I nev­er cared about Liz Chaney, the rock-sol­id right-wing daugh­ter of grumpy old fart Dick Chaney Bush 43^rd vice pres­i­dent. I mean, nei­ther was I a fan of the father; I thought that there was nev­er a bet­ter case to be made for a man who was more deserv­ing of the name, ‘Dick.’
Ok, that was prob­a­bly a cheap shot, but there is some­thing to be said about the grav­i­tas of a guy who was hired to do a vice-pres­i­den­tial can­di­date search and end­ed up choos­ing himself.
If you are not fol­low­ing my drift, in the cam­paign lead­ing up to the 2000 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, the Bush cam­paign hired [Dick] Chaney to find a suit­able can­di­date to run on the tick­et with old Georgie boy.
Chaney searched and found himself.
We all knew how that turned out as old Dick was instru­men­tal in egging on his boss to enter the sov­er­eign nation of Iraq under pretenses.

Liz Chaney is no hero for stand­ing up to the Republican lie that the Democrats stole the 2020 elections.
Liz Chaney deserves no acco­lade for not going with the Trump delu­sions; I believe some­where in what she is doing is a cal­cu­lus that her posi­tion will turn out to ben­e­fit her.
Liz Chaney per­pet­u­ates the lie that the Democratic ini­tia­tive which pro­tects peo­ple from the pan­dem­ic restores the econ­o­my, reforms the police, and fix­ing America’s infra­struc­ture, is socialism.
Give me a damn break. I thought those were the things the gov­ern­ment was sup­posed to do?
She has done noth­ing that Senator Mitt Romney has­n’t done; she has­n’t done any­thing that Illinois rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Kinsigner has­n’t done. She has­n’t done any­thing that Justin Amash has­n’t done.
Liz Chaney is the num­ber three per­son in the Republican House lead­er­ship cau­cus, which is in and of itself tes­ta­ment that Liz Chaney deserves no plaudits.

KAMALA HARRIS AMERICA IS NOT A RACIST COUNTRY

Oh, what a dif­fer­ence a few months make. Newly elect­ed Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris was asked whether she thought the United States is a racist country.
In typ­i­cal lib­er­al wishy-washy fash­ion, Harris retreat­ed from her for­mer posi­tion that America is indeed a racist coun­try, say­ing the fol­low­ing; “America is not a “racist coun­try,” but the nation must “speak the truth” about its his­to­ry with racism.”
Wait, what the f**k? What the hell does that even mean?
Harris was respond­ing to Black-skin folk US Senator uncle Tim/​Tom Scott of South Carolina who claimed that America is not a racist coun­try, even as he spoke about his fears, hav­ing being pulled over mul­ti­ple times by police for no oth­er rea­son than that he was a black man.

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The com­mon thread that seems to guide both Tim Scott and Kamala Harris’s posi­tion, even from dif­fer­ent ends of the spec­trum, is that both of them man­aged to find a way to get to the top, which means that American racism has ended.
No mat­ter how hard you try to hold a bunch of ful­ly blown bal­loons under­wa­ter, a few will escape to the top; it is just the nat­ur­al order of things.
The hypocrisy of both Scott & Harris speaks to the greater issue of some black American mem­o­ry lapse as soon as they reach the top, until, of course, they are pushed back down the lad­der they try to claim their black card.
In a blog post last week, I addressed Tim Scott’s coon­ery; I will not rehash those comments.
But most who pay atten­tion to polit­i­cal cam­paigns will remem­ber Kamala Harris’s attack on Joe Biden when she famous­ly told him dur­ing one of the pres­i­den­tial debates that she was one of the lit­tle girls who ben­e­fit­ted from bussing, some­thing she said Biden opposed.
How can a rea­son­able per­son, much less a black per­son, claim that America is not a racist coun­try when racism is built into every stra­tum of society?
America’s racism was the tem­plate for Hitler’s treat­ment of the prac­ti­tion­ers of Judaism in Germany.
America’s racism was the tem­plate for South Africa’s apartheid sys­tem; It is the tem­plate for the apartheid sys­tem prac­ticed in the State of Israel today against the Palestinian people.
In every fiber of the American body-politic, racism is intri­cate­ly woven in with the implic­it desire of mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple of col­or to have upward mobility.
The idea that because a few have made it America’s racist past is .….…a thing of the past is what guid­ed the US Supreme courts 2013 deci­sion in Shelby County Alabama Vs. Holder when the court gut­ted sec­tion 4 (b) of the 1965 vot­ing rights act.
The court’s log­ic was that the racist prac­tices of the past are in the past, and there­fore there was no fur­ther use for sec­tion 4(b).
Of course, as soon as the court hand­ed down that deci­sion, states run by Republicans embarked on vot­er sup­pres­sion laws only before seen dur­ing the peri­od after reconstruction.

