Shanique Myrie, the Jamaican woman who won her free move­ment case against Barbados has now been approved by the People’s National Party (PNP) to rep­re­sent the Olympic Gardens Division in St Andrew in the next local gov­ern­ment elections.

PNP General Secretary Paul Burke says Myrie was approved by the PNP’s National Executive Committee fol­low­ing a rec­om­men­da­tion by the lead­er­ship of the polit­i­cal divi­sion. “The Regional Executive Committee came with the name and there was no objec­tion,” said Burke. However, he notes that all posi­tions will be under review until the day of nom­i­na­tion for the elec­tions. In June, when she sub­mit­ted her appli­ca­tion, Myrie told The Gleaner that she has always want­ed to enter rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics to make a change in the lives of res­i­dents “neglect­ed” by their polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives. “It’s a Labourite seat and in my com­mu­ni­ty, the peo­ple hard­ly get any­thing and many kids, old­er peo­ple need help. I want to make a change”, said Myrie. The Jamaica Labour Party’s Christopher Townsend cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the Olympic Garden’s Division in the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation. Local gov­ern­ment elec­tions which were due by June 30 this year, have been delayed by up to December 29, 2016.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here :PNP Approves Shanique Myrie For Olympic Gardens Seat

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – Cabinet has award­ed a con­tract val­ued at US$771,000 to American firm, Armor Express, for the pro­vi­sion of pro­tec­tive equip­ment for the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). The items include 1, 500 bal­lis­tic vests, 1, 000 bal­lis­tic hel­mets and 500 hel­met shields. Speaking at Wednesday’s Jamaica House press brief­ing at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kingston, Minister with respon­si­bil­i­ty for Information, Senator Sandrea Falconer, said the acqui­si­tion of these pieces of equip­ment is crit­i­cal for the safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of police per­son­nel. She informed that the funds have been bud­get­ed for in the recur­rent bud­get for ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆.

“The pro­vi­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of these crit­i­cal secu­ri­ty equip­ment to police per­son­nel will pro­vide per­son­al pro­tec­tion and reduce seri­ous injuries while on duty,” she not­ed. Falconer said JCF sta­tis­tics show that between 2012 and 2014, a total of 38 police per­son­nel were injured on duty. She said it is impor­tant that the police are equipped and pro­tect­ed to face chal­lenges on the job. The last pur­chase of bal­lis­tic vests for the JCF was made in 2013. Headquartered in Central Lake, Michigan, Armor Express designs, devel­ops, man­u­fac­tures and dis­trib­utes a full line of high per­for­mance hard and soft body armour, hel­mets and oth­er acces­sories for law enforce­ment, mil­i­tary, cor­rec­tion­al and oth­er tac­ti­cal personnel.
See sto­ry here : Gov’t approves con­tract to out­fit cops with pro­tec­tive gear

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Tea Party Republicans came togeth­er Wednesday to denounce a land­mark for­eign pol­i­cy deal that is quick­ly becom­ing a major 2016 cam­paign issue: the Iran nuclear agree­ment. “We are led by very, very stu­pid peo­ple,” Trump told sev­er­al hun­dred Tea Party mem­bers gath­ered on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, call­ing the Iran deal “incom­pe­tent­ly” nego­ti­at­ed. Saying Iran will not hon­or its com­mit­ment to for­go nuclear weapons, Cruz told the crowd that the Iran deal rep­re­sents “the sin­gle great­est nation­al secu­ri­ty threat fac­ing America.” Cruz, a Texas sen­a­tor, not­ed that the deal elim­i­nates eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Iran, pro­vid­ing it mil­lions of dol­lars to finance ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties, and effec­tive­ly mak­ing the Obama admin­is­tra­tion “the world’s largest financier of rad­i­cal Islamic ter­ror­ism.” Both Republican can­di­dates made cam­paign pitch­es as part of their anti-agree­ment speeches.

Trump pledged to nego­ti­ate bet­ter agree­ment on a vari­ety of top­ics, from trade to for­eign pol­i­cy. “We will have so much win­ning if I get elect­ed, that you may get bored with win­ning,” the New York busi­ness­man said at one point. For his part, Cruz, a sen­a­tor from Texas, said “a new pres­i­dent” will con­front Iran over its mis­be­hav­ior. Obama and aides said the agree­ment — in which the U.S. and allies reduce sanc­tions as Iran gives up the means to make nuclear weapons — is the best way to pre­vent the Tehran régime from obtain­ing a nuclear arse­nal. White House offi­cials said Cruz and oth­er speak­ers at the ral­ly are using false argu­ments to defame the agreement.

