Author Archives: Mike

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White Man Grabs Black Man’s Neck While Accusing Him Of Theft, (video Inside)

Police are look­ing into a viral video that shows a white man grab­bing a Black man’s neck in Milwaukee. The attack hap­pened after the white man claimed the Black man stole a bike, NPR reports.

In the clip, which was tak­en on Oct. 10, a 62-year-old white man is on the phone say­ing that he saw a friend of the 24-year-old Black man take the bicy­cle. While he’s talk­ing, his hand is on the 24-year-old’s neck, and his legs are strad­dling the back wheel of the bike the Black man is rid­ing. The per­son record­ing the video, Deangelo Wright, asks him to remove his hand from the younger man’s neck. He oblig­es but gives Wright the mid­dle fin­ger as he does so. The Black man said sev­er­al times that he didn’t touch the bike.

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Two chil­dren inter­vened and con­firmed the 24-year-old’s sto­ry. The per­son record­ing, Wright, then told the kids to help find the bike in ques­tion. Later, the white man says the stolen bike is green, but the bicy­cle the Black man is rid­ing is blue. Multiple kids tried to tell the white man that the 24-year-old did not steal his bike. Read more @ :https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​d​i​s​t​u​r​b​i​n​g​-​v​i​r​a​l​-​v​i​d​e​o​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​m​a​n​-​1​4​5​7​0​4​6​9​7​.​h​tml

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Trump Claim Of ‘Crime Of Century’ Fizzles In 3‑year Probe

By Eric Tucker

Former President Donald Trump once pre­dict­ed that a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor appoint­ed dur­ing his admin­is­tra­tion would uncov­er “the crime of the cen­tu­ry” — a con­spir­a­cy to sink his 2016 campaign.

Yet here are the results of the three-year probe by pros­e­cu­tor John Durham: two tri­al acquit­tals — the lat­est on Tuesday — and a for­mer FBI attor­ney sen­tenced to probation.

That has fall­en far short of Trump sup­port­ers’ expec­ta­tions that Durham would reveal a “deep state” plot behind the U.S. government’s inves­ti­ga­tion into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 pres­i­den­tial campaign.

The out­come has led to scruti­ny over the pur­pose of Durham’s appoint­ment by for­mer Attorney General William Barr, who tasked him with suss­ing out mis­con­duct in the Trump-Russia probe. It also has raised ques­tions about whether or when the cur­rent attor­ney gen­er­al, Merrick Garland, might move to rein in Durham’s work or has­ten its completion.

“You real­ly mea­sure the suc­cess of an inves­ti­ga­tion by what it uncov­ers in terms of per­ni­cious activ­i­ty, and he’s uncov­ered noth­ing,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law pro­fes­sor and for­mer senior Justice Department official.

Read the full sto­ry here: https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​-​c​l​a​i​m​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​c​e​n​t​u​r​y​-​f​i​z​z​l​e​s​-​2​0​4​7​2​7​9​2​0​.​h​tml

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Arrest Shows Confusion Over Florida’s Voting Law

The wannabe dic­ta­tor Governor in the state of Florida has cre­at­ed a force with­in law enforce­ment whose sole pur­pose is to arrest peo­ple with felonies who have paid their debt to soci­ety and have cast a vote in the state.
Desantis’ plan is to stop black vot­ers from vot­ing but more so to chill the vote of black Floridians who may not be sure whether or not they are eli­gi­ble to vote.

Florida Amendment 4, the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative, was on the bal­lot in Florida as an ini­ti­at­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment on November 6, 2018. It was approved.

A “yes” vote sup­port­ed this amend­ment to auto­mat­i­cal­ly restore the right to vote for peo­ple with pri­or felony con­vic­tions, except those con­vict­ed of mur­der or a felony sex­u­al offense, upon com­ple­tion of their sen­tences, includ­ing prison, parole, and probation.
A “no” vote opposed this amend­ment to auto­mat­i­cal­ly restore the right to vote for peo­ple with pri­or felony con­vic­tions, except those con­vict­ed of mur­der or a felony sex­u­al offense, upon com­ple­tion of their sen­tences, includ­ing prison, parole, and pro­ba­tion.Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ® said that Amendment 4 would require the Florida State Legislature to pass imple­ment­ing leg­is­la­tion for the amend­ment before it could take effect. The Florida Legislature con­vened on March 5, 2019. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner® said, “We need to get some direc­tion from [the Legislature] as far as imple­men­ta­tion and def­i­n­i­tions — all the kind of things that the [elec­tions] super­vi­sors were ask­ing. It would be inap­pro­pri­ate for us to charge off with­out direc­tion from them.”[3]Florida Senate President Bill Galvano ® said “By a lot of accounts, there’s no action even required for its imple­men­ta­tion.”[4]Proponents of the mea­sure said that the ini­tia­tive’s lan­guage is self-exe­cut­ing and did not require imple­ment­ing leg­is­la­tion.[5]Former-Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D), DeSantis’ 2018 gen­er­al elec­tion oppo­nent, tweet­ed: “The role of the gov­er­nor is to faith­ful­ly exe­cute the laws, includ­ing #Amendment4 on January 8 — and not one day lat­er. Justice delayed is jus­tice denied.”[6]

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What Desantis and Republicans in the Florida state leg­is­la­ture cooked up was a scheme to defy the will of the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of the state’s vot­ers by say­ing that there must be leg­is­la­tion to define who gets to vote and who doesn’t.
The sad irony is that those are the exact ques­tions that bal­lot mea­sure amend­ment 4 addressed.
Ron Desantis and Republicans in the state are afraid of the vot­ers, as is evi­dent in states like Georgia, where Brian Kemp ille­gal­ly removed over two hun­dred thou­sand vot­ers from vot­ing rolls because they did not vote in every election.
Kemp purged those rolls as sec­re­tary of state and won the elec­tions by a slim 2% mar­gin over Stacy Abrams.
Desantis elec­tion police are now out in force arrest­ing Black peo­ple who dared to vote, even though they have a legal right to do so.

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Tragic Death Of Young Officer Highlights Cocoon Of Jamaican Make Believe…

The shoot­ing death of 22-year-old Constable Brian Martin on Ricketts Avenue in the Maxfield Park com­mu­ni­ty of St Andrew though regret­table, should not be shock­ing to anyone.
According to news reports, the young police­man who was sta­tioned at the Half Way Tree Police Station was stand­ing at a Wake with a group of oth­er men in the area known as Frog city when they were attacked by gun­men who opened fire, hit­ting the offi­cer and four oth­ers. The offi­cer died of his wounds at the hospital.
Before I am attacked for blam­ing the offi­cer for his own demise, I should make clear I am doing no such thing.
As a young con­sta­ble dur­ing the 80s, those were areas I would vis­it day and night as the most beau­ti­ful girls lived in the ghet­tos. One par­tic­u­lar girl I was dat­ing was always pet­ri­fied that harm would come to me when­ev­er I vis­it­ed her.
Back then, there were M16s and oth­er weapons in the hands of crim­i­nals, just not to the extent that they are now. Even though crime was at lev­els we were uncom­fort­able with; it was a far cry from what they are today.

Brian Martin


Sometimes my line of defense was a .38 revolver; at oth­er times, it was brava­do and an irra­tional sense of indestructibility.
Later on, I grad­u­at­ed to a 9mm semi-auto­mat­ic with extend­ed clips.
The improved weapon­ry did not exact­ly increase my mis­guid­ed sense of inde­struc­tibil­i­ty; it was improved knowl­edge of the job, improved local knowl­edge, and, to some extent, the aura and mys­tique we built around our­selves as front-line cops.
It is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to explain to some­one who has nev­er been a police offi­cer in Jamaica what exact­ly that aura and mys­tique entails, suf­fic­ing to say that it worked the exact oppo­site of Moths and bright lights.
Those days are long gone; dur­ing the 80s, Jamaica’s mur­der rate fluc­tu­at­ed between 500 & 600 homi­cides annu­al­ly. Back then, we were tear­ing our hair out at those num­bers. Today the coun­try is awash in guns and an end­less sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion, so there is that. The nation’s lead­ers have tak­en no steps to pass the required laws to put crim­i­nals where they belong. Contrarily, they have gone out of their way to ham­string the abil­i­ty of the police to do their jobs effectively.
I would not be so pre­sump­tu­ous as to tell any­one where they should and should­n’t go. And yes, .….….I am quite aware that there is crime every­where. I am also mind­ful that he could have been killed uptown.
It is report­ed that the young offi­cer is from the area and may have felt safe. Unfortunately, it is sit­u­a­tions like these which breeds a false sense of security.


