going to be about closing OW Homes and Logan, and being involved in the designs of the new school that is to be built. A parent had gone to a meeting where RB was, this was the information she brought back. Nothing was said about OW Homes or Logan. A woman who was with the group on the stage did make statements her group wanted to be involved in the designs for Munger. If the 48210 Claytown Neighborhood, is left out of anything for our neighborhood, I promise all I will get an attorney. Enough is Enough…

That alone is a joke, the designs have already been made…I wonder why she didn’t ask Robert Bobb about the designs after all he was there, and she was a part of this team, unless it really was planned?  

PS There were people in the front of the building [ed.—By Any Means Necessary, BAMN students) not for Robert Bobb holding up signs. They made them leave from the entrance of the church.

The only thing that is left for me to say is I felt dirty when I left….I feel sorry for the parents that will have to deal with people who are only interested in using them to gain power. 

Sheila Crowell 

John Van Camp, CEO Southwest Solutions

Editor: Here are comments on the same meeting from wealthy John Van Kamp, who runs the allegedly non-profit Southwest Solutions, but profits from numerous poorly-kept apartment buildings its affiliates have turned into for-profit enterprises using government funds.

 I need to tell you about the inspiring rally that took place Tuesday night, called “Coming Together for a Better Detroit”!!

 About 900 people filled the pews of a spacious church in southwest Detroit. Their faces represented the wonderful diversity that characterizes our community. And their call for change filled the sanctuary like a chorus.

Grayling Elementary rotting after DPS closure

 We all listened intently as parents and youth spoke from the podium and described issues in our community that need to be addressed, like improving our schools, making our neighborhoods safer, and protecting the rights of immigrants and minorities. The speakers directed specific requests to the key policymakers in attendance, including Robert Bobb and leaders in the City and local law enforcement.

 The policymakers agreed to each request in principle, and with each commitment the audience reacted enthusiastically. All of us felt that we accomplished something important at this event, and it was time well spent. 

The rally was the result of two years of hard work by our Community Partnerships program and the dedicated team of young organizers at the Harriet Tubman Center. Together, they have been mobilizing parents, youth, educators, faith leaders, community organizations, and others into a powerful, grass-roots movement determined to help create a more civil and just society.

On the same day that the census was released, revealing the disheartening news of Detroit’s historic decline, the rally represented palpable hope. Undoubtedly, if we are to change our city, this inclusive and growing movement is necessary to help make it happen.

Greg Thrasher

By Greg Thrasher

Of  late in the terrain of social commentary there has been a resurgence of the topic of internal racial themes within Black America. One of the themes has been the discussion of class and Black personalities like the Uncle Tom, a/k/a the modern day Black Apologist.

Any candid discourse and examination of race within the Black community must be viewed from the platform of minority and majority themes. Black Americans are a distinct cultural minority collective that suffered through one of America’s domestic holocausts, in a white nation.

The legacy of white supremacy in America has been lethal it stings and wounds even in the post racial era of an Obama’s tenure in the white house. The pathology of racism not only is lethal for those who are victimized by it, but this evil also causes damages to those who authored white privilege and white supremacy.

For the Black folks who are stained and contaminated with white racism it produces a number of outcomes and side effects:  hopelessness, anger, despair, militancy and the like. The drama of personalities like the Uncle Tom are not new in the Black community.

One of the incarnations of a community subject to the pathology of white racism in our nation is the character of an Uncle Tom, a person whose self esteem is only measured by his acceptance and validation from whites. Despite the conventional themes about the negative portrayal of Uncle Toms. In our history the Uncle Tom was not always a terrible figure. People ignore how talented they were in navigating and leveraging their race status during the plantation and post slavery eras in America.

These personalities in very oppressive situations produced effective outcomes from elevated employment opportunities on the plantation to creative tactics in avoiding and deflecting the wrath from racist whites. The Uncle Tom was a living exercise, a role model in how to manage the lethal system of slavery while creating effective strategies to excel in this inhumane and oppressive paradigm.

