By Mark Osbourne & Billy Hutchinson

Thomas Lane, one of the for­mer Minneapolis police offi­cers involved in George Floyd’s killing, has plead­ed guilty to sec­ond-degree manslaugh­ter, accord­ing to the Minnesota attor­ney general.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison said the plea agree­ment reached with Lane rep­re­sents an “impor­tant step toward heal­ing the wounds of the Floyd fam­i­ly, our com­mu­ni­ty, and the nation.

Lane, 38, had been sched­uled to go to tri­al next month in state court along with his for­mer Minneapolis police col­leagues J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao.

All three defen­dants were con­vict­ed in February by a fed­er­al jury on charges of vio­lat­ing George Floyd’s civ­il rights by fail­ing to inter­vene or pro­vide med­ical aid as their senior offi­cer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on the back of the hand­cuffed 46-year-old Black man’s neck for more than nine min­utes in the May 25, 2020, incident.

The seem­ing­ly irra­tional feal­ty to Donald Trump by a large seg­ment of the American pop­u­la­tion and the mur­der of peo­ple of col­or both by police and oth­er dis­grun­tled white nation­al­ists must be viewed against the back­ground of the fight by Republicans to end non-white immi­gra­tion and Roe v Wade as the cen­ter­pieces of their agenda.
That agen­da is under­pinned by a des­per­ate attempt to stop the flow of dark-skinned peo­ple into the United States on the one hand and force white women to stop hav­ing abor­tions on the other.
What is behind those two issues, you ask? A mani­a­cal desire to increase the birthrate of whites and lim­it the fur­ther brown­ing of America.
Behind the mani­a­cal effort to force white women to bring to term babies, their fathers and uncles fathered, and worse, bring­ing to term the offspring/​s of rapists is about increas­ing the num­ber of whites and decreas­ing the num­bers of every­one else.
Republican Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts declared on Sunday morn­ing that he wants his state to pass a law ban­ning all abor­tion with no excep­tions for incest or rape, stat­ing that it’s his “inten­tion” to call a spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion to take “fur­ther steps” to “pro­tect pre­born babies.”

For years they pre­tend­ed that this was about reli­gion, and they man­aged to bring evan­gel­i­cals along; even some Black Christians signed on to the idea of anti-choice because they believed as they were told that they would burn in hell for ter­mi­nat­ing a pregnancy.
However, black folks would start to awak­en to the truth as race rela­tions in America con­tin­ued to dete­ri­o­rate. So much for the post-racial America that was sup­posed to suc­ceed Barack Obama’s presidency.
The sense of urgency that dri­ves the polit­i­cal right and the poten­tial over­turn­ing of the almost five decades old Roe V Wade deci­sion and the January 2021 assault on Congress comes from the knowl­edge they have that, giv­en time; white suprema­cy will be unten­able based on the nation’s demo­graph­ic changes.
ACCORDING TO NEW CENSUS DATA, William H. Frey, Senior Fellow — Brookings Metro, wrote, “The nation is diver­si­fy­ing even faster than pre­dict­ed.” The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its last batch of race-eth­nic pop­u­la­tion esti­mates in advance of the 2020 cen­sus, with data indi­cat­ing that the nation­al head­count will reveal a more diverse nation than was pre­vi­ous­ly expect­ed. The new esti­mates show that near­ly four of 10 Americans iden­ti­fy with a race or eth­nic group oth­er than white and sug­gest that the 2010 to 2020 decade will be the first in the nation’s his­to­ry in which the white pop­u­la­tion declined in numbers.
The declin­ing white pop­u­la­tion share is per­va­sive across the nation. Since 2010, the white pop­u­la­tion share declined in all 50 states. Most note­wor­thy is the increased diver­si­ty in the younger por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion. In 2019, more than half of the nation’s pop­u­la­tion under age 16 iden­ti­fied as a racial or eth­nic minor­i­ty for the first time. Among this group, Latino or Hispanic and Black res­i­dents togeth­er com­prise near­ly 40% of the population.

Right-lean­ing pub­li­ca­tions like the wall street jour­nal, the Atlantic, and oth­ers have rub­bished the idea that whites are des­tined to become a minor­i­ty to a coa­lesced minority.
The Journal’s John J. Miller, in 2021, in an essay titled; ‘Majority Minority’ America? Don’t Bet on It”, wrote: Remember the “coali­tion of the ascen­dant”? National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein invent­ed the phrase in 2008 to describe the “grow­ing ele­ments of American soci­ety” that had elect­ed Barack Obama and giv­en Democrats com­mand­ing majori­ties in both con­gres­sion­al hous­es: “young peo­ple, Hispanics, and oth­er minori­ties, and white upper-mid­dle-class pro­fes­sion­als.” Republican suc­cess­es in 2010, 2014, and 2016 called the coalition’s dura­bil­i­ty into ques­tion. But the 2020 elec­tion— Joe Biden’s vic­to­ry notwith­stand­ing — may pro­vide the great­est rea­son to doubt it. Compared with 2016, President Trump and con­gres­sion­al Republicans improved their stand­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly among Hispanic vot­ers and made small­er strides among oth­er groups, such as Asian-Americans, blacks, and Muslims. https://​www​.wsj​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​m​a​j​o​r​i​t​y​-​m​i​n​o​r​i​t​y​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​-​d​o​n​t​-​b​e​t​-​o​n​-​i​t​-​1​1​6​1​2​5​4​9​609
Miller’s asser­tion is based essen­tial­ly on the mix­ing of races and the chil­dren result­ing from those unions. His asser­tion is premised on the idea that those chil­dren will alter the demo­graph­ics in favor of the present white major­i­ty. An asser­tion that has noth­ing to do with the brown­ing of America yet pur­ports to speak to how vot­ers may vote in the future depend­ing on their assim­i­la­tion into white culture.
White replace­ment the­o­ry is not a fringe idea; it is main­stream Republican ide­ol­o­gy that got Donald Trump elect­ed pres­i­dent of the United States. It was behind the so-called free­dom cau­cus in the US Congress and the intractable oppo­si­tion to President Barack Obama.
It is behind the Republican par­ty’s deci­sion to give up on democ­ra­cy and attach them­selves to the [trumpian] idea of despo­tism. If you can no longer win elec­tions fair­ly, ensure that there are no more free and fair elections.