Opponents “have gone to great lengths to derail this deal,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “They’ve done so by using many of the same argu­ments that date back to the 2002 deci­sion to invade Iraq.” The Tea Party ral­ly came the same week that Obama secured enough con­gres­sion­al vot­ers to block Republican attempts to void the Iran agree­ment. While Cruz and oth­er speak­ers denounced Obama’s push for the agree­ment, they also sought to put pres­sure on Republican con­gres­sion­al lead­ers to some­how stop the deal from going into effect. In a Senate floor speech ear­li­er Wednesday, Cruz said the “ter­ri­ble deal” with Iran “will not stop a vir­u­lent­ly anti-American and anti-Israeli régime from get­ting a nuclear bomb.” Several hun­dred oppo­nents of the agree­ment gath­ered in 90-plus-degree weath­er to hear Cruz, Trump, and oth­er Tea Party lead­ers denounce the Iran nuclear deal as mem­bers of the House and Senate debat­ed it. Earlier in the day, for­mer sec­re­tary of State and Democratic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Hillary Clinton endorsed the agreement.

If Iran cheats, Clinton said that as pres­i­dent she would “not hes­i­tate to take mil­i­tary action” to block Iran from obtain­ing nuclear weapons. All the Republicans oppose the Iran deal. The Tea Party ral­ly, how­ev­er, brought togeth­er two Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates in Cruz and Trump who have spo­ken well of each oth­er in an oth­er­wise frac­tious race. Jeb Bush and oth­er Republican White House hope­fuls have crit­i­cized Trump, who leads ear­ly Republican polls. Cruz has not, say­ing the media only wants GOP can­di­dates to fight among themselves.

The crowd booed not only men­tions of President Obama, but also Republican con­gres­sion­al lead­ers John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Another Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date also spoke at the ral­ly: Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who said the agree­ment will not stop Iran’s nuclear ambi­tions. “The deal is not the end of the Iranian dan­ger,” he said. “It is the begin­ning.” Tea Party mem­bers chant­ed “U‑S-A,” waved flags, and held up signs assail­ing var­i­ous politi­cians dur­ing the ral­ly that fea­tured more than a dozen speak­ers. Echoing long-stand­ing Tea Party protests, peo­ple at the ral­ly crit­i­cized politi­cians from both par­ties for refus­ing to stand up to Obama and his Iran deal, and attacked the news media for white­wash­ing the poten­tial impact of the agree­ment. Daryl Brooks, 45, who drove down from Trenton, N.J., to join the mid-day ral­ly, said he want­ed politi­cians with­in the U.S. Capitol build­ing and beyond to “feel watched” as they con­sid­ered the Iran agreement.

“We want the Obama admin­is­tra­tion to know that we’re all watch­ing and we’re out here,” Brooks said. Brooks said he oppos­es the Iran deal because the gen­er­al pub­lic has not been giv­en enough infor­ma­tion on the details. He said the Obama admin­is­tra­tion is ignor­ing protests by the Israeli gov­ern­ment, while “the Iranian pres­i­dent and the peo­ple want to destroy Israel.“Barb Bullock, 63, from Delaware, said the media is also part­ly to blame for the lack of trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing the Iran agree­ment. “I don’t think the press is doing enough or pay­ing enough atten­tion to the deal,” Bullock from Delaware said. “We get treat­ed like chil­dren and they don’t tell us the bad things about the deal just the good things. We want the details we want what’s actu­al­ly in the deal.” Bullock said she’s writ­ten let­ters to her con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive but received only a “form response,” so she want­ed to express her protest in per­son. Some Tea Party mem­bers said they real­ize the Iran agree­ment will go into effect, but want­ed to make their voic­es heard.

Rose Prescott — dressed from head-to-toe in red, white, and blue, and car­ry­ing a punch­ing bag depict­ing President Obama — said “we know it’s a done deal,” but Congress needs to lis­ten to the crit­ics. “We will nev­er vote for these politi­cians who vot­ed yes again,” she said. “I want to show the world that we want to be rep­re­sent­ed.” Not all at the ral­ly opposed the Iran agree­ment. Michael Avender, 20, a stu­dent from Northeastern University and rep­re­sen­ta­tive from CODEPINK, an anti-war group at the ral­ly to sup­port the Iran deal, said he was hop­ing to engage with peo­ple at the protest to start a con­ver­sa­tion and pro­mote peace. “We’re try­ing to ini­ti­ate dia­logue with peo­ple… but peo­ple aren’t lis­ten­ing. They just hear what the extrem­ists are say­ing,” he said.

Follow @djusatoday and @paulina_millaon Twitter… See sto­ry here :Donald Trump, Ted Cruz blast Iran deal at Tea Party rally

Just under 500 mur­ders have been record­ed across rur­al parish­es this year, sur­pass­ing the fig­ure report­ed for the met­ro­pol­i­tan areas. According to the lat­est Periodic Serious and Violent Crime Review released by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), 470 mur­ders were report­ed across the 11 police divi­sions spread across rur­al parish­es between January 1 and last week­end. This is a 44 per cent jump when com­pared with the 326 mur­ders report­ed in rur­al parish­es over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year. The St James Police Division led the way with 144 report­ed mur­ders this year, fol­lowed by the Clarendon Police with 86. By con­trast, the eight police divi­sions locat­ed in Kingston, St Andrew, and St Catherine record­ed 356 mur­ders over the same eight-month peri­od this year, 114 less than were report­ed across rur­al parish­es. This rep­re­sents a one per cent decline when com­pared with the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year.

