By Trone Dowd

The North Carolina sher­iff who called his Black col­leagues “bas­tards” and threat­ened to fire them when he took office in 2019 was sus­pend­ed from office by a judge’s order on Tuesday.

Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene, a Republican, has been tem­porar­i­ly removed from his posi­tion until a hear­ing deter­min­ing whether he’ll be per­ma­nent­ly removed is held, on Oct. 24. Greene’s sus­pen­sion was request­ed by Columbus District Attorney Jon David Tuesday, and was grant­ed by Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser, as first report­ed by local NBC affil­i­ate WECT.

The sus­pen­sion fol­lows sev­er­al days of the Columbus County com­mu­ni­ty demand­ing his resignation.

“There can be no ques­tion that the use of racist lan­guage, direct­ed at all offi­cers of col­or under your com­mand, is con­duct prej­u­di­cial to the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, which brings the Office of Sheriff into dis­re­pute,” David, who’s also a Republican, wrote in his request. “My hope is that you rec­og­nize the harm your state­ments have caused and that you will make the hon­or­able deci­sion to resign.”

Greene made the com­ments in February 2019, just four months after he ran against the county’s first Black head of coun­ty law enforce­ment, for­mer Sheriff Lewis Hatcher. The race was an extreme­ly close one, with Greene win­ning by 34 votes. The tight elec­tion led to months of lit­i­ga­tion to deter­mine the win­ner, dur­ing which Greene sus­pect­ed that Black mem­bers of the depart­ment he was elect­ed to lead were try­ing to secret­ly under­mine him with unspec­i­fied rumors. 

Greene vent­ed his frus­tra­tions over these rumors in phone calls to then inter­im Sheriff Jason Soles, who served as head of the sheriff’s office until a win­ner was determined. 

“I’m sick of it. I’m sick of these Black bas­tards,” Greene told Soles dur­ing one six-and-a-half-minute con­ver­sa­tion. “I’m going to clean house and be done with it. And we’ll start from there.”

“We’ll cut the snake’s head fuck­ing off. Period,” Greene said, in ref­er­ence to Sgt. Melvin Campbell, a Black offi­cer he’d worked with for 30 years before join­ing the Columbus sheriff’s office. “And Melvin Campbell is as big a snake as Lewis Hatcher ever dared to be. Every Black that I know, you need to fire him to start with. He’s a snake.”

Greene didn’t real­ize Soles was record­ing the conversation. 

“And I knew right then, I was like, ‘Wow, this is com­ing from the sher­iff,’” Soles, who is chal­leng­ing Greene for his seat this November, told WECT.

Last Wednesday, Greene adamant­ly denied hav­ing any racial ani­mos­i­ty toward his fel­low offi­cers. The next day, he dou­bled down on the denial, sig­nal­ing he had no plans to step down from his post, despite calls for his removal.

“I have not resigned as the Sheriff of Columbus County. I will con­tin­ue to serve no mat­ter the alle­ga­tions or rumors,” he wrote Thursday.

The Columbus County Sheriff’s Office did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for comment.

The pop­u­la­tion of Columbus County is 30 per­cent Black, accord­ing to the U.S. Census.​Both the North Carolina NAACP and the North Carolina American Civil Liberties Union called for Greene’s removal, as well as a review of all the work he’s done since tak­ing office in 2019.

“Columbus County, and in par­tic­u­lar its Black res­i­dents, deserve bet­ter,” the orga­ni­za­tions said in a joint state­ment. “To restore dig­ni­ty and con­fi­dence in the office of the Columbus County Sheriff, we demand a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion of all the activ­i­ties con­duct­ed by his offi­cers since the begin­ning of Sheriff Greene’s tenure – by all rel­e­vant author­i­ties — includ­ing the State Board of inves­ti­ga­tion and the fed­er­al government.”

If I have to explain that your dif­fer­ent skin col­or, the way you talk, the things you have, and where you live do not make you bet­ter than some­one else, just dif­fer­ent, maybe you are inferior.
If I have to explain that God made Fish of dif­fer­ent col­ors, shapes, and sizes and that he made flow­ers, some with thorns, of dif­fer­ent col­ors, oth­er­wise, they would all be just bush­es, that he made them with dif­fer­ent fra­grances in his wisdom.
That he cre­at­ed a cor­nu­copia of col­ors and sizes, shapes, and vari­a­tions to make this world inter­est­ing and fun, not unin­ter­est­ing and dull…
If I have to explain all of that to a human being or any group of humans who are sup­posed to be the most intel­li­gent of God’s cre­ations, then maybe we need to revis­it the idea of what con­sti­tutes intelligence.
No, Sir, Madam, you are not bet­ter, just dif­fer­ent. If all of that is out­side your abil­i­ty to grasp, you are infe­ri­or, not superior.

