Some of thousands of Innocent lives taken by police:
(top down) Aiyana Jones, Detroit, 2010; Michael Brown, Ferguson 2014; Eric Garner, NYC, July 2014; Tamir Rice, 12, Cleveland, 2014; Aura Rosser, Ann Arbor, 2014; Lamar Grable, Detroit, 1996; Brandon Moore, 16, Detroit, 2006; Artrell Dickerson, 18, Detroit 2007.
VOD APPEAL FOR HOLIDAY FUNDS FOR AIYANA JONES’ FAMILY
Aiyana Jones’ extended family, including numerous young children whose parents have had difficulty finding employment, has nothing for the holidays. VOD is appealing to the community not to forget them.
Young Aiyana with little brother during a happier Christmas before she was killed at the age of 7 by Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, Jr.
Checks and money orders should be made out to “MERTILLA JONES” (Aiyana’s grandmother), and sent c/o Voice of Detroit, P.O. Box 32684, Detroit 48232.
(The family’s civil lawsuit has not been heard during the pendency of the Detroit bankruptcy. Lawyers representing the family will likely have a difficult time if trial does begin, due to the unjust conviction of Aiyana’s dad, who along with Dominika Jones, represents her estate. Any trial will likely take years.)
Since there has been so much false information on the Aiyana Jones case propagated by Detroit’s local mainstream media and others, a listing of previous extensive VOD coverage is included below, after the “more” tag. VOD was there the morning Aiyana was killed on May 16, 2010, and has covered virtually every related event since. Now at this time of heightened awareness regarding the extent of police killings and atrocities committed against Black and Brown people, please let us not forget little Aiyana Jones and her family.
After the march meet at 5920 Second Ave. for potluck/discussion
All around the world from Detroit, Ferguson, to Ukraine the capitalist class is on the assault against poor people everywhere. Whether they’re shutting down schools, cutting food assistance programs, shooting unarmed people in our streets, or dropping bombs on innocent people abroad they’ve made it clear that there’s only one thing they want: everything!
Capitalism has proven itself to be nothing but a parasitic system based purely on greed with no regard to the needs of the people, which threatens not only our own lives but all of the life on the planet. They’ve destroyed our neighborhoods with unemployment and foreclosures. They’re shutting off our water. They’re plundering the city in a bankruptcy they threw us in. They’ve put the squeeze on us, it’s time we put the squeeze on them!
Put an end to racist police terror! Justice for Michael Brown and Eric Garner! A job is a right! A home is a right! Food is a right! Education is a right! End military interventions at home and abroad which put poor people against poor for the sake of profit for a few!
Endorsed by FIST, Moratorium NOW!, MECAWI, & Workers World Party For more info, call or text FIST at 313-671-7426
Wait. Patience. Stay Calm. “This is a country that allows everybody to express their views,” said the first Black president, “allows them to peacefully assemble, to protest actions that they think are unjust.” Don’t disrupt, express. Justice will be served. We respect the rule of law. This is America.
A man is arrested by police after kneeling in the street during a protest outside the Ferguson Police Department on Saturday, Nov. 29. – Photo: Jeff Roberson, AP
We’ve all been waiting for the grand jury’s decision, not because most of us expected an indictment. District Attorney Robert P. McCulloch’s convoluted statement explaining – or rather, defending – how the grand jury came to its decision resembled a victory speech.
For a grand jury to find no probable cause even on the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter is a stunning achievement in a police shooting of an unarmed teenager with his hands raised, several yards away.
Distilling 4,799 pages of grand jury proceedings to less than 20 minutes, he managed to question the integrity of eyewitnesses, accuse the 24-hour news cycle and social media for disrupting the investigation, and blame alleged neighborhood violence for why the removal of Mike Brown’s body from the pavement had to wait over four hours.
McCulloch never indicted a cop in his life, so why expect anything different now? Some waited hoping for a miracle; most waited because they knew a crisis was brewing.
National Guard in Ferguson.
The white folks in St. Louis and surrounding municipalities, as well as the state of Missouri, used the waiting period to prepare for war. Residents bought more guns and ammunition, stockpiled on plywood to cover store windows, installed alarm systems and window bars, stocked up on food and water.
Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency, calling up National Guard forces from across the state and beyond, training the state militia for riot control and counterinsurgency. The federal government has dispatched FBI agents, some presumably undercover operating inside protest movements.
As I write these words, all forces are being deployed against protesters and the Black community more generally, and the governor has requested more National Guard troops. Wait. Patience. Stay Calm.
Tamir Rice, 12, killed by Cleveland police
Meanwhile, as we waited for the grand jury’s decision, a 12-year-old Black boy named Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police in Cleveland because the officer mistook his toy gun for a real one. Tamir was playing outside of Cleveland’s Cudell Recreation Center, one of the few public facilities left that provide safe space for children.
As we waited, Cleveland cops took the life of Tanisha Anderson, a 37-year-old Black woman suffering from bipolar disorder. Police arrived at her home after family members called 911 to help her through a difficult crisis.
Tanisha Anderson/Family photo
But rather than treat her empathetically, they did what they were trained to do when confronted with Black bodies in Black neighborhoods – they treated her like an enemy combatant.
They made no effort to administer CPR, telling the family and witnesses that she was sleeping. When the ambulance finally arrived 20 minutes later, she was dead.
As we waited … As we waited, police in Ann Arbor, Michigan, killed a 40-year-old Black woman named Aura Rain Rosser. She was reportedly brandishing a kitchen knife when the cops showed up on a domestic violence call, although her boyfriend who made the initial report insisted that she was no threat to the officers. No matter; they opened fire anyway.
Aura Rosser, Ann Arbor
Roshad McIntosh, Chicago
As we waited, a Chicago police officer fatally shot 19-year-old Roshad McIntosh. Despite the officer’s claims, several eyewitnesses reported that McIntosh was unarmed, on his knees with his hands up, begging the officer to hold his fire.
As we waited, police in Saratoga Springs, Utah, pumped six bullets into Darrien Hunt, a 22-year-old Black man dressed kind of like a ninja and carrying a replica Samurai sword. And police in Victorville, California, killed Dante Parker, a 36-year-old Black man and father of five. He had been stopped while riding his bike on suspicion of burglary. When he became “uncooperative,” the officers repeatedly used Tasers to try to subdue him. He died from his injuries.
Darrien Hunt, Utah
Dante Parker, CA.
As we waited, a 28-year-old Black man named Akai Gurley met a similar fate as he descended a stairwell in the Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn. The police were on a typical reconnaissance mission through the housing project.
As we waited … Officer Peter Liang negotiated the darkened stairwell, gun drawn in one hand, flashlight in the other, prepared to take down any threat he encountered. According to liberal Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Police Chief Bill Bratton, Mr. Gurley was collateral damage. Apologies abound. He left a 2-year-old daughter.