Some Uncle Toms were/are tragic personalities, but they would not exist unless there was white supremacy and the pathology of white privilege in America. The intra-cultural clash that exists in many Black communities, families, fraternities, organizations, churches and related groups is linked to the institution of slavery in America. This evil complex altered and influenced the very essence of family and social life in America for Black folks. All the words, studies, classes, novels, lectures will never be able to comprehend or give a full measure to the impact of this holocaust on Black Americans.

Black self worth and community values and mores still suffer from the disease of slavery. It is not an excuse or a plea of victimhood to understand and recognize this truth. Black victimhood, class envy, petty jealousy, twisted rage and even some degree of Black crime, parenting, goal shaping, psychosis, all of these relations and conditions have origins in the creation of an America that viewed Black folks as inferior beings not worthy of basic humanity.

The saga of the Black Uncle Tom shares a shelf life with White racism in our nation; it is a pathological scar, obstacle and part of the cultural DNA that still wounds and inflicts many even in the post racial era of America

Who killed Brian Huff?

Jason Gibson early in trial

EARLIER ARRESTS IN UNDER PROTEST

GIBSON ON PHONE DURING 911 CALL

NEIGHBOR KEPT, DISASSEMBLED GUN

NO GSR EVIDENCE RE: GIBSON

VIDEOS APPEAR TO BE CUT OFF

By Diane Bukowski

 (Ed. note: an individual identifying themselves as a “good friend” of Jason Gibson’s commented on VOD’s first article on his trial, saying there is a “lot more” than the police version of the case, and signing off, “FREE JAY BIRD.”

Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway

DETROIT –  Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway allowed police officers involved in two prior arrests of Jason Gibson, in 2007 and 2009, to testify May 15 during his ongoing trial for multiple counts in the death of Detroit police officer Brian Huff last May.

The officers’ testimony, particularly on the 2009 arrest, drastically contradicted reports of several eyewitnesses interviewed by VOD later. (See story above.) Gibson has never even been tried and convicted on charges related to that arrest, which the jury was never told.

Gibson jury has 6 African Americans out of 14

Gibson’s attorney Susan Reed strenuously objected on the record to the introduction of the testimony, claiming it would prejudice the jury. Reed also objected to Hathaway’s instructions to the jury about the testimony, saying they still favored the prosecution.

Hathaway told jurors, “You are about to hear evidence that will be introduced to show the defendant committed other acts for which he is not on trial. If you believe this evidence, you may only use it if it tends to show certain factors.”

Hathaway then read a prepared list to the jury, indicating the testimony must show: The defendant had reason to commit the crimes in the current case; that he knew what the  things found in his possession were; that he acted purposefully, that he used a plan or scheme he had used before, that the scheme shows a pattern of reacting aggressively to police officers by trying to disarm them and then attempting to flee, and that the defendant had a lack of fear and lack of mistake in the current case.

Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy is in charge of case

“You must not decide that the testimony shows the defendant is a bad person or likely to commit a crime,” Hathaway said. “You must not convict him because you think he is guilty of other acts.” 

Undercover Detroit police officers Thomas Rogers and Robert Skender then took the stand to testify about Gibson’s arrest on Nov. 13, 2009. 

Rogers is a tall, beefy  white officer with little hair on his head, and 12 years on the force.

He said officers were informed at roll call that day that a shooting had occurred at 9333 E. Jefferson earlier, and that they were given a physical and clothing description of the suspect.“I exited my scout car, I always say ‘police’ when I get out of my car,” Rogers said. “Jason Gibson looks in my direction and adjusted something in his waistband area, where you would carry a pistol.”

He said the two walked over to Gibson to conduct a pat-down, and that he felt what he thought was a gun.Mr. Gibson turned around and raised his right elbow,” Rogers said. “I immediately attempted to secure his right arm to prevent him from going for his weapon.”

