If you are Black, have a family, and live in the United States but want to discuss sports and movies with me but have no clue about what is happening around you otherwise.
Do me a favor, miss me with the questions on sports and movies. I am not your guy. (mb)

By Andrew Wolfson

Former Louisville Metro Police Detective Kelly Goodlett will plead guilty to one count of con­spir­ing to vio­late the civ­il rights of Breonna Taylor for help­ing fal­si­fy an affi­davit for the search of her apart­ment in March 2020, her attor­ney said. 

Goodlett will appear Aug. 22 before U.S. District Judge David Hall to enter her plea, her lawyer, Brandon Marshall, announced in court Friday.

Magistrate Judge Regina Edwards ordered Goodlett to sur­ren­der her pass­port and have no con­tact with her code­fen­dants ― Sgt. Kyle Meany and for­mer detec­tives Joshua Jaynes and Brett Hankison.

Goodlett was expect­ed to plead guilty ― and tes­ti­fy against her col­leagues ― because she was charged by infor­ma­tion rather than indicted.

LATEST:Feds charge 4 Louisville police offi­cers in Breonna Taylor shooting

She faces a sen­tence of no more than five years in prison.

The charg­ing doc­u­ment says Goodlett false­ly claimed a postal inspec­tor had ver­i­fied Taylor was receiv­ing pack­ages for her ex-boyfriend, con­vict­ed drug deal­er Jamarcus Glover, at her apart­ment before the raid

Goodlett, a detec­tive in the now-dis­band­ed Place-Based Investigations, also is charged with know­ing­ly con­spir­ing with Jaynes and oth­ers to fal­si­fy the search war­rant affidavit.

She is also accused of false­ly telling inves­ti­ga­tors with the Kentucky Attorney General’s office that Sgt. John Mattingly “in pass­ing” had told Goodlett and Jaynes that three months before Taylor’s death that Glover was get­ting mail or Amazon pack­age at her apartment

And she is accused of meet­ing with Jaynes in his garage after local TV sta­tion WDRB report­ed the claim about the postal inspec­tor was bogus so she and Jayne could “get on the same page.”

Jayne and Meany also face civ­il rights charges for the search that end­ed in Taylor’s death while Hankison is charged with vio­lat­ing the civ­il rights of Taylor; her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker; and three of Taylor’s neigh­bors; by blind­ly fir­ing shots into her apartment.

Taylor was killed dur­ing a police raid on her Louisville apart­ment when Walker, think­ing an intrud­er was break­ing in, fired one shot that hit Mattingly in the leg. He and Cosgrove returned fire, killing Taylor.

She was 26, and her death set off protests that last­ed for months in Louisville and across the country. 

Crime is essen­tial­ly a social issue, but it also grows expo­nen­tial­ly where there’s tol­er­ance for it, then it becomes cultural.
In the United States, for exam­ple, most of the crim­i­nal activ­i­ties in and around large and small cities may be traced direct­ly to struc­tur­al builtins cre­at­ed by the gov­ern­ment along racial lines…
In the black com­mu­ni­ty, for exam­ple, schools are sub­stan­dard, hous­ing is sub­stan­dard, health care and facil­i­ties are sub­stan­dard, and polic­ing ser­vices are not only sub­stan­dard, but they are also a direct cause of parts of the com­mu­ni­ty’s refusal to be a part of the con­sent between police and the com­mu­ni­ty that makes polic­ing work.
Here are some alarm­ing facts accord­ing to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​-​i​n​v​o​k​e​s​-​t​h​e​-​5​t​h​-​a​t​-​t​i​s​h​-​j​a​m​e​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​-​b​u​t​-​w​a​i​t​-​w​h​at/

♦ African American stu­dents are less like­ly than white stu­dents to access col­lege-ready cours­es. In fact, in 2011-12, only 57 per­cent of black stu­dents had access to a full range of math and sci­ence cours­es nec­es­sary for col­lege readi­ness, com­pared to 81 per­cent of Asian American stu­dents and 71 per­cent of white students.

♦ Even when black stu­dents do have access to hon­ors or advanced place­ment cours­es, they are vast­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed in these cours­es. Black and Latino stu­dents rep­re­sent 38 per­cent of stu­dents in schools that offer AP cours­es, but only 29 per­cent of stu­dents enrolled in at least one AP course. Black and Latino stu­dents also have less access to gift­ed and tal­ent­ed edu­ca­tion pro­grams than white students.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​3​5​9​864 – 2/

♦African American stu­dents are often locat­ed in schools with less qual­i­fied teach­ers, teach­ers with low­er salaries, and novice teachers.