HOT SPOTS

The St Catherine North Police Division, which cov­ers some of the most volatile areas of Spanish Town, and the St Catherine South Police Division led the way with 86 and 58 report­ed mur­ders, respec­tive­ly. Overall, the sta­tis­tics show that up to Sunday, a total of 826 mur­ders have been report­ed this year, a 20 per cent spike when com­pared with the 686 mur­ders record­ed over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year. At the same time, the JCF fig­ures show that oth­er cat­e­gories of seri­ous crimes are on the decline. As an exam­ple, the data revealed that shoot­ings are down two per cent, rob­beries declined 10 per cent, break-ins are down 26 per cent, and rapes declined by 24 per cent. A break­down of the sta­tis­tics shows that apart from St Elizabeth and St Mary, the oth­er nine rur­al police divi­sions report­ed an increase in mur­ders. Five of the eight met­ro­pol­i­tan police divi­sions report­ed a decline in murders.

Murder Spike In Rural Jamaica

THERE was gloom in Mud Town, St Andrew, yes­ter­day as res­i­dents mourned for Pastor David Roper, who was shot dead while con­duct­ing a prayer meet­ing at his Greater Work Revival Mission Church about 9:30 Wednesday night. The church­man, known by his fel­low com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers as Brother Sam, is the broth­er of incar­cer­at­ed gang leader, Joel Andem, the once reput­ed leader of the feared Gideon Warriors Gang. Police report­ed yes­ter­day that armed crim­i­nals crept onto the grounds of the premis­es, entered the church and pumped bul­lets into the pas­tor. “The pas­tor was preach­ing and while talk­ing on the mike we just heard the loud explo­sions,” said one com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber. The res­i­dent said min­utes after the shoot­ing the bul­let-rid­dled body of the pas­tor was found at the foot of the altar. His plaid shirt was soaked in blood and the mike on which he deliv­ered his mes­sage lay a few metres away from his out­stretched hand. Police sources said at least 12 spent shell cas­ings were removed from the scene. Yesterday, police said they increased their pres­ence in the area while launch­ing a search for those respon­si­ble for the attack that sent shock waves through the small com­mu­ni­ty. The increase in police num­bers, how­ev­er, pro­vid­ed lit­tle com­fort for res­i­dents in the area who said the killing has left them in fear for their lives. “Right now we liv­ing in fear is as if we don’t want night to come down because we do not know who could be next,” said one res­i­dent. And she was not alone. “Right now we [are] wor­ried. If the man them can shoot a pas­tor what would they do to me who is a reg­u­lar res­i­dent,” said anoth­er res­i­dent. Yesterday, a group of police­men were seen slow­ly mak­ing their way up the dusty track in the com­mu­ni­ty, sec­tions of which were fenced off with zinc. Andem was in 2005 sen­tenced to 20 years impris­on­ment for shoot­ing with intent and ille­gal pos­ses­sion of a firearm.

– Kimmo Matthews and Tamara Dunbar.
See sto­ry here: Fear in Mud Town after pas­tor shot dead at prayer meeting

SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth – The St Elizabeth police are report­ing that two farm­ers were killed and three oth­er peo­ple were injured when a lone gun­man opened fire on a group play­ing domi­noes at a shop in Bypass dis­trict, New Market, north west St Elizabeth late Wednesday. Those killed have been iden­ti­fied as Jason Taylor also known as Kutchi, 2 and Jason Daley, also called Gego, both 24-year-old farm­ers of the com­mu­ni­ty. Police say a 50-year-old farmer was shot in his right hand, while anoth­er farmer, 23 years old, was shot in his neck and a 33-year-old woman was shot in her right shoul­der.They are nurs­ing injuries in hospital.
Garfield Myers:
See sto­ry here. Five shot in St Elizabeth, two farm­ers dead

Black freedom & opportunity in America has always required the very federal intervention the right wants to destroy

BRITTNEY COOPER

The con­tin­u­ing decline of pub­lic sec­tor jobs at local, state, and fed­er­al lev­els is hav­ing an abysmal eco­nom­ic impact on African Americans, for whom steady, sta­ble gov­ern­ment employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties have pro­vid­ed a sure path into the mid­dle class. The New York Times report­ed yes­ter­day that “rough­ly one in five black adults works for the gov­ern­ment, teach­ing school, deliv­er­ing mail, dri­ving bus­es, pro­cess­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice and man­ag­ing large staffs.” Because Black peo­ple hold a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of gov­ern­ment jobs, cut­backs that affect every­one hit Black com­mu­ni­ties even hard­er. In many ways that goes with­out say­ing. When America sneezes, Black America gets the flu. But I want to sug­gest that some­thing even more sin­is­ter ani­mates this swift piv­ot in the coun­try away from an invest­ment in pub­lic goods and ser­vices. It is not sim­ply that Black peo­ple are vic­tims of a num­bers game. Rather, there has been a whole­sale P.R. cam­paign on the part of those on the right to asso­ciate all pub­lic goods and ser­vices, from pub­lic schools to pub­lic assis­tance, with the bod­ies of unde­serv­ing peo­ple of col­or, par­tic­u­lar­ly Blacks and Latinos.