In the sup­posed lib­er­al bas­tion of New York, Elise Stefanik, the House Republican num­ber three who glee­ful­ly took on the role Liz Chaney had, is a firm believ­er in replace­ment theory.
Stefanik’s Facebook ads, which prompt­ed a scathing edi­to­r­i­al in her home­town news­pa­per, accused “rad­i­cal Democrats” of plan­ning what she called a “per­ma­nent elec­tion insur­rec­tion” and said their plan to “grant amnesty to 11 mil­lion undoc­u­ment­ed peo­ple would over­throw our cur­rent elec­torate and cre­ate a per­ma­nent lib­er­al major­i­ty in Washington.
Asked by CNN’S Manu Raju if she repu­di­at­ed replace­ment the­o­ry, Stefanik said: “I’ve nev­er made a racist com­ment.”
That exchange came after Illinois Senator Dick Durbin called out elect­ed offi­cials who “jump at the chance to get fea­tured on [Tucker] Carlson’s show and echo his white suprema­cist blath­er, his dark gospel of fear and hate and racism.”(according to Newsweek)
The American farm­land has always been fer­tile soil in which racism and geno­cide would thrive. From the igno­ble insti­tu­tion of slav­ery to Jim Crowe in the South to the more sub­tle insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism in the North-East and across the length and breadth of America, racism has been America’s shame.
From April 12^th, 1861, to May 13^th, 1865, Americans fought each oth­er in a bloody civ­il war that would end slav­ery on the books, per se. By the time the shoot­ing war sub­sided, an esti­mat­ed 620,000 peo­ple lay dead, vic­tims of an incor­ri­gi­ble and unright­eous sys­tem that demand­ed blood for its sustenance.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​l​i​k​e​-​r​u​p​e​r​t​-​m​u​r​d​o​c​k​-​e​l​o​n​-​m​u​s​k​-​i​n​t​e​n​d​s​-​t​o​-​c​a​s​h​-​i​n​-​o​n​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​n​-​r​a​c​i​sm/

America learned noth­ing from that blood­shed; instead of cleans­ing itself of the stench of igno­rance and hate, it dou­bled down by build­ing mon­u­ments to the very trai­tors who had tak­en up arms against the nation. All across the coun­try, Legislatures enact­ed laws that were just as oner­ous as slav­ery and, in some cas­es, even more so.
Present-day America oper­ates as a nor­mal soci­ety but under­neath that faux exte­ri­or lies the ugly mon­ster of shared igno­rance and hatred that has char­ac­ter­ized this nation through its existence.
It should have come as no sur­prise that rapa­cious vul­tures would seek to unearth the stink­ing car­cass of racism and seek to prof­it from it. Unfortunately, the main­stream media in America but for a few jour­nal­ists, are all con­sumed with fluff and friv­o­li­ty to con­tin­ue bring­ing these impor­tant facts to the fore for well think­ing Americans.
And so now that we are see­ing the bloody con­se­quence of what the hate machine known as FOX is doing to the lives of inno­cent Black and Brown peo­ple, it is impor­tant to say I warned that Rupert Murdock was destroy­ing America.
I told you so, now every media house is talk­ing about Murdoch and his lit­tle min­ions on his hate chan­nel, but the horse is already through the gate, and the well is already poisoned.
The coun­try must leg­is­late its way out of this quag­mire it is in. Legislation can­not stop racist thoughts, but it changes behav­ior. Eventually, those who would use racism as a means to an end will get the message.

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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.

There is no joy or sat­is­fac­tion for me when I bring these atroc­i­ties to your atten­tion, in fact, it pains my heart to do so but even as I try my best to expose these inci­dents of police vio­lence, my attempts do not begin to scratch the sur­face of what’s going on.
Time and again we hear of these inci­dents in which police exe­cute peo­ple sim­ply because they can and suf­fer no con­se­quence. Usually, their vic­tims are Black or brown.
The sad real­i­ty in America is that the pop­u­lar cul­ture of mil­i­ta­rized police and the added cloak of immu­ni­ty cre­at­ed by the Supreme Court has result­ed in a war­rior men­tal­i­ty by police who act with total impuni­ty when they are deal­ing with peo­ple of color.
It does not mat­ter whether their intend­ed tar­get is in his or her own home, 85-years-old, female, or a deaf per­son, much less one suf­fer­ing from a men­tal ail­ment. The bark­ing of orders is fol­lowed by an oblig­a­tory bar­rage of bul­lets killing the intend­ed target.
The bark­ing of orders regard­less of how need­less or unnec­es­sary is law­ful jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for killing whomev­er they want; usu­al­ly some­one Black or Brown.
It is a sick and nau­se­at­ing spec­ta­cle that the world must be awak­ened to. This is what is hap­pen­ing in America. Government agents are com­mit­ting geno­cide on the peo­ple they hate and arrest­ing with dig­ni­ty white mass murderers.(MB)

Two for­mer cops have been charged in the 2021 police slay­ing of a Black man in Lawton, Oklahoma.

An admin­is­tra­tive inves­ti­ga­tion con­tend­ed both offi­cers did not fol­low the department’s “well-estab­lished train­ing pro­to­cols, poli­cies, prac­tices, cus­toms or pro­ce­dures” dur­ing the alter­ca­tion, lead­ing to first-degree manslaugh­ter charges announced last week. USA Today reports an Aug. 1 hear­ing has been sched­uled for for­mer Lawton offi­cers Robert Hinkle, 30, and Nathan Ronan, 29, after District Attorney Kyle Cabelka charged them for the death of Quadry Sanders, 29.
The announce­ment was made on Friday, May 6. Cabelka said in a state­ment, “The Comanche County District Attorney’s Office has made the deter­mi­na­tion that the shoot­ing of Quadry Sanders was not jus­ti­fied. An inves­ti­ga­tion into the slay­ing, head­ed by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations, last­ed months.

The fatal encounter began on Dec. 5, 2021, when Ronan and Hinkle respond­ed to a 911 call where a female caller iden­ti­fied Sanders as a per­son wav­ing a gun in someone’s house and refus­ing to leave. The offi­cers arrived at the home locat­ed at 1806 NW Lincoln Avenue, near N.W. 18^th St. and N.W. Lincoln Ave.
According to author­i­ties, the offi­cers asked Sanders to exit the res­i­dence, but instead of com­ing out the front, he left from the side door. Reports say Sanders lat­er returned to the prop­er­ty and came to the front where the offi­cers were. This is when the offi­cers shot and killed him, say­ing the three were in a “con­fronta­tion” prompt­ing them to fire their weapons.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation deter­mined the men’s actions war­rant­ed that they be fired.
Hinkle was dis­charged from the LPD for vio­lat­ing the force’s pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dures per­tain­ing to “con­duct and behav­ior, the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to use dead­ly force, dead­ly force, and unsat­is­fac­to­ry performance.
Ronan was dis­charged for also vio­lat­ing pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dures, how­ev­er, his strikes were the fail­ure to per­form “duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties, the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to use dead­ly force, dead­ly force, mobile and body cam video/​audio (not acti­vat­ing body­cam footage).”
Both of the offi­cers dis­obeyed LPD Rules and Regulations – Performance of Duty and City of Lawton Municipal Code – Violations of City Code.