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

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Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law last week that offers legal pro­tec­tions for dri­vers who “unin­ten­tion­al­ly” kill or injure pro­test­ers if they are attempt­ing to “flee the scene.” House Bill 1674, which passed last week thanks to over­whelm­ing Republican sup­port, also makes it a mis­de­meanor offense to obstruct a road­way. The new law was passed in response to Black Lives Matter demon­stra­tions that took place in Oklahoma and much of the coun­try last sum­mer in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. “The 1^st Amendment gives us the right to peace­ably assem­ble, not unlaw­ful­ly assem­ble,” GOP state Rep. Kevin West, a spon­sor of the bill, told Yahoo News in an email. “The lan­guage [in H.B. 1674] gives equal pro­tec­tion to law­ful pro­test­ers as well as law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who get caught up in dan­ger­ous, unlaw­ful sit­u­a­tions.” Under the new law, any­one who obstructs a pub­lic road or high­way faces a mis­de­meanor charge pun­ish­able by up to a year in coun­ty jail and/​or a fine rang­ing from $100 to $5,000. Also, any dri­ver who “unin­ten­tion­al­ly” hits a demon­stra­tor with a car is grant­ed civ­il and crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty pro­tec­tion for injuries caused, includ­ing death, while “flee­ing from a riot.”

The bill’s lan­guage was inspired by an inci­dent last sum­mer in Tulsa in which the dri­ver of a pick­up truck drove through a crowd of peo­ple on Interstate 244 who were protest­ing Floyd’s death. The col­li­sion left sev­er­al peo­ple injured and one per­son par­a­lyzed from the waist down. The dri­ver of the pick­up truck, who had his fam­i­ly with him in the car, how­ev­er, was not charged. “The kids cow­ered in the back seat because they feared for their lives,” Sen. Rob Standridge, a Republican who authored H.B. 1674, told AP. “That’s what this bill is about.” “Hopefully every­thing qui­ets down around the coun­try, and this bill won’t be need­ed for any­body, but if things come to Oklahoma like have been hap­pen­ing, this will pro­tect some folks,” Standridge added in a record­ed video. Stitt and Standridge did not reply to Yahoo News’ request for com­ment. Similar bills are being pushed through Republican-led state­hous­es in oth­er parts of the coun­try. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an immu­ni­ty-grant­i­ng bill into law ear­li­er this month, and a mea­sure in Iowa is work­ing its way through the Legislature.

While pro­po­nents of the bill say H.B. 1674 will pro­tect those trapped by riots or demon­stra­tions, crit­ics believe the bill great­ly threat­ens Oklahomans’ right to peace­ful­ly protest and that it will dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect Black peo­ple because it offers vague dis­cre­tion to dri­vers to assess whether a demon­stra­tion con­sti­tutes a threat. For Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, an Oklahoma native whose twin broth­er, Terence, was shot and killed by a Tulsa police offi­cer in September 2016 dur­ing a traf­fic stop, this bill is deeply per­son­al. H.B. 1674 “attacks and silences our right to assem­ble and protest and let our voic­es be heard,” Crutcher, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, told Yahoo News in a video interview.

“It means so much to me because my twin broth­er … was killed by a white police offi­cer … and we had to take it to the streets to demand that jus­tice be served,” she said. “Because of our right to march down the streets and our right to assem­ble, we were able to force the dis­trict attor­ney to indict [Officer] Betty Shelby with­in the first week.” Shelby was charged with manslaugh­ter in Terence’s killing but was lat­er acquit­ted. Tiffany Crutcher believes bills like these con­tin­ue to put Black America in a “state of emer­gency.” “This bill was cre­at­ed in retal­i­a­tion for what took place for us shut­ting down high­ways and mak­ing them incon­ve­nient for just a moment [last sum­mer],” she said. For many peo­ple, H.B. 1674 brings to mind the death of Heather Heyer, a white woman who was killed after a man rammed his car into a crowd of coun­ter­pro­test­ers at an Aug. 12, 2017, “Unite the Right” ral­ly in Charlottesville, Va. James Alex Fields Jr. was even­tu­al­ly charged and con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der, but crit­ics note that if a law sim­i­lar to Oklahoma’s had been in place in Virginia at the time, he might have not faced any consequences.

Andrew Porwancher, a pro­fes­sor of legal his­to­ry at the University of Oklahoma, said he is con­cerned that the new law goes too far. “H.B. 1674 might appear to be a win for con­ser­v­a­tives, but its pro­vi­sions could be employed against right-wing activists in the future,” Porwancher said in an email to Yahoo News. “Your best shot at pre­serv­ing your own free­dom of speech tomor­row is to pro­tect the speech of your oppo­nents today.” In response to the new law, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a state­ment call­ing it an effort to “[tram­ple] the rights and lib­er­ties of Oklahomans in favor of those with the most pow­er and access.” The group believes the leg­is­la­tion is meant to dis­cour­age peo­ple from protest­ing alto­geth­er. “There is no ques­tion that this leg­is­la­tion chills free speech,” Nicole McAfee, direc­tor of pol­i­cy and advo­ca­cy at the ACLU of Oklahoma, told Yahoo News. “It remind­ed me who the Legislature thinks has a right to be afraid.”