He said he and Skender ended up in a “scuffle” with Gibson because he pulled the two of them onto the slippery grass and they fell on the ground. He said Gibson broke free and then began to flee westward on the sidewalk, but ran into two other officers who had arrived on the scene. He said Skender and the other two pursued Gibson as he ran back the other way.

Detroit Police Gang Squad members (Nat'l Geographic photo)

“All of us now had some part of the defendant and began to disarm him,” Rogers said. “We obtained a weapon on the sidewalk, it was a loaded 9 mm. Smith and Wesson handgun, semiautomatic.” (This was the same make as neighbor Paul Jameson’s gun during the Huff shooting.)

Rogers said he is 6’4” tall, and weighs 260 pounds, and estimated the other officers weighed 210 and 185 pounds

Skender, a white officer wearing a Black sweat top with fatigue pants, and carrying his pistol, then testified that the four officers involved, including Harold Lewis and Victor Hicks, were assigned to the Gang Squad.He contradicted Rogers’ testimony that the two first saw him from their car.

“Myself and Officer Rogers approached the east entrance, and the others approached the west entrance, then I observed the defendant walking towards me and my partner.”

Aerial view 9333 E. Jefferson

He corroborated Rogers’ testimony that the three got into a confrontation after Rogers tried to conduct a pat-down. He said he pulled his gun as Gibson started running towards Lewis and Hicks. He said they yelled “Stop, Police,” and Gibson ran into the middle of East Jefferson, then back toward Rogers.

“One of the officers pushed him, and he fell, and the gun came out of his waistband,” Skender said.

On cross exam of both officers, Reed asked if Gibson ever pointed the gun at the officers or attempted to shoot them, and they said no, he only attempted to run away. Gibson has contended that Gibson’s previous arrests show that he does not confront officers, but flees when stopped.

Officer Jesus Colons, a big, broadly built Latino officer with 11 years on the force, and testified about an Oct. 24, 2007 arrest of Gibson. He said he was working the Northeast “Special Ops” unit in plainclothes while his partner Scott Pessina (sp?) was in full uniform.

1525 Belvidere

He said he arrested Gibson at 1278 McClellan, behind the 9333 E. Jefferson address, after chasing him from 1525 Belvidere.

“We were basically driving around because that’s a known narcotics area,” Colon said. “We observed a lady coming from the rear exit on Belvidere, then heard a loud crash and boom, and [Gibson] ran by me . . . . I chased him on foot and caught him. Several times I screamed out ‘Police,’ like I did the moment I started chasing him.”

Asst. Pros. Thomas Trzcinski

He said Gibson then confronted him and told him several times that he could get Colon’s gun, then reached for it, but that the officers subdued him.

Reed objected to Colon’s testimony that the Belvidere address was a vacant, boarded-up building where they later found narcotics, but Hathaway overruled her objection.

Earlier that day, Officers Anthony Byrd and Sgt. Frank Senter took the stand. Byrd testified that he confiscated Officer Bryan Glover’s gun from him, and gave it to Sgt. Eddie Croxton. He said “I know I took his weapon but I don’t recall if I took the magazine.” Senter was even vaguer, saying he confiscated a fellow officer’s weapon but didn’t write up a report on the matter. 

FBI Agent Todd Reineck alos took the stand May 15. He said he was assigned to look for the “primary” suspect, Gibson, beginning at 9:15 a.m. that day. Strangely, Gibson had already been shot by Detroit police, and in custody for at least five hours prior to Reineck’s search. Reineck said he went to two locations, one on Somerset and one on Jane, but did not locate Gibson there.

Dwayne Little, previous owner of the building at 20263-65 Schoenherr, testified that he had been foreclosed on and no longer owned the property. A Dwayne Dorian Little, Jr. of Detroit is listed in criminal records as having served time in prison for a felony firearms offense, and probation for delivery and manufacture of controlled substances, including marijuana.