In a state­ment, Lawton City Manager Michael Cleghorn said Ronan and Hinkle’s con­duct was “not in con­for­mance with the Lawton Police Department’s well-estab­lished train­ing pro­to­cols, poli­cies, prac­tices, cus­toms or procedures.”
The charges were announced after video footage of the alter­ca­tion was released. The footage showed Sanders in full com­pli­ance with the orders giv­en him by the two for­mer cops. The footage showed Sanders was only ordered to put his hands up after he was shot four times, and offi­cers con­tin­ued to shoot him despite him obey­ing their commands.
The med­ical exam­in­er list­ed Sanders’ cause of death as “mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.” A total of twelve gun­shot wounds were found on his body (abdomen, groin area, legs, arm, and hand).
Audio from the offi­cers’ body­cam hears them shout­ing at the Black man, “stay down” and “roll over on your stomach.”
It also cap­tures Sanders say­ing, “I’m down” and “I can’t breathe.” No gun was found on Sanders.

Cabelka’s office said 15 rounds were fired at Sanders: 11 rounds by Hinkle and four rounds by Ronan
The offi­cers, who were fired from the depart­ment in January, were arrest­ed. The two were released on a $25,000 bond on Friday. Should they be con­vict­ed for Sanders’ death, they both face a min­i­mum of four years in state prison.
Sanders’ fam­i­ly is being rep­re­sent­ed by S. Lee Merritt, who was not sat­is­fied with the charges, believ­ing they should be upgraded.
On social media, he wrote, “We demand mur­der charges.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation deter­mined the men’s actions war­rant­ed that they be fired.
Hinkle was dis­charged from the LPD for vio­lat­ing the force’s pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dures per­tain­ing to “con­duct and behav­ior, the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to use dead­ly force, dead­ly force, and unsat­is­fac­to­ry performance.
Ronan was dis­charged for also vio­lat­ing pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dures, how­ev­er, his strikes were the fail­ure to per­form “duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties, the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to use dead­ly force, dead­ly force, mobile and body cam video/​audio (not acti­vat­ing body­cam footage).”

Both of the offi­cers dis­obeyed LPD Rules and Regulations – Performance of Duty and City of Lawton Municipal Code – Violations of City Code. Upon see­ing the evi­dence, Merritt said it remind­ed him of the George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery deaths, two cas­es he worked on behalf of their fam­i­lies. I put this video on that lev­el,” he said.
“It real­ly shocks the con­science when you have a chance to see Mr. Sanders lit­er­al­ly doing what­ev­er he could to try to save his own life, and these offi­cers are oper­at­ing with such callousness.”
Merritt lat­er wrote on Instagram he could not “find a sin­gle redeemable fac­tor that mit­i­gates any aspect of this shooting.”
“It was just mur­der. There was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” the cap­tion con­tin­ued. “These men must be pros­e­cut­ed to the fullest extent of the law.”
KSWO reports Merritt will con­tin­ue to push the DA’s office to upgrade the charges to mur­der. Merritt also plans on con­tact­ing the Attorney General and the Department of Justice.
Lawton Mayor Stan Booker said last week, “As the Mayor of Lawton, the loss of life in our com­mu­ni­ty is always a dif­fi­cult mat­ter to grasp. My thoughts and prayers go out to the par­ents and those in our com­mu­ni­ty who lost a loved one in Quadry Sanders.”

“Although this deci­sion and the releas­ing of infor­ma­tion that fol­lowed may pro­vide clar­i­ty to this trag­ic inci­dent, it does not come with­out impact­ing one’s stages of grief and mourn­ing of a lost loved one,” he con­tin­ued. “I believe the Lawton Police Department holds itself to the high­est pos­si­ble stan­dards, and I know it will con­tin­ue to do so mov­ing forward.”
This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @ the Atlanta Black Star, full cred­it belongs to them.

Would this sus­pect have been allowed to sur­ren­der if he was black or would he have been ter­mi­nat­ed in a hail of police bullets?

Ten peo­ple were killed and three oth­ers injured in a “racial­ly moti­vat­ed” shoot­ing at a super­mar­ket in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Black neigh­bor­hood in Buffalo, New York, author­i­ties said. 

Officials said the sus­pect­ed gun­man, a white 18-year-old man, trav­eled sev­er­al hours to Buffalo to car­ry out the attack, which he live-streamed on social media. Eleven of the 13 peo­ple who were shot were Black, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said at a news conference.

The sus­pect was tak­en into cus­tody after the attack, Gramaglia added. 

“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said. “It was a straight-up racial­ly moti­vat­ed hate crime from some­body out­side of our community.”

Gramaglia said the gun­man was wear­ing tac­ti­cal gear and was armed with an assault-styled rifle. He parked out­side the Tops Friendly Market around 2:30 p.m. ET and opened fire in the park­ing lot, killing three peo­ple and injur­ing a fourth. He then went inside and con­tin­ued his ram­page, Gramaglia said.

A retired Buffalo police offi­cer, who was work­ing as a secu­ri­ty guard at the store, con­front­ed the gun­man and shot him. Authorities said the gun­man was hit, but his tac­ti­cal gear pre­vent­ed injury. 

The gun­man returned fire, killing the guard.

The super­mar­ket is about three miles north of down­town Buffalo. The sur­round­ing area is pri­mar­i­ly res­i­den­tial and is sur­round­ed by homes, along with a Family Dollar store, bar­ber shops, a laun­dro­mat and fire sta­tion. Authorities said evi­dence showed the sus­pect showed racial ani­mos­i­ty but declined to elaborate. 

The gun­man made his way through the store, fir­ing at oth­ers before he was met by law enforce­ment near the lob­by. Authorities said the gun­man had his weapon point­ed at his head and author­i­ties were able to nego­ti­ate his surrender.

“I have already called a judge to come down­town imme­di­ate­ly and arraign this indi­vid­ual,” he said. “Within the next hour, this indi­vid­ual will be arraigned on a charge of mur­der in the first degree.”

He declined to say where the sus­pect was from, only say­ing the sus­pect trav­eled hours and lived in the state of New York. 

Authorities say the gun­man livestreamed the attack to social media. The footage shows the gun­man, dressed in mil­i­tary gear, pulling up to the front of the store with a rifle on the front seat and then point­ing the rifle at peo­ple in the park­ing lot as he exit­ed the vehi­cle and open­ing fire, a law enforce­ment offi­cial told the Associated Press.

It also shows the sus­pect walk­ing into the super­mar­ket and shoot­ing sev­er­al oth­er vic­tims, the offi­cial said. 