White racism is per­va­sive in America because the con­ver­sa­tions are being held around the periph­ery and not direct­ly address­ing the can­cer­ous tumor that con­tin­ues to eat away at the nation.
Whites who enjoy the priv­i­leges of insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism are reluc­tant and, in most cas­es, refuse to address the issue because they are so used to the perks and priv­i­leges of racism they do not want to give them up. Some don’t even know they are enjoy­ing them.
They will tell you out­right that their ances­tors did not own slaves or that they arrived in America long after slav­ery was abol­ished. Hence, they bear no respon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pened before their ances­tors arrived.
Racism is, as I have said repeat­ed­ly, a bad case of igno­rance and illit­er­a­cy, and there is only one cure for that igno­rance, a con­tin­ued edu­ca­tion­al approach.
If you are white in America and you are not stopped and beat­en or mur­dered by police, you are enjoy­ing the fruits of white priv­i­lege. If you live in com­mu­ni­ties designed to keep Blacks out, com­mu­ni­ties with bet­ter roads, bet­ter schools, clean drink­ing water, bet­ter hos­pi­tals and fire ser­vices, com­mu­ni­ties with­out bus depots or huge penal insti­tu­tions, and com­mu­ni­ties in which your chil­dren are not hound­ed by race sol­diers who mur­der them, you are enjoy­ing white privilege.
If you can get a busi­ness loan from a bank or cheat the gov­ern­ment out of tax­es and flaunt it, you are ben­e­fit­ing from white privilege.

Blacks, for their part, will nev­er achieve the desired result, which is to end racism in America. For starters, they are too cute for their own damn good when they talk about the issue. The short­est dis­tance between two points is a straight line. Blacks love to have con­ver­sa­tions about hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions, and they love to have con­fer­ences to deter­mine when and where to have con­fer­ences. Substantively, hard­ly any­thing gets done in the process. Additionally, African-Americans would rather crit­i­cize those who step for­ward to lead than deal with the hell they have lived under for hun­dreds of years.
For starters, racism is not a virus that pops up; and no one knows where it came from or how to find a vaccine.
Racism in America exists because those who ben­e­fit from it want it to con­tin­ue. So let us stop with the niceties and address the issue of racism in America.
Racism is an igno­rant and divi­sive con­cept pro­mul­gat­ed in America by white peo­ple against Black peo­ple and oth­er races.
It is an idea that cre­ates set asides for Caucasians at the expense of every­one else.
There.……
Unless we stop pre­tend­ing that there are no per­pe­tra­tors, only vic­tims, we will nev­er solve this hor­ri­ble dilem­ma. There must be sus­tained pres­sure applied to this igno­ble prac­tice and its prac­ti­tion­ers, fail­ing which the cor­ro­sive can­cer of white racism will be around a hun­dred years from now with our great-grand­chil­dren cry­ing out for help as this gen­er­a­tion is.
Martin Luther King, the most vis­i­ble fig­ure to emerge from the Civil Rights strug­gles of the 1960s before his pass­ing, warned Blacks about ‘the fierce urgency of now.’
In seek­ing to dri­ve home the need for rad­i­cal and imme­di­ate change, King said dur­ing his I have a dream speech in 1963, “We have also come to this hal­lowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the lux­u­ry of cool­ing off or to take the tran­quil­iz­ing drug of grad­u­al­ism.

As much as I am dis­gust­ed by whites who ben­e­fit from racism, I am dou­bly dis­gust­ed by Blacks who use cute lan­guage to describe white racism. Racism, as it stands in America, is a con­struct of oppres­sion cre­at­ed by white peo­ple to oppress Blacks and oth­er races.
There I said it, and it was­n’t hard at all. Unless this sub­ject is broached frontal­ly, as I have done here, white per­pe­tra­tors will sniv­el and bul­ly their way out of tak­ing responsibility.
Laws can­not change peo­ple’s hearts, but it does change behav­ior. Laws go a long way in curb­ing bad prac­tices, but how can the prob­lem of racism which is writ­ten and anchored into the laws passed by leg­is­la­tures, be remediated?
If I had the answer to that ques­tion, I’d be a wealthy man, but I don’t.
The sad real­i­ty is that racism is a white con­struct designed to ele­vate and keep the Caucasian race above all oth­er races and keep it there regard­less of the con­se­quence to the oppressed races.
It is real­ly as sim­ple as that and should be addressed from that rather sim­plis­tic per­spec­tive. We lose sight of the prob­lem when we attach sophistry to the prob­lem-which is what Blacks love to do. We love to hear our­selves talk, so we add flour­ish and sophistry to the con­ver­sa­tions, which then become about peo­ple show­cas­ing their edu­ca­tion rather than address­ing the problems.