Dwayne Little said he visited the property infrequently while he owned it and did not have anything to do with marijuana allegedly found in the property.

Detroit News reporter George Hunter, who covered the trial the following two days, reported in his published article (http://detnews.com/article/20110317/METRO/103170490/Cell-phone-calls-point-to-more-suspects-in-Detroit-cop’s-slaying#ixzz1GydDdJ00) that testimony regarding nine cell phone calls between Gibson and a Devi Reed, who Trzcinski said was also involved in the case as the get-away driver, was introduced.

Trzcinski said Smith was inside the duplex with Gibson and jumped out the back upstairs window, and that a third person may have been involved as well. On Mar. 15,  Deandre Paymond, who is currently in custody at Jackson Prison, testified he could not recall the content of a statement he gave police after he was picked up near the residence that night, so his statement was not introduced into evidence.

Hunter reported, “Phone records show Gibson and Smith exchanged nine calls that night, including a two-minute conversation at 3:38 a.m. — the same time next-door neighbor Danielle Jameson dialed 911 to report hearing shots fired, although she later testified she wasn’t sure whether she heard shots.”

Hunter also reported that Sgt. Glynn Davis testified that Gibson’s fingerprint was found on a gray plastic bin taken into evidence 11 days after the incident. According to the News, Davis said that on the day of the incident, “The discussion was whether it should it be confiscated, but I decided not to. I didn’t think there’d be fingerprints on it because of the surface.”

However, an evidence technician testified earlier in the trial that if the bin had been taken to the forensics lab, they could have recovered fingerprints through a method other than dusting. The crime scene was left completely open to trespass during the intervening 11 days.

On Mar. 18, Officer Alan Johnson testified. He said he was on the scene when the screen door to the house opened after Huff was shot, and that he saw multiple muzzle flashes, but could not identify anyone as the person exiting the house.

He said he provided cover for “officers dragging Huff out of the house.” He testified that Jameson was present, and that he walked Jameson back to his own house, telling him, “I don’t want people to see you helping the police because of retaliation.”

On cross exam, he said Jameson had his gun with him, a .45 caliber Smith and Wesson, and that Jameson left it on the counter in the kitchen. Johnson did not confiscate the weapon. Earlier testimony was that Jameson “disassembled” the weapon and gave it to an officer who had cordoned off the area. The only other .45 caliber weapon involved in the shoot-out was a Ruger with its serial number shaved off, which Gibson was alleged to have carried.

Both guns, which strongly resembled each other, were shown to the jury in earlier proceedings.

No testimony has been entered to date indicating that Gibson was tested for gunshot residue on his hands, only testimony that there was none on the clothes that were cut off him. No testimony has been entered showing Gibson’s fingerprints on the two gallon bags of marijuana that were entered into evidence either.

The rest of the half-day session Mar. 18 was spent showing blurry videos and stills taken from several cameras around the Jameson house during the events. One camera was located under the awning on the front porch of the Jameson home, and one was mounted high on the garage in back. That camera would have had a full view of proceedings testified to in the trial regarding Gibson’s arrest, handcuffing to a fence, and sequestering of a weapon allegedly near his head by three officers.

The video forensics technician who presented the evidence said the tapes had not been altered. However, the only individual seen in them is Paul Jameson himself, as he leaves the house out of the side door to check out the back of the house next door, then takes a position on the porch with his gun drawn as what are presumed to be muzzle flashes show up on the tape.

Jameson’s wife Danielle told the Detroit News earlier that officers had spent many hours after the shooting in their basement reviewing the tapes from the cameras. It is absolutely unclear why the tapes, particularly those from the camera mounted on the garage, appear to cut off after the early events involving Jameson’s movements.