♦ Research has shown evi­dence of sys­tem­at­ic bias in teacher expec­ta­tions for African American stu­dents, and non-black teach­ers were found to have low­er expec­ta­tions of black stu­dents than black teachers.

♦ African American stu­dents are less like­ly to be col­lege-ready. In fact, 61 per­cent of ACT-test­ed black stu­dents in the 2015 high school grad­u­at­ing class met none of the four ACT col­lege readi­ness bench­marks, near­ly twice the 31 per­cent rate for all students.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​d​o​n​a​l​d​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​p​o​i​s​o​n​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​c​o​u​n​t​r​y​-​b​u​t​-​m​o​s​t​-​i​m​p​o​r​t​a​n​t​l​y​-​p​e​r​h​a​p​s​-​h​e​-​p​o​i​s​o​n​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​f​e​d​e​r​a​l​-​j​u​d​i​c​i​a​ry/

♦ Black stu­dents spend less time in the class­room due to dis­ci­pline, which fur­ther hin­ders their access to qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. Black stu­dents are near­ly two times as like­ly to be sus­pend­ed with­out edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices as white stu­dents. Black stu­dents are also 3.8 times as like­ly to receive one or more out-of-school sus­pen­sions as white stu­dents. In addi­tion, black chil­dren rep­re­sent 19 per­cent of the nation’s pre-school pop­u­la­tion, yet 47 per­cent of those receiv­ing more than one out-of-school sus­pen­sion. In com­par­i­son, white stu­dents rep­re­sent 41 per­cent of pre-school enroll­ment but only 28 per­cent of those receiv­ing more than one out-of-school sus­pen­sion. Even more trou­bling, black stu­dents are 2.3 times as like­ly to receive a refer­ral to law enforce­ment or be sub­ject to a school-relat­ed arrest as white students.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​s​a​m​u​e​l​-​a​l​i​t​o​-​g​l​o​a​t​s​-​c​h​a​s​t​i​s​e​d​-​f​o​r​e​i​g​n​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​o​v​e​r​t​u​r​n​i​n​g​-​r​oe/

These are not acci­den­tal facts; they are well thought out, well-exe­cut­ed strate­gies designed to dis­rupt and deny black stu­dents’ progress, with the ulti­mate goal of direct­ing our young peo­ple into the prison indus­tri­al complex.
In her riv­et­ing book titled “The New Jim Crow,” Attorney, Author, Activist, and Academic Michelle Alexander lays out suc­cinct­ly how this das­tard­ly sys­tem crim­i­nal­izes young black chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly males.
Young black men who are sub­ject­ed to the fore­gone are at tremen­dous risk of end­ing up ensnared in the trap of the for-prof­it prison indus­tri­al complex.
The result is fathers removed from black homes, sub­ject­ing their chil­dren to the full raft of neg­a­tive con­se­quences asso­ci­at­ed with that trauma.
This results in a con­tin­u­ous cycle of neg­a­tiv­i­ty, the type that has plagued the African American com­mu­ni­ty since after Reconstruction, the peri­od after slav­ery when the laws of the sec­ond act of slav­ery were designed.
Crime in the Black com­mu­ni­ty that is decried, politi­cized, and racial­ized is a con­struct; it is not acci­den­tal. It is mere­ly one of the results of deep plan­ning, the same we are wit­ness­ing today in vot­ing and oth­er areas by the polit­i­cal right.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​e​x​a​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​w​e​r​e​-​l​o​o​k​i​n​g​-​f​o​r​-​t​e​e​n​-​s​u​s​p​e​c​t​s​-​b​u​t​-​t​h​e​y​-​i​n​s​t​e​a​d​-​d​e​t​a​i​n​e​d​-​a​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​o​u​p​l​e​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​5​0​s​-​a​n​d​-​6​0​s​-​a​t​-​g​u​n​p​o​i​n​t​-​l​a​w​s​u​i​t​-​s​a​ys/