White peo­ple who enjoy the fruits of racism are con­tent to see Black folks jock­ey­ing to show who is the most ver­bose and elo­quent because they know noth­ing will be changed by ver­bosi­ty or eloquence.
Racism is not going any­where in America; it was birthed in the repub­lic; it is drilled into each gen­er­a­tion of young white chil­dren because their par­ents believe they have a god-giv­en right to the land they stole, and that’s the bot­tom line.
Every oth­er race must assert its own right to agency, auton­o­my, and self-deter­mi­na­tion with­out flinch­ing or ced­ing an inch of space.
Unfortunately for the repub­lic, there are some who would rather sub­ju­gate them­selves to sec­ond-class cit­i­zen­ship while they await their turn at being assim­i­lat­ed into the racist con­struct of American whiteness.
Hello Raphael Cruz, Marco Rubio, et al.

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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.

Amnesty International final­ly found its voice against a large and pow­er­ful coun­try. Speaking these truths must have been dif­fi­cult for the British-based group that has been aggres­sive in point­ing to per­ceived human rights abus­es in coun­tries with Black and Brown pop­u­la­tions but has large­ly remained silent on worse abus­es in the United States and Europe.
Even when it does speak to the gross incon­sis­ten­cies in the US immi­gra­tion Agencies deal­ing with peo­ple from Haiti, the Agency seems to have more to say about the plight of the poor Haitians than it does about the pow­er­ful United States and its racist policies(mb)

By Nyamekye Daniel

The inhu­mane treat­ment and mass depor­ta­tions of Haitian migrants are anoth­er chap­ter in America’s his­to­ry of anti-Black racism, a new report by Amnesty International finds.

The report was pub­lished on the one-year anniver­sary of the pub­li­ca­tion of viral pho­tos and videos that show U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents fling­ing reins at the Black migrants near the U.S.-Mexico bor­der in Del Rio, Texas. The CPD con­clud­ed in July that none of the Haitians were inten­tion­al­ly struck by Border Patrol agents, but it was exces­sive use of force.

The International Amnesty report released on Sept. 22 is based on inter­views with 24 Haitians deport­ed to the island nation between September 2021 and January 2022. It also includes tes­ti­mo­ny from psy­chol­o­gists, aca­d­e­m­ic experts, lawyers, and his­tor­i­cal evidence.“Our research pro­vides ample evi­dence that sys­temic racism is embed­ded with­in the US immi­gra­tion sys­tem, as described by Haitian asy­lum seek­ers inter­viewed for this report,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas direc­tor at Amnesty International.

Amnesty International is a human rights non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion head­quar­tered in the U.K. The report shows that the U.S. immi­gra­tion poli­cies used to “inter­cept, detain and remove” Haitians since 1970 go against inter­na­tion­al law and are root­ed in anti-Black racism. It is fit­ting­ly titled “They Did Not Treat Us Like People: Race and Migration-Related Torture and Other Ill-Treatment of Haitians Seeking Safety in the USA.”

Since the bor­der inci­dent in September, the U.S. has expelled more than 25,000 Haitians under President Donald Trump’s Title 42 invo­ca­tion. As part of fed­er­al pub­lic health law, the pro­vi­sion requires the depor­ta­tion of asy­lum seek­ers from coun­tries with com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion invoked Title 42 in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. President Joe Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion car­ried out more depor­ta­tions under the pro­vi­sion, however.

“They have also con­tin­ued to evoke the evils of slav­ery by shack­ling and hand­cuff­ing Black Haitians onboard expul­sion flights, inflict­ing fur­ther pain and men­tal suf­fer­ing upon them that amounts to tor­ture under inter­na­tion­al human rights law,” Guevara-Rosas said.

Amnesty International said deport­ing Haitian migrants in hand­cuffs and shack­les caused them “severe psy­cho­log­i­cal pain and suf­fer­ing due to its asso­ci­a­tion with slav­ery and crim­i­nal­i­ty.” It was built on the treat­ment near Del Rio, where agents on horse­back accost­ed Haitian fam­i­lies, which many crit­i­cized as rem­i­nis­cent of slav­ery patrols. The orga­ni­za­tion adds that even though the Biden admin­is­tra­tion inves­ti­gat­ed the inci­dent, they did not speak to the migrants who were impact­ed, “sig­nif­i­cant­ly under­min­ing” the investigation’s credibility.

The report also shows that Haitians had a lack of access to suf­fi­cient food, health care, infor­ma­tion, inter­preters and lawyers dur­ing the process and in deten­tion cen­ters. Children as young as 14 days old were detained. Some were sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ents “in explic­it vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law that pro­tects children’s best interests.”