Judge Hathaway said the trial would resume Tues. March 22, with closing arguments expected. She said she was reserving Monday March 21 for in-chambers meetings with both attorneys. It in unclear whether Gibson’s attorney Susan Reed plans to present a defense case, or simply rely on contradictions in the prosecution’s case, presuming the jury will see they show reasonable doubt.

Jason Gibson, nicknamed "Bird"

Exclusive VOD interview

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – Exclusive interviews with eyewitnesses to the arrest of Jason Gibson in 2009, which police testified about Mar. 18, during his trial for the murder of Officer Brian Huff last year, completely contradict the officers’ testimony.

Long-time friends of his also contradict the portrayal by the officers and the daily media of Gibson as a vicious, violent animal who could only be restrained by three beefy cops.

“My family, my sister, my children, they love Bird,” said Lawana Murphy. “He is a lovable person. He really loves his mom and dad, and looks after his two-year-old daughter Majaisia. He looked out for everybody. I never heard him say ‘no’ to anyone’s request for help, and if he did, he would come back later to help. I still miss him.”

Others in the group who knew “Bird,” his nickname, for years, agreed.

Colony Arms Apartments, site of Jason Gibson's 2009 arrest, which has not resulted in a trial or conviction

“He is a cool guy, a good guy who would keep you laughing,” said one friend. “He had your back 100 percent. If you were hungry, he got you food. If he had a quarter, he would give you 15 cents and keep a dime for himself. He liked to rap, he was more like a poet. He had a big heart.”

Everyone present at the interview said they had never seen “Bird” act violent towards anyone, including police. (The names of the young men in the interview are being withheld to protect them from retaliation.)

“The reason the cops say he’s violent is because he’s a big person,” said another young man. “But he wouldn’t fight. He wouldn’t even argue with his friends, he wouldn’t get upset about anything.”

While tall and broad-shouldered, Gibson is actually medium-built, unlike many of the cops who testified against him.

Murphy said, “He doesn’t show his feelings, he’s always calm.” Her portrayal of Gibson was identical to his demeanor in court, polite, reserved and quiet, showing no reaction to negative testimony by the officers. When he sees his mother and father, who have been there every day of the first three weeks of his trial, he smiles slightly and appears appreciative of their presence.

Gibson was arrested in front of an apartment building at 9333 E. Jefferson in November of 2009. Four officers testified about the arrest Mar. 18 over the objections of Gibson’s attorney, Susan Reed. The jury was never even told that Gibson has not been tried, let alone convicted, in that case.

(See following story for account of trial during the week of Mar. 17, and VOD article at http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=2477   for exclusive story on the November hearing during which Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway allowed Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Trzcinski to present testimony regarding “prior acts.”)

Several of those present during the interview witnessed the arrest in November, 2009. They said practically everyone in the building came out while it was happening. Many younger individuals live there with their families, including small children. Gibson lived there as well.

Rodney King beating in LA; police in Jason Gibson's trial have used the same arguments against him that LA police used against King, portraying him as a brute that it took numerous cops to subdue.

“There were only two officers at first,” one witness said. “They were in plainclothes, they didn’t say ‘police,’ they didn’t show their badges. They were dressed in all black. He was walking down the sidewalk and they grabbed him from behind and he turned around. They tackled him and started beating him up. Then police cars started coming from everywhere. Everybody came out of the building, and they pulled their guns out on us and told us to back up.”

Another witness said the cops threatened to shoot the bystanders.

“I never heard them read him his rights, they never do,” said the witness. “They beat him up real bad.”

Reed was charged with three counts of weapons possession in that case, which was before Judge Gray-Hathaway. Cops did not say they found weapons on his person, but found a gun on the ground. However, the arrest, while previously listed on the Michigan State Police ICHAT (Internet Criminal History Access Tool) report, is no longer on ICHAT.

A witness to an earlier arrest on Joann Street near Seven Mile told a similar story.