I have heard all of the excus­es before, and at this point, I am way past offer­ing safe­ty tips to Jamaicans, who always seem to have the answers for every­thing, even when they do not have a clue what they are talk­ing about.
Speaking to police offi­cers, I ven­ture this mod­icum of advice. You must under­stand your sur­round­ings. You must play the odds.
Officers, if there is a like­li­hood that you may be ambushed in a cer­tain com­mu­ni­ty, reduce those odds by not going to those areas.
Worse yet, police offi­cers are eas­i­ly rec­og­nized. Being sta­tioned at Half Way Tree so close to that volatile com­mu­ni­ty means the offi­cer may have been rec­og­nized by some­one he may not have known but who knew him.
At some point, police offi­cers must act in accor­dance with the train­ing they receive and make bet­ter deci­sions as to where they hang out, even when they are from cer­tain areas. They are still trained in local knowl­edge, right?
I am well aware that we live in a cocoon of make-believe. I have been told more times than I care to men­tion the only peo­ple who are get­ting gunned down are peo­ple who inna sit­ting wid ada peo­ple.
I had no idea that the lives of Jamaicans [regard­less of who they are], were disposable.
It is so sad to me when trained police offi­cers become vic­tims of this sys­tem of make-believe; offi­cers ought to know better.
We have lost far too many offi­cers, young and old, who clear­ly for­got that, despite the hype and lies, far too many Jamaican com­mu­ni­ties are extreme­ly dan­ger­ous to every­one and worse for officers.
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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

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North Carolina Property Manager Assaulted By Police While She Was Working On Site

We can­not doc­u­ment them all; after all, the main­stream media does­n’t both­er report­ing on most of these sto­ries that show what police are doing to American cit­i­zens. The fact is that, but for ordi­nary cit­i­zens act­ing as citizens/​journalists, most of these sto­ries would nev­er see the light of day. Even when these sto­ries get told, the main­stream media is the last to report on them, or worse, they read ver­ba­tim what the police depart­ment gives them to read to the public.
Usually, a pack of lies and smears.
As I have said repeat­ed­ly on these pages, these are not the actions of police offi­cers but out of con­trol race sol­diers oper­at­ing under the col­or of law. KKK, Proud boys, Oath Keepers, National Vanguard, Skinheads, and Aryan Nations are only a few of the groups that have mem­ber­ship in police depart­ments all across the coun­try. The Federal Bureau of Investigations warned many years ago about these groups infil­trat­ing police depart­ments and the mil­i­tary; noth­ing has been done about them.
In fact, every Republican in con­gress vot­ed against kick­ing them out of the army.
Today, even the FBI seems to have been infil­trat­ed by them, accord­ing to some media reporting.
Like the cow­ards they are, these hate­mon­gers know that rid­ing around in white sheets would be extreme­ly bad for their health, so they put on police uniforms.
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Twenty-two Ja’Lana Dunlap.

Ja’Lana Dunlap, a 22-year-old Black woman in Fayetteville, North Carolina, says offi­cers assault­ed her and unlaw­ful­ly put her in hand­cuffs when she was doing her job as a prop­er­ty man­ag­er. Dunlap’s attor­neys released cell­phone footage this week to show what hap­pened dur­ing the con­fronta­tion with police in September, ABC News reports.
Dunlap said police ques­tioned her when she was tak­ing pic­tures of the prop­er­ty she over­sees on behalf of the own­er, who had received a cita­tion from the city because peo­ple were ille­gal­ly dump­ing fur­ni­ture and trash on the site.
“I was plan­ning to take pic­tures because we had already hired some­body to clean it up,” Dunlap told ABC News. “So, I was just ensur­ing they did their job.”

Dunlap said she fin­ished tak­ing pho­tos and returned to her car when two offi­cers approached her. The offi­cers, who were search­ing for a sus­pect­ed fugi­tive, asked why Dunlap was on the prop­er­ty, the Fayetteville woman said.
After being ques­tioned, Dunlap said she gave her name and explained what she was doing. When an offi­cer asked her to pro­vide iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, the 22-year-old said she declined to do so.
Dunlap said she knew that North Carolina is not a “Stop and Identify” state, mean­ing peo­ple are not legal­ly oblig­at­ed to pro­vide ID if they haven’t com­mit­ted or been sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting a crime.
“I know my sto­ry checks out,” Dunlap said. “I know if I didn’t do any­thing wrong, I shouldn’t have to give you my ID.”
When the offi­cer con­tin­ued to demand her ID, the prop­er­ty man­ag­er said she start­ed to record the encounter with her phone because she feared for her safety.
Dunlap said anoth­er offi­cer then reached into the car and grabbed her left arm. The young woman can be heard in the cell­phone video as she tells the offi­cers to “please stop.”

Officers even­tu­al­ly asked Dunlap to step out of the car. When she refused, the offi­cers told her to “stop resisting.”
Although some parts of the inci­dent aren’t seen in the video, Dunlap said the offi­cers pulled her out of the car, slammed her against the trunk, and placed her in hand­cuffs. “They were actu­al­ly try­ing to yank me back up with the hand­cuffs behind my back to the point where I had to ask, ‘Y’all, please stop so I can fin­ish throw­ing up.’” Ms. Dunlap said, she has sick­le cell ane­mia, and she began hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing due to the stress. The prop­er­ty man­ag­er said she was released after the offi­cers grabbed her ID from the fan­ny pack around her waist and ver­i­fied her identity.
Dunlap, who says she was left with a bruised hand, filed a for­mal com­plaint to the Fayetteville Police Department.
Gina Hawkins, Fayetteville Police Chief, said in a state­ment that she is mak­ing a for­mal request for an area judge to per­mit the release of police body cam­era footage. The chief also said offi­cers approached Dunlap in an area where a poten­tial­ly vio­lent sus­pect ran away from police.
Dunlap’s attor­ney, Harry Daniels, said he plans to file a fed­er­al law­suit on behalf of his client.
“Quite frankly, I believe that Ms. Dunlap would not be sub­ject­ed, would not be here today hav­ing this dis­cus­sion if she was a dif­fer­ent race.” Daniels told ABC News. “I’m not gonna sug­ar­coat it. I think they intim­i­dat­ed her because she’s a per­son of col­or. And we are here to fight on her behalf.”
Dunlap said the ter­ri­fy­ing expe­ri­ence has caused her to resign from her job as a prop­er­ty man­ag­er. (From Yahoo news)

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Detroit-area Teen Files Federal Lawsuit After Being Beaten, Kicked By Police

Police offi­cers from Warren, Michigan, alleged­ly struck Tyler Wade so hard that one of his braces came out of his mouth.

A Detroit-area teen has filed a fed­er­al law­suit against police after they alleged­ly attacked him repeat­ed­ly in an inci­dent cap­tured on video.

According to the Detroit Free Press, police offi­cers from Warren, Michigan, alleged­ly punched, kicked and stomped Tyler Wade, now 17, fol­low­ing a chase on June 2. Wade’s attor­ney, James King, said his client had no crim­i­nal his­to­ry or pri­or inter­ac­tions with law enforce­ment. The inci­dent was report­ed­ly cap­tured on police body cam­era and dash­cam footage and record­ed by a civilian.

King claimed that one offi­cer hit Wade nine times in the face with­out anoth­er offi­cial inter­ven­ing. He said Wade also received mul­ti­ple punch­es from anoth­er cop, and his client was kicked twice and stomped at least three times.

Tyler Wade was arrest­ed June 2. A law­suit filed this week by his attor­ney, James King, alleges the teenag­er suf­fered a bru­tal beat­ing at the hands of Warren, Michigan, police offi­cers dur­ing the encounter. (Screengrab cour­tesy of police body camera/​The Cochran Firm)

Body cam­era and dash­cam footage request­ed as dis­cov­ery in the crim­i­nal case report­ed­ly showed the “night­mare” unfold just as Wade described, King said. According to King, his client fol­lowed all directions.
“People don’t get beat like this and stomped and assault­ed and sav­age­ly attacked by grown men when they com­mit crimes,” King told the Free Press. “This video is sick­en­ing.” King claims Wade tried to evade police by speed­ing away after they stopped him on the sus­pi­cion he was dri­ving a stolen vehi­cle. Police allege that Wade had mar­i­jua­na and threw a gun out of the car — accu­sa­tions that King denies. According to King, the pur­suit end­ed when the car final­ly stopped after crash­ing into a cor­ner and its stop sign. Wade was hand­cuffed and tak­en into custody.

The Cochran Firm is fil­ing the law­suit on behalf of the fam­i­ly.
The footage appears to be in con­flict with what the depart­ment said, where Tyler was charged with 3rd degree flee­ing and elud­ing. Tape shows he was yanked out of his car while his hands were up.

TheGrio Staff

Before the arrest, offi­cers alleged­ly approached the car aim­ing their firearms at Wade. They report­ed­ly went into Wade’s car with­out an expla­na­tion and used exces­sive force to remove him.

The law­suit alleges that after aggres­sive­ly yank­ing Wade out of the car and onto the pave­ment, the offi­cers “pro­ceed­ed to vicious­ly assault” him, repeat­ed­ly punch­ing, kick­ing, stomp­ing and knee­ing him. Footage of the inci­dent seems to con­firm that.

Officers alleged­ly struck Wade so hard that one of his braces came out of his mouth. According to the com­plaint, he now suf­fers reg­u­lar, severe headaches, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of long-term vision loss, and facial scars.

King said offi­cials set­tled Wade’s crim­i­nal case in juve­nile court after he entered a no-con­test plea to oper­at­ing a stolen vehi­cle and evad­ing police. He received probation.