Someone asked me a few days ago what I thought about the sit­u­a­tion in Iran. I told him hon­est­ly I had no opin­ion on what was hap­pen­ing there because I do not trust west­ern media enti­ties to be objec­tive in their reporting.
My com­ment was in no way an endorse­ment of the Iranian theoc­ra­cy, far from it. My response was gen­uine­ly based on the fact that, but for the Aljazeera net­work, all of the report­ing would pre­dictably be anti ‑Iranian.
Even though they claim to have the inter­est of the peo­ple at heart.
The Islamic State, too, did not trust west­ern media report­ing, Reuters reported.

• British ambas­sador sum­moned over cov­er­age by London-based media.
• Norwegian envoy called in over ‘inter­ven­tion­ist’ speak.
• Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian also crit­i­cized U.S. sup­port for “riot­ers.”

Iran sum­moned the British and Norwegian ambas­sadors over what it called inter­fer­ence and hos­tile media cov­er­age of the nation­wide unrest trig­gered by the death of a woman detained by the moral­i­ty police.
Those who both­er to read what I have to say may be won­der­ing where I am going with this.
The sad real­i­ty is that protests erupt­ed in Iran because of one Government agency that has been the cen­tral agency of oppres­sion all across the globe.
The Police!!!

It was the Iranian police that arrest­ed a young woman. A 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini, who lat­er died in deten­tion after being arrest­ed by police enforc­ing the Islamic Republic’s strict restric­tions on wom­en’s dress, has turned into the biggest protests in years, Reuters reported.
Okay, the idea that there would be a moral­i­ty police defies log­ic, and I am sure many peo­ple did not even know that there was such a thing in the Islamic Republic.

And so it must shock the con­science of peo­ple in west­ern nations like Great Britain, the United States, Canada, etc., that in a coun­try far away on the con­ti­nent of Asia, there is such a thing as a ‘moral­i­ty police. And that the moral­i­ty police could actu­al­ly detain a cit­i­zen lead­ing to her even­tu­al death.
Oh God, how shocking.
The sad real­i­ty is right here in the United States, a Texas cop stopped a young woman, 28-year-old Sandra Bland, because, accord­ing to him, she failed to ini­ti­ate her turn sig­nal before turn­ing. At the very worst, a minor infrac­tion that should result in a cita­tion result­ed in Ms. Bland, a black woman, being arrest­ed by a moron­ic white cop. He first berat­ed and man­han­dled her, esca­lat­ed the stop, then arrest­ed Ms.Bland.
She would be found dead in a jail cell days lat­er. Are you still shocked at what’s hap­pen­ing in Iran?
What is hap­pen­ing in Iran is a direct indi­ca­tor of the val­ue the Iranian peo­ple place on the lives of their fel­low cit­i­zens. Respect is a com­mod­i­ty most police offi­cers do not have for the black com­mu­ni­ty in the United States.

Eric Garner was choked to death by a mur­der­ous NYPD thug Daniel Pantaleo; his crime sell­ing loose cig­a­rettes. A cop mur­dered Philando Castille while he sat in his car strapped in with his seat­belt with his girl­friend and their minor female child. Mister Castile, a reg­is­tered gun own­er, com­mit­ted no crime and did noth­ing wrong.
Breonna Taylor was mur­dered in her home by police who invad­ed her home and shot her to death; she com­mit­ted no crime.
Elijah McClain was mur­dered by Colorado police while walk­ing down the street; mis­ter Mccalain com­mit­ted no crime.
In Minneapolis, Daniel Wright was stopped by police on a war­rant. Mister Wright was shot by a cop Kim Potter who told inves­ti­ga­tors she thought she was taz­ing him.
Andre Hill was mur­dered in Columbus, Ohio, by police as he emerged from the garage of a friend’s house hold­ing a cell phone in his hand. Police shot miser Hill and did not ren­der aid to him as he lay dying and bled out for five(5) min­utes and eleven (11) seconds.

In Tacoma, Washington, state police slammed a patrol vehi­cle into 33-year-old Manuel Ellis and then beat him mer­ci­less­ly until he died. Mister Ellis com­mit­ted no crime and was walk­ing home from the store.
In Atlanta, Georgia, Rashaad Brookes was mur­dered by police, shot in the back after he was accost­ed at a fast food estab­lish­ment, and accused of hav­ing too much to drink.
In Rochester, New York, Daniel Prude was mur­dered by police. Prude, who was naked at the time he was killed, was expe­ri­enc­ing an emo­tion­al break­down. Police arrived and, in attempt­ing to restrain him, slammed his head into the pave­ment and then asphyx­i­at­ed him, accord­ing to the med­ical examiner.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, George Floyd was mur­dered by police, his crime alleged­ly pass­ing a fake twen­ty-dol­lar bill in a con­ve­nience store. Floyd’s mur­der would result in the largest social jus­tice upheaval in the coun­try in generations.
Atatiana Jefferson was mur­dered by police who shot through her win­dow, killing her in her own home in the pres­ence of her 8‑year-old nephew.