The Reconstruction era was a peri­od in American his­to­ry fol­low­ing the American Civil War; it last­ed from 1865 to 1877.
The Compromise of 1877 was an infor­mal agree­ment between south­ern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to set­tle the result of the 1876 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and marked the end of the Reconstruction era. 
Immediately after the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 1876, it became clear that the out­come of the race hinged large­ly on dis­put­ed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina–the only three states in the South with Reconstruction-era Republican gov­ern­ments still in pow­er. As a bipar­ti­san con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion debat­ed over the out­come ear­ly in 1877, allies of the Republican Party can­di­date Rutherford Hayes met in secret with mod­er­ate south­ern Democrats in order to nego­ti­ate accep­tance of Hayes’ election. 
The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ vic­to­ry on the con­di­tion that Republicans with­draw all fed­er­al troops from the South, thus con­sol­i­dat­ing Democratic con­trol over the region. As a result of the so-called Compromise of 1877 (or Compromise of 1876), Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina became Democratic once again, effec­tive­ly bring­ing an end to the Reconstruction era. (History​.com)
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​l​o​u​i​s​i​a​n​a​-​a​t​t​o​r​n​e​y​-​g​e​n​e​r​a​l​-​d​r​o​p​s​-​c​h​a​r​g​e​s​-​a​g​a​i​n​s​t​-​a​a​r​o​n​-​b​o​w​m​a​n​-​a​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​s​t​r​u​c​k​-​1​8​-​t​i​m​e​s​-​w​i​th/

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

By the 1870s, sup­port was wan­ing for the racial­ly egal­i­tar­i­an poli­cies of Reconstruction, a series of laws put in place after the Civil War to pro­tect the rights of African Americans, espe­cial­ly in the South. Many south­ern whites had resort­ed to intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence to keep blacks from vot­ing and restore white suprema­cy in the region.
I will stop here; suf­fice to say that as we wit­ness a near-total dis­in­te­gra­tion of rights and free­doms in the United States as peo­ple of col­or, let us revis­it two con­cepts, (1) the idea that we are mak­ing progress, that we must be patient for the time when all peo­ple are treat­ed equal­ly, and (2) Dr. Martin Luther King’s charge to be wary of what he called the tran­quil drug of gradualism.
The sons and daugh­ters of slavers, rapists, and mur­der­ers are not about to sud­den­ly become great peo­ple. Believe they will have at your own peril.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​n​o​t​h​e​r​-​u​n​a​r​m​e​d​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​d​-​b​y​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​h​i​s​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​s​h​o​p​l​i​f​t​i​ng/

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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.

Even after the dis­cov­ery of an arrest war­rant and an unpub­lished mem­oir, the woman behind Emmett Till‘s lynch­ing has yet again avoid­ed pros­e­cu­tion. A grand jury on Tuesday declined to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused Emmett of mak­ing a pass at her in 1955 in Mississippi dur­ing the Jim Crow Era. Leflore County dis­trict attor­ney Dewayne Richardson said the grand jury heard more than sev­en hours of tes­ti­mo­ny from inves­ti­ga­tors and wit­ness­es last week and decid­ed there wasn’t enough evi­dence to pur­sue charges against Donham. (According to StlantaBlackstar).

Donham’s hus­band and broth­er-in-law were arrest­ed then acquit­ted for Emmett’s mur­der in 1955. Parker said Emmett whis­tled at the woman at her fam­i­ly store. She told her hus­band about the encounter, set­ting off the dead­ly attack. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam admit­ted to kid­nap­ping, tor­tur­ing and beat­ing the teenag­er before tying him to a gin fan and dump­ing his body in a riv­er. Donham told the court dur­ing her husband’s tri­al that the boy held her hand and told her he had been with oth­er white women.

A Black elder­ly cou­ple has filed a law­suit against a Texas police depart­ment after they said police vio­lent­ly arrest­ed them at gun­point while search­ing for teenage sus­pects. Attorneys for 67-year-old Michael Lewis and his girl­friend, 57-year-old Regina Armstead, said the Rosenberg Police Department used exces­sive force dur­ing the November 2020 arrest. “What they went through was incred­i­bly demean­ing and dehu­man­iz­ing and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” attor­ney Lauren Bonds told Insider. The law­suit said that five RPD offi­cers were search­ing for a group of Black teenagers who were sus­pect­ed of bran­dish­ing weapons and assault when they pulled over Lewis and Armstead. 

A Black elder­ly cou­ple has filed a law­suit against a Texas police depart­ment after they said police vio­lent­ly arrest­ed them at gun­point while search­ing for teenage sus­pects. Attorneys for 67-year-old Michael Lewis and his girl­friend, 57-year-old Regina Armstead, said the Rosenberg Police Department used exces­sive force dur­ing the November 2020 arrest. “What they went through was incred­i­bly demean­ing and dehu­man­iz­ing and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” attor­ney Lauren Bonds told Insider. The law­suit said that five RPD offi­cers were search­ing for a group of Black teenagers who were sus­pect­ed of bran­dish­ing weapons and assault when they pulled over Lewis and Armstead. 