Given that Wade is Black and all the police offi­cers appear white except for one, King said he believes racism played a part in what happened.

“People who have com­mit­ted far worse crimes than Tyler Wade have been arrest­ed by police in the city of Warren and oth­er cities like the city of Warren, and they do not look like Tyler did at the con­clu­sion of that arrest,” King said, per the Free Press.

The law­suit King filed names six police offi­cers, iden­ti­fied in the case only by their last names and badge num­bers, as well as the city of Warren and its police depart­ment. The Free Press said it has been seek­ing com­ment on the law­suit from police and city offi­cials. The com­plaint did not con­tain a request for dam­ages but not­ed that Warren police might expect a request for close to $20 million.

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Brewster Police Officer Indicted On False Arrest Charges

A Brewster New York police offi­cer caught on video angri­ly grab­bing a man who want­ed to file a com­plaint against him has been indict­ed on felony charges that he fal­si­fied claims to jus­ti­fy arrest­ing the man.
Officer Fernando Quinones plead­ed not guilty Thursday at his arraign­ment in Putnam County Court.
On Oct. 28, 2021, Quinones pulled Alexander King over for alleged­ly using his cell­phone while driving.
King felt Quinones mis­treat­ed him and drove to police head­quar­ters to file a com­plaint. In the park­ing lot, Quinones con­front­ed him, ask­ing what King was doing there. King, who had begun record­ing with his cell­phone, told him he was going to see his supervisor.

The video appears to show Quinones grab­bing King by the neck and forc­ing him to the ground. It did not back up Quinones’ account that he includ­ed in the court doc­u­ments charg­ing King with attempt­ed assault, resist­ing arrest and dis­or­der­ly con­duct. The crim­i­nal charges against King were dis­missed last month. Charges relat­ed to an arrest of King fol­low­ing a traf­fic stop by Quinones ear­li­er that same month are also like­ly to be dis­missed as ear­ly as Monday. King, who tes­ti­fied before the grand jury, was elat­ed to learn of the indict­ment Friday.
It’s awe­some for me,” he said. “For a while I did­n’t think any­thing would come of it. We cer­tain­ly would­n’t be talk­ing now if I had­n’t tak­en that video.” Police Chief John Del Gardo and Mayor James Schoenig could not be reached for com­ment. Both defend­ed Quinones ear­li­er this year based on what they described as King’s aggres­sive reac­tion to being tick­et­ed. Quinones’ lawyers, Andrew Quinn and John D’Alessandro expressed dis­ap­point­ment with the indict­ment. Both have known Quinones for years, D’Alessandro as a col­league when both worked in the Yonkers Police Department and Quinn as the Yonkers PBA lawyer.

A screen­shot from a cell­phone video tak­en by Alexander King shows Brewster police Officer Fernando Quinones with his right hand at King’s neck dur­ing an arrest in the park­ing lot at police head­quar­ters on Oct. 28, 2021.

Quinn described him as a ded­i­cat­ed, well-respect­ed cop who spent more than a dozen years as an emer­gency ser­vices offi­cer, includ­ing time work­ing at Ground Zero fol­low­ing the 9⁄11 ter­ror­ist attacks. ” .
A law­suit filed by King against Quinones and the vil­lage alleges exces­sive force by the offi­cer in addi­tion to wrong­ful arrest. The Quinones indict­ment does not accuse him of any­thing relat­ed to the phys­i­cal confrontation.
He is charged with three counts each of: first-degree fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records, offer­ing a false instru­ment and mak­ing an appar­ent­ly false state­ment, all felonies. He is also charged with one count of offi­cial mis­con­duct, a mis­de­meanor. Quinones, 58, was released with­out bail and is due back in court Nov. 22. He faces up to four years in prison if con­vict­ed of any of the felonies.
He joined the Brewster Police Department as a part-time offi­cer in 2016, four years after wrap­ping up a 23-year career in Yonkers. He has been out on dis­abil­i­ty for months over an injury unre­lat­ed to the King case.
He is the sec­ond vil­lage cop arrest­ed in the past year. Officer Wayne Peiffer plead­ed guilty in April in Brooklyn fed­er­al court to accept­ing sex­u­al favors in exchange for pro­tect­ing sex traf­fick­ers who brought pros­ti­tutes to Brewster.

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Patrick Leahy Is 82 And Not Well, If Leahy Dies, Mitch McConnell Is Senate Majority Leader…

There are not many Democratic Governors and Mayors in red states, but there sure­ly are Republican Governors and Mayors in blue states. I nev­er under­stood the dynam­ics of Democrats choos­ing Republicans in the bluest of states like California, elect­ing Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or New York, elect­ing George Pataki, and New York City, elect­ing and re-elect­ing Rudolph Guiliani and Michael Bloomberg.
I’ve con­clud­ed that the American elec­torate is one that basi­cal­ly votes on their own per­son­al needs, not on seri­ous issues that affect the coun­try’s direction.

For exam­ple, in 1980, after eight years of the Michael Manley régime in Jamaica, the elec­torate rose against the People’s National Party and vot­ed them out in a tidal wave of anger.
The PNP was only able to retain nine seats in the then 60-seat leg­is­la­ture. The PNP retained nine seats arguably because of mas­sive bal­lot stuff­ing in the gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties of both parties.
Conversely, after the Bill Clinton pres­i­den­cy, which brought pros­per­i­ty to mil­lions of Americans, the coun­try elect­ed George Bush, a polit­i­cal and per­son­al goof­ball, instead of elect­ing Al Gore, Clinton’s Vice President.
We all know how that turned out for the United States: mas­sive eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion, two ille­git­i­mate wars, and the Patriot act result­ing in the ero­sion of rights Americans pre­vi­ous­ly held dear.
Again after the eight years of rel­a­tive peace and pros­per­i­ty of the Obama years in which Obama pulled the econ­o­my back from the brink of col­lapse in 2008, the coun­try elect­ed Donald Trump a car­ni­val bark­ing clown and con artiste, for­ev­er sul­ly­ing the majesty and mys­tique of the presidency.
“Winston Churchill once famous­ly observed that Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried every­thing else.”
I am not so sure there is the intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty to do the right thing these days.

Other than North Carolina, a red state that elect­ed Roy Cooper a Democrat, there are no red states with a Democratic chief exec­u­tive. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008, so there is a case that North Carolina may not be as red as some would like us to believe.
On the oth­er hand, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virginia, all blue states, have Republican governors.
Many Democrats and inde­pen­dents fall for the lies that Republicans are for low­er tax­es because they do not take the time to fig­ure out the math. Republicans do low­er tax­es for her rich cronies, which is, by default, a tax increase on every­one else.
Yes, these tax cuts have to be paid for by some­one, usu­al­ly the poor­est Americans.
The poor­est peo­ple in the coun­try live in states run by Republicans, and though I am for low­er tax­es, I am also aware that it requires mon­ey to pay for stuff. Democrats and Independents in blue states do not cal­cu­late the risk of elect­ing Republicans to run State gov­ern­ment while send­ing Democratic Senators to Washington, DC, to ensure a pro­gres­sive agen­da where all Americans’ rights are guaranteed.

One such risk is that if a Democratic US Senator is inca­pac­i­tat­ed or dies, the Republican Governor gets to send a Republican to Washington to fin­ish that Senator’s term or until a by-elec­tion can be organized.
Vermont is a blue state with two Senators. Democrat Patrick Leahy is 82 ‑years old, and Bernie Sanders is 81 years old.
Any per­son can fall ill or die at any time. However, Senator Leahy has fall­en ill before and is again not feel­ing well and was tak­en to the hospital.
If any­thing hap­pens to Patrick Leahy, Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott will send a Republican to Washington, and Mitch McConnell will be the major­i­ty leader. That would effec­tive­ly mean the end of the Biden pres­i­den­cy legislatively.
And God for­bid there is anoth­er vacan­cy on the supreme court; that vacan­cy would not be filled until there is anoth­er Republican in the white house.

Present-day pol­i­tics requires a sophis­ti­cat­ed and informed elec­torate. The Republican elec­torate may nei­ther be sophis­ti­cat­ed nor informed, but they vote as a mono­lith. Democrats and Independents claim to be more sophis­ti­cat­ed and informed, but when they vote the way they vote by elect­ing Republicans in the Blue States, there is a strong argu­ment against those claims.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

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Gulfport Mississippi Police Shoots 15-year-old In The Head, He Died In Hospital…

Mississippi teenag­er dies after being shot by police officers.
A Black teenag­er in Mississippi died days after Gulfport police shot him in the head out­side a dis­count store, and his rel­a­tives are ques­tion­ing offi­cers’ actions.
Jaheim McMillan was only 15 years old; he was tak­en off life sup­port after Gulfport police shot him in the head on Thursday at the Family Dollar shop.

The Harrison coun­ty coro­ner, Brian Switzer, con­firmed to the Sun Herald that the Gulfport high school fresh­man died on Saturday after he was tak­en off life sup­port at USA University hos­pi­tal in Mobile, Alabama. An autop­sy was sched­uled for Tuesday, Switzer said. McMillan’s moth­er, Katrina Mateen, told WLOX-TV that when she arrived at the store after her son was shot, offi­cers hand­cuffed her and walked her across the street.