Any dis­cus­sion of wel­fare or pub­lic assis­tance in this coun­try is rife with dog whis­tles from the right toward the low­er ele­ments of their base, who in Pavlovian fash­ion, respond to code words about wel­fare and pub­lic assis­tance by con­jur­ing images of the unde­serv­ing Black and Brown poor. In his new book “How Propaganda Works,” Yale philoso­pher Jason Stanley argues that while a “lib­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic cul­ture… does not tol­er­ate explic­it degra­da­tion of its cit­i­zens,” there are “appar­ent­ly inno­cent words that have the fea­ture of slurs, name­ly that when­ev­er the words occur in a sen­tence, they con­vey the prob­lem­at­ic con­tent. The word wel­fare …con­veys a prob­lem­at­ic social mean­ing.” I am sug­gest­ing that the word “pub­lic” in our polit­i­cal dis­course is becom­ing just such a tool of polit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da as well.

While we don’t explic­it­ly degrade pub­lic insti­tu­tions, those insti­tu­tions are, in prac­tice, seen as less valu­able, wor­thy, rig­or­ous, and pres­ti­gious. In places as dis­parate as New York City and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the prob­lem of severe seg­re­ga­tion in pub­lic schools has been well-doc­u­ment­ed. When eco­nom­ic means per­mit, white fam­i­lies tend not to edu­cate their chil­dren in racial­ly diverse schools. Public schools are viewed as caul­drons of poor learn­ing and social dys­func­tion; and white peo­ple, when­ev­er pos­si­ble, exer­cise the pre­rog­a­tive to keep their chil­dren out of these envi­ron­ments. That seems rea­son­able, but it is unrea­son­able to except that oth­er people’s chil­dren should have to learn in these kinds of envi­ron­ments either. The cur­rent cir­cus that is the edu­ca­tion reform debate in this coun­try demon­strates a point that Stanley makes: “The usurpa­tion of lib­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic lan­guage to dis­guise an anti­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic man­age­r­i­al soci­ety is at the basis of the American pub­lic school sys­tem as it was restruc­tured between 1910 and 1920.” In oth­er words, we have a pub­licly stat­ed belief in the impor­tance of good pub­lic edu­ca­tion to our democ­ra­cy, but this masks a vari­ety of ways in which pub­lic schools become tools of social con­trol; and, in this moment in par­tic­u­lar, that per­pet­u­ates the cre­ation of a Black and Brown underclass.

The tough real­i­ty about inte­gra­tion is white bod­ies are teth­ered to eco­nom­ic resources. Schools that have large pop­u­la­tions of white chil­dren are not fail­ing schools. When white gen­tri­fiers move into urban areas, they seem­ing­ly bring nice restau­rants, bet­ter polic­ing, and bet­ter schools with them. The nar­ra­tive attached to Black bod­ies is the oppo­site. The pres­ence of Black bod­ies are seen as a drain on resources, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the pres­ence of Black peo­ple in neigh­bor­hoods tends to make those neigh­bor­hoods less desir­able, dri­ving down prop­er­ty val­ues. One recent expose about racist hous­ing prac­tices in Brooklyn demon­strat­ed that white peo­ple rou­tine­ly ask not to live in places with too many Black people.

To the extent that our Civil Rights-era nar­ra­tions of the racial divide per­sist, it seems that nei­ther Black peo­ple nor white peo­ple ever invest­ed ful­ly in the idea of inte­gra­tion. Black com­mu­ni­ties in some respects fared bet­ter under seg­re­ga­tion, because there were Black-owned busi­ness, stu­dents taught by Black teach­ers who believed in their inher­ent capa­bil­i­ty to learn, and more class inte­gra­tion with­in Black neigh­bor­hoods. Still, this was an inher­ent­ly lim­it­ed uni­verse for many Black peo­ple. Thus, they aspired to white insti­tu­tions and to racial inte­gra­tion in some ways as a means of access to a fair­er redis­tri­b­u­tion of resources. Separate, Civil Rights era activists con­clud­ed, was inher­ent­ly unequal.