We both feared for our lives’

After Armstead was placed in the back of a police vehi­cle, “four armed offi­cers — includ­ing one hold­ing an assault rifle — then ordered Mr. Lewis out of the vehi­cle and told him to get on the ground,” the law­suit said. “I was pray­ing to God that the guns did­n’t go off on us because when you point guns at some­body like that, you nev­er know,” Lewis told Insider. The offi­cers cuffed Lewis despite his med­ical objec­tions and placed him in a sep­a­rate police car while they searched Armstead’s vehi­cle and con­fis­cat­ed her cell phone with­out expla­na­tion, said the law­suit, which accus­es RPD of ille­gal search and seizure, unlaw­ful deten­tion, and false arrest. “That was real scary. I tell you, it real­ly was. I feared for my life. I real­ly did, and Regina too,” Lewis said. “We both feared for our lives. Because, like I said, a gun could have went off.”

The law­suit said that after offi­cers found “no weapons, no con­tra­band, and no oth­er evi­dence of ille­gal activ­i­ty” in Armstead’s vehi­cle, she and Lewis were uncuffed. Armstead asked why they had been stopped and searched, and an offi­cer said they were search­ing for teenage sus­pects, the law­suit said. Armstead lat­er real­ized she did not have her cell phone or her keys, the law­suit said. They returned to the scene to col­lect Armstead’s phone from an offi­cer and dis­cov­ered their key fob, which had been tossed out the win­dow at police instruc­tion, was crushed. RPD said they would reim­burse Armstead for the key fob, but they did not, the law­suit said. Both Armstead and Lewis “felt fright­ened, humil­i­at­ed, embar­rassed, and per­se­cut­ed for being Black, and suf­fered severe men­tal anguish from the arrest and from being detained,” said the law­suit, which claims offi­cers vio­lat­ed the Fourth Amendment and the Americans With Disabilities Act. “As a result of the hand­cuff­ing dur­ing his arrest, Mr. Lewis’s med­ical device in his wrist mal­func­tioned. This result­ed in three sep­a­rate med­ical pro­ce­dures to replace his fis­tu­la. These pro­ce­dures caused pro­longed pain and suf­fer­ing to Mr. Lewis,” the law­suit said. Bonds, Lewis and Armstead’s attor­ney, said she hopes “to see if we can get them some account­abil­i­ty and jus­tice.” A spokesper­son for RPD did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to Insider’s request for comment.
(This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @ Insider​.com)

Editor’s note

These indict­ments have kin­dled some hope in me for the Merrick Garland Justice Department, and at the same time, it should shine a light on some­thing that I have said repeat­ed­ly, local pros­e­cu­tors and attor­ney gen­er­als can­not be trust­ed to do the right thing when it comes to inves­ti­gat­ing and pros­e­cut­ing police crimes. That includes Black prosecutors.
Far too often, we see pros­e­cu­tors who work close­ly with cops local­ly, or are afraid of police unions becom­ing the lag­ging edge rather than the lead­ing edge in crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions of crim­i­nal cops.
The fact there is a fed­er­al indict­ment of these offi­cers demon­strates once again that this prac­tice of allow­ing local­ly taint­ed pros­e­cu­tors and attor­ney gen­er­als to be the final arbiters of whether crim­i­nal charges are war­rant­ed goes against the grain of com­mon sense.
It also demon­strates to Black folks that black-skinned folks are not always kin-folks.

Here we have a black-skinned folk, in actu­al­i­ty a coon, refus­ing to fol­low the law because he is a Trump stoolie, he is a dis­grace who should be boot­ed from office.(mb)

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​u​r​n​s​-​o​u​t​-​t​h​e​-​g​r​a​n​d​-​j​u​r​y​-​h​e​a​r​d​-​n​o​-​e​v​i​d​e​n​c​e​-​o​n​-​w​h​i​c​h​-​t​o​-​c​o​n​s​i​d​e​r​-​c​h​a​r​g​i​n​g​-​c​o​p​s​-​i​n​-​b​r​e​o​n​n​a​-​t​a​y​l​o​r​s​-​c​a​se/

Four cur­rent and for­mer Louisville police offi­cers have been arrest­ed for their roles in a botched search war­rant that was exe­cut­ed at the home of Breonna Taylor and result­ed in her death. Kelly Goodlett, Joshua Jaynes, Kyle Meany, and Brett Hankison face fed­er­al charges, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday morn­ing. The offi­cers were charged with civ­il rights offens­es, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al use of force, obstruc­tion, and con­spir­a­cy, Garland said. Garland said he spoke with Taylor’s fam­i­ly to noti­fy them of the arrests.