Joann and E. Seven Mile, Detroit

“On Bird’s way back from the store, there was a car riding down the street with no lights on,” he said. “A big white guy jumps out first. In my hood, I know that’s the police. But then a dude with a mask jumps out. Bird is yelling, ‘Call the police, they’re robbing me, they’re robbing me.’ The dude was beating him up. They kicked him for a while. They messed up his back; that’s why he walks with a slump now.”

He said the cops asked, “Well, why did he run? We gotta take him now because we put our hands on him.”

Another young man said, “The police department, especially the Ninth Precinct [now the Eastern District, where Huff was assigned] has been crooked for years.”

20263-65 Schoenherr

A resident of the Schoenherr neighborhood where Huff died, and a former high-ranking official in police administration have said it was well known that the duplex on Schoenherr was a police-operated drug house. The resident said it was known to be a “weight house” where police stored drugs for later sale, not a house that people frequented to buy drugs.

A well-known police drug scandal surfaced in the Fifth Precinct, now also part of the Eastern District, in 1999.

Children demand end to police brutality

“Six Detroit police officers were indicted on charges of robbing and beating people on the streets of their precinct and hoarding money, guns and drugs from illegal searches of suspected drug houses,’ reported the Times Wire. “The officers were charged with federal civil rights conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Three of the officers are also charged with taking bribes for protecting drug traffickers and possessing drugs and the equipment used to distribute them, such as scales for weighing. The six worked in the 5th Precinct, a hotbed of police corruption in a force rocked by scandal.”

The officers charged were Rodney Rice, Irvin Lamont Upshaw, Larone Cook, Mark Heath, Antonio Carlisli, and Christopher Cole. At last check, parts of the case are still pending

Students and others get ready to protest Bing’s state of the city address last year

 PART TWO: DPS KATRINA

By Diane Bukowski

On Sat. Mar. 12, at an unpublicized Board of Education finance committee meeting, DPS czar Robert Bobb announced the “DPS Renaissance Plan 2012.” It includes an option of converting 41 schools that were slated for closure this year under the revised Deficit Elimination Plan, into charters. Other options are dissolving DPS to pay off its debt and forming a new school district, and populating DPS 100 percent with charter schools.

The district said in a release that Renaissance 2012 is “a transformative plan to radically restructure academically-failing schools and significantly reduce operating costs by seeking proposals from local and national groups and charter school operators for 41 of the district’s 142 schools. These schools, including some high schools, currently enroll some 16,000 students and selected operators based on a competitive and rigorous RFP (Request for Proposals) process to operate the schools as public school academies [ed.—charter schools] with Detroit Public Schools as the authorizer.”

Robert Bobb with Chief Academic Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett

It added, “The plan supports the district’s Deficit Elimination Plan by reducing operating costs by $75-$99 million and represents a dramatic new approach to declining enrollment for the 2011-12 fiscal year,”

It does NOT say, however, that the loss of 16,000 students to private charter operators would mean the LOSS OF $121.6 MILLION to the district in state per-pupil aid (currently $7600 per student) in 2012. In its DEP, the district says planned cuts will save it a little over $114 million in 2012, and a total of $281.8 million from 2011-14. Depending on how many students remain in the district as schools close, more state per-pupil aid will be lost in 2013 and 2014.

Bobb’s announcement made national headlines, in the New York Times, the Atlanta Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

Teachers walked off the job in 2001 to protest Kilpatrick charter school bill

“We want to create a marketplace of schools,” Bobb told the Wall Street Journal. “It enables us to design a new DPS at a level that is sustainable given our current financial legacy deficit situation along with an opportunity to improve our cash flow.”

The WSJ noted, “Detroit already has a larger portion of its children enrolled in charter schools than any other major city except for New Orleans and Washington,” citing a study from the pro-charter Center for Education Reform. “Nationwide, about 1.7 million students attend more than 5,400 charters.”

DPS has already lost    in funding due to the massive incursion of charter schools to date.