Akai Gurley, Brooklyn
Ezell Ford, LA
Omar Abrego, LA
As we waited, LAPD officers stopped 25-year-old Ezell Ford, a mentally challenged Black man, in his own South Los Angeles neighborhood and shot him to death. The LAPD stopped Omar Abrego, a 37-year-old father from Los Angeles, and beat him to death.
And as we waited and waited and waited, Darren Wilson got married, continued to earn a paycheck while on leave, and received over $400,000 worth of donations for his “defense.”
Darren Wilson weds as country erupts in anger at his murder of Mike Brown.
You see, we’ve been waiting for dozens, hundreds, thousands of indictments and convictions. Every death hurts. Every exonerated cop, security guard or vigilante enrages. The grand jury’s decision doesn’t surprise most Black people because we are not waiting for an indictment. We are waiting for justice – or more precisely, struggling for justice.
We all know the names and how they died. Eric Garner, Kajieme Powell, Vonderitt D. Meyers Jr., John Crawford III, Cary Ball Jr., Mike Brown, ad infinitum. They were unarmed and shot down by police under circumstances for which lethal force was unnecessary. We hold their names like recurring nightmares, accumulating the dead like ghoulish baseball cards. Except that there is no trading. No forgetting.
Just a stack of dead bodies that rises every time we blink. For the last three generations, Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Stewart, Eula Love, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Patrick Dorismond, Malice Green, Tyisha Miller, Sean Bell, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Margaret LaVerne Mitchell, to name a few, have become symbols of racist police violence. And I’m only speaking of the dead – not the harassed, the beaten, the humiliated, the stopped-and-frisked, the raped.
Meanwhile, Gov. Jay Nixon, President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, the mainstream press and every state-anointed Negro leader lecture Black people to stay calm and remain non-violent, when the main source of violence has been the police.
Mike Brown’s murder brought people out to the streets, where they were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. State violence is always rendered invisible in a world where cops and soldiers are heroes, and what they do is always framed as “security,” protection and self-defense. Police occupy the streets to protect and serve the citizenry from (Black) criminals out of control.
Below: Video of Detroit Police raid on the home of Aiyana Jones, 7, killed with MP5 submachine gun May 16, 2010; video as released does not show cop rushing her body out of the house seconds after entry.
This is why, in every instance, there is an effort to depict the victim as assailant – Trayvon Martin used the sidewalk as a weapon, Mike Brown used his big body. A lunge or a glare from a Black person can constitute an imminent threat. When the suburb of Ferguson blew up following Mike Brown’s killing on Aug. 9, the media and mainstream leadership were more concerned with looting and keeping the “peace” than the fact that Darren Wilson was free on paid leave.
Or that leaving Brown’s bullet-riddled, lifeless body on the street for four and a half hours, bleeding, cold, stiff from rigor mortis, constituted a war crime in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It was, after all, an act of collective punishment – the public display of the tortured corpse was intended to terrorize the entire community, to punish everyone into submission, to remind others of their fate if they step out of line. We used to call this “lynching.”
Mike Brown lay in street for over four hours after Wilson executed him, with his blood running out until it turned black.
The immediate and sustained resistance to the police following Mike Brown’s murder revealed the low intensity war between the state and Black people, and the disproportionate use of force against protesters following the grand jury’s decision escalated the conflict. To the world at large, Ferguson looked like a war zone because the police resembled the military with their helmets, flak jackets, armed personnel carriers and M-16 rifles. Continue reading →
Using Cointelpro an agent provocateur tactic widely used against human rights advocates of the Vietnam and Civil Rights era, police on Saturday night instigated raucous demonstrations, turning them violent, protest leaders say, according to Steven Rosenfeld for AlterNet on Monday, also reporting that mainstream media is reporting the opposite.
Protesters outside police HQ.
Nick Adams, a sociologist and fellow at University of California Berkeley’s Institute for Data Science, who oversees this research spoke to AlterNet’s Steven Rosenfeld about what provokes police-protester violence.
“Certainly, sometimes,” responded Adams, researching some 8000 police-protester incidents for The Deciding Force Project.
Cointelpro cops in ‘major overkill’
“When we got up to march to the university, the cops went into major overkill,” Yvette Felarca said Sunday.
Rosenfeld says she recounted what happened after several hundred marchers led by her group, Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), left a plaza in front of the Berkeley police station, where they had marched to protest the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City.
Yvette Falarca (center with bullhorn) speaks at earlier protest against police killing.
“The cops blocked our way and stopped two feet ahead of our front line,” Felarca said, describing how rows of officers in riot gear appeared to face down marchers. “The cops lunged at them. They were attacking and it was completely out of pocket. People were like, ‘What the hell are you doing? This is completely unacceptable.’”
It is no surprise that media has painted the human rights protesters as those who began rioting. Cointelpro has always had support of media that it manipulates through embedded reporters, according to Senator Church’s Congressional Committee’s report.
Today we see mainstream news reporting, “protesters angered by police killings in Missouri and New York clashed with officers, vandalized businesses and even fought with each other, officials said.”
And Associated Press reports Monday:
“The unrest in Berkeley follows violent disruptions of demonstrations in Oakland and San Francisco in recent days. Five San Francisco police officers sought medical treatment after sustaining injuries during a protest in downtown San Francisco on Black Friday. But the protest Saturday, which included several hundred people, was the most serious for Berkeley in recent days.”
A major difference between Cointelpro of yesteryear and today is that today, militarized police are directly associated with the relatively new FBI/CIA partnership, unconstitutional.
Sunday’s protest began peacefully on the University of California, Berkeley campus, but again eventually grew rowdy and spilled into Oakland, completely unlike rights leaders have advocated and trained.
Video below: DC protesters block freeway
After human rights advocates blocked traffic on the freeway, California Highway Patrol said officers fired tear gas at the protesters, who reportedly “targeted police with rocks and bottles and tried to light a patrol vehicle on fire.” Police claimed explosives were thrown at officers, “but there was no information immediately available on how potent they were.”
The demonstrations, part of the nationwide protests, were the latest of several in the Bay Area, including in Oakland where human rights advocacy is strong. The citizens are standing in solidarity against recent grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York not to indict white police officers who killed two unarmed black men.
As hundreds of protesters began marching in downtown Berkeley, the same unrest seen Saturday night again began. An unknown someone smashed a Radio Shack window. A peaceful protester who tried to stop the vandalism. Another unknown someone hit him with a hammer, according to Officer Jennifer Coats.
Detroit protesters disrupt holiday activities
TV footage showed “protesters” smashing door windows and breaking into buildings and setting rubbish piles ablaze. Real human rights protesters, however, have spent weeks training in intensive non-direct, peaceful demonstrating.
Coats said in a statement that there was “significant damage” to several Berkeley businesses, that police arrested five people in connection with the demonstrations, and two officers sustained minor injuries Sunday night.