Authorities were also look­ing into whether he had post­ed a man­i­festo online, the offi­cial said.

Braedyn Kephart and Shane Hill, both 20, said they’d just pulled into the park­ing lot of the store when they saw the alleged gun­man leav­ing and being tak­en into custody.

“He was stand­ing there with the gun to his chin. We were like what the heck is going on? Why does this kid have a gun to his face?” Kephart said. He dropped to his knees. “He ripped off his hel­met, dropped his gun, and was tack­led by the police.”

Police closed off the block, lined by spec­ta­tors, and yel­low police taped sur­round­ed the full park­ing lot. Mayor Byron Brown and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz were at the scene late Saturday after­noon, gath­ered in a park­ing lot across the street from the Tops store and expect­ed to address the media.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is “close­ly mon­i­tor­ing” the shoot­ing and that she has offered assis­tance to those in Buffalo, her home­town, accord­ing to her Twitter account. 

Buffalo is New York’s sec­ond-largest city, with a pop­u­la­tion of more than 278,000 people. 

The shoot­ing came lit­tle more than a year after a March 2021 attack at a King Soopers gro­cery in Boulder, Colorado, that killed 10 people.

Contributing: Diana Dombrowski, Journal News; The Associated Press.

By Nicole Duncan-Smith

After a local Michigan police agency released body­cam footage of offi­cers shoot­ing a 20-year-old man, the com­mu­ni­ty responds with out­rage. As the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues about exces­sive force, offi­cials ques­tion how to police effec­tive­ly while “build­ing pub­lic trust” and “engag­ing in tough conversations.

On Thursday, April 28, the East Lansing Police Oversight Commission vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to demand that the police depart­ment release body­cam video of the Monday, April 25 shoot­ing of an alleged­ly armed sus­pect in a gro­cery store park­ing lot. The depart­ment released the footage by the set dead­line, Thursday, May 5.

Someone report­ed see­ing a man, lat­er iden­ti­fied as DeAnothny VanAtten, in a face mask enter­ing the Lake Lansing Meijer gro­cery store with a firearm. The Lansing State Journal news­pa­per describes the call

Dispatchers relayed the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion to offi­cers: “I have a caller that advised for a 20-year-old Black male, he was wear­ing a yel­low and black jack­et with a mask cov­er­ing his whole face except his eyes, pulled a gun out of his car and went inside the store, caller’s advis­ing that the accused walked in through the gro­cery side,” accord­ing to police scan­ner archives. “He’s not threat­en­ing any­body with it, just walked inside the store.”

The ELPD chief said she released the par­tial video in the spir­it of trans­paren­cy. In a press release, the force’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion arm states, “The video footage released cap­tures the events lead­ing up to the shoot­ing, the shoot­ing itself, and the events imme­di­ate­ly after the shoot­ing. The source videos include body-worn cam­era footage and Meijer secu­ri­ty cam­era footage. Some of the video footage (faces, license plates, and iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion) has been redact­ed/​blurred to ensure privacy.

Police Chief Kim Johnson said, “Building pub­lic trust means remain­ing present in chal­leng­ing times, engag­ing in tough con­ver­sa­tions, and being as trans­par­ent as pos­si­ble with our com­mu­ni­ty members.” 

Many are look­ing past the release of the video and ques­tion­ing the inten­tion of the shoot­ing, believ­ing trans­paren­cy, in this case, lies in the “tough con­ver­sa­tion” of why VanAtten was shot instead of the many oth­er tools the force says it has at its disposal.

Parish Hickman is one.

He was also at the shop­ping cen­ter at the time of the inci­dent, “They were quick to shoot,” he stat­ed. “Where did they see the gun at? He didn’t up that [exple­tive] or noth­ing. So why did they just shoot him that quick? He was just try­ing to run.”

Hickman said he believed VanAtten ran from the police, like many Black peo­ple do, out of “fear.” He said, “You Black, and you got a gun? That’s not about to go well.”

In the video, an uniden­ti­fied offi­cer can be heard yelling to VanAtten, “You’re going to get Tased,” and ask­ing him to stop.

Another offi­cer warns, “He’s reach­ing. He’s reach­ing. He’s got a gun.” 

One of the cops shot two rounds. Another cop shot sev­er­al more at VanAtten as he dart­ed between parked cars and an open area until the Black man fell and said, “You just shot me two times, bro,” when the offi­cers reached him.

Approximately eight gun­shots were let off, appar­ent­ly fired from mul­ti­ple guns. The young man was shot once in his right leg and once in the abdomen. Video shows the offi­cers imme­di­ate­ly assist­ing the wound­ed sus­pect before he was rushed to the hospital.

A woman in a yel­low sweat­shirt was near a sil­ver SUV where VanAtten was shot on the ground, and cried out to the offi­cers and said on cam­era, “Do not shoot him. He does not have a f##king gun. Get your gun off of him.”

Despite video footage from the roof of the park­ing lot show­ing they were in the car togeth­er, she says in the video she did not know him.

She screeched, with an infant’s car­ri­er peek­ing out of the car door, “My baby is right here.”

When she went with the child to check to see if the man was OK, after call­ing some­one on the phone, video shows they assume she is with VanAtten and checked her for the miss­ing gun.

She denies hav­ing the gun and con­tin­ues to scream in sev­er­al videos, “He didn’t have no gun. You shot him for no reason.”

In a sep­a­rate video, offi­cers can be heard dis­cussing the chase and how to tend to VanAtten, when one declares what he said he saw, “He had it out.”

Cops dis­cov­ered a sil­ver hand­gun beneath a car parked two park­ing spots away from where they claimed VanAtten was parked. Further test results are pend­ing to deter­mine the own­er of the weapon

Some com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers like Kerrington Kelsey, a leader in the Black Lives Matter Lansing chap­ter, ques­tioned the edit, say­ing, “There was no proof whether that gun that was found on the scene was DeAnthony’s. Whether he even had it in the Meijer, to begin with. Oh wait, that footage — what hap­pened in the Meijer — did not make it to this cut.”

Another BLM leader offered fur­ther insights, “He went into that store to buy corn and mac­a­roni for a cook­out. He left his girl­friend and her eight-month-old baby in the car and said, ‘I’ll be right back’ and, some­where between that con­ver­sa­tion and walk­ing into Meijer, going and get­ting those items and check­ing out, he nev­er made it home.”

Upon his release from the hos­pi­tal, VanAtten was trans­ferred to the Ingham County Jail. He has already been released from custody.

In addi­tion to not releas­ing the full video, ELPD is keep­ing the shoot­ing officer’s name private.

Mike Nichols, who is rep­re­sent­ing the offi­cer, said he was “glad that the body-worn cam­eras and the footage is out there. It con­firms for me what I’ve believed — that is that the offi­cers act­ed rea­son­ably and appropriately.” 