Meanwhile, white peo­ple both then and now nev­er ful­ly bought into the idea of racial inte­gra­tion either. Beyond sen­ti­ment and rhetoric, we have only to look at the idea of racial inte­gra­tion in prac­tice. If school­ing, hous­ing, and wor­ship prac­tices in the 21^st cen­tu­ry are any indi­ca­tor, we are as seg­re­gat­ed as ever, and that has every­thing to do with a con­tin­u­ing prac­tice among white Americans to seg­re­gate where they live, raise fam­i­lies and send their chil­dren to school. While many young white gen­tri­fiers tell them­selves they are chas­ing cul­ture and diver­si­ty, in many ways, they are sim­ply re-seg­re­gat­ing neigh­bor­hoods, by shift­ing the col­or of who lives there from Brown to white. What gen­tri­fiers seem not to have fig­ured out is that they are being eat­en alive by their own sys­tem, because their white bod­ies dri­ve up prop­er­ty val­ues and then price them out of the very neigh­bor­hoods they want to live in.

Moreover, white peo­ple con­tin­ue to sug­gest that it is Black peo­ple who are self-seg­re­gat­ing. They ask, “Why are all the Black kids sit­ting togeth­er in the cafe­te­ria?” Or as one severe­ly mis­guid­ed senior pro­fes­sor at Duke University recent­ly sug­gest­ed, Black people’s choice of eth­nic names is evi­dence of a lack of desire to ful­ly inte­grate or assim­i­late into the main­stream of American society.

I am point­ing to these prac­tices in this larg­er argu­ment about the way the notion of “pub­lic” has become a tool of pro­pa­gan­da in order to sug­gest a cou­ple of things: One, racial­ized prac­tices and racism still occur even when there is no iden­ti­fi­able racial dis­course being deployed. And, two, these exam­ples sug­gests that racial­ized bod­ies are teth­ered to mate­r­i­al resources. So when the right argues that we pri­va­tize each and every facet of American life, this is at base about an attempt to seg­re­gate resources. But it is not account­ed for by a pure­ly Marxist analy­sis, which would sug­gest that this was about class and not race. In this coun­try, our class struc­ture is teth­ered to a racial­ized hier­ar­chy, in which Black peo­ple in par­tic­u­lar exist as a per­pet­u­al underclass.

A hall­mark of American democ­ra­cy has been an invest­ment in a robust form of pub­lic life, good pub­lic schools, suf­fi­cient pub­lic ser­vices, active par­tic­i­pa­tion in our democ­ra­cy. But we are a coun­try where a sig­nif­i­cant seg­ment of our cit­i­zen­ry has always been per­fect­ly will­ing to erode long-held demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in ser­vice of main­tain­ing a racial hier­ar­chy. The Civil War is only the most extreme example.

As those on the right belly­ache about the cul­tures of pover­ty that cause Black folks to rely too heav­i­ly on gov­ern­ment, no one ever seems to admit that there has nev­er been any pos­si­bil­i­ty of Black free­dom or equal oppor­tu­ni­ty in this coun­try with­out strong fed­er­al gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion. Black peo­ple have a long his­to­ry of work­ing in gov­ern­ment because the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment was the first place to call for mass deseg­re­ga­tion of employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. In fact, the first March on Washington Movement, begun in 1941 by Pullman Porter A. Philip Randolph, was designed to force Franklin D. Roosevelt to deseg­re­gate fed­er­al employ­ment in all fed­er­al agen­cies and among those who had fed­er­al con­tracts. In 1942, FDR oblig­ed Randolph rather than risk a march on Washington, by cre­at­ing the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC).

Combatting racial seg­re­ga­tion, and the racial­ized seg­re­ga­tion of resources, has only hap­pened in this coun­try with strong fed­er­al inter­ven­tion. So when the right con­tin­ues to weak­en fed­er­al gov­ern­ment on all mat­ters relat­ed to the social safe­ty net, they delib­er­ate­ly roll­back the path­ways by which African Americans have pro­cured access to mid­dle class.

In 2013, the medi­an net wealth for a white fam­i­ly was $142,000. The medi­an net wealth for a Black fam­i­ly was $11,000. Black fam­i­lies have lost more than half their col­lec­tive net wealth since 2008. As we are con­tin­u­al­ly con­front­ed with the stark and con­tin­u­ing real­i­ty of a rapid­ly dis­ap­pear­ing Black mid­dle class, while politi­cians con­tin­ue to speak in “effi­cient” terms about the need to shrink gov­ern­ment, it’s hard not to con­clude that this was the goal all along.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: Segregationists nev­er went away: We just call them “small-gov­ern­ment con­ser­v­a­tives” now

Black Lives Matter has been demonized following the unrelated murder of a police officer. Here’s why

BRITTNEY COOPER

Earlier this week, just before bed, an old high school debate team­mate, a white man that I once loved affec­tion­ate­ly as a younger broth­er, post­ed on my Facebook wall, “Do you have sym­pa­thy on police offi­cers who are killed on duty?” Though we have been Facebook friends for a num­ber of years, it has also been lit­er­al years since our last sig­nif­i­cant inter­ac­tion via the site. This was a curi­ous ques­tion that seemed forth­right­ly accusato­ry in its tone.