“They need to be listened to and they need to be responded to,” Ohio Gov. Kasich said on ABC’s This Week referring to the protesters across the nation. “In our country today, there’s too much division, too much polarization – black, white; rich, poor; Democrat, Republican. America does best when we’re united.
A “significant percentage” of the country believes the system’s not working for them and can be working against them, Kasich said.
Human rights leaders targeted for organizing national protests
In other areas, police are using Cointelpro tactics on genuine protest leaders leading the national demonstrations against racist-related human rights abuses obvious since the latest in hundreds of white officer killings of blacks.
The long list of innocent Targeted Individuals (TIs) experiencing counterintelligence injuries in their homes and communities grows daily. Before the recent protests, hundreds of TIs across the nation had reported experiencing serious injuries from covert targeted “non-lethal” weapons in the hands of police and corporate-paid thugs.
Rasheen Aldridge (l) listens as Pres. Obama (r) speaks at meeting on response to grand jury verdicts Dec. 1, 2014. He has now been charged along with dozens of others in Ferguson in connection with violence at the protests. The Federal ATF, over which Obama has control, is investigating and seeking to charge more youths.
Rasheen Aldridge is among the most recent TI victims of United States political repression. A prominent youth leader involved in numerous campaigns, Aldridge has met with Mayor Slay to discuss city policy changes in the wake of Michael Brown’s death. He was recently appointed to the Governor’s Ferguson Commission. Monday he traveled to Washington and met with President Obama about conditions in Ferguson.
On November 25, the day after the Grand Jury decision announcement about police officer Darren Wilson killing unarmed Michael Brown, 18, Aldridge was among peaceful human rights protesters who attempted to enter St. Louis City Hall, a public building that should have been open. In response, the City of St. Louis put out a summons for his arrest for allegedly assaulting an officer while attempting to enter City Hall that day.
Zach Chasnoff
“Numerous activists in our movement have been followed, harassed and intimidated by St. Louis Metropolitan Police and other local police agencies,” said Michael T. McPhearson, Don’t Shoot co-chair and Veterans for Peace executive director. “The treatment of Rasheen stands out as politically motivated in response to his leadership on the ground and as a Ferguson Commission member.”
Zach Chasnoff, former organizer of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), was also charged with assaulting an officer after attempting to enter City Hall. Eight officers arrested him while he was grocery shopping with his wife days after the protest. After arrested, the officers removed his handcuffs one officer aggressively got in his face, urging Chasnoff to punch him, according to Popular Resistance. Police also intimidated and harassed Chasnoff’s wife inside Schnuck’s grocery store. Chasnoff was put on a 24-hour hold.
Wes McEnany, president of Mid-South Organizing Committee and the Show Me $15 campaign, was arrested this week at the Phillips 66 on N. Broadway. As part of the national fast food strikes, workers were finishing a protest last night when police arrived in riot gear and started to cuff workers. McEnany went to talk to the police, who told him they would arrest everyone unless McEnany would be arrested.He was charged with failure to obey a police officer.
David Whitt (l) of Canfield Copwatch Group and family with organizer Lance Murray from the Free Thought Project.
David Whitt, a Canfield Apartments resident and co-founder of the Canfield Watchman Copwatch group, was riding his bike the morning of November 24th, the day the Grand Jury announced its decision regarding Officer Darren Wilson. He pulled over to the side of the road on his bike. Police drove up to him and arrested him, saying they stopped him for failure to wear a bicycle helmet. He was charged, however, with disrupting traffic.
“The Don’t Shoot Coalition calls on Mayor Slay and all law enforcement leaders to control their police forces,” said McPhearson. “Those who ‘serve and protect’ must demonstrate a greater respect for democratic rights.”
In the Bush-Obama police state, however, democratic rights have been replaced with martial law, a police state too many individuals have not understood until recently and too many groups had failed to unite to resist.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It is beautiful to see this rising together for a better world,” says Zeese. “On all of these issues and more, we are united in our desire for justice and together we are a powerful force.”
When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received his now infamous letter nearly 50 years ago, he confided in friends that someone wanted him to kill himself and he thought he knew who that someone was.
“Despite its half-baked prose, self-conscious amateurism and other attempts at misdirection, King was certain the letter had come from the F.B.I. Its infamous director, J. Edgar Hoover, made no secret of his desire to see King discredited,” the Times reports.
Whether today’s American human rights defenders can really overpower forces of high-tech military weaponry used against them and other Cointelpro tactics to discredit and neutralize their movement leaders is a beauty yet to be seen.
Rumain Brisbon with daughters, two of his four children. He had stopped at their apartment building to drop off food for them.
“It’s ‘open season for killing black men,’ according to a community leader in Phoenix where another unarmed black man is dead at the hands of local police. An officer said he felt threatened by Rumain Brisbon before shooting him twice in the torso.”
By Megan Cassidy
The Arizona Republic
December 4, 2014
PHOENIX — The facts surrounding Rumain Brisbon’s death — the ones that could be agreed upon as of Wednesday evening — follow a narrative familiar to a nation still reeling from the racially charged police incidents in Ferguson, Mo., New York City and elsewhere.
In Phoenix on Tuesday evening, a white police officer who was feeling threatened used lethal force on an unarmed black man. The incident left the officer unharmed and Brisbon, 34, dead with two bullet wounds in his torso at a north Phoenix apartment complex.
Protesters outside Phoenix police station.
Phoenix police quickly released a detailed account of the killing for the media on Wednesday morning in what officials said was an effort to promote transparency, especially in light of the unrest that has played out in Ferguson and New York City following the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white officers.
But portions of that account have already been challenged by some witnesses and community activists who say that the officer’s use of force was excessive and that Brisbon’s death was unwarranted.
Shortly before 6 p.m. MT on Tuesday, officers were in the area of Interstate 17 and Greenway Road for a burglary investigation when a resident of an apartment complex told them that men inside a black Cadillac SUV were engaged in a drug deal, said Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman.
Police checked the license plate that the tipster provided and found it was registered to a resident in the 15400 block of North 25th Avenue, where there was also a pending report of a “loud music disturbance.”
The loud-music call was canceled, so the officer went to the SUV to ask questions of those inside, Crump said.
The officer said the driver, later identified as Brisbon, got out and appeared to be removing something from the rear of the SUV. The officer told Brisbon to show his hands, but Brisbon stuffed his hands into his waistband, Crump said.
Graphic from Color Lines
The officer drew his weapon and Brisbon ran toward nearby apartments, Crump said. A short foot chase ensued.
“Witnesses indicated to us that the suspect was verbally challenging to the officer,” Crump said.
Brisbon refused to comply with the officer’s commands to get on the ground, and the two struggled once the officer caught up with him, Crump said.
Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump, spokesman
“During the struggle, Brisbon put his left hand in his pocket and the officer grabbed onto the suspect’s hand, while repeatedly telling the suspect to keep his hand in his pocket,” he said. “The officer believed he felt the handle of a gun while holding the suspect’s hand in his pocket.”