East Lansing City Manager George Lahanas wants cool­er heads to pre­vail with­out any­one rush­ing to judg­ment about the shoot­ing as the inves­ti­ga­tion continues. 

“We want to reas­sure our com­mu­ni­ty that we are lis­ten­ing,” he stat­ed. “We are com­mit­ted to doing the right things in terms of process to ensure that we get the answers that are need­ed, make deci­sions accord­ing­ly and, ulti­mate­ly, move for­ward as a community.” 

By Nicole Duncan-Smith

A Louisiana sheriff’s depart­ment and exces­sive force expert say a deputy was jus­ti­fied when he pushed a Black woman into a mobile home and punched her in the face. The local law enforce­ment agency alleges she was inter­fer­ing with an arrest, while com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers claim the offi­cer used exces­sive force in his engagement.

The inci­dent occurred after MaryLee Breon Robinson refused to back away dur­ing the May 2 arrest of her broth­er, accord­ing to author­i­ties. Authorities report­ed­ly told Robinson she could record, but to stay in her yard. Robinson alleged­ly began shout­ing to her broth­er, “agi­tat­ing” him, accord­ing to officials.

Deputies from the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office arrest­ed Keith Anthony Robinson Jr. on the 1300 block of Paul Frederick Street in Luling, ful­fill­ing a felony pro­ba­tion warrant.

A press release from the sheriff’s office described the young man as “a con­vict­ed felon with a vio­lent his­to­ry” and fur­ther read, “Deputy Henry Sill deployed his depart­ment-issued taser to attempt to sub­due Robinson to take him into custody.

“The taser was inef­fec­tive and Robinson con­tin­ued to flee. An assist­ing offi­cer was able to detain Robinson and take him into cus­tody,” accord­ing to the release.

“While search­ing Robinson after his arrest, a female sub­ject approached deputies while record­ing Robinson and attempt­ing to speak to him. The female was lat­er iden­ti­fied as his sis­ter, MaryLee Breon Robinson, a 30-year-old female from Paul Fredrick Street in Luling.”

While detain­ing the 26-year-old, his sis­ter MaryLee Breon Robinson report­ed­ly yelled at the offi­cers for tas­ing him after he ini­tial­ly ran from the cops. Telling them, “You’re not going to han­dle him like that.”

“As Keith Robinson, Jr. was being placed into the rear of the police unit, MaryLee Robinson approached deputies from the rear of the unit, in the mid­dle of the street. She was again record­ing and shout­ing at Keith Robinson, Jr. and deputies.” Robinson report­ed­ly again was told she could record but to back away from the investigation.

Bodycam footage released on social media by the depart­ment on Tuesday, May 3, shows the arrest of Keith Anthony and Deputy Henry Sill approach­ing Robinson before she runs away from him. As the offi­cer chased down the 30-year-old female, he pushed her into a white mobile home. After she fell, an alter­nate cam­era cap­tured the offi­cer rear­ing back and punch­ing the woman in the face mul­ti­ple times.

In his footage, Sill is say­ing, “She start­ed swing­ing, so I struck her a few times because she’s swing­ing at me.” He also said on cam­era, fur­ther explain­ing his action, “She came around my unit and tried to interfere.”

The officer’s body­cam catch­es her remarks too. Robinson is heard say­ing the offi­cer attacked her for no rea­son, adding, “You don’t beat on a woman like that.”

The woman was charged with inter­fer­ing with a law enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tion, crim­i­nal dam­age to prop­er­ty, bat­tery of a police offi­cer, dis­turb­ing the peace, and resist­ing an offi­cer with force or violence.

Chief deputy Rodney Madere defend­ed his deputy’s action say­ing, “They told her to get back. She didn’t. We allowed her to record. We told her she could con­tin­ue to record. We just need­ed her to get away. She refused. She kept com­ing up to the scene interfering.”

He con­tin­ued, “When he did catch her she swung and punched him in the face. Our offi­cer then was able to push her away to cre­ate dis­tance when she fell to the ground. Our offi­cer came in and she swung a sec­ond time.”

The sheriff’s depart­ment also said the woman “vocal­ized that she would not lis­ten to deputies’ orders.” 

“Deputy Sill moved in to effect an arrest, when MaryLee Robinson swung at Deputy Sill and kicked at him,” the sheriff’s office said.

“Deputy Sill felt his taser hol­ster crack upon MaryLee Robinson’s kick, glanced down, and real­ized his taser was no longer on his duty belt. MaryLee Robinson con­tin­ued to active­ly resist arrest, at which point Deputy Sill used an emp­ty hand dis­trac­tion tech­nique to gain con­trol and take her into cus­tody. This was successful.”

The sheriff’s office is con­duct­ing an admin­is­tra­tive inves­ti­ga­tion into the altercation.

Those who wit­nessed the alter­ca­tion said MaryLee was not close to the offi­cers and not phys­i­cal­ly imped­ing the arrest. They also say the deputy demon­strat­ed abuse.

Her moth­er Miranda Robinson told NOLA​.com, “It’s OK for you to come and do your job, but you don’t have to be so aggres­sive and treat us like we’re animals.

“We’re not ani­mals,” added the 50-year-old. “There’s no hard or harsh feel­ings,” the mom said. “I just want to see him held account­able for his actions and dealt with in the prop­er way.”

Joshae Smith, a rel­a­tive to both Keith Anthony and MaryLee Robinson, said, “It was scary because for a man to be beat­ing a woman like that — and then in front of her kids and they cry­ing. It’s terrible.”

Believing the woman’s civ­il rights were vio­lat­ed, the fam­i­ly con­tact­ed the NAACP.

A lead inves­ti­ga­tor with the NAACP expressed con­cern about the woman’s health after being assault­ed by the offi­cer. Jermeine Luckett, a rep for the civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tion, said, “the young lady may pos­si­bly have a con­cus­sion and she has not received ade­quate med­ical care.” 

The sheriff’s office says Robinson was offered med­ical atten­tion at the scene of the arrest but refused it.

Other lead­ers have spo­ken out after see­ing footage of Robinson’s encounter with Sill. Ben Crump tweet­ed about the inci­dent, ask­ing, “Since when does aid­ing trans­paren­cy of a police inci­dent jus­ti­fy such exces­sive force?” 

“He must be FIRED!” he demanded.

The Times-Picayune enlist­ed the pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion of Andrew Scott, a use-of-force expert and for­mer police chief in Boca Raton, Florida, to review the footage. He said, while at face val­ue the footage “looks ter­ri­ble,” Sill was act­ing with­in his author­i­ty because Robinson was inter­fer­ing with the inves­ti­ga­tion. He referred to the officer’s punch­es as “stun strikes,” say­ing they are some­times used to sub­due a sub­ject resist­ing arrest.