These killings of white peo­ple are trag­ic and inex­cus­able. That should be said with­out equiv­o­ca­tion. But after I affirmed this same fact to my old friend, I asked him, “What would make you think I think oth­er­wise?” That same night on CNN, I watched Dr. Marc Lamont Hill debate the Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, also an African American man. The chief was there to affirm remarks made by Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman about how “anti-cop” rhetoric from the Black Lives Matter Movement had led to the killing of Deputy Goforth. Sheriff Clarke point­ed to the killing of Officers Liu and Ramos in New York last year and the killing of Deputy Goforth, pro­claim­ing it a “pat­tern.”

How is it that two men­tal­ly ill Black men tar­get­ing police offi­cers con­sti­tutes a pat­tern, but the killing of Walter Scott, the killing of Samuel Dubose, and the killing ofJonathan Ferrell, all by police while they were clear­ly unarmed and com­mit­ting no crimes, add up to a col­lec­tion of unre­lat­ed, iso­lat­ed inci­dents? How is it that the ran­dom acts of two men­tal­ly unsta­ble Black men who had no for­mal or infor­mal rela­tion­ship with the Black Lives Matter move­ment con­sti­tute a trend, but the two dozen police killings of unarmed Black cit­i­zens again remain a col­lec­tion of unfor­tu­nate but iso­lat­ed incidents?

In the case of both Samuel Dubose and Walter Scott, we have police offi­cers on tape killing Black men in cold blood, and then we have evi­dence of those offi­cers and their col­leagues bla­tant­ly lying about what occurred. This is also true of Christian Taylor in Texas. This is also true in the recent case of two police offi­cers who were fired after video evi­dence proved they con­coct­ed an entire sto­ry about anti-cop rhetoric to get out of doing their jobs. If two points make a line, then how many inci­dents of police caught lying in cas­es that involve the lethal use of force do we need in order to acknowl­edge that there’s a pattern?

Let me be clear­er. By “we” I don’t mean me. I mean the “We” that was orig­i­nal­ly includ­ed in “we the peo­ple.” How many inci­dents will con­sti­tute a pat­tern for them?

To be clear, the Black Lives Matter Movement is not an anti-cop move­ment. It is a move­ment that vig­or­ous­ly and vora­cious­ly oppos­es the over­polic­ing of Black com­mu­ni­ties and the state-sanc­tioned killing of unarmed Black peo­ple (and, yes, all peo­ple) by the police. It is a move­ment that insists on hold­ing police account­able for their vio­lence and that will hold police to a high­er stan­dard pre­cise­ly because the state gives police the right to use lethal force. With more pow­er comes more responsibility.

But here’s the thing: White peo­ple know this. Conservative Black peo­ple who insist on speak­ing about the rule of law and the issue of Black-on-Black crime know this. This is basic. They know that these young peo­ple don’t want to kill cops. They want the cops to stop killing them. That was as true in 1988 when NWA released their hit song, “Fuck Tha Police,” and it remains true today, as pro­tes­tors blast rap­per Boosie’s sim­i­lar­ly titled song at protests. Yet, the release of “Straight Outta Compton” this sum­mer has led to increased police pres­ence in movie the­aters, even as we have watched the tri­al of white male Aurora movie shoot­er James Holmes.

How deeply emo­tion­al must one be to hear a group sing a song that is a cri­tique of the police ter­ror­iz­ing com­mu­ni­ties and hear the song to be say­ing that these same com­mu­ni­ties want to ter­ror­ize police? How deeply emo­tion­al must one be to delib­er­ate­ly dis­re­gard the unspo­ken “too” at the end of every procla­ma­tion that “Black lives mat­ter”? We are all enti­tled to our feel­ings, no mat­ter how fucked up and mis­guid­ed they are. But white people’s feel­ings become facts in a sys­tem of white suprema­cy and these “facts” are used to guide social policy.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here :Black America’s “gaslight” night­mare: The psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare being waged against Black Lives Matter

MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) — Invoking “God’s author­i­ty,” a coun­ty clerk denied mar­riage licens­es to gay cou­ples again Tuesday in direct defi­ance of the fed­er­al courts, and vowed not to resign, even under the pres­sure of steep fines or jail. “It is not a light issue for me,” Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis said lat­er through her lawyers. “It is a Heaven or Hell deci­sion.” April Miller and Karen Roberts, tailed by tele­vi­sion cam­eras and rival activists, were there when the doors opened Tuesday morn­ing, hours after the Supreme Court reject­ed the clerk’s last-ditch request for a delay.

They were hope­ful Davis would accept that her fight was lost and issue the licens­es, end­ing the months-long con­tro­ver­sy that has divid­ed Rowan County, where the seat of Morehead is con­sid­ered a pro­gres­sive haven in Appalachian Kentucky. Instead, Davis once again turned them away. On their way out, Miller and Roberts passed David Ermold and David Moore, 17 years a cou­ple. “Denied again,” Roberts whis­pered in Moore’s ear.