A woman inside an apartment opened a door at that moment, and the officer and Brisbon tumbled inside, Crump said. Two children, ages 9 and 2, were in a back bedroom, he said.
The officer could no longer keep a grip on Brisbon’s hand and, because he feared that the suspect had a gun in his pocket, fired two shots, Crump said.
The item in Brisbon’s pocket turned out to be a bottle of oxycodone pills, he said.
Crump said the officers are aware of the delicate nature of the case and are asking the community to allow investigators to gather all the facts.
Below: video of police assault Oct. 28, 2014 on police brutality protest.
“I would like to think that in our officer-involved shootings, that we are transparent as we can be as an organization,” Crump said. “We always have been and always will be concerned about what it is that our residents think about our role in this community and the levels of force that we use.
“Let’s be very clear: The officer was doing what we expect him to do, which is investigate crimes that neighbors are telling him are occurring in that part of the complex.”
Crump said the department was not identifying the officer, a 30-year-old with seven years on the force.
He also acknowledged that, as in most police investigations, witness accounts varied.
Michelle Cusseaux, 50, was fatally shot August 14, 2014 by Phoenix Police Officer Percy Dupra after, police say, she threatened officers with a hammer when they went to serve a court order to deliver Cusseaux to a mental-health facility. Family and activists demanded an external investigation of the shooting. This didn’t happen — until people marched outside City Hall with Cusseaux’s body in a casket on Friday.
Martin Rangel lives upstairs from where the shooting occurred and said he heard some banging and then a gunshot.
“It was so loud, I heard the vibration through the floor,” Rangel said. “I ran to the window, and that’s when I saw the cop running out, or like, walking out, and he was cussing, you know, he was screaming, ‘F–k, f–k,’ like upset that he shot the guy.”
Brandon Dickerson, who said he was in the car with Brisbon shortly before the shooting and witnessed some of the incident, said Brisbon was dropping off fast food to his children in the apartment. On Wednesday evening, strewn french fries still littered the front porch.
Dickerson said he never saw the officer try to talk with Brisbon. He also said his friend wasn’t yelling at the officer.
“Who’s gonna argue with police?” Dickerson said. “He had no death wish yesterday.”
Zachary Pithan, with mother Cleo Daily. He was killed by Phoenix police officer Clint Brookins on April 20, 2013.
Marci Kratter, a Phoenix attorney who represented Brisbon in a previous DUI case and is now representing his family, said she is concerned that the story offered by police is not complete.
“There are numerous witnesses that will challenge the police officer’s account of what transpired,” she said.
Kratter said she dispatched investigators to the scene to determine whether a civil wrongful-death suit is necessary.
“Tonight, four children are missing their father, a woman is missing her husband and a mother is missing her son,” she said. “It was a senseless tragedy. He was unarmed and not a threat to anyone. We intend to pursue this to the full extent of the law.”
Jarrett Maupin
Civil rights activist Jarrett Maupin was at the scene Wednesday and said he spoke with Brisbon’s family members.
“I think the statements given to me by neighbors, friends and family members are in direct contrast to what has been disseminated by the Phoenix Police Department,” he said.
Court records show that while Brisbon was serving a five-year probation sentence stemming from a 1998 burglary conviction, he spent several months in the hospital after being shot. Details of the shooting were not immediately available, but court records state that he had been on “a self-destructive path due to his emotional state” after the shooting.
Records show that Brisbon was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence twice in 2009 and once in October. He also had a marijuana conviction.
Officer-involved shootings are not uncommon, but the events that transpired in Ferguson, Mo., in August triggered a national debate about lethal police force and whether it too often crosses the line in minority communities.
Karl Gentles
The Aug. 9 death of Michael Brown, an unarmed man, sparked riots in Ferguson and protests nationwide. Darren Wilson, the White officer who shot him, was not indicted.
Then, on Wednesday, it was announced that a white officer would not be indicted in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, who was allegedly selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island.
Karl Gentles, a local leader in the black community and public policy chairman of the Greater Phoenix Black Chamber of Commerce, said there is clearly a concern in Phoenix, as well as nationwide, that justice is not being served in defense of the African-American community.
Gentles encouraged police to address these perceptions and for city officials to get all the facts surrounding the shooting.
“There has to be some additional communication, dialogue, training, about how black males are perceived,” he said. “Because, as you see from other incidents, black males are feared with unfound reason in many cases, and there is an explicit overreaction in dealing with African-American males that leads to these contentious situations.”
Ann Hart, chairwoman of the African American Police Advisory for South Phoenix, wonders how this latest incident could have been prevented.
“It gives the impression that it’s open season for killing black men,” Hart said. “We need to take a deeper dive into why police officers are feeling compelled to shoot and kill as opposed to apprehend and detain, arrest and jail.”
Contributing: Jennifer Soules and Joe Dana, The Arizona Republic
NEW YORK (AP) — The cellphone video of the last moments of Eric Garner’s life showed a white police officer holding the unarmed black man in a chokehold as he repeatedly gasped, “I can’t breathe.”
Eric and Esaw Garner, his wife
Despite the video and a medical examiner’s ruling that the chokehold contributed to the death, a Staten Island grand jury decided Wednesday not to bring any charges against the officer, prompting protests across the country and sending thousands onto New York’s streets, where they marched, chanted and blocked traffic into Thursday morning.
While legal experts note it’s impossible to know how the grand jurors reached their conclusion, they say the Garner case, like Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, once again raised concerns about the influence local prosecutors have over the process of charging the police officers they work with on a daily basis.
VOD readers, YouTube removed the original video below from its site saying it was intended to “harass, bully or threaten.” Didn’t they mean the NYPD? So here’s another one with full commentary.
VOD: in second video, killer kops stand over Eric Garner, who is totally unresponsive and clearly dead, for at least seven minutes, appearing to pretend he is still alive while they wait for EMS, even talking to him after finding no pulse. Officers are trained in CPR, they obviously refused to try to resuscitate the man they had just asphyxiated. All of them should go to prison for life for Eric Garner’s death.
“The video speaks for itself,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School. “It appears to show negligence. But if we learned anything from the Brown case, it’s the power of prosecutors to construct and manage a narrative in a way that can shape the outcome.”
Protesters flood Rockefeller Center during Xmas tree lighting.
Ekow N. Yankah, a professor at Cardozo School of Law, agreed that, “It is hard to understand how a jury doesn’t see any probable cause that a crime has been committed or is being committed when looking at that video, especially.”
James A. Cohen, who teaches at Fordham University Law School, went further, saying, “Logic doesn’t play a role in this process.”
U.S. Attorney Eric Holder said federal prosecutors would conduct their own investigation of Garner’s July 17 death as officers were attempting to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. The New York Police Department also is doing an internal probe which could lead to administrative charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who remains on desk duty.
Protesters chanted “We can’t breathe!”