In a video tak­en by a bystander after the shots were fired, McMillan could be seen on the ground in front of the door to the store. A wit­ness said police hand­cuffed the teenag­er after shoot­ing him. The Gulfport police chief, Adam Cooper, said police took four oth­ers, all believed to be minors, into custody.
The Mississippi bureau of inves­ti­ga­tion is exam­in­ing the shoot­ing of McMillan. MBI inves­ti­gates all police shoot­ings in the state, and the attor­ney general’s office is in charge of any prosecutions.
Gulfport police said in a news release that the shoot­ing occurred after they respond­ed to a 911 call about sev­er­al minors wav­ing guns at oth­er motorists. Officers pulled the youth over in the park­ing lot of a Family Dollar store.

Cooper said the youth fled from the vehi­cle and that one of his offi­cers “engaged with an armed indi­vid­ual” before fir­ing, but the chief did not pro­vide fur­ther details of what led up to the shoot­ing. He said sev­er­al firearms were recov­ered from the scene. The police depart­ment has not released the race of the officer.
McMillan’s fam­i­ly does not believe he was armed, and their sup­port­ers are call­ing for the release of cam­era footage of the shooting.

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
Police should have [no] author­i­ty or have any deci­sion-mak­ing as it relates to the release of body cam footage. Police are paid by the tax­pay­ing cit­i­zens they are sworn to pro­tect. All of the equip­ment they are out­fit­ted with are paid for with monies from either local, state, or fed­er­al sources, which are monies tak­en from tax­pay­ers. Police depart­ments do not own body cam­eras, not even the guns they use to com­mit the murders.
The politi­cians that refuse to act to rein in these acts of abuse must be held account­able with the killer cops who con­tin­ue to mur­der peo­ple with wan­ton dis­re­gard and impunity.
Over and over, white men and young­sters kill mul­ti­ple peo­ple with high-pow­ered weapons, and police always man­age to arrest them with­out tak­ing their lives.
Why are police unable to arrest Black kids who have killed no one?
To add insult to injury they hand­cuffed the oth­er who arrived at the scene after learn­ing that her son was shot in the head and arrived to see what hap­pened to her son.
The indig­ni­ty met­ed out to this moth­er [must] not be allowed to stand. (mb)

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Black Female Cop Killed In Mississippi

A police offi­cer has been shot to death in the Mississippi Delta city where she grew up, and sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple were injured by gunfire.
Greenville Police Department Detective Myiesha Stewart, 30, was killed Tuesday night as she and oth­er offi­cers respond­ed to a call, accord­ing to Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell.
“Our com­mu­ni­ty is hurt­ing,” Greenville Mayor Mayor Errick D. Simmons said Wednesday out­side City Hall, where he was joined by law enforce­ment officers.
Simmons said Stewart is sur­vived by her 3‑year-old son, her par­ents and oth­er fam­i­ly members. 
Tindell said in a state­ment that a sus­pect was hos­pi­tal­ized and is in cus­tody. The com­mis­sion­er did not iden­ti­fy the sus­pect or spec­i­fy their injuries. Tindell pro­vid­ed no oth­er details about the cir­cum­stances of Stewart’s killing.
Greenville, with a pop­u­la­tion of about 28,775, is close to the Arkansas state line, about 110 miles (180 kilo­me­ters) north of Jackson, Mississippi. News out­lets report­ed that the shoot­ings hap­pened at the inter­sec­tion of U.S. Highway 82 and Mississippi Highway 1.

Stewart grad­u­at­ed from high school in Greenville. She majored in crim­i­nal jus­tice at near­by Delta State University, where she played bas­ket­ball in the 2013 – 14 sea­son. “She was one who exhib­it­ed courage,” Simmons said. “She was one who put fear aside to help some­one else.”
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is exam­in­ing the shoot­ing of Stewart, as it does with all shoot­ings involv­ing offi­cers in the state.
“I am tru­ly sad­dened by the trag­ic loss of Detective Stewart,” Republican Gov. Tate Reeves wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “Please join me in prayer for her fam­i­ly, her friends, and the entire Greenville Police Department.”
Two oth­er Mississippi law enforce­ment offi­cers have been killed on duty this year. Johnny Patterson was struck by a car Jan. 13 while direct­ing traf­fic in front of an ele­men­tary school in Shannon, and he died eight days lat­er. Patterson was work­ing for the school and was assis­tant police chief in Verona. On June 9, Meridian Police Department offi­cer Kennis Croom was shot to death while respond­ing to a domes­tic vio­lence call.

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2 Officers Fatally Shot, 3rd Wounded In Connecticut:cops Say…

Two police offi­cers answer­ing a domes­tic vio­lence call were killed and a third was wound­ed in a burst of gun­fire in Connecticut, author­i­ties said Thursday, dur­ing a week when at least 10 offi­cers have been shot around the country.

The sus­pect­ed shoot­er was also killed, and the shooter’s broth­er was wound­ed as bul­lets flew Wednesday night in Bristol, state police said. The wound­ed offi­cer was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal for surgery and expect­ed to recover.

Authorities said they were still work­ing to answer many ques­tions remained about the con­fronta­tion. No video of it has emerged publicly.

Witnesses said they heard three sets of gun­shots, about 30 in all.

“I heard a whole war going on behind me,” said Danny Rodriguez, who said he was out­side his home across the street when the gun­fire rang out. It was so intense that he could smell gun­pow­der in the air, he said.

“It was so loud and crazy,” said Rodriguez, who also recalled a woman scream­ing, “you … killed them!”

State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema said offi­cers were respond­ing to a report of domes­tic vio­lence at about 10:30 p.m. when they encoun­tered some­one out­side the address in ques­tion and shots were fired.

Police haven’t yet said who opened fire, who fired the fatal shots, or how many guns were fired in all.

“We lost two excep­tion­al Bristol police offi­cers, and a third was seri­ous­ly injured as a result of sense­less vio­lence,” Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould said at a news conference.

Sgt. Dustin Demonte, 35, and Officer Alex Hamzy, 34, were killed, the chief said. Officer Alec Iurato, 26, was wounded.

Demonte, a 10-year vet­er­an offi­cer and co-recip­i­ent of his depart­men­t’s 2019 Officer of the Year award, was “very focused on his career and fur­ther­ing his career and edu­ca­tion,” the chief said. Demonte, who earned a bachelor’s degree in crim­i­nol­o­gy, worked as a school resource offi­cer. He and his wife were expect­ing their third child, Gould said.

Hamzy had got­ten many let­ters of com­men­da­tion dur­ing his eight years on his home­town police force, the chief said. Like Demonte, Hamzy was an advi­sor to a police cadet program.

“The out­pour­ing of love, sup­port and prayers from so many is deeply appre­ci­at­ed,” Hamzy’s fam­i­ly said in a statement.

Scores of offi­cers lined a street and fol­lowed a vehi­cle car­ry­ing Hamzy’s body from the shoot­ing scene late Thursday morn­ing. Demonte died at a hospital.

Iurato joined the Bristol depart­ment in 2018 and has a bachelor’s degree in gov­ern­ment, law and nation­al secu­ri­ty, the chief said.

“We need your thoughts. We need your prayers,” Gould told res­i­dents of the small city about 15 miles (24 kilo­me­ters) south­west of the state cap­i­tal of Hartford. Bristol is home to about 60,000 peo­ple and to the sports net­work ESPN, which is head­quar­tered about a half-mile (1 km) from the shoot­ing scene.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont ordered flags in the state to be low­ered to half-staff, call­ing the shoot­ing “a sense­less tragedy.”

It was the lat­est of sev­er­al shoot­ings of police offi­cers around the coun­try with­in two days.

On Tuesday night in Mississippi, Greenville Police Department Detective Myiesha Stewart was killed and sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple were injured by gun­fire as she and oth­er offi­cers respond­ed to a call, author­i­ties said.

Early Wednesday, three Philadelphia police offi­cers were shot and wound­ed at a homeand a sus­pect was killed when a SWAT team tried to arrest the man want­ed on a homi­cide charge, police said. And in Decatur, Illinois, two police offi­cers con­duct­ing a traf­fic stop were shot and wound­ed by a motorist who died after offi­cers returned fire, police said.

Late Wednesday, a sher­if­f’s deputy in cen­tral Florida was shot in the chest while inves­ti­gat­ing a report of a fam­i­ly dis­tur­bance at a home. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the deputy was “saved” by his bul­let­proof vest.

A Las Vegas police offi­cer was fatal­ly wound­ed ear­ly Thursday after he and a part­ner stopped a vehi­cle while answer­ing a domes­tic vio­lence call, the Clark County sher­iff said.

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This sto­ry has been updat­ed to cor­rect the spelling of the name of the wound­ed offi­cer. His name is Alec Iurato, not Alex Iarato.

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Contributing were Associated Press writ­ers Sue Haigh in Hartford, and Karen Matthews and Jennifer Peltz in New York City.