Ermold said he almost wept. They demand­ed to talk to Davis, who emerged briefly on the oth­er side of the counter.

“We’re not leav­ing until we have a license,” Ermold told her. “Then you’re going to have a long day,” Davis replied.

Davis, an Apostolic Christian, stopped issu­ing all mar­riage licens­es in June rather than com­ply with the Supreme Court’s legal­iza­tion of gay mar­riage nation­wide. Gay and straight cou­ples sued, say­ing she should ful­fill her duties as an elect­ed offi­cial despite her per­son­al reli­gious faith. U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered her to issue the licens­es, an appeals court affirmed that order, and the Supreme Court on Monday refused to inter­vene, leav­ing her no legal option to refuse. And yet, she did. “Stand firm,” Davis’ sup­port­ers chant­ed as a tense stand­off erupt­ed in the lob­by. “Do your job,” mar­riage equal­i­ty activists shout­ed back. Davis retreat­ed into her inner office, closed the door and shut the blinds. The sher­iff moved every­one out­side, where demon­stra­tors lined up to shout and sing at each oth­er. Davis knows she faces stiff fines or even jail if the judge finds her in con­tempt, her lawyer said. Her sup­port­ers com­pared her Tuesday to the Biblical fig­ures Paul and Silas, impris­oned for their faith. and res­cued by God.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis lis­tens to a cus­tomer fol­low­ing her office’s refusal to issue marri …

But the cou­ples’ lawyers asked that she not be sent to jail, and instead be fined, since she cur­rent­ly col­lects her salary — $80,000 a year — while fail­ing to per­form her duties. They asked the judge to “impose finan­cial penal­ties suf­fi­cient­ly seri­ous and increas­ing­ly oner­ous” to “com­pel her imme­di­ate com­pli­ance with­out delay.” Bunning ordered Davis and her six deputy clerks to appear before him Thursday morn­ing at the fed­er­al cour­t­house in Ashland. Davis also faces a poten­tial state charge of offi­cial mis­con­duct, a mis­de­meanor meant for pub­lic ser­vants who refuse to per­form their duties. Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, now run­ning as the Democratic nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor, is study­ing a com­plaint filed by a cou­ple she turned away, and will decide whether to appoint a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor. Davis said she nev­er imag­ined this day would come. “I have no ani­mos­i­ty toward any­one and har­bor no ill will. To me this has nev­er been a gay or les­bian issue. It is about mar­riage and God’s Word,” her state­ment said. Her crit­ics mock this moral stand, not­ing that Davis is on her fourth hus­band after being divorced three times.

Joe Davis, who described him­self as “an old red­neck hill­bil­ly,” came by to check on his wife Tuesday. It’s been an ordeal, he said. She got death threats and they’ve had to change their phone num­ber. He point­ed to the peo­ple call­ing for gay rights on the cour­t­house lawn. “They want us to accept their beliefs and their ways,” he said. “But they won’t accept our beliefs and our ways.” Mat Staver found­ed the Liberty Counsel, a Christian law firm that rep­re­sents Davis. He said she had been a sin­ner until she went to church four years ago when her moth­er-in-law died. She was born again after the preach­er read a Bible pas­sage about how for­give­ness grows from the grace of God, he said. “She’s made some mis­takes,” he said. “She’s regret­ful and sor­row­ful. That life she led before is not the life she lives now. She asked for and received for­give­ness and grace. That’s why she has such a strong conscience.”

Davis served as her moth­er’s deputy for 27 years before she was elect­ed as a Democrat to suc­ceed her in November. Davis’ own son is on the staff. As an elect­ed offi­cial, she can be removed only if the Legislature impeach­es her, which is unlike­ly in a deeply con­ser­v­a­tive state. Davis’ sup­port­ers blame Gov. Steve Beshear, who ordered resis­tant clerks to issue licens­es or resign. The Kentucky County Clerk’s Association has pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to make mar­riage licens­ing a func­tion of state gov­ern­ment, reliev­ing clerks of the bur­den. Kentucky’s Republican nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor, Matt Bevin, said Tuesday that he sup­ports Davis’ “will­ing­ness to stand for her First Amendment rights,” and if elect­ed, would have peo­ple down­load mar­riage licens­es on the Internet to file at clerk’s offices just like oth­er documents.

Outside the cour­t­house, dozens of Davis’ sup­port­ers stood in a cir­cle, singing Amazing Grace and Onward Christian Soldier. “She’s stand­ing for God’s word and we’re stand­ing with her,” said Flavis McKinney On the oth­er side of the cour­t­house lawn, oth­ers held signs read­ing “Hate is not a fam­i­ly val­ue” and sang repur­posed Christian songs: “Jesus loves the lit­tle chil­dren, all the chil­dren of the world. Gay or straight or black or white, they are pre­cious in his sight.” Will Smith Jr. and James Yates, red-eyed and shak­ing, emerged from the cour­t­house red-eyed and shak­ing, too upset to talk about being reject­ed again. They held hands and rushed around the pro­test­ers to reach their car. But Moore and Ermold joined the rain­bow-clad throng. They swayed and sang, pledg­ing to come back again and again until Davis relents. “I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel dev­as­tat­ed,” Ermold said. “I feel humil­i­at­ed on such a nation­al lev­el that I can’t com­pre­hend it. I can­not com­pre­hend it right now.” Sheriff Matt Sparks tried to keep every­one civ­i­lized as he stood between the two sides.