The grand jury’s decision prompted emotional protests around New York and in cities from Atlanta to California. The same day, a white police chief in Eutawville, South Carolina, was charged with murder in the death of an unarmed black man after an argument at a town hall meeting.
In Manhattan, demonstrators laid down in Grand Central Terminal, walked through traffic on the West Side Highway and blocked the Brooklyn Bridge. A City Council member cried. Hundreds converged on the heavily secured area around the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting with a combination of professional-looking signs and hand-scrawled placards reading, “Black lives matter” and “Fellow white people, wake up.” And in the Staten Island neighborhood where Garner died, people reacted with angry disbelief and chanted, “I can’t breathe!” and “Hands up — don’t choke!”
Demonstrators flooded streets in New York City, Oakland, CA and other places across the country after grand jury refused to indict NYPD killer cop in Eric Garner murder.
Police said 83 people were arrested, mostly on disorderly conduct charges. The demonstrations were largely peaceful, in contrast to the arson and looting that accompanied the decision nine days earlier not to indict the officer in Brown’s death.
Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan said the grand jury found “no reasonable cause” to bring charges, but unlike the chief prosecutor in the Ferguson case, New York law forbids him from giving details on the grand jury action. The district attorney was seeking a court order to have some information released.
Protesters block Market Street in San Francisco.
Garner’s widow, Esaw, said she had no faith in the local prosecutors.
“As far as the police and the DA, there was no sincerity from Day One,” she said in an interview on the “Today” show.
In order to find Pantaleo criminally negligent, the grand jury would have had to determine he knew there was a “substantial risk” that Garner would have died. Pantaleo’s lawyer and union officials argued that the grand jury got it right, saying he used an authorized takedown move — not a banned chokehold — and that Garner’s poor health was the main cause of his death.
NYC protesters block traffic on Brooklyn Bridge.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has led protests over the custody death of Garner and the police shooting of Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, said the New York decision is yet another reason he has lost confidence in state grand juries and local prosecutors to bring such cases.
“State grand juries tend to be too compromised with local politics because local prosecutors run for office and they have to depend on the police for evidence,” he said. “Don’t we have the right to question grand juries when we’re looking at a video and seeing things that don’t make sense?”
Eric Garner verdict protest in Oakland, CA.
The video shot by an onlooker showed the 43-year-old Garner telling a group of police officers to leave him alone as they tried to arrest him. Pantaleo responded by wrapping his arm around Garner’s neck in what appeared to be a chokehold.
The heavyset father of six, who had asthma, was heard repeatedly gasping, “I can’t breathe!” He later died at a hospital.
A forensic pathologist hired by Garner’s family agreed with the medical examiner, saying there was hemorrhaging on Garner’s neck indicative of neck compressions.
Protest in Seattle, Washington.
Columbia’s Fagan said another factor was that the Staten Island grand jury came from the most conservative and least racially diverse of the city’s five boroughs, and home to many current and retired police officers and their families.
“Staten Island is a very different borough,” he said. “In fact, it may be closer to suburban St. Louis, and we can’t discount that.”
Brown’s cousin Ty Pruitt interviewed on CNN in video above
The usual M.O. in the Police States of America: blame the victims
Aiyana Jones’ family was similarly tortured and punished in Detroit
Holiday appeal for funds for her family
St. Louis police target youth who participated in rebellion as well; refuse to charge killer of Vonderrit Myers, Jr.
Robert Williams, author of “Negroes with Guns”
_________________
“I made a statement that if the law, if the United States Constitution cannot be enforced in this social jungle called Dixie, it is time that Negroes must defend themselves even if it is necessary to resort to violence.
That there is no law here, there is no need to take the white attackers to the courts because they will go free and that the federal government is not coming to the aid of people who are oppressed, and it is time for Negro men to stand up and be men and if it is necessary for us to die we must be willing to die. If it is necessary for us to kill we must be willing to kill.” – Freedom fighter Robert Williams, author of “Negroes with Guns”
Andrew Brady, Korey Haulcy, Cedric James: more Black youth targeted by St. Louis Police– IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL!
Update: In the wake of the outrageous grand jury decisions in the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, St. Louis-area police are pursuing charges not only against Brown’s family members, but against dozens who participated in rebellions against his murder and the grand jury decision.
Nicholas Green, beaten up during arrest, charged with interfering with police radio transmission.
See links below this article. They include three young men charged with throwing items at police (photo above) another man charged with interfering with police radio dispatches, (at left) who was beaten up during his arrest, and at least 24 others.
Two possible witnesses in the grand jury case, Shawn Gray and De’Andre Joshua, have been found dead in suspicious circumstances as well. The St. Louis Police Department has also refused to bring charges against the officer who killed Vonderrit Myers, 18.
Commentary
December 3, 2014
Michael Brown, 18
Aiyana Jones, 7
DETROIT – Now the torture begins again for the family of Michael Brown.
On May 16, 2010, a Detroit police SWAT team raided the home of Aiyana Jones, 7. Officer Joseph Weekley, Jr. instantly blasted her in the head with an MP5 submachine gun as she lay sleeping on her family’s couch. Her brains and blood flew out across the couch and floor.
The first question a mainstream reporter asked at a press conference several days later was, “Didn’t Charles Jones [Aiyana’s father] give the gun to Chauncey Owens?” She referred to the killing of JeRean Blake, 17, on May 14, 2014. It was information that could only have been leaked by police. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy did not charge the child’s father with first-degree murder until 17 months later.
Killer cop Weekley freed; Aiyana’s father imprisoned
Killer cop Joseph Weekley — DETROIT
Killer cop Darren Wilson–FERGUSON
Weekley is now free as a bird, after two mistrials, never having spent a day in jail. But forensics experts testified at his trial that his gun could not have gone off accidentally. The medical examiner said it is possible that the gun was placed directly against Aiyana’s head. Other officers said the gunshot rang out only seconds after entry, and that they are thoroughly trained not to put their finger on the trigger unless they plan to shoot.
Aiyana with father Charles Jones before her murder.
Charles Jones is serving 40-60 years in prison on trumped-on charges in the Blake case, brought to justify the police raid on his mother’s flat, an address not named in the original search warrant. A police video at his trial showed Owens naming another man, not Charles, as the provider of the gun. No witnesses except two jailhouse snitches testified that Jones gave Owens the gun. No eyewitnesses saw such an act.
Meanwhile, the Detroit police continue to harass other members of this very large extended and impoverished family, still suffering from the unimaginable and ongoing horror that began four and a half years ago, as the holidays approach. Charles Jones is not there to help care for his six other children, two of whom were in the house along with him and their mother Dominika Jones, when Aiyana was killed.
Below: video of Mertilla Jones’ courtroom testimony on witnessing killing of her granddaughter Aiyana Jones
History repeats itself for Michael Brown’s family
On Aug. 9, 2014, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson chased and shot Michael Brown, 18 and unarmed, at least six to eight times as he held up his hands in surrender. So said eyewitnesses closest to the scene, including one young woman only feet away from the police, and two white construction workers, one of whom imitated what Brown had done, holding his hands up in the air as police swarmed the area.