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The Putrid Stench Of The Rot That Passes For Policing In The United States.…

The trag­ic real­i­ty at this time is that there is an acute epi­dem­ic of anti-Black racism world­wide. Tragic because actu­al liv­ing, breath­ing peo­ple are being killed by gov­ern­ment agents.
In his Washington Post arti­cle in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Nana Osei-Opare wrote, “Throughout the last cen­tu­ry, the United States has pro­ject­ed itself as a glob­al leader of lib­er­ty, democ­ra­cy, and free­dom. But on ques­tions of race, America has con­sis­tent­ly been on the wrong side of his­to­ry — and the world has noticed.


Occupying the perch it does on the world stage, the United States is unavoid­ably looked at with a keen­er eye than oth­er coun­tries on the ques­tion of human rights than oth­er pow­er­ful nations like Russia, China, Iran, etc.
It is not that peo­ple are more caus­tic in their crit­i­cisms of the US on human rights abus­es but because of the US’s his­to­ry and its con­tin­ued pos­tur­ing and pon­tif­i­cat­ing on the issue while ignor­ing the glar­ing abuse of police vio­lence in its own streets.
Aided by the courts’ police and their unions have become so pow­er­ful that the United States is now a ver­i­ta­ble police state. 


The stan­dard for the use of lethal force over the last sev­er­al decades has dete­ri­o­rat­ed, the bar low­ered so low by the courts that the mere belief in a cop’s mind that some­one may pose a dan­ger to them is jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for killing that per­son gun or not.
Opare went on; the U.S. sup­port­ed racist European colo­nial regimes like apartheid South Africa until the 1980s when domes­tic pres­sure led by African Americans pushed it to change course. Additionally, at dif­fer­ent points in its his­to­ry domes­ti­cal­ly, like apartheid South Africa, the U.S. has unleashed the state’s machin­ery — dogs, water hoses, batons, and rub­ber bul­lets or worse — to stymie civ­il rights protests, black anger, and activism against anti-black vio­lence. Images of this police vio­lence cir­cu­lat­ed across the globe, clear­ly con­tra­dict­ing America’s Cold War rhetoric. It showed how total­i­tar­i­an­ism and sup­port for white suprema­cy exist­ed in the U.S.‘s own back­yard.


Anti-Black racism is not con­fined to the United States. However, the sto­ries of state agents bla­tant­ly abus­ing black peo­ple are well doc­u­ment­ed in France, London, and even in war-torn Ukraine. In the United States, as in England, France, and places in between, Police act­ing with the acqui­es­cence of white racist cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to use racist vio­lence against Black peo­ple on racial grounds with dev­as­tat­ing consequences.
In the United States, police Unions donate to the cam­paigns of politi­cians who end up in their pock­ets when they are elect­ed. Worse yet, many local Mayors and pros­e­cu­tors are for­mer cops, which makes it dou­bly dif­fi­cult for the vic­tims of police vio­lence to get a fair inves­ti­ga­tion, much less an indict­ment of killer cops. If you are won­der­ing why we are try­ing to bring these events to your atten­tion, please take a look at this inci­dent that occurred in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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Would this have hap­pened to a white woman? You decide.

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Cops Rammed Wrong Car Carrying Black Woman Her Friend & Two Minors Including A One-year-old Toddler…

Look at these Virginia cops; they rammed their patrol cars into a black wom­an’s car where she had two minor chil­dren, includ­ing a one-year-old baby.

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Not only did the cops have the wrong car, they hand­cuffed the woman, placed her and her chil­dren, and placed them into the back of their patrol cars.
As hor­rif­ic and unbe­liev­able as their behav­ior was, they weren’t done. Not only did they not apol­o­gize for their mis­take as they should have they were dis­mis­sive and extreme­ly dis­re­spect­ful of her and her com­plaints. Again these are not police offi­cers, as I have been writ­ing about for a long time; these are hyped-up racist crim­i­nal beasts who have zero respect for the peo­ple of col­or they come across daily.
No one in their right mind would believe that any­thing like this could ever hap­pen to a white woman. Worse yet, if they rammed her car with­out know­ing who was inside, they would have fall­en over them­selves to apol­o­gize and cop-splain to her what caused them to act with such igno­rant and moron­ic irrationality.
The woman Jamee Kimble said she was still hurt­ing, hav­ing had a c‑section deliv­er of her child just days pri­or. “This was a very trau­mat­ic sit­u­a­tion, and for a long time, prob­a­bly for­ev­er for me and my 5‑year-old, this will for­ev­er affect us,” Kimble said.
Kimble said she’s sched­uled to speak to a police depart­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive by phone on Wednesday.
This is the part that gets me riled up; who the f*** do these ani­mals think they are that they will grace her with a phone call instead of find­ing her home and apol­o­giz­ing pro­fuse­ly to her and her children?

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‘He’s Saying He Has Chest Pains He Can’t Breathe…Blah, Blah’: Black Man Reportedly Dies From Asthma Attack After Cops Ignore His Cry Of Distress

Outrage is brew­ing in England fol­low­ing find­ings that police were not liable for the death of a Black man, who died while in their cus­tody. The offi­cers claimed the man was lying about not being able to breathe dur­ing a fatal asth­mat­ic attack and were caught on cam­era dis­miss­ing his cries for release.

A recent­ly released study by The Independent Officer for Police Conduct high­light­ed Ian McDonald-Taylor’s death in a sum­ma­ry and excused the offi­cers that were con­nect­ed to the case of neg­li­gence or wrongdoing.

It said, “We found no indi­ca­tion that any per­son serv­ing with the police may have com­mit­ted a crim­i­nal offense or behaved in a man­ner that would jus­ti­fy the bring­ing of dis­ci­pli­nary proceedings.

The report by the watch­dog orga­ni­za­tion pub­lished at the end of August got the sto­ry wrong, some peo­ple have expressed.

Over three years ago, the 54-year-old was detained after a mas­sive fight

Officers had the man lying down on the ground on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton on June 29, 2019, with his wrists hand­cuffed. While they had him pros­trate, he is heard on police body­cam yelling out to them, “I’m fad­ing, I’m going to die.” In response to his remarks, one of the police offi­cers said his com­plaint was “a load of nonsense.”

McDonald-Taylor report­ed­ly was suf­fer­ing from acute asth­ma and died from car­diac arrest exac­er­bat­ed by the incident.

On Wednesday, Sept. 28, the same agency pub­lished its annu­al report on police-involved deaths, doc­u­ment­ing the demise of mul­ti­ple indi­vid­u­als who died dur­ing or fol­low­ing their con­tact with police over the last two years. Eleven deaths were doc­u­ment­ed in or fol­low­ing police cus­tody, the Daily Mail reports.

Some of their deaths were caught on cam­era like the death of drill rap­per Chris Kaba and Oladeji Omishore, a man suf­fer­ing from a men­tal health crisis.

The fam­i­lies of both men believe their police-involved deaths were direct­ly influ­enced by a sys­temic prej­u­dice against Black peo­ple with­in the MPD. They are cur­rent­ly work­ing with the char­i­ty Inquest to do out­reach to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to look into both men’s cases

That’s espe­cial­ly so, con­sid­er­ing their 2020 report that affirmed “police bru­tal­i­ty” and human rights vio­la­tions by law enforce­ment against Africans and peo­ple of African descent” in var­i­ous coun­tries, includ­ing the United Kingdom, high­light­ing the death of anoth­er Black Brit by the police named Kevin Clarke.

As a result of the inves­ti­ga­tion, the IOPC reopened his case and deter­mined the offi­cer used an inap­pro­pri­ate hold on him, caus­ing his death.

The fam­i­ly and sup­port­ers of McDonald-Taylor are dis­ap­point­ed the watch­dog orga­ni­za­tion did not see the fin­ger­print of racism in this death, despite the footage being available.

Bodycam footage played in the court­room cap­tured him plead­ing with the cops, say­ing, “I’m going to die; stand me up now.”

No mat­ter what he said, offi­cers dis­re­gard­ed his peti­tion. One offi­cer was heard report­ing to a sergeant that McDonald-Taylor was “cur­rent­ly on the floor play­ing the whole poor me poor me, he’s going to have to go to the hos­pi­tal though as a mat­ter of course.”

“He’s say­ing he has chest pains he can’t breathe blah blah; it’s a load of non­sense but there we go,” he erro­neous­ly mocked. In the court doc­u­ments, the officer’s name is withheld.

McDonald-Taylor repeat­ed­ly asked for relief, believ­ing with­out it he would die. However, he was nev­er extend­ed med­ical sup­port and was left in the streets with­out his inhaler.

Eventually, he was trans­port­ed to a patrol car. Moments after get­ting into the car, he had a heart attack, prompt­ing offi­cers to call an ambu­lance to the scene. Later that evening, after he was tak­en to Kings College Hospital, he died.

McDonald-Taylor’s case was brought to tri­al and a jury con­clud­ed his death was not a result of the offi­cer neglect­ing to care for him dur­ing his attack. He report­ed­ly also died as a result of car­diac arrest, acute asth­ma, COPD, sit­u­a­tion­al stress, ischemic heart dis­ease and dehydration.