Police mur­dered Aura Rosser in her own home; she com­mit­ted no crime. Stephon Clark was mur­dered by police who lied that they thought he was hold­ing a gun after fir­ing more the 20 bul­lets into his body. The 22-year-old was hold­ing a cell phone.
Police mur­dered twen­ty-six-year-old Botham Jean as he sat in his apart­ment eat­ing ice cream. He com­mit­ted no crime.
Police mur­dered thir­ty-sev­en-year-old Alton Sterling in Louisiana as he sold CDs. A cop, Blane Salamoni, threat­ened to kill him, and he then tased and fired six bul­lets into his body. After killing mis­ter Sterling, the cop con­tin­ued to berate him, call­ing him a stu­pid moth­er fucker.
In Charlotte, North Carolina police mur­dered Fonisha Fonville after they were called to her home by her part­ner; instead of help­ing, police shot her to death, then claimed she had a knife.
Police mur­dered 50-year-old Michelle Casseaux after they were called to her home because she had a men­tal episode; instead of help­ing, they shot and killed her.
In New York, police mur­dered Akai Gurley as he walked down the stair­ways in his girl­friend’s build­ing; he had com­mit­ted no crime. 

Gabriella Nevarez, a 22-year-old, was mur­dered by police in Sacramento, California, who shot her after they pulled her over and her car ran into one of their squad cars.
In Cleveland, Ohio, police mur­dered 12-year-old Tamir Rice while the 12-year-old boy played with a toy gun in a park. After they admin­is­tered the fatal shot to the 12-year ‑old Tamir Rice, they wres­tled his 14-year-old sis­ter to the ground, cuffed her, and placed her into the back of the squad car. They offered no first aid to the dying child.
I could go on all day, and I would not even begin to scratch the sur­face of the num­ber of mur­der police com­mit against black peo­ple in this country.
John Crawford mur­dered by police.
Malcolm Lawson. Patrick Dorismond. George Bibbins. Prince Jones. Anthony Lee. Roger Owensby jr. Timothy Thomas. Orlando Barlow. Michael Pleasance. Albert Spruill. Ousmane Zongo. Nathaniel Jones. Timothy Stansbury. Jashon Bryant. Henry Glover. James Brissette. Ronald Madison. Vincent Smith. Sean Bell. David Antjuan Ware. Brandon Washington. Anthony Smashum. DeAunta Farrow. Shawn Watson. Khiel Coppin. Tarika Watson. Edward Lamont Hunt. Frederick Devon McAllister.….….….…names too numer­ous to document.
This is Genocide!!!!

The sin­gu­lar theme that runs through this essay is mur­der by police. All across the United States, these mur­ders are exe­cut­ed, and yet in many cas­es, the per­pe­tra­tors of the vio­lent mur­ders face no con­se­quence. Not at the state lev­el, not at the Federal level.
The Washington Post start­ed keep­ing records of police killings in recent years due to nation­al out­cry and because the Federal gov­ern­ment can­not be both­ered with doc­u­ment­ing police killings. The Post report­ed that near­ly 250 women have been
fatal­ly shot by police since 2015.

The wan­ton mur­der of men and women of col­or in the United States is a seri­ous cri­sis that requires urgent reme­di­al action. Any oth­er race expe­ri­enc­ing that lev­el of state aggres­sion would cast this cri­sis in geno­ci­dal terms. The sad real­i­ty is that because Blacks and American blacks lack the cohe­sion and sense of togeth­er­ness required to put a stop to it, this sec­ond geno­cide con­tin­ues unabated.
To some degree, many American Blacks would rather side with their ene­mies against their own peo­ple or vil­i­fy the peo­ple who are stand­ing side by side with them because they are jealous.
According to the data col­lect­ed by the Post, 89 of the women shot by police were killed in their own homes, not on the pub­lic streets. This data direct­ly speaks to the fact that even in the inner sanc­tum of their own homes, our women are not safe from the maraud­ing thugs who roam around on our dime with the full pow­er of the states, killing and maim­ing whom they choose.
According to the Post, more than 5,600 peo­ple have been killed over­all by police since it began keep­ing records.
Though this num­ber is aston­ish­ing, it is not a com­pre­hen­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the actu­al death toll exact­ed by police on com­mu­ni­ties of col­or in the name of law enforce­ment.https://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​g​r​a​p​h​i​c​s​/​2​0​2​0​/​i​n​v​e​s​t​i​g​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​h​o​o​t​i​n​g​s​-​w​o​m​en/

For rea­sons unknown to this writer, this pan­dem­ic of police killings has not caught the atten­tion of the Human Rights Agencies that have a lot to say about police killings in small­er vio­lent nations, even though most of them are based right here in the United States.
So no, my friend, I am not pay­ing atten­tion to the sin­gle death in Iran; there is far more here for me to con­cen­trate on.