Michael Brown’s body lay in the street for over four hours in the hot sun as his blood and brains poured out of his head and his family begged police to cover him.
Below: video of account from Dorian Johnson, who was walking with Michael Brown when he was killed.
On Nov. 24, 2014, a grand jury which inappropriately heard four and a half hours of unbridled testimony from Wilson, refused to indict the killer cop. During his testimony, Wilson referred to Brown as “it,” a “demon” and “Hulk Hogan.”
St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch was in charge of presenting the case. In an on-line commentary, an attorney noted “the ‘prosecutor’ presented the case as if he were REPRESENTING THE DEFENDANT. . .Why did the prosecutor do this? …because he is a police force advocate. There’s a long history on this. His dad was a police officer killed by a black suspect; his brother, nephew, and cousin are also officers; his mother worked for the force for 20 years. (Click on The unethical use of a grand jury to defend defendant Darren Wilson for full remarks.)
As crowds of youth massed in the streets outside Ferguson police headquarters, the news hit like the stun grenade police threw into Aiyana Jones’ home. Eventually a large part of Ferguson’s commercial section was burnt to the ground.
Michael Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden, back from testifying before the United Nations, stood on a car in those streets, shouting out her sorrow and despair, then broke down weeping uncontrollably. Her husband, Michael’s stepfather Louis Head, jumped up to hold her tightly in his arms. His shirt read on the back, “I am Mike Brown,” with a picture of Brown in his high school graduation gown on the front.
Astonishingly, even commentator Nancy Grace, known as a conservative defender of cops, blasted Darren Wilson and the grand jury decision on national TV.
“Burn this b—- down”
As someone in the crowd shouted, “Fuck the police,” he turned around and cried out in grief and anger, “Burn this bitch down.”
Like pit bulls trained to kill, Missouri government officials and police now are after Louis Head for allegedly inciting a riot. It’s not enough that Wilson, like Weekley, is free as a bird, after committing outright murder. They want MORE blood, not just Michael’s.
Vonderrit Myers, 18, with mother
Kaijeme Powell
Police have launched an investigation of Head, speaking first to other individuals before talking to him. Missouri’s Lieutenant Governor has called for him to be charged. Head and his wife have been placed in the outrageous position of having to DEFEND his words and will likely face other investigations, as happened with Aiyana Jones’ family.
The mainstream media piously declares that Head’s remarks, and Ty Pruitt calling Wilson a murderer, were inappropriate and slanderous. During Weekley’s trial earlier this year, Detroit News reporter George Hunter tweeted piously that this reporter’s depiction of Weekley as a “killer cop” was unjust.
Some of the 89 people killed by Chicago police in last five years; over 300 were shot.
Never mind that Missouri police killed two other Black youth only weeks after Mike Brown was gunned down like an animal. Never mind that the United Nations Committee on Torture condemned the U.S. as a whole for hundreds of incidents of police killings and brutality committed against Blacks in particular, on Nov. 20, just before the grand jury verdict was handed down. Eighty-nine Blacks killed in Chicago alone over the last five years, and 300 shot.
THIS IS WAR. What are Blacks and other people of this country supposed to do to defend themselves? The people of Ferguson have been accused of “burning down their own community.” They didn’t burn their homes; they burned stores run by people of other ethnicities. In two cases, phone calls to the police by store clerks for petty incidents may have precipitated the police MURDERS of Mike Brown and Kaijeme Powell.
Detroit protesters block I-75 freeway at Gratiot Nov. 25 after grand jury verdict.
Detroit protest against Michael Brown grand jury verdict Nov. 25, 204
YES THEY WERE MURDERS, AND YES, BLACK PEOPLE IN THE POLICE STATES OF AMERICA HAVE THE HUMAN RIGHT TO DEFEND THEMSELVES AND FIGHT BACK!
Fortunately, a multinational movement comprised of both Black and white youth has developed out of Michael Brown’s racist murder, with thousands of demonstrators occupying freeways and shopping malls across the U.S. since the grand jury verdict. May this movement develop until it reaches the scale of the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1960’s, and go beyond them until this entire system is burnt to the ground and replaced with one devoted to the people, not police, and not profit.
“We Will Not Be Satisfied Until Justice Rolls Down Like Water and Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Charles Jones and other members of his family before Aiyana’s funeral.
VOD APPEAL FOR HOLIDAY FUNDS FOR AIYANA JONES’ FAMILY: Aiyana Jones’ extended family, including numerous young children whose parents have had difficulty finding employment, has nothing for the holidays. VOD is appealing to the community not to forget them. Checks and money orders should be made out to “Mertilla Jones” (Aiyana’s grandmother), and sent c/o Voice of Detroit, P.O. Box 32684, Detroit 48232.
(The family’s civil lawsuit has not been heard during the pendency of the Detroit bankruptcy. Lawyers representing the family will likely have a difficult time if trial does begin, due to the unjust conviction of Aiyana’s dad, who along with Dominika Jones, represents her estate. Any trial will likely take years.)
Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey (12), wide receiver Tavon Austin (11), tight end Jared Cook (89), wide receiver Chris Givens (13) and wide receiver Kenny Britt (81) put their hands up to show support for Michael Brown before a game against the Oakland Raiders at the Edward Jones Dome.(Photo: Jeff Curry, USA TODAY Sports)
Associated Press
By R.B. FALLSTROM
Ferguson protesters: Stop killing us!
ST. LOUIS (AP) Five St. Louis Rams players stood with their arms raised in an apparent show of solidarity for Ferguson protesters before trotting onto the field for pregame introductions
A Rams spokesman said Sunday the team was not aware the gesture had been planned before the game against Oakland.
Wide receivers Tavon Austin and Kenny Britt came out together first, with the move obscured by a smoke machine in the upper reaches of the Edward Jones Dome. Stedman Bailey, Jared Cook and Chris Givens – all of whom are Black – then came out and stood together with arms raised.
There have been riots, looting and buildings burned in Ferguson since a grand jury declined Monday to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown in August.
ST. LOUIS RAMS’ HEROIC ACTION RECALLS BLACK POWER SALUTE AT 1968 OLYMPICS
By Diane Bukowski
December 1, 2014
Gold medallist Tommie Smith, (center) and bronze medalist John Carlos (right) showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200m race in the 1968 Summer Olympics. Australian medalist Peter Norman stood with them in solidarity.
DETROIT – St. Louis Rams players Tavon Austin, Kenny Britt Stedman Bailey, Jared Cook and Chris Givens entered the playing field Sunday, Nov. 30, raising their hands in solidarity with Michael Brown and the people of Ferguson, in the wake of a grand jury’s exoneration of Brown’s killer KKKop executioner Darren Wilson.
Their action strongly echoed the heroic stand taken by Black Olympics athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, along with white Australian Peter Norman, during the 1968 Olympics.