The court was asked to con­sid­er a study that said offi­cers are more like­ly to think a Black per­son, over a white per­son, is fak­ing an ill­ness when being apprehended.

Police denied this could be a fac­tor, but did not deny diver­si­ty train­ing could be use­ful in com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing with peo­ple of color.

The deceased’s Michael Cooper, com­ment­ed after the tri­al, “Watching the video footage of Ian fight­ing for breath and des­per­ate­ly plead­ing for help, but being dis­missed and even mocked by police offi­cers, is utter­ly devastating.”

Cooper fur­ther ques­tioned if there was any duty of care on the offi­cers’ part.

“The police are trained to deal with sit­u­a­tions like this,” the cousin said. “Yet they did not do what any­one else would have done and dri­ve him to a hos­pi­tal that was three min­utes away.”

“No one in the UK should die from asth­ma and yet Ian did. How many more deaths will it take before the police take seri­ous­ly a Black man who says he can’t breathe?” he asked.

Another rel­a­tive, McDonald-Taylor’s aunt, Pauline Taylor, hired lawyers from Duncan Lewis to rep­re­sent the fam­i­ly as they seek justice.

She said, “ ‘ I need my inhaler…I can’t breathe…I’m dying.’ These were the last plead­ing words of my nephew. He died on the street beg­ging for help, not from just one, but sev­en police offi­cers who casu­al­ly dis­missed his pleas and even went so far as to laugh and mock him.”

She con­tin­ued, “What more could he have said in those moments to solic­it help and sim­ple humane com­pas­sion from those who are sworn to serve and pro­tect. What has been learned? One offi­cer said that he would do exact­ly the same giv­en the same set of circumstances…May God help us!”

Speaking for her fam­i­ly, she said they are all “bro­ken” because of the loss of her loved one.

“Our pain wakes us each morn­ing and steals into our dreams at night,” Taylor said.

“But in try­ing to heal we rec­og­nize that the dis­clo­sures relat­ing to Ian’s untime­ly and cru­el death can be used as a tool to bring about bet­ter train­ing, effec­tive prac­tice, holis­tic aware­ness and chal­lenge the ugly exis­tence of unbi­ased racism.”

Their pain was not unno­ticed by the IOPC, which offered con­do­lences through its region­al direc­tor Sal Naseem. However, they still believe the offi­cers were in the right.

Naseem said, “We began an inves­ti­ga­tion on 1 July 2019 fol­low­ing a manda­to­ry refer­ral from the Metropolitan Police Service. We looked at all of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing police con­tact with Mr. Taylor, fol­low­ing a report of a dis­tur­bance in Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, SW9 on Saturday 29 June 2019 at around 5:54 p.m.”

He con­tin­ued, “We found the offi­cers pro­vid­ed appro­pri­ate care to Mr. Taylor but it was clear that the offi­cers who were with him through­out believed they could not trans­port him to hos­pi­tal in their police vehicle.”

“We drew this to the force’s atten­tion as a pos­si­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty for learn­ing giv­en in this case, which was a med­ical emer­gency, it took 36 min­utes for the ambu­lance to arrive after the offi­cers called it with­in three min­utes of their arrival and twice request­ed updates on its progress,” he added. “MPS pro­ce­dure does allow for police vehi­cles to be used to trans­port peo­ple to hos­pi­tal in excep­tion­al circumstances.”

According to the offi­cial, the research did not sup­port “bring­ing of dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings or com­mit­ted a crim­i­nal offense,” to any of the offi­cers involved.

“During our inves­ti­ga­tion, which con­clud­ed in December 2019, the police offi­cers involved with Mr. Taylor were treat­ed as wit­ness­es and pro­vid­ed state­ments to sup­port the inves­ti­ga­tion,” he said, point­ing to the sig­nif­i­cant video footage reviewed to help them come to their conclusion.

Chief super­in­ten­dent Colin Wingrove, from the Central South Basic Command Unit of the Met Police, also added, “Our thoughts remain with Ian Taylor’s fam­i­ly and friends fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the IOPC inves­ti­ga­tion report.”

“I would like to reit­er­ate the unre­served apol­o­gy I made to the fam­i­ly for the com­ments made by the offi­cer which lacked care, com­pas­sion, and respect when Mr. Taylor was in need of urgent med­ical assis­tance,” the chief expressed.

Wingrove said McDonald-Taylor’s death impact­ed the com­mu­ni­ty tremen­dous­ly, prompt­ing the depart­ment to make some reforms to fur­ther improve “the ser­vice” his depart­ment pro­vides “to the pub­lic, ensur­ing the high­est stan­dards whilst reduc­ing crime and keep­ing peo­ple safe.”

This includes improv­ing offi­cer train­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing direct­ly with the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to rebuild the trust lost over the years.

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Herschel Walker Urged Woman To Have A 2nd Abortion, She Says

The Georgia Senate candidate’s ex-girl­friend says he want­ed her to ter­mi­nate a preg­nan­cy in 2011. She chose to have their son instead.

On Thursday, Herschel Walker spoke at a cam­paign stop in Wadley, Ga., but did not address a report that he had paid for a woman’s abortion.Credit…Nicole Buchanan for The New York Times

A woman who has said Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nom­i­nee in Georgia, paid for her abor­tion in 2009 told The New York Times that he urged her to ter­mi­nate a sec­ond preg­nan­cy two years lat­er. They end­ed their rela­tion­ship after she refused.

In a series of inter­views, the woman said Mr. Walker had bare­ly been involved in their now 10-year-old son’s life, offer­ing lit­tle more than court-ordered child sup­port and occa­sion­al gifts.

The woman dis­closed the new details about her rela­tion­ship with Mr. Walker, who has anchored his cam­paign on an appeal to social con­ser­v­a­tives as an unwa­ver­ing oppo­nent of abor­tion even in cas­es of rape and incest, after the for­mer foot­ball star pub­licly denied that he knew her. He called her “some alleged woman” in a radio inter­view on Thursday.

The Times is with­hold­ing the name of the woman, who insist­ed on anonymi­ty to pro­tect her son.

In the inter­views, she described the frus­tra­tion of watch­ing Republicans ral­ly around Mr. Walker, dis­miss her account and bathe him in prayer and praise, call­ing him a good man.

She said she want­ed Georgia vot­ers to know what kind of man Mr. Walker was to her.

“As a father, he’s done noth­ing. He does exact­ly what the courts say, and that’s it,” she said. “He has to be held respon­si­ble, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”

The inter­views and doc­u­ments pro­vid­ed to The Times togeth­er cor­rob­o­rate and expand upon an account about her abor­tion first pub­lished on Monday in The Daily Beast. The Times also inde­pen­dent­ly con­firmed details with cus­tody records filed in fam­i­ly court in New York and inter­viewed a friend of the woman to whom she had described the abor­tion and her even­tu­al breakup with Mr. Walker as those events occurred.

Mr. Walker’s cam­paign declined to com­ment about the woman’s account.

The woman reaf­firmed the key details of her account: She and Mr. Walker con­ceived a child in 2009 and decid­ed not to con­tin­ue the preg­nan­cy. Mr. Walker was not mar­ried at the time. She pro­vid­ed to The Times a $575 receipt she was giv­en after pay­ing for the pro­ce­dure at an Atlanta women’s clin­ic, and a deposit slip show­ing a copy of a $700 check that she said Mr. Walker gave her as reim­burse­ment. She also shared a “get well” card with a hand­writ­ten mes­sage — “Pray you are feel­ing bet­ter” — and signed sim­ply, “H.”

Mr. Walker has repeat­ed­ly denied her account, call­ing it a “flat-out” lie and the work of Democrats and the hos­tile news media. He has dis­put­ed that he signed the card. He told Fox News on Monday that he sends mon­ey “to a lot of people.

“I know this is untrue. I know it’s untrue,” Mr. Walker said on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Thursday. “I know noth­ing about any woman hav­ing an abortion.”

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A woman told The New York Times that she and Mr. Walker, who is now the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, decided in 2009 not to continue a pregnancy they conceived. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure and said he reimbursed her. Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.
A woman told The New York Times that she and Mr. Walker, who is now the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, decided in 2009 not to continue a pregnancy they conceived. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure and said he reimbursed her. Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.

Later on Thursday, he gath­ered reporters in a lum­ber yard 150 miles east of Atlanta for his first pub­lic event since the report first sur­faced and read a state­ment that did not direct­ly address it. Instead, he blamed his polit­i­cal opponents.

“You’re here because Democrats are des­per­ate to hold onto pow­er,” he said. “They are des­per­ate to make this race about my family.”

Mr. Walker is run­ning against Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in what is one of the year’s most expen­sive and com­pet­i­tive races as Republicans try to win con­trol of the Senate.

Mr. Walker and his for­mer girl­friend start­ed their rela­tion­ship around November 2008, accord­ing to her pater­ni­ty suit. She said they first met in Atlanta, where she lived and Mr. Walker reg­u­lar­ly vis­it­ed. She would occa­sion­al­ly trav­el to the Dallas area, Mr. Walker’s home at the time.