Laid off DPS worker Ronald Gamble

Laid off DPS worker

DPS spokesman Steve Wasko additionally told the WSJ, “We shed all physical plant operations, maintenance, security, central overhead costs. Overall staffing are expected to be lower as well. Pension costs are a major reason for this.”

The Journal said DPS officials would not say how many teachers will be laid off or have to re-apply to the charters. In the last year, Bobb laid off thousands of custodians, engineers, maintenance workers, bus drivers, and public safety officers and replaced them with private companies.

Protest v. Sodexo at U of Pittsburg

During a Sodexho “job fair” for the DPS workers last month, the company vetted applicants through credit checks, disciplinary records, drug testing, criminal checks and other means. They were not allowed union representation during the application process. (See VOD story at

Bobb said he will announce public hearings and put out Requests for Proposals for charter operators during the week of Mar. 21, but has not done so to date. His alternatives have not yet been approved at the state level.

Superintendent Mike Flanagan approved devastating DEP

“DPS and other districts in deficit may develop and implement initiatives that are not in their Deficit Elimination Plan,” Jan Ellis, spokesperson for State Schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan, told VOD on Mar. 16. “They will need to amend their Deficit Elimination Plan to reflect all chances they are making to reduce their deficit. The content of these plans are developed by the districts not MDE. We review and approve only. We have not received a revised plan since their announcement.”.

Unsurprisingly, school board president Anthony Adams told the daily media that he strongly supports the first-year charter school transformation. Adams was general counsel for the district under the former state-appointed CEO Kenneth Burnley, and an ardent advocate of privatization as Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s Deputy Mayor. (Click on VOD  http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=1569 and http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=224 to read more about Adams.)  

Anthony Adams

Adams and the Board will have no power over Bobb’s plans, however. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed the anti-democratic, anti-worker package of Emergency Manager bills Mar. 18, enacting Public Act 4 of 2011, despite massive opposition from huge rallies and an occupation at the Capitol in Lansing.

 PA 4 bestows nearly ALL powers in cities and school districts under state receivership on “Emergency Managers,” (previously known as Emergency Financial Managers, but now endowed with absolute rule over academics and other areas as well). The criteria for declaring a governmental entity in an “emergency” are unclear and open-ended, left totally up to Snyder and renegade State Treasurer Andy Dillon (an unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the 2010 primary).

On Mar. 18, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Wendy Baxter stayed her order barring Bobb from dealing with academics, even though the legislation gives DPS and other governmental entities currently under EFM control 60 days to enact the changes in the legislation.

Bing

Landrieu

It was no accident that Detroit Mayor Dave Bing met with New Orleans’ Mayor Mitch Landrieu in that city last month, prior to Bobb’s announcement. Bobb said he is consulting with Bing on which schools to select, to coordinate them with Bing’s Detroit Works down-sizing project, better known as the “Trail of Tears,” in which Bing plans to depopulate certain neighborhoods.

Seventy-percent of New Orleans schoolchildren now attend charter schools. (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=719 to read VOD article Bing’s Detroit: the next New Orleans?). 

After Katrina, the state of Louisiana shut down the city’s entire school district, whose student population was 98 percent Black. The district re-opened later, predominantly under state receivership, after most of its workers were laid off.

Teachers do not cause school deficits

 “Every teacher in New Orleans was fired,” Joe Rose, Communications Director for the United Teachers of New Orleans, told NPR’s Amy Goodman then. “There were 7,500 school employees, everybody from cafeteria workers, truck drivers and custodians to teachers, and there were about 4,000 teachers. Solid middle class employees, career professionals who had dedicated their careers to helping try to educate the children in one of the neediest cities in the country, a city with one of the highest poverty rates, as everybody saw in the days immediately following Katrina.”

Tulane University’s Cowan Institute lauded the change, at the same time noting that total enrollment in the city’s schools, including charters, had declined from 65,000 to 38,000 students.