The two Black athletes, accepting their victory medals, took their shoes off first to solidarize with the poverty of people in their communities. Then they put beads on to represent their opposition to lynchings. Then, heads solemnly bowed, they raised their fists in the Black Power salute representing the mass civil and human rights movements of their times.
Norman stood on the victory stand in front of them, expressing his own solidarity with the Black struggle in the U.S. All three were banned from professional and non-professional sports for the rest of their lives.
See video below:
Now the mass media is on the attack against the Rams’ players as well, publicizing and printing a statement from the St. Louis KKKops demanding an apology. The same papers which have printed this statement have refused to fully cover the Nov. 28 statement by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, which condemned police atrocities against Blacks in the U.S., as well as conditions in U.S. prisons including solitary confinement which amount to torture. (Click on UN Committee on Torture Report on US 11 20 14. and VOD story at http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/29/u-s-killings-by-police-prison-conditions-trouble-united-nations/.)
Protesters during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s fought police brutality as well.
Fortunately, the NFL and Rams administrators have refused to sanction the players involved. But there will likely be more attacks on these heroic Rams from professional sports bigots in the coming days.
What Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Peter Norman did in 1968 and what Tavon Austin, Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey, Jared Cook and Chris Givens did in 2014 will be forever remembered in the journals of the people’s history. Both actions took place during mass movements for justice for Black people in the U.S., as protesters occupied the streets, marched by the millions, and went to jail to stand up against this racist, imperialist police and prison nation known as the United States.
These athletes used the power of their names and publicity to join the movement for their people and will forever be considered heroes.
Rev. Edward Pinkney of BANCO speaks at Moratorium NOW! meeting in Detroit Nov. 17, 2014.
Pinkney spoke in Detroit again Nov. 17
Attorneys filing pretrial motions: “We’re going to rock their world”
Detroit strategy meeting Sat. Dec. 6 @ 1 pm Central Methodist Church
By Diane Bukowski
November 30, 2014
Berrien County Sheriff L. Paul Bailey
Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler
DETROIT –An announcement of Rev. Edward Pinkney’s Oct. 3 conviction by an all-white jury on five felony charges elicited wild applause and a standing ovation at a monthly Republican meeting Nov. 15 in St. Joseph, Rev. Pinkney told VOD this week.
The life-long Benton Harbor activist said an individual who attended the meeting also told him that Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler and Sheriff L. Paul Bailey, both instrumental in concocting phony charges of “forgery under the Michigan election law” against him, were part of the merriment.
“There’s a lynch mob mentality there,” he said. “But we’re going to rock their world; I’m expecting fireworks there by the time of my sentencing Dec. 15.”
Marian Kramer of MWRO (center), flanked by Dave Sole of Moratorium NOW! and Rev. Pinkney. announces Dec. 6 strategy meeting in Detroit.
He said his appeals attorneys are moving forward with motions to overturn the verdict. There was no evidence brought forward at trial to convict him of altering dates on petitions to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower, as even a Michigan State Police Forensics Technician admitted. Subsequent investigation has shown that many jurors did not disclose their ties with opposing parties in the case. Additionally, the Court of Appeals ruled Oct. 23 that violations of election law are misdemeanors, not felonies.
Earlier, Pinkney spoke in Detroit at Moratorium NOW’s weekly meeting Nov. 17, where Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) leader Marian Kramer announced that a strategy meeting on Pinkney’s case will be held this coming Sat. Dec. 6 at 1 p.m. at Central Methodist Church, located at Woodward and Adams.
Marcina Cole said another busload is being organized to attend the Pinkney’s sentencing in St. Joseph Dec. 15. Over $700 was raised at the meeting for his defense.
Benton Harbor rebellion against police murders, including that of Terrance Shurn, in 2003.
“Our fight against racism is spreading from Benton Harbor to Ferguson to Detroit to New York City and all over the country and the world,” Pinkney said. “While the federal government is giving billions of dollars to our cities for military armaments to help police kill our kids, in Benton Harbor they found me guilty with no evidence because I organized a petition campaign to recall our mayor.”
Berrien County and Benton Harbor police carried out a mini-version of the police state that exploded after Ferguson, MO killer cop Darren Wilson shot 18-year-old Michael Brown to death Aug. 9, as he raised his hands in surrender.
In addition to the SWAT team with tanks that raided Pinkney’s home May 24 attempt to arrest him, police from numerous districts were all over Benton Harbor knocking on doors to terrorize its 90 percent Black population, he said.
Ferguson protesters take the streets Aug. 19, 2014 against police murder of Michael Brown.
“But the people of Benton Harbor are not intimidated,” Pinkney said. “They are organized to struggle. I’m proud to say I’m able to make them call martial law. At my trial, we turned their prosecution witnesses into our witnesses. They described how police came to their homes, kicked in their front and back doors, and tried to get them to lie. The prosecution tried to get over 30 people to say they didn’t sign the recall petitions on the date listed, but everyone said they signed them on that date. One lady said she signed the wrong date first and then changed it, using two different color pens.”
Pinkney recounted the testimony of a Michigan State Police forensics lab technician who was asked, “Can you say Rev. Pinkney did it [changed dates on petitions]. He said NO—that was a victory for the people.”
Pinkney identified racism as the chief problem everywhere today in the U.S., a view that was recently confirmed by a report from the United Nations Committee on Torture.
Quincy Stewart, with another Pontiac resident, speaks at meeting,
“They’re still burning crosses and hanging nooses in the workplace in St. Joseph,” he said. “This fight is not about Rev. Pinkney, it is about the people. We have to take the struggle to a whole different level.”
Quincy Stewart and another man from Pontiac, Michigan told the audience the travails that residents of their city have suffered since an Emergency Manager took over as has been done only in majority-Black cities across Michigan, including Benton Harbor and Detroit.
“We’ve suffered for five years under an EM,” Stewart said. “Every single asset has been taken. They sold the Pontiac Silverdome for a measly $580,000. We are right in the middle of Oakland County, and police repression happens every day.”
Judge Sterling Schrock, who is to sentence Pinkney.
Oakland County, a majority white, is one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. Oakland and Macomb Counties were two of only four counties, out of 83 in Michigan, that voted against a referendum to repeal the first Emergency Manager law, Public Act 4.
Pinkney asked his supporters to write letters to Berrien County Judge Sterling Schrock demanding to know how he could be convicted with no evidence. Schrock’s address is 811 Port St. St Joseph, MI 49085.
BANCO targeted Schrock in 2011 for his racially discriminatory murder sentencings of a white man to probation, and three Black youths to prison for life. Click on Sterling Schrock legacy of hatred to read story.
Rev. Pinkney’s wife Dorothy Pinkney is in front row, with grey hat, during meeting Nov. 17 in Detroit.