The next year, when they con­ceived a child, the cou­ple agreed that she should end the preg­nan­cy, she said. Mr. Walker nev­er expressed any moral or reli­gious con­cerns about abor­tion, she said. He told her that it was “not a good time” for a baby.

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The woman told The Times that she and Mr. Walker decided in 2009 to end a pregnancy. She provided a “get well” card with a handwritten message — “Pray you are feeling better” — and signed simply, “H.” Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.
The woman told The Times that she and Mr. Walker decided in 2009 to end a pregnancy. She provided a “get well” card with a handwritten message — “Pray you are feeling better” — and signed simply, “H.” Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.

The two con­tin­ued their rela­tion­ship and, two years lat­er, the woman became preg­nant again. This time, she said, she told Mr. Walker she want­ed to have the child. But Mr. Walker did not, and again made the case that the time was not right. The rela­tion­ship end­ed on Sept. 16, 2011, accord­ing to her pater­ni­ty suit. Her son was born the fol­low­ing May.

In an inter­view, a friend who lived in Atlanta at the time described con­sol­ing the woman through her morn­ing sick­ness before her abor­tion and sup­port­ing her after­ward. Years lat­er, when the woman was preg­nant again, she dis­closed in phone and in-per­son con­ver­sa­tions that Mr. Walker had asked her to end the preg­nan­cy but she was adamant that she would not, accord­ing to the friend.

Mr. Walker also appears to have been involved with two oth­er women around this time. In an inter­view in the December 2011 issue of Playboy mag­a­zine, he iden­ti­fied Julie Blanchard, who is now his wife, as his fiancée. And in January 2012, Myka Dean, then a share­hold­er along with her moth­er in Mr. Walker’s com­pa­ny Renaissance Man, accord­ing to finan­cial records, filed a police report in Irving, Texas, in which she said that for 20 years she had been in an “on-off-on-off” rela­tion­ship with Mr. Walker. (Ms. Dean, who died in 2019, told the police that Mr. Walker threat­ened her after she told him that she want­ed to date oth­er peo­ple. Mr. Walker denied the alle­ga­tion through a spokes­woman in April.)

The woman inter­viewed by The Times said Mr. Walker nev­er phys­i­cal­ly abused her.

In April 2013, the woman filed for child sup­port in Manhattan when she was a grad­u­ate stu­dent at Columbia University and “strug­gling to make ends meet,” accord­ing to a state­ment from her lawyer at the time. Mr. Walker was ini­tial­ly ordered to make pay­ments, first of $2,500 a month and lat­er of $3,500 a month. The final order of child sup­port was not issued until July 2014, accord­ing to court records. Mr. Walker has made his pay­ments on time, the woman said.

Mr. Warnock has also been involved in a child cus­tody dis­pute. His ex-wife sued in April to adjust the terms of their agree­ment and increase pay­ments to account for the income he earns as a sen­a­tor and as lead pas­tor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. A spokes­woman for the Warnock cam­paign declined to com­ment for this article.

The woman said Mr. Walker hard­ly knew his 10-year-old son — she said he had “maybe only seen him three times” — and had not spo­ken to her in years. She said she and Mr. Walker com­mu­ni­cat­ed only through Ms. Blanchard, who the woman said some­times called her to ask her son’s size before send­ing gifts.

“And by ‘he,’ I mean ‘she’ sends him Christmas presents, birth­day presents,” the woman said.

As recent­ly as Friday, Ms. Blanchard reached out to com­plain about reporters inves­ti­gat­ing Mr. Walker, accord­ing to the woman.

Ms. Blanchard and the woman pre­vi­ous­ly appeared to have had a cor­dial rela­tion­ship, chat­ting over text about sum­mer camp and gifts for the child. In May, the woman wished Ms. Blanchard well on pri­ma­ry day, accord­ing a text pro­vid­ed by Mr. Walker’s cam­paign, say­ing she was “pray­ing for you guys!!”

The woman, a Democrat, said she had strug­gled to watch Mr. Walker cam­paign on pub­lic posi­tions so clear­ly at odds with his pri­vate conduct.

Mr. Walker has said he sup­ports abor­tion bans with no excep­tions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

“The fact that I had a choice — now he’s in the pub­lic try­ing to say he wants to put a ban on abor­tion com­plete­ly,” the woman said, adding, “It appalled me.”

Mr. Walker also has assailed “absen­tee fathers,” par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Black com­mu­ni­ty. But the woman said Mr. Walker him­self had been so unin­volved in her son’s life that his absence was a run­ning joke between her and her fam­i­ly and friends.

The woman said she was giv­en no advance notice about Mr. Walker’s Senate can­di­da­cy and was shocked when she learned he had entered the race.

Mr. Walker’s per­son­al life has been a source of tur­moil in his cam­paign. He talked often about a 22-year-old son, Christian Walker, in ear­ly cam­paign mate­ri­als and appear­ances, but lat­er acknowl­edged three more chil­dren he had not pub­licly men­tioned, includ­ing the 10-year-old son, an adult daugh­ter and anoth­er young son. (Christian Walker, a con­ser­v­a­tive social media star in his own right, began open­ly attack­ing his father after The Daily Beast’s report was pub­lished, accus­ing him and his Republican allies of hypocrisy.)

Mr. Walker dis­put­ed that he had not acknowl­edged his chil­dren. “I just chose not to use them as props to win a polit­i­cal cam­paign,” he said in a state­ment in June. “What par­ent would want their child involved in garbage, gut­ter pol­i­tics like this?”

When those reports first appeared in June, the woman said, Ms. Blanchard asked her to pub­licly vouch for Mr. Walker’s on-time child sup­port pay­ments in an effort to make the case that Mr. Walker was a respon­si­ble father. The woman said she declined.

Maya King report­ed from Atlanta; Lisa Lerer and Jonah E. Bromwich report­ed from New York. Ken Bensinger and Alexandra Berzon con­tributed report­ing. Kitty Bennettcontributed research.

Maya King is a pol­i­tics reporter cov­er­ing the South. Prior to join­ing The Times, she was a nation­al polit­i­cal reporter at Politico, where she cov­ered the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. @mayaak­ing

Lisa Lerer is a nation­al polit­i­cal cor­re­spon­dent, cov­er­ing cam­paigns, elec­tions and polit­i­cal pow­er. @llerer

Jonah E. Bromwich cov­ers crim­i­nal jus­tice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan dis­trict attor­ney’s office, state crim­i­nal courts in Manhattan and New York City’s jails. @jone­sie­man.

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Police Charged A Woman For Recording Them Holding A Black Man At Gunpoint. Now, They Owe Her

A woman charged with a mis­de­meanor for record­ing Minnesota police offi­cers hold­ing two Black men at gun­point set­tled her fed­er­al law­suit against the city for $70,000, accord­ing to the Star Tribune. In addi­tion to mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion, the city also agreed to pol­i­cy reform with­in the police department.
Arizona recent­ly attempt­ed to make record­ing police encoun­ters ille­gal but they sure­ly weren’t the first to try. Some of these restric­tions don’t look like laws but instead a mis­de­meanor. Take Amy Koopman for exam­ple. Koopman, a white woman, went on Facebook live in 2018 to record an inter­ac­tion between Robbinsdale police and two Black men. She was only one of many peo­ple who crowd­ed around the inter­sec­tion, wait­ing anx­ious­ly to see if the police would fire at the two as their guns were drawn.

A woman charged with a mis­de­meanor for record­ing Minnesota police offi­cers hold­ing two Black men at gun­point set­tled her fed­er­al law­suit against the city for $70,000, accord­ing to the Star Tribune. In addi­tion to mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion, the city also agreed to pol­i­cy reform with­in the police department.
Arizona recent­ly attempt­ed to make record­ing police encoun­ters ille­gal but they sure­ly weren’t the first to try. Some of these restric­tions don’t look like laws but instead a mis­de­meanor. Take Amy Koopman for exam­ple. Koopman, a white woman, went on Facebook live in 2018 to record an inter­ac­tion between Robbinsdale police and two Black men. She was only one of many peo­ple who crowd­ed around the inter­sec­tion, wait­ing anx­ious­ly to see if the police would fire at the two as their guns were drawn.
“Three squad cars with three offi­cers out of their cars, guns drawn on what I could see at the time was one Black man,” Koopman said via CBS News. “Because what was in my mind [was] Philando Castile.”
Koopman talked to the offi­cers from a dis­tance and after she put her phone away, they charged her with obstruct­ing the legal process.
Her charges were lat­er dropped by a Hennepin County judge.

More on the case from Star Tribune:

A Hennepin County judge dis­missed charges against Koopman after find­ing that “no rea­son­able offi­cer could con­strue [Koopman’s] shout­ing as ‘phys­i­cal­ly obstruct­ing or inter­fer­ing’ in the per­for­mance of their duties.” Attorneys rep­re­sent­ing the city in the fed­er­al law­suit argued that Koopman’s claims were barred by the legal doc­trines of qual­i­fied and offi­cial immunity.