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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.

But a state grand jury last year indict­ed three offi­cers and two para­medics on manslaugh­ter and reck­less homi­cide charges in McClain’s death after the case drew renewed atten­tion fol­low­ing the killing of George Floyd in 2020. It became a ral­ly­ing cry dur­ing the nation­al reck­on­ing over racism and police brutality.

The five accused have not yet entered pleas and their lawyers have not com­ment­ed pub­licly on the charges.

In the updat­ed report, com­plet­ed in July 2021, Dr. Stephen Cina, a pathol­o­gist, con­clud­ed that the ket­a­mine dosage giv­en to McClain, which was high­er than rec­om­mend­ed for some­one his size, “was too much for this indi­vid­ual and it result­ed in an over­dose, even though his blood ket­a­mine lev­el was con­sis­tent with a ‘ther­a­peu­tic’ blood concentration.”
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​g​a​n​g​-​a​c​t​i​v​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​l​l​-​p​a​r​t​-​o​f​-​n​o​r​m​a​l​-​p​o​l​i​c​i​n​g​-​a​c​r​o​s​s​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​d​e​p​a​r​t​m​e​n​ts/

He said he could not rule out that changes in McClain’s blood chem­istry, like an increase in lac­tic acid, due to his exer­tion while being restrained by police con­tributed to his death but con­clud­ed there was no evi­dence that injuries inflict­ed by police caused his death.

“I believe that Mr. McClain would most like­ly be alive but for the admin­is­tra­tion of ket­a­mine,” said Cina, who not­ed that body cam­era footage shows McClain becom­ing “extreme­ly sedat­ed” with­in a few min­utes of being giv­en the drug.

Cina acknowl­edged that oth­er rea­son­able pathol­o­gists with dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence and train­ing may have labeled such a death, while in police cus­tody, as a homi­cide or acci­dent, but that he believes the appro­pri­ate clas­si­fi­ca­tion is undetermined.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, attor­ney for McClain’s moth­er, Sheneen McClain, declined a request for comment.

Dr. Carl Wigren, a foren­sic pathol­o­gist in Washington state, ques­tioned the report’s focus on ket­a­mine, say­ing all the avail­able evi­dence — includ­ing a high­ly crit­i­cal inde­pen­dent review of McClain’s death com­mis­sioned by Aurora last year — point to McClain dying as a result of com­pres­sion­al asphyx­ia, a type of suf­fo­ca­tion, from offi­cers putting pres­sure on his body while restrain­ing him.

He was struck by one pas­sage in the city’s review cit­ing the ambu­lance company’s report that its crew found McClain lying on the ground on his stom­ach, his arms hand­cuffed behind his back, his tor­so and legs held down, with at least three offi­cers on top of him.

That scene was not cap­tured on body cam­era footage, the report said, but much of what hap­pened between police was not because the offi­cers’ cam­eras came off soon after McClain was approached. The cam­eras did con­tin­ue to record where they fell and cap­tured peo­ple talking.

Just because McClain, who said he couldn’t breathe, could be heard mak­ing some state­ments on the footage, does not mean he was able to ful­ly breathe, Wigren said. Ketamine, which slows breath­ing, could have just exac­er­bat­ed McClain’s con­di­tion, but Wigren does not think it caused his death.

A for­mer police offi­cer in a small Texas town was found not guilty of mur­der Thursday in the slay­ing of a Black man who offered a hand­shake as the offi­cer arrived to respond to a call about a fight at a con­ve­nience store. The Hunt County jury delib­er­at­ed for more than five hours before acquit­ting Shaun Lucas of the death of Jonathan Price.
Lucas was an offi­cer in Wolfe City where Price, who had played foot­ball for Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, was a city employ­ee, per­son­al train­er and body­builder with dreams of start­ing his own fit­ness cen­ter. Lucas was charged with mur­der­ing Price the night of Oct. 3, 2020, and fired from the police force five days later.
Wolfe City, about 70 miles (96 kilo­me­ters) north­east of Dallas and near the Texas-Oklahoma bor­der, has a pop­u­la­tion of about 1,500 people.

It was nev­er clear from wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny what trig­gered the fight between Price and anoth­er man. Nicholas Malone tes­ti­fied that he, his broth­er and Price had been drink­ing after the funer­al of Malone’s father when they decid­ed to go to the con­ve­nience store to buy cig­a­rettes. The three lin­gered at the store when Malone heard glass break, and he saw Price get­ting into a scuf­fle with anoth­er man. “My broth­er and I tried to pull them apart,” Malone said, adding that the argu­ment went on “for a few sec­onds” before the two were pulled apart, and every­one seemed to calm down before Lucas arrived.
When Lucas, who is white, answered the report of the fight, Price greet­ed him with an out­stretched hand and an apol­o­gy for the bro­ken glass. Lucas decid­ed Price was drunk and tried to detain him, but Price resist­ed. Lucas used a stun gun when Price approached, then shot Price when he reached for the stun gun, accord­ing to a police affi­davit.