STATEMENT BY REV. EDWARD PINKNEY ON BANCO WEBSITE:
Gail Freehling, the racist juror from Three Oaks, Michigan
Standing ovation for sheriff stating Pinkney’s conviction
Gail Freehling, former city clerk for New Buffalo, MI was on Pinkney jury. Sharon Tyler, the Berrien County Clerk who oversees all city clerks there, was one of chief witnesses against Rev. Pinkney.
The look in her eyes, the expression on her face – if her eyes could shoot I would be dead. How much hate can one person have in their heart? Gail Freehling is the type who would be responsible for mobbing, hanging, and shooting blacks for no reason.
Racism in the 1960’s: it was a huge decade and a war/battle every day between Blacks and Whites. Black and Whites had different drinking fountains and wash rooms.
Whites in Mississippi would scare blacks into leaving town by putting up signs, burning crosses, burning homes, and killing all members of the family.
In Berrien County, Michigan blacks are viewed as horrible people. When whites see a black person on TV or walking around Three Oaks, St. Joseph, or Stevensville, their first thought is, “what is a black person doing in our community?”
On October 27, 2014 in Berrien County, Michigan an all-white jury was sitting in judgment of me. The jury was motivated by something other than the truth.
Marion, Indiana, Aug. 7, 1930: Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith are lynched.
I was found guilty with no evidence and no witnesses to testify against me, no confession, and a group of whites hating black people. In the Berrien County courthouse this was a modern day lynching.
The Sheriff of Berrien County, Paul Bailey, went to a Republican meeting and was given a standing ovation when he made the announcement that, “we convicted Rev. Edward Pinkney and he will be going to prison for the rest of his life” (with absolutely no evidence.)
In 1960 they wore white robes and masks to symbolize their color and to sometimes act like ghosts. Today they wear suits, ties, and black robes to symbolize their color. We must not forget our friendly American police officers whose job is to serve and protect -and have murdered someone every single day of the year.
Mike Brown, 18, of Ferguson, MO, and his executioner KKKop Darren Wilson.
Only in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is open season for cops to kill unarmed black people and not go to prison. If Whirlpool, Rep. Fred Upton, and Berrien County Court have their way, Rev. Pinkney will be going to jail for the rest of his life, convicted with no evidence. Killer cop Darren Wilson set free with evidence in Ferguson, Mo.
We the people must stand up against racism and discrimination, we must protect the have-nots. It is not one thing, it is everything. Let us stand together and fight and win.
To sign up for bus to Rev. Pinkney’s sentencing in St. Joseph, Dec. 15 at 8 am, contact Marcina Cole at 248-383-3595, or Abayomi Azikiwe at 313-671-3714.
To donate to the campaign to free Rev. Pinkney, send funds to Rev. Edward Pinkney (checks made out to BANCO) 1940 Union St. Benton Harbor, MI 49022Phone: 269-925-0001
Alessio Bruni (l) of Italy, Committee expert on U.S. Review, and Claudio Grossman, of Chile, Chairperson of the UN Committee against Torture, during news conference by UN Committee Against Torture.
Tribune News Service
By John Zarocostas
November 29, 2014
Protesters occupy suburban St. Louis mall on “Black Friday” to protest grand jury verdict on police murder of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, MO Aug. 9, 2014.
GENEVA — A U.N. anti-torture panel that is investigating the United States said Friday it was deeply concerned by what it described as the high incidence of police brutality and shootings — especially against African-Americans — in the U.S., was troubled by what it called harsh conditions in many prisons and was worried about the interrogation methods used on detainees.
The experts on the United Nations panel called for declassifying evidence of torture by the U.S. — in particular Guantanamo Bay detainees’ accounts — and declassifying and promptly releasing, with minimal redactions, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report about the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program.
“We express concern at the reported current police violence in Chicago, especially against African-American and Latino young people, and deep concern at the frequent and recurrent police shootings or fatal pursuit of unarmed black individuals,” said Alessio Bruni, a member of the panel and a lead investigator in the review of U.S. compliance with the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. The U.S. ratified the 156-member-country convention in 1994. [See report on Chicago killings at http://report.wechargegenocide.org/people.html.]
Some of the 89 people killed by Chicago police in last five years; over 300 were shot.
Bruni, an Italian, said the 10-member panel recommended “that all instances of police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement officers are investigated promptly, effectively and impartially by an independent mechanism with no institutional or hierarchical connection between the investigators and the alleged perpetrators.”
On Nov. 12-13, nearly 30 senior officials from the U.S. Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, along with the attorney general of Mississippi, presented evidence and were examined by the U.N. panel. The session was part of the periodic review of U.S. compliance with the anti-torture convention. The U.S. was last reviewed in May 2006.
Michael Brown’s parents Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown, Sr. testify at UN Committee on Torture.
Civil rights activists and human rights groups also met with the panel in Geneva. Among those testifying were the parents of Michael Brown, 18, who was shot dead Aug. 9 in Ferguson., Mo., by a police officer. A grand jury chose this week not to indict the officer.
Asked about the decision not to charge the officer who shot Brown, Bruni said: “It is always a tragedy when a person is killed and especially by an official of the government. … Can’t say more because there has been a judicial decision on this point and we have to respect that decision.”
The committee also said it was concerned about what it called excessive use of force by law enforcement officials against immigrants and LGBT individuals, about racial profiling and about the growing militarization of policing activities.
“This (U.N.) report — along with the voices of Americans protesting around the country this week — is a wake-up call for police who think they can act with impunity,” said Jamil Dakwar, the director of human rights at the American Civil Liberties Union.
A pair holds a solitary confinement protest sign outside the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown L.A. Monday, July 8, 2013, during a protest against solitary confinement in California prisons. (Michael Owen Baker/L.A. Daily News)
The panel said it was appalled at the number of reported deaths that followed the use of stun guns, and it recommended that the weapons be used “exclusively in extreme and limited situations” and be banned for use on children and pregnant women.
The U.N. panel noted its concern at what it described as the high number of deaths in custody — 958 inmates died in American jails in 2012, up nearly 8 percent from2010 — and it called on the U.S. government to investigate all deaths of detainees promptly.
The panel said the U.S. should limit solitary confinement to “a measure of last resort” and prohibit its use for juveniles, people with disabilities, and pregnant and breastfeeding women. It said it was concerned about the use of solitary confinement for indefinite periods.
Bruni said keeping people in maximum-security prisons in solitary confinement up to 22 to 23 hours a day was not acceptable.
The panel also raised concerns about the U.S. military’s interrogation methods. Bruni said, “Certain changes have to be made in certain parts of the military manual for interrogation.”
The report said the United States should abolish the “physical separation technique,” which limits detainees to at least four hours of continued sleep.
With regard to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the panel concluded that the United States should “cease the use of indefinite detention without charge or trial for individuals suspected of terrorism or related activities,” and it recommended that the government end the force-feeding of detainees on hunger strikes.
Inside U.S. Guantanamao Bay politicial prisoner concentration camp.
———
(Zarocostas is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