New Orleans school after Katrina

“Those students, as a whole, are doing better in the reconstituted school system,” the Cowan Institute crowed. “Test scores, which once lagged far behind the state average, have risen rapidly since Katrina, though a majority of students are still failing standardized reading and math tests.  Before the storm, nearly two-thirds of the city’s schools were labeled academically unacceptable, while in 2009, only 42 percent of schools failed to meet the state standard.”

The federal government gave a $24 million grant to the city to fund charter school development, and later agreed to spend $1.84 BILLION on construction and re-building of school buildings (most now converted to charters) damaged by Katrina.

New Orleans school children showing off Saints jerseys

However, post-Katrina New Orleans schools differ dramatically from the pre-Katrina system in another way. A 2008 study by the University of Michigan and the Rand Institute found that 51 percent of the city’s residents had not returned within two years of the disaster, and few planned to do so.

The report concluded, “The overall implication of these results for the future population of New Orleans is likely only very modest growth from the return of still-displaced residents. The city will continue its post-Katrina experience of being older, whiter and more highly-educated, and with fewer families, children, and people out of the labor force.”

New Orleans survivors demand right to return

The report noted the need for affordable rental housing to encourage return, but instead the city demolished ALL of its public housing developments, even those that had not been damaged by Katrina. Essentially, New Orleans forced out a large number of its poor Black residents, just as Bing plans to do with Detroit Works, and just as Bobb plans to do with the Detroit Public Schools.

One of the charter school operators in New Orleans is KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), a national enterprise based in New York City. Despite generally positive publicity about KIPP generated by pro-charter forces, Brian Lack of George State University lambasted KIPP in a study published in the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies.

KIPP student on display, reminiscent of slave auctions

“KIPP is currently receiving wholesale acclaim as a radical alternative to public schooling that works,” Lack said. “While KIPP schools ostensibly claim that college acceptance for all students is their primary goal, the principles and practices that undergird their mission are founded upon capitalistic and militaristic ideals that run counter to the ideals of democratic education. I argue that KIPP schools merely preserve the status quo by asking students to overcome overwhelming disparities through hard work and motivation, instead of addressing the structural sources of poverty and poor academic achievemen, i.e., the unequal distribution of resources in schools and society. By subscribing to a dictum of no excuses, KIPP essentially puts the onus on the victims of poverty and institutional racism. This clearly conveys the fallacy to urban students that failure in this society will solely be a reflection of not working long and hard enough, or simply not complying with rules set by those with authority.”

Click on 24518615-No-Excuses-A-Critique-of-the-Knowledge-Is-Power-Program-KIPP-within-Charter-Schools-in-the-USA[1]    to access Lack’s full study.

Eli and Edythe Broad

Additionally, New Orleans charter schools are receiving support from numerous private foundations, including the Arnold Family Foundation, The Broad Foundation, Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation, Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, John and Ann Doerr, Doris & Donald Fisher Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Greater New Orleans Foundation, Leslie Jacobs, Walter Isaacson, JPMorgan Foundation, New Schools for New Orleans, Edward G. Schlieder Educational Foundation, and The Walton Family Foundation.

Bobb and his Chief Academic Accountability officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett, of course are products of the ultra-conservative Broad Foundation.

 Other organizations involved with New Orleans charter schools are variously described in the Manta business listing as profit or non-profit. Regarding New Schools for New Orleans, Manta says, Current estimates show this company has an  annual revenue of $2,175,340 and employs a staff of approximately 2.” New Schools for New Leaders, based in New York, is listed as a non-profit.

“Knowledge Is Power, Inc in Red Lion, PA is a private company categorized under Education Centers,” says Manta. “Our records show it was established in and incorporated in Pennsylvania. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $110,000 and employs a staff of approximately 5.”

Clearly these companies are looking to expand and increase their revenues on the backs of predominantly poor, Black and Latino students.