The expert said Sill still could have de-esca­lat­ed the sit­u­a­tion by let­ting the woman run away.“In my view, as an expert, what he did was not unrea­son­able giv­en the total­i­ty of the cir­cum­stances,” Scott said. “But it does not look pret­ty. The use of force may be jus­ti­fi­able, but it does not look good.”

By Nyameyke Daniel

Steven Alexander was walk­ing home with gro­ceries after a night shift as an Embassy of Qatar spe­cial police offi­cer in 2018 when a taser-drawn Maryland police offi­cer approached him and demand­ed that he show his cre­den­tials. When Alexander refused, the offi­cer point­ed his firearm at him and demand­ed that he get on the ground. Once he was on the ground, the offi­cer pep­per-sprayed Alexander before putting him in handcuffs. 

As a result, Alexander lost his job, had to fight crim­i­nal charges and suf­fered years of emo­tion­al dis­tress, his attor­neys said. He is suing Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Police and the police offi­cer for vio­lat­ing his rights and for exces­sive force

Hannah Nallo, one of Alexander’s attor­neys, said he has post-trau­mat­ic stress from what her client refers to as a “life-or-death scenario.”

“This inci­dent real­ly just changed the course of Steven’s entire life,” Nallo said. “He has a very hard time talk­ing about how the offi­cers real­ly almost took his life. Even though it was a few years ago, now, he remem­bers it clear as day when he talks to you about it is just like it just happened.”

M‑NCPPC Police Officer Mel Proctor said he saw Alexander walk­ing through a park­ing lot in the park with a hat that read “Special Police.” Proctor accost­ed Alexander, who told Proctor that he had no rea­son to stop him and con­tin­ued walking.

“The sub­ject con­tin­ued to refuse my com­mands to stop even after I told him that he was now being detained for inves­tiga­tive pur­pos­es,” Proctor wrote in the police report.

Proctor then asked for his cre­den­tials, he wrote. The offi­cer said he pulled out his Taser because Alexander was wear­ing a bal­lis­tic vest and “some­thing around his waist with pouch­es.” He drew his gun because he noticed Alexander had a gun hol­ster on his hip “pro­trud­ing for under his coat.”

“What are you going to do, shoot me?” Proctor said Alexander asked him.

Alexander’s lawyers said the man begged for his life.

The offi­cer put this gun back in the hol­ster, and he sprayed Alexander in his eyes because he start­ed to unzip his coat after Proctor told him not to, he wrote. He did not have his body-worn cam­era on dur­ing the interaction.

Alexander’s attor­neys said he was wear­ing his work uni­form, which includes body armor and a badge that reads, “Special Police Officer.”

While Alexander was deal­ing with the effects of the pep­per spray, Proctor slammed him to the ground by the hood of his coat, put his knee in the man’s back, hand­cuffed him and sprayed in his face, the law­suit says.

After restrain­ing Alexander, the law­suit says Proctor found Alexander’s “valid” work iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card and badge prov­ing his sta­tus as a spe­cial offi­cer at the Washington, D.C., embassy.

He saw Alexander’s badge hang­ing from his neck, the law­suit says, and police insignia on his shirt.

Proctor wrote in his report that Alexander had “numer­ous expired and one alleged cur­rent Special Police Officer Identification cards.”

“I attempt­ed to make con­tact with per­sons he alleged­ly works for only to get voice mails for peo­ple oth­er than the name he gave,” Proctor wrote.

Alexander was charged with resist­ing arrest, obstruct­ing a police offi­cer, fail­ure to obey a rea­son­able and law­ful order that a law enforce­ment offi­cer makes to pre­vent a dis­tur­bance to the pub­lic peace and imper­son­at­ing a police offi­cer. He spent 10 hours in jail.

Nallo said Proctor went to great lengths to ensure Alexander was ter­mi­nat­ed from his job, where she said he had a “stel­lar” record for nine years. Alexander’s super­vi­sor told him he could come back when he resolved the case, Nallo said.

On May 11, 2018, Prince George’s District Court Judge Bryon Bereano dropped all the charges against Alexander and crit­i­cized the pros­e­cu­tor for pur­su­ing the case.

Bereano said there was no one else present dur­ing the arrest, so no one was actu­al­ly dis­turbed. Bereano also not­ed that even though Alexander did not com­ply with the orders ini­tial­ly, he nev­er attempt­ed to run and try to remove or hide the hat.

Bereano said Proctor also tes­ti­fied that Alexander offered to give him the cre­den­tials after he asked a cou­ple of times, but the police offi­cer told him it was too late.

“On all four counts: The court finds that even look­ing at the light most favor­able to the state, which the court is sup­posed to do at this time, that frankly, Mr. State, don’t take this per­son­al­ly, this is not a case that should have gone for­ward,” Bereano told the prosecutor.

“This is ques­tion­able at best, a law­ful stop. Mr. Alexander did noth­ing wrong oth­er than walk­ing through a park after hav­ing worked a long, hard day, car­ry­ing his belong­ings from work and car­ry­ing his gro­ceries, and a police offi­cer who wasn’t fol­low­ing pro­to­col only exac­er­bat­ed the sit­u­a­tion by mak­ing it worse. And that was clear from his own testimony.”

Alexander was nev­er allowed to return to his job. The Qatar Embassy did not respond to requests for com­ment from Atlanta Black Star.

Alexander wished the inci­dent nev­er hap­pened. He was afraid to go pub­lic with the sto­ry out of fear that it may trau­ma­tize his family.

In his law­suit, he is seek­ing mon­e­tary dam­ages. A jury must decide how much Alexander would be award­ed. The state allows Alexander to get up to $400,000 in dam­ages from a police offi­cer. Lawmakers increased the cap to $600,000 start­ing in October 2021, but Alexander filed his case before the thresh­old was raised.

A Spokesperson for M‑NCPPC Police Prince George’s divi­sion LaKeisha Robinson said the agency could not com­ment on pend­ing lit­i­ga­tion. Records show Proctor received a com­mend­able ser­vice award in 2020.

Alexander’s attor­ney Jay Holland said the case is an exam­ple of the lack of account­abil­i­ty and bro­ken cul­ture in polic­ing that would allow an offi­cer to attack a cit­i­zen who was going along in his every­day life. The legal team hopes Alexander’s case and oth­er cas­es like it will pro­voke insti­tu­tion­al change in all police departments.

The M‑NCPPC Police is also at the cen­ter of anoth­er law­suit that pro­vides an inside look at the cul­ture of the depart­ment. In the law­suit a Black M‑NCPPC police offi­cer details inci­dents of racism and humil­i­a­tion that he was hand­ed down by his supe­ri­ors, who also dis­cussed incit­ing race wars and killing Black Lives Matter protesters.