“It has dis­rupt­ed our coun­ty, but it shows us that the coun­ty is, prob­a­bly the coun­try is, still divid­ed on this issue,” Sparks said. “I’m just glad we live in a coun­try that we have the free­dom to dis­agree. This will end even­tu­al­ly and we’ll all come togeth­er again.”

_​_​_​

Associated Press Writer Adam Beam in Frankfort con­tributed to this report.

An Illinois police offi­cer was shot and killed Tuesday morn­ing, prompt­ing a mas­sive man­hunt for three armed sus­pects who stripped the dying offi­cer of his weapon, author­i­ties said. The Fox Lake offi­cer was shot around 8 a.m. after call­ing in that he encoun­tered three sus­pi­cious men, Lake County Sheriff Sgt. Chris Covelli said. He ran after the sus­pects, iden­ti­fied as two white men and one black man, before he went radio silent. Another offi­cer arrived on the scene, about 55 miles north of Chicago, to find him with a gun­shot wound. The sus­pects shot the offi­cer in the head, accord­ing to WGN.  Lake County Undersheriff Raymond Rose told the Chicago Tribune that the offi­cer died at the scene after he was dis­cov­ered with­out his gun and pep­per spray in a marshy area.

The offi­cer had served with the police force for 32 years, CNN report­ed. Law enforce­ment offi­cials declined to iden­ti­fy him. “At this point, this is a two-pronged inves­ti­ga­tion,” Covelli said, not­ing the Major Crimes Task Force was inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent while work­ing to appre­hend the sus­pects. The detec­tive did not say what prompt­ed the foot chase. CBS Chicago report­ed the shoot­ing stemmed from a traf­fic stop that went awry.

The offi­cer was shot near Route 12 and Sayton Road, which is near a Walgreens and a “Welcome to Fox Lake” sign.

Multiple agen­cies in the area, includ­ing U.S. Marshals and a SWAT team, were on the scene as heav­i­ly-armed offi­cers con­tin­ue to comb near­by woods with canine units and heli­copters. Residents have been ordered to stay inside and roads have been blocked off, Covelli said. Grant Community High School and Gavin South dis­trict schools were placed on lock­down as Metra com­muter rail ser­vice was disrupted.

The shoot­ing comes just days after a Texas deputy was killed while pump­ing gas Friday.

Shannon J. Miles, 30, will be charged with cap­i­tal mur­der after shoot­ing uni­formed Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth, 47, mul­ti­ple times from behind, police said. Goforth, a 10-year vet­er­an of the sher­if­f’s office, had a wife and two kids.

Twenty-three offi­cers were killed by gun­fire in the line of duty in 2015, accord­ing to Officer Down Memorial Page.

Story orig­i­nat­ed here: Illinois police offi­cer shot dead, prompt­ing manhunt

The Police High Command says in addi­tion to the raft of integri­ty mon­i­tor­ing process­es already in place, there will be sig­nif­i­cant increase in the inter­nal sur­veil­lance mech­a­nisms to ensure that those with crim­i­nal intent are sep­a­rat­ed from the organisation.

The Police High Command says a more strin­gent super­vi­sion mech­a­nism is being imple­ment­ed to man­age the screen­ing of mem­bers join­ing the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).

The devel­op­ment fol­lows recent inci­dents of crim­i­nal activ­i­ties involv­ing serv­ing mem­bers of the force. The Police High Command says it has not­ed the inci­dents with great con­cern and is assur­ing the pub­lic that this type of con­duct is by no means typ­i­cal of the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship of the JCF. It says it is strength­en­ing the Force’s capac­i­ty to mon­i­tor serv­ing mem­bers. It says in addi­tion to the raft of integri­ty mon­i­tor­ing process­es already in place, there will be sig­nif­i­cant increase in the inter­nal sur­veil­lance mech­a­nisms to ensure that those with crim­i­nal intent are sep­a­rat­ed from the organ­i­sa­tion. The Police High Command is renew­ing its call for per­sons with infor­ma­tion on illic­it activ­i­ties and unpro­fes­sion­al con­duct of mem­bers of the JCF to share what they know with MOCA or the Inspectorate of Constabulary. The lat­est inci­dent involv­ing a cop took place in Clarendon ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. A police­man was beat­en and had to be hos­pi­talised after he and two oth­ers alleged­ly tried to break into a woman’s house in Morgan’s District about 3 o’clock yes­ter­day morn­ing. see sto­ry here: JCF Says It’s Working To Rid Force Of Criminals