In a state­ment Tuesday, Jason Hively, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing the city, con­firmed that Robbinsdale and its insur­er, the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, agreed to pay Koopman $70,000 in exchange for a release of the city and its police offi­cers from her law­suit. He also con­firmed that the city agreed to non­mon­e­tary terms relat­ed to poli­cies, pro­ce­dures, and training.

“The City and Insurance Trust deter­mined that resolv­ing this mat­ter at this ear­ly stage would avoid the attor­neys’ fees and costs asso­ci­at­ed with going to tri­al,” Hively said.

The ACLU took on Koopman’s law­suit and demand­ed the pol­i­cy reforms must include Robbinsdale police acknowl­edg­ing that it is in fact legal to be record­ed by cit­i­zens. They must also be sub­ject to dis­ci­pline if they try to retal­i­ate against those who do so by slap­ping them with a mis­de­meanor like they did Koopman.

Koopman stands by her actions and said in a state­ment she hopes “this puts oth­er police depart­ments on notice that there are cit­i­zens who are film­ing them.” Boy, I tell ya. There are plen­ty of traf­fic stop videos I see come across my time­line and as soon as that offi­cer sees they’re being record­ed, they become tense and some­times hostile.

Video record­ing is pret­ty much the only way to catch evi­dence offi­cial mis­con­duct. Though, the proof itself isn’t enough some­times to bring about accountability.

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Marc Wilson Was Just Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison

This is what we mean when we talk about this dis­gust­ing racist soci­ety in which even the laws they pass are enforced dif­fer­ent­ly based n the col­or of peo­ple’s skin.
It is a despi­ca­ble and nau­se­at­ing sys­tem of deceit, col­lu­sion and complicity.

By Trone Dowd

Marc Wilson — the Black man con­vict­ed for shoot­ing a 17-year-old in Georgia, despite claims of self-defense — will spend a decade in prison. 

Judge Ronnie Thompson hand­ed down the max­i­mum sen­tence for felony invol­un­tary manslaugh­ter on Tuesday, although Wilson will be cred­it­ed for his time spent await­ing tri­al. The deci­sion brings clo­sure to more than two years of lit­i­ga­tion in a case wide­ly seen as a test for Black Americans’ right to “stand their ground.”

The 23-year-old Georgia native was con­vict­ed on Aug. 31 for the death of Haley Hutcheson. The judge decid­ed against invok­ing a pro­vi­sion of Georgia law which allowed him to sen­tence Wilson as if the charge was a mis­de­meanor instead of a felony, as many of Wilson’s sup­port­ers had hoped.

Wilson said that he was harassed, called racial epi­thets, and near­ly run off the road in his car by three male teens in a pick­up truck on June 14, 2020. Fearing for his life and that of his then-girl­friend who was sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat, Wilson fired his legal­ly-owned hand­gun at the truck hop­ing to scare them off. 

But as he found out a day lat­er, one of his three shots struck and killed Hutcheson, who he didn’t know was sit­ting in the vehi­cle. He even­tu­al­ly turned him­self in to police and was charged with felony mur­der and aggra­vat­ed assault.

“I would like you to remem­ber that Marc Wilson saved my life that night,” Wilson’s ex-girl­friend Emma Rigdon told the judge Tuesday. “I tru­ly believe that if he didn’t do what he did, we would’ve both lost our lives that night. Marc is not the rea­son Haley is not here.”

Georgia is one of 36 so-called “stand your ground” states where a per­son can use dead­ly force when­ev­er they rea­son­ably fear for their life. Defense attor­neys for Wilson tried to claim the defense in the lead-up to the tri­al, but the effort ulti­mate­ly fell short, lead­ing to ques­tions about the law’s fair­ness. A 2020 study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that between 2005 and 2010, just 11 per­cent of stand your ground cas­es involv­ing a Black shoot­er were seen as jus­ti­fied, com­pared to 45 per­cent of cas­es involv­ing a Black vic­tim and a white shooter. 

The dis­par­i­ty in the appli­ca­tion of the law has been wide­ly crit­i­cized for near­ly a decade, par­tic­u­lar­ly after George Zimmerman was acquit­ted after shoot­ing and killing Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claimed self-defense because he feared for his life, even though he ini­ti­at­ed con­tact with the 17-year-old. 

In the weeks lead­ing up to Wilson’s sen­tenc­ing, his sup­port­ers open­ly opposed his guilty ver­dict. For one, they argued state pros­e­cu­tors only brought the manslaugh­ter charge to ensure a con­vic­tion in the late stages of the tri­al. While Wilson was ulti­mate­ly found not guilty on both the felony mur­der and aggra­vat­ed assault charges he orig­i­nal­ly faced, the manslaugh­ter charge was brought before the jury dur­ing deliberation. 

They also argued that the judge failed to pro­vide the jury with all of the pos­si­ble less­er charges to con­sid­er. They say the jury should have been allowed to con­sid­er mis­de­meanor invol­un­tary manslaugh­ter, which car­ries a penal­ty of up to just one year in prison.

While Tuesday’s sen­tenc­ing presents a dis­ap­point­ing out­come for many of Wilson’s sup­port­ers, the case might not be over just yet. Wilson’s lead defense attor­ney Francys Johnson told VICE News last week that he and his col­leagues were pre­pared to appeal to a high­er court if Wilson was sen­tenced to sig­nif­i­cant time.

“The polit­i­cal pres­sure has been on from Day One to lynch Marc Wilson for the death of Haley Hutcheson. We’re going to con­tin­ue to fight for this young man at each stage,” Johnson said.

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Cops Barred From Guarding George Floyd’s Killer For Not Being White Just Got Paid

A Minnesota coun­ty approved a $1.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment for eight non­white guards who were banned from inter­act­ing with or even being on the same floor as Derek Chauvin.

Derek Chauvin

The eight non­white cor­rec­tions offi­cers who were banned from inter­act­ing with dis­graced cop Derek Chauvin because of their race have received a $1.455 mil­lion set­tle­ment in a dis­crim­i­na­tion lawsuit.

The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in Minnesota approved the set­tle­ment Tuesday, accord­ing to the gov­ern­ing body, putting an end to the law­suit filed by the defen­dants, who iden­ti­fy as Black, Hispanic, mixed-race, and Pacific Islander.

“We are deeply sor­ry for the trau­ma you expe­ri­enced and the ongo­ing harm this racist inci­dent caused,” board of com­mis­sion­ers Chair Trista MatasCastillo said in a state­ment. “We rec­og­nize this apol­o­gy will nev­er undo the anguish and dis­tress you’ve gone through as a result.”

The law­suit stems from May 29, 2020, the day Chauvin was final­ly tak­en into cus­tody, four days after mur­der­ing George Floyd in Minneapolis. One of the defen­dants, Devin Sullivan, a Black offi­cer who reg­u­lar­ly processed high-pro­file inmates, said that a supe­ri­or, Superintendent Steve Lydon, stopped him from pat­ting Chauvin down when he arrived at the jail. Lydon told Sullivan he didn’t want the offi­cer “doing any­thing he would not nor­mal­ly do,” and removed Sullivan from his post, replac­ing him with two white officers.

Lydon then ordered that all cor­rec­tions offi­cers of col­or were barred from inter­act­ing with Chauvin, and even pro­hib­it­ed them from going to the 5th floor, where he was being held, accord­ing to the lawsuit. 

The law­suit also claimed that Chauvin appeared to receive spe­cial treat­ment from the white offi­cers who were allowed to enter his floor in the ear­ly days of his time in jail. Two of the plain­tiffs said they saw cor­rec­tions offi­cers enter­ing Chauvin’s cell on secu­ri­ty cam­eras, com­fort­ing him with pats on the back and even let­ting him use a cellphone.

County lead­ers con­demned Lydon’s actions, call­ing them “racist, heinous, high­ly dis­re­spect­ful, and com­plete­ly out of line.”

At the time, Lydon told local news out­lets that he barred the offi­cers from inter­act­ing with Chauvin because he felt a duty to “pro­tect and sup­port employ­ees who may have been trau­ma­tized” by his actions. Lydon was demot­ed from his posi­tion as super­in­ten­dent after the law­suit was filed. 

“The courage of these eight offi­cers can­not be over­stat­ed,” Lucas Kaster, one of the attor­neys for the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers, said in a state­ment. “During an unprece­dent­ed time in our com­mu­ni­ty, the offi­cers took the bold action to step for­ward and speak out against the seg­re­ga­tion and racism they experienced.”

To the plain­tiffs, MatasCastillo said, “No one ever should have ques­tioned your abil­i­ty to per­form your job based on the col­or of your skin.”

In addi­tion to announc­ing the set­tle­ment, the board asked that the sheriff’s office to “take cor­rec­tive action” regard­ing Lydon’s con­tin­ued employ­ment, though it stopped short of ask­ing for his termination. 

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s office did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

Chauvin was found guilty of mur­der and sec­ond-degree manslaugh­ter for kneel­ing on Floyd’s neck for more than nine min­utes in front of a Minneapolis con­ve­nience store. Earlier this year he also plead­ed guilty to fed­er­al charges of vio­lat­ing Floyd’s civ­il rights. He’s cur­rent­ly serv­ing his 22-year sen­tence in fed­er­al prison.