“You don’t leave that at the door when you go out into the field. These are police offi­cers that are com­ing into con­tact with us as cit­i­zens and are com­ing into con­tact with Mr. Alexander,” attor­ney Veronica Nannis said“I think that it kind of does tie back to pos­si­bly the envi­ron­ment that they’re in and sort of what is not only tol­er­at­ed but encour­aged, appar­ent­ly, at Park and Planning.” This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed at the atlantablackstar

No one should be delu­sion­al about what is hap­pen­ing with Elon Musk’s push to acquire the social media plat­form Twitter.
“I have the mon­ey; now I want the clout.”
It is a con­cept as nor­mal as apple pie; Donald Trump could­n’t make it, but he sure as hell faked it until he did. Only, he did not win fame; he acquired infamy. He will always be remem­bered as the only pres­i­dent installed by a for­eign pow­er, twice impeached in a sin­gle term, and then attempt­ed to over­throw the con­sti­tu­tion­al order to stay in pow­er illegally.

Like Donald Trump, Australian-born Rupert Murdoch inher­it­ed mon­ey from his father. Trump inher­it­ed his father’s real estate busi­ness, and Rupert Murdoch inher­it­ed his father’s news­pa­per busi­ness in Adelaide, Australia.
Trump is report­ed to have squan­dered his father’s for­tune, although arguably cre­at­ing wealth for him­self. However, there are spec­u­la­tors who argue that Trump’s debt to real asset ratio makes him a fail­ure as a busi­ness tycoon.
On the oth­er hand, Murdoch took his father’s Adelaide Newspaper and turned it into a mas­sive con­glom­er­ate across Australia, Great Britain, and the United States.
In the process, Rupert Murdoch cre­at­ed incred­i­ble wealth for him­self and is now report­ed­ly worth a whop­ping B$21.7 at the age of 91.

Rupert Murdoch’s ‘FOX news’ empire in the United States has been noth­ing short of giv­ing alco­hol to a vio­lent mob. FOX mis­in­for­ma­tion and out­right lies have been indif­fer­ent to FCC rules of con­duct, essen­tial­ly act­ing as a super spread­er of mis­in­for­ma­tion, hate, misog­y­ny, and xeno­pho­bia to a coun­try steeped in racism and hatred.
In July 2011, Murdoch faced alle­ga­tions that his com­pa­nies, includ­ing the News of the World, had been reg­u­lar­ly hack­ing the phones of celebri­ties, roy­al­ty, and pub­lic cit­i­zens. Murdoch faced police and gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tions into bribery and cor­rup­tion by the British gov­ern­ment and FBI inves­ti­ga­tions in the US. On 21 July 2012, Murdoch resigned as a direc­tor of News International.
Many of Murdoch’s papers and tele­vi­sion chan­nels have been accused of biased and mis­lead­ing cov­er­age to sup­port his busi­ness inter­ests and polit­i­cal allies. Some have cred­it­ed his influ­ence with major polit­i­cal devel­op­ments in the UK, US, and Australia.

In 2020 the New York Times said Fox News has long exert­ed a grav­i­ta­tion­al pull on the Republican Party in the United States, where it most recent­ly ampli­fied the nativist revolt that has fueled the rise of the far-right and the elec­tion of President Trump. Mr. Murdoch’s news­pa­per The Sun spent years demo­niz­ing the European Union to its read­ers in Britain, where it helped lead the Brexit cam­paign that per­suad­ed a slim major­i­ty of vot­ers in a 2016 ref­er­en­dum to endorse pulling out of the bloc. Political hav­oc has reigned in Britain ever since. And in Australia, where his hold over the media is most exten­sive, Mr. Murdoch’s out­lets pushed for the repeal of the country’s car­bon tax and helped top­ple a series of prime min­is­ters whose agen­da he dis­liked, includ­ing Malcolm Turnbull.

There ought to be no sur­prise that the polit­i­cal right in America would grav­i­tate and fall in love with Rupert Murdoch’s instru­ments of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion that have sup­port­ed white racism cul­mi­nat­ing in the January 6^th attack on the Congress.
There should be no sur­prise that the far right is in a tizzy that anoth­er for­eign-born bil­lion­aire Elon Musk has pur­chased the social media plat­form Twitter.
One of the terms used to describe Musk is ‘LIBERTARIAN” .
The term Libertarian is char­ac­ter­ized as a view in pol­i­tics and phi­los­o­phy that focus­es on lib­er­ty. Libertarianism says that it is usu­al­ly bet­ter to give peo­ple more free choice, and it also says that the gov­ern­ment should have less con­trol over people.
Then again, the same term was used to describe Charles and David Koch, bil­lion­aire broth­ers who grew their father’s empire at Koch indus­tries and used much of their polit­i­cal dona­tions to advance racist right-wing poli­cies in the United States.

Elon Musk was born in Apartheid Pretoria South Africa in 1971. Musk arguably cre­at­ed his own wealth begin­ning with the cre­ation of his web soft­ware com­pa­nies Zip2 and Kimbal.
He is worth an esti­mat­ed 264.6 bil­lion USD today, and now he wants to deter­mine what free speech is in his ‘lib­er­tar­i­an’ way, not accord­ing to the fifth amend­ment to the con­sti­tu­tion or, bet­ter, hav­ing our God-giv­en right to free speech respect­ed, but speech accord­ing to apartheid Elon.
Libertarian free speech, accord­ing to Elon Musk, seems to be to have Donald Trump back on Twitter after he was ban­ished for life from the plat­form for spread­ing lies and misinformation.
This prospect has Twitter employ­ees up in arms as they have no idea what the plat­form is to become under its new own­er, who already has a pen­chant for lies and spread­ing false information.
There are uncon­firmed reports Musk wants Trump back on Twitter, but this may not square with Trump, who has grand designs on his own start­up plat­form called “TRUTH social.” If ever there was irony.
Let us be rea­son­able here; if the reports are true that this newest nar­cis­sist on the block wants Trump back on Twitter, it is all about mon­ey; it has noth­ing to do with free speech.
Just as Rupert Murdoch’s FOX net­work was able to mon­e­tize American racism, Musk believes he too should cash in on the igno­rant can­cer called racism.
Neither Rupert Murdoch nor Elon Musk cares about free speech, nor do they care about the poi­son they are putting into the body politic; they are greedy cor­po­ratists who have seen the poten­tial to become filthy rich from America’s igno­rant and stub­born affin­i­ty for racial animus.
Let us call it what it is…

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

By Nyamekye Daniel

After being framed by a North Carolina police detec­tive, spend­ing more than two decades in prison and fight­ing to be free, Darryl Howard must now take on a new legal bat­tle to get $6 mil­lion grant­ed to him in a wrong­ful con­vic­tion law­suit by a fed­er­al jury in December.
The jury found that retired Durham Detective Darrell Dowdy vio­lat­ed Howard’s civ­il rights by fab­ri­cat­ing evi­dence and inten­tion­al­ly con­duct­ing a shod­dy inves­ti­ga­tion. However, Durham’s city attor­ney says the city is legal­ly pro­hib­it­ed from pay­ing the mon­e­tary judg­ment on behalf of the rogue detec­tive. Howard’s attor­ney accused the city of “lying” and using legal lan­guage as an excuse.