Texas Rangers con­clud­ed that lethal force was not called for in the con­fronta­tion since Price was unarmed. Eleven wit­ness­es at the scene tes­ti­fied that Price was not angry or aggres­sive in his reac­tions, pros­e­cu­tor Steven Lilley remind­ed the Hunt County jury in Thursday’s clos­ing argu­ments. “He’s dead. He was killed that night,” Lilley said of Price. “If it wasn’t nec­es­sary, it was mur­der. Go back and find him guilty.”
Defense attor­ney Robert Rogers con­tend­ed that Lucas had no choice but to shoot Price in self-defense “because he was ter­ri­fied. That’s the only rea­son he fired his gun.”.
Lucas had been with the Wolfe City Police Department for a lit­tle less than six months when he shot Price, accord­ing to Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records. His pri­or law enforce­ment expe­ri­ence had been work­ing as a jail­er with the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office for about five months.

I can’t say I feel sor­ry for the ignored male fig­ure that stood there wait­ing to shake the hand of the sym­bol of Black oppres­sion for hun­dreds of years. You get what yu deserve when you fail to rec­og­nize your worth and sub­se­quent­ly allow those who are beneath you to cause you to believe in them enough to stand in line to be touched by them.(MB)

The new king of the United Kingdom, who has been dodg­ing issues of insti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion and prej­u­dice, has made head­lines for seem­ing to snub a Black man griev­ing the loss of Charles’ moth­er, Queen Elizbeth II, who passed away on Thursday, Sept. 8,
Days after these claims of insti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion made head­lines, on Monday, Sept. 19, Britain’s new lead­ing monarch King Charles III went viral after some­one tweet­ed a video where he appears to shun a Black man in a crowd of white cit­i­zens hop­ing to shake his hand.
The clip, shared by @RamaboduObakeng on Twitter, has been viewed more than 8.4 mil­lion times since it was pub­lished. The user cap­tioned the post, “Black man, you are on your own.”

Thousands of peo­ple turned out to cel­e­brate the Queen in the Palace of Westminster Chapel, and the king and his son Prince William went out to shake hands with the peo­ple who were there to show their respect. The king shook all the white mourn­ers’ hands but skipped the man of color.
The Black man reached out his hand when the monarch was close to him. Charles looked away, try­ing to avoid the man’s face, despite the man con­tin­u­ing to reach out to him.

Some peo­ple com­pared Charles’ response that of the “Sesame Street” char­ac­ter Rosita inci­dent from ear­li­er in the sum­mer. It took place at the Sesame Place theme park on the out­skirts of Philadelphia when one of the adult cos­tumed actors play­ing the role of Rosita seemed to snub two lit­tle Black girls vying for her atten­tion dur­ing a parade. The inci­dent was caught on cell phone video and shared with the world via social media.

The con­tro­ver­sy comes after the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, an African-American mar­ried into the roy­al fam­i­ly, spoke about the dis­crim­i­na­tion she expe­ri­enced as the first bira­cial per­son to mar­ry into the senior branch of the British monarchy.

Markle, while not nam­ing names, has pre­vi­ous­ly spo­ken out about peo­ple being wor­ried about the com­plex­ion of her son before he was born.

The cur­rent hand­shake débâ­cle punc­tu­ates an ear­li­er hand­shake con­tro­ver­sy where sev­er­al refused to shake hands with Markle as she joined her hus­band, Prince Harry, and her in-laws, the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate, as they greet­ed mourn­ers who gath­ered out­side of Windsor Castle in England to hon­or the late Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 10.

Still, many believe the King Charles inci­dent was not a snub but sim­ply a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty based on an over­whelm­ing demand to greet him.

One per­son on social media said, “King Charles III shook the hands of many black peo­ple on that day.”

Another per­son said, “He even­tu­al­ly acknowl­edged him by touch­ing him now, Nawa oh. Obviously, he was dis­tract­ed as he got to them but he did acknowl­edge him just like he did his neighbor.”

http://Another per­son said, “He even­tu­al­ly acknowl­edged him by touch­ing him now, Nawa oh. Obviously, he was dis­tract­ed as he got to them but he did acknowl­edge him just like he did his neighbor.”

After 70 years of reign­ing as the United Kingdom’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest on Sept. 19, but just min­utes after her death was announced on Sept. 8, there were calls for her to return some of the roy­al fam­i­ly jew­els from South Africa.