“I share but can­not imag­ine the grief of the fam­i­ly and loved ones of Breonna Taylor from events that result­ed in her death … Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” Garland said. Ben Crump, an attor­ney who spe­cial­izes in civ­il rights and has rep­re­sent­ed Taylor’s fam­i­ly, com­mend­ed the announce­ment of the charges.

“This day is about (Taylor’s moth­er Tamika Palmer), her fam­i­ly,” Crump said. “It’s about Breonna, and all the oth­er Breonnas across America. The Black women who have been denied jus­tice through­out the his­to­ry of this coun­try when they have been abused, assault­ed, mur­dered, raped, and dis­re­gard­ed. “Because of Breonna Taylor, we can say this is a day that Black women saw equal jus­tice in the United States of America.” A court record filed Thursday indi­cates Goodlett was charged with con­spir­a­cy. Conspiracy charges against Jaynes, anoth­er for­mer detec­tive, were also men­tioned in the court record. He was fired from the posi­tion in 2021

According to court doc­u­ments, both Goodlett and Jaynes know­ing­ly fal­si­fied an affi­davit to get a search war­rant for Breonna Taylor’s home where she was killed when police exe­cut­ing the search war­rant fired 32 total shots. Officers fired after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them with a legal­ly-owned gun because he thought they were intrud­ers break­ing into Taylor’s apart­ment. The court record alleges that both Goodlett and Jaynes put false and mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion in the affi­davit in order to get the war­rant. The war­rant was one of five obtained by inves­ti­ga­tors who were look­ing into poten­tial drug traf­fick­ing in Louisville, accord­ing to the Department of Justice. The pri­ma­ry tar­get of the inves­ti­ga­tion was Jamarcus Glover, a man who had been pre­vi­ous­ly arrest­ed for com­mit­ting drug offenses

Police doc­u­ments that alleged Taylor was con­nect­ed to drug crimes of her ex-boyfriend, Glover, were obtained by media out­lets. In the doc­u­ments, police out­lined their case for exe­cut­ing a no-knock war­rant at Taylor’s apart­ment, cit­ing jail­house phone calls and oth­er sur­veil­lance tying her to Glover and sus­pect­ed drug activ­i­ty. Glover indi­cat­ed in record­ed jail calls that Taylor was hold­ing mon­ey for him, but he said in a lat­er call from the jail that he didn’t under­stand why police would search her apart­ment. He said the only thing tying him to her house was “bonds,” an appar­ent ref­er­ence to pri­or bond pay­ments made for him by Taylor, accord­ing to the Courier-Journal. In an inter­view with the Courier-Journal, Glover said that the infor­ma­tion police used to tie Taylor to the drug activ­i­ty was mis­lead­ing and incorrect

The offi­cers who car­ried out the war­rant at Taylor’s home were not aware the infor­ma­tion had been fal­si­fied, accord­ing to the Department of Justice. Officials from the Department of Justice said Thursday that Goodlett and Jaynes alleged­ly con­spired to cov­er up the fact that they’d use false and mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion to get the war­rant. In nar­ra­tives list­ed in court records, around March 10 or 11, 2020, Jaynes sent Goodlett a draft of the affi­davit which claimed he ver­i­fied from a postal inspec­tor that illic­it pack­ages were being received at Taylor’s address. Court records allege that Goodlett knew the claim was false. “Despite know­ing that this alle­ga­tion was false, (Goodlett) failed to change the state­ment or object to it,” court records state. After Taylor’s death, Goodlett and Jaynes alleged­ly called, texted and met with each oth­er to dis­cuss the false infor­ma­tion and coör­di­nate a cov­er sto­ry, accord­ing to court records. The two met in a garage on the evening of May 17 and stat­ed they need­ed to “get on the same page because they could both go down for putting false infor­ma­tion in the Springfield Drive war­rant affi­davit.” After an inves­ti­ga­tion at the state lev­el, Hankison was pre­vi­ous­ly the only offi­cer charged over the shoot­ing. He was found not guilty on wan­ton endan­ger­ment charges. Garland said Thursday the Justice Department brings charges “when we believe sub­stan­tial fed­er­al inter­ests have not been vin­di­cat­ed and need to be vin­di­cat­ed.” Hankison and Jaynes had pre­vi­ous­ly been fired from the depart­ment pri­or to Thursday’s announce­ment. The Justice Department said the Louisville Metro Police Department is still under a fed­er­al civ­il inves­ti­ga­tion sep­a­rate from the charges announced Thursday.(From the Herald Leader)