One of Howard’s lawyers, Nick Brustin, said they plan to do “every­thing con­ceiv­able” to col­lect the mon­ey, includ­ing appeal­ing the case.

“We’re going to make sure that we get our client who’s been through absolute hell every­thing we pos­si­bly can for him,” Brustin told the Atlanta Black Star.

Howard was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to 80 years in prison for the mur­ders of a moth­er and daugh­ter in 1995. He was exon­er­at­ed in 2016 after the state appealed a judge’s 2014 deci­sion to vacate his conviction.

The Durham District Attorney’s Office dis­missed his dou­ble-mur­der and arson charges after Howard’s lawyers pre­sent­ed DNA evi­dence exclud­ing him and con­nect­ing two oth­er peo­ple to the slay­ings of Doris Washington and her 13-year-old daugh­ter Nishonda in 1991. Gov. Roy Cooper also par­doned Howard in 2021.

Dowdy alleged­ly obtained false state­ments from wit­ness­es, includ­ing a 17-year-old, to fin­ger Howard for the crime even though he got a tip that a drug gang from New York was respon­si­ble for the mur­ders and sex­u­al assaults. He report­ed­ly added details to their state­ments to make them more believable.

The Durham City Council decid­ed dur­ing a series of closed meet­ings between December and February to deny fund­ing for the judgment.

Durham City Attorney Kimberly Rehberg said the for­mer detec­tive did not per­form his “duties in good faith,” and state law and a city res­o­lu­tion for­bid Durham from using pub­lic funds to cov­er the verdict.

“The city’s hands were tied,” she said.

The city’s res­o­lu­tion cre­ates a uni­form stan­dard for how law­suits are han­dled. According to University of North Carolina pro­fes­sor Rick Su, res­o­lu­tions have no legal effect and are “essen­tial­ly a for­mal state­ment like a for­mal pub­lic press release.”

Durham’s res­o­lu­tion dou­bles down on state law, which states that “noth­ing in this sec­tion shall autho­rize” North Carolina coun­ties and munic­i­pal­i­ties “to appro­pri­ate funds for the pur­pose of pay­ing any claim” “if the city coun­cil or board of coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers finds” that “employ­ee or offi­cer act­ed or failed to act because of actu­al fraud, cor­rup­tion or actu­al mal­ice on his part.”

It is the sec­ond time to Su’s knowl­edge that the legal statute has been used to deny an award in the state. It was debat­ed in the 2004 case of Gibbs v. Mayo when a Hyde County com­mis­sion­er fought for the coun­ty to pay his judg­ment after he ille­gal­ly prof­it­ed from a con­tract to repair the coun­ty cour­t­house and health center.

“The court held, and the coun­ty argued that what he did here was actu­al­ly beyond his capac­i­ty as a com­mis­sion­er that essen­tial­ly his wrong­do­ing was tak­ing the con­tract and essen­tial­ly being a con­trac­tor,” Su said, who teach­es state and local gov­ern­ment law.

Brustin said it is the first time in Durham’s his­to­ry that it has refused to pay a judg­ment. He argues that since the city spent mon­ey to defend the Dowdy, they must also pay the judgment.

“It cer­tain­ly per­mits them to do it,” Brustin said. He has vowed to ensure that they fol­low suit.

Howard’s attor­neys must now seek the judg­ment from the detec­tive who receives a pen­sion from the state after a 36-year career. Brustin said the pen­sion is not near­ly enough to cov­er the $6 mil­lion ver­dict and the $4 mil­lion for the city’s legal fees to defend him that the city is now ask­ing Howard to pay. The team also spent about $5 mil­lion to defend the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed man.

“Because we’re forced to, are going to be going after the assets of Detective Dowdy,” Brustin said. “So if that includes Detective Dowdy’s home and those things, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Howard’s legal team also plans to appeal the court’s deci­sion to dis­miss the claims against the city and three oth­er employ­ees and ask for anoth­er trial.

Su said Howard’s attor­neys might bet­ter redeem the mon­ey if they prove Durham had fault­ed on train­ing, over­sight, or negligence.

To hold a city liable for a civ­il rights vio­la­tion, a plain­tiff must show that an offi­cer vio­lat­ed a clear­ly estab­lished con­sti­tu­tion­al right and that the vio­la­tion result­ed from the city’s offi­cial pol­i­cy, an unof­fi­cial cus­tom, or because the city was “delib­er­ate­ly indif­fer­ent” in fail­ing to train or super­vise the offi­cer, Rehberg said.

“In this case, there was no evi­dence that the City of Durham’s ordi­nances, reg­u­la­tions, cus­toms, or poli­cies caused Darryl Howard to be wrong­ly con­vict­ed,” she said.

California, Ohio, Utah and Idaho have sim­i­lar laws that lim­it gov­ern­ments from pay­ing judg­ments to “bad-faith employ­ees.” However, unlike North Carolina’s law, the California statute allows gov­ern­ments to opt out of pay­ing the judg­ment, Su said.

An appel­late court upheld Los Angeles County’s refusal to pay for a judg­ment against cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer Chang v. County of Los Angeles in 2016 because his actions “were based on cor­rup­tion, fraud, or malice.”

Brustin said the legal move by the city is part of a series of racial injus­tices against Howard. He point­ed out that dur­ing the tri­al, the city argued that Howard was “not wor­thy” of the $48 mil­lion they were seek­ing because of his crim­i­nal record and drug addic­tion. The city also made set­tle­ment offers “nowhere near” the $6 mil­lion judgment.

“Morally, they have not only an oblig­a­tion to pay Darryl Howard, they had an oblig­a­tion not to defend the case the way they did,” Brustin said. “They had an oblig­a­tion to go back and look at the mis­con­duct and see if it affects oth­er people.”

“They had an oblig­a­tion now to go and make sure that noth­ing like this is hap­pen­ing in their police depart­ment. Instead, all they’ve done is they’ve come up with lies about why they don’t have to pay this.”
This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @ the Atlantablackstar​.com