Two pieces of the largest dia­mond ever dis­cov­ered are affixed in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter and the Imperial State Crown. The Star of Africa, or Cullinan, is a 530-carat fine-qual­i­ty col­or­less dia­mond, the largest cut of its kind in the world. It is mount­ed in the scepter and worth an esti­mat­ed $400 mil­lion. The Star of Africa II, or Cullinan II, is 317-carat dia­mond is in the crown. It is unclear how much the sec­ond dia­mond is worth.

Hours before her death, the Twitter account African Archives shared a pic­ture of the queen in the Imperial State Crown ref­er­enc­ing the big­ger dia­mond also known as “The Great Star of Africa” as “stolen” from South Africa. The tweet went viral and picked up speed after news of Elizabeth II’s death broke.

“We need what’s ours,” wrote Twitter user, @Lxngelo, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

The two gems were cut from a 3,106-carat dia­mond that was found in Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. It is the largest dia­mond dis­cov­ered, weigh­ing 1.33 pounds, accord­ing to History​.com. It was report­ed­ly pre­sent­ed to the reign­ing British monarch, King Edward VII, Elizabeth II’s great-grand­fa­ther, for his birth­day in 1907. The gov­ern­ment of a for­mer South African province, Transvaal, report­ed­ly gift­ed the dia­mond to Edward VII a year after Britain restored its inter­nal self-government.

Many believed that the full dia­mond, worth $2 bil­lion by some esti­mates, was stolen from indige­nous South Africans. Transvaal was over­whelm­ing­ly Boer, South Africans of Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent. The dia­mond was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the own­er of the mine, a white man who was born in the British colony Cape Colony.

“She wore this a cen­tu­ry lat­er in a time when the descen­dants of those minework­ers live the lega­cy of that plun­der, still earn a pit­tance and get slaugh­tered at Marikana for demand­ing human stan­dards of work­ing and liv­ing,” wrote Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, an African edu­ca­tor and researcher.

Two Boer provinces, includ­ing Transvaal, fought for their free­dom from Britain from 1899 to 1902. The British gov­ern­ment says the gift sym­bol­ized the heal­ing rela­tion­ship between the two coun­tries after the wars“The British claim that it was giv­en to them as a sym­bol of friend­ship and peace yet it was dur­ing colo­nial­ism. The British then replaced the name ‘The Great Star of Africa’ with name of Chairman of Mine ‘Thomas Cullinan,’” Africa Archives wrote.

The roy­al fam­i­ly has used the scepter in every coro­na­tion since 1661. The Imperial State Crown was made for King George VI in 1937 and is worn by the monarch when leav­ing Westminster Abbey after each coro­na­tion and on spe­cial occa­sions, includ­ing the open­ing of par­lia­ment. Luis Botha, who would become the first prime min­is­ter of the Union of South Africa, peti­tioned in 1907 that the dia­mond be pur­chased for £150,000, or near­ly $173,000, and pre­sent­ed to the British

The whole dia­mond was cut into nine large stones and about 100 small­er ones, accord­ing to Britannica. The queen also report­ed­ly owned the next two biggest stones in her brooch, known as “Granny Chips.”

During a 1995 vis­it to South Africa, Black town­ship lead­ers called on Elizabeth II to return the Great Star of Africa. The Azanian People’s Organization claimed the dia­mond was “stolen from the trea­sures of the Azanian (African) soil.”

“She must be remind­ed that the dia­mond belongs to the Black peo­ple of this coun­try, and to them alone,” said Azapo spokesper­son Zithulele Nxawe.

Buckingham Palace replied with a reminder that the dia­mond was a “gift.”

Although, the U.K. and some parts of the Commonwealth have declared a peri­od of mourn­ing lead­ing up to Elizabeth II’s funer­al, many said they could not feel sor­row for the queen’s death in light of her indul­gence in the pletho­ra of wealth the roy­al fam­i­ly accu­mu­lat­ed from col­o­niza­tion and nev­er acknowl­edg­ing the atroc­i­ties behind them. Some South Africans are urg­ing King Charles III, Elizabeth II’s suc­ces­sor, to return the jewels.

“We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth, because to us her death is a reminder of a very trag­ic peri­od in this coun­try and Africa’s his­to­ry. Britain, under the lead­er­ship of the roy­al fam­i­ly, took over con­trol of this ter­ri­to­ry that would become South Africa in 1795 from Batavian con­trol, and took per­ma­nent con­trol of the ter­ri­to­ry in 1806,” said Economic Freedom Fighters, a pan-Africanist polit­i­cal par­ty in South Africa, in a statement.

“From that moment onwards, native peo­ple of this land have nev­er known peace, nor have they ever enjoyed the fruits of the rich­es of this land, rich­es which were and still are uti­lized for the enrich­ment of the British roy­al fam­i­ly and those who look like them.”