McAfee said the Oklahoma Legislature too often cre­ates laws out of iso­lat­ed inci­dents, like the pick­up truck encounter on Interstate 244, with­out con­sid­er­ing the larg­er impli­ca­tions. “We know the pow­er of protest and pub­lic account­abil­i­ty in mov­ing folks to action, and bills like this not only put our democ­ra­cy in a frag­ile place, but laws like these put our insti­tu­tions in a dan­ger­ous place as well,” she said. But pro­po­nents of the law feel it pro­tects every­one involved. Don Spencer, pres­i­dent of the Oklahoma 2^nd Amendment Association, has been advo­cat­ing for laws like H.B. 1674 since February. “If you’re unlaw­ful­ly block­ing a road­way for the intend­ed pur­pose of pos­si­bly doing dam­age, to scare peo­ple, to harm peo­ple,” Spencer warned in a record­ed video ear­li­er this year, “you could be trod­den on with the car tires.” “There are mul­ti­ple ways to protest law­ful­ly and have your voic­es heard, but attack­ing motorists who have noth­ing to do with the protest or what is being protest­ed is not some­thing that should be allowed,” West, the state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, said. H.B. 1674 will take effect on Nov. 1. Until then, the ACLU and oth­er grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions, like the Terence Crutcher Foundation, are try­ing to fig­ure out their next course of action. For Kathryn Schumaker, a pro­fes­sor affil­i­at­ed with the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage, the new law takes the state back to a shame­ful era in its his­to­ry and ignores the issues at the cen­ter of the protests. “Civil rights pro­test­ers were his­tor­i­cal­ly described as ‘out­side agi­ta­tors’ who only want­ed to stir up trou­ble,” she told Yahoo News. “In my view, this law seeks to dis­tract from the mes­sage that pro­test­ers are try­ing to communicate.”

Police released footage of the events lead­ing up to the death of a Latino man in Alameda, California, show­ing offi­cers kneel­ing on the man’s back and shoul­der until he became unre­spon­sive. The video con­tra­dicts offi­cials’ orig­i­nal account of the inci­dent. Mario Gonzalez, a 26-year-old Latino man, died on the morn­ing of April 19 after what police claimed was a “scuf­fle” and “phys­i­cal alter­ca­tion” as they attempt­ed to restrain him, fol­lowed by a “med­ical emer­gency.” But body cam­era footage released on Tuesday after­noon after an out­cry from Gonzalez’s fam­i­ly and the pub­lic did not show him being vio­lent or fight­ing offi­cers at any point. Instead, in the video, offi­cers approached Gonzalez, who was stand­ing alone in a park with some bot­tles of alco­hol in a bas­ket. Gonzalez calm­ly spoke with offi­cers for near­ly nine min­utes before they attempt­ed to place his hands behind his back. Police pinned him face­down on the ground and at least two offi­cers appeared to get on top of his back, one kneel­ing on his shoul­der, for about five min­utes until Gonzalez became unre­spon­sive. Police said Gonzalez died at the hos­pi­tal, but the video showed that he had stopped breath­ing on-site and that one offi­cer declared “no pulse” short­ly after offi­cers began CPR.

Three offi­cers involved have been placed on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave. In a press con­fer­ence ear­li­er on Tuesday, mem­bers of Gonzalez’s fam­i­ly, who had pri­vate­ly viewed the footage, said Gonzalez was “com­pli­ant and they con­tin­ued to pin him down.” “Alameda police offi­cers mur­dered my broth­er Mario,” Gonzalez’s broth­er Gerardo said, not­ing that his broth­er was in the park “not both­er­ing any­one” and that “at no point was he vio­lent.” “Everything we saw in that video was unnec­es­sary,” he added. “APD took a calm sit­u­a­tion and made it fatal.” “Police killed my broth­er in the same man­ner that they killed George Floyd,” he said. In the video, Gonzalez could be heard groan­ing under the weight of the police offi­cers on top of him while he con­tin­ued to respond to their ques­tions about his name and birth date.

Attorneys for the fam­i­ly of Andrew Brown Jr., at an emo­tion­al Tuesday morn­ing news con­fer­ence in Elizabeth City, said a pri­vate autop­sy showed that he died when Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies fired a “kill shot to the back of the head.”
Brown, 42, was killed out­side his home in Elizabeth City last Wednesday as deputies were serv­ing search and arrest war­rants relat­ing to felony drug charges.
After hear­ing the autop­sy results, Brown’s son Khalil Ferebee dis­cour­aged vio­lence Tuesday as he addressed the crowd of more than 100 peo­ple that stood out­side the pub­lic safe­ty build­ing down­town. “To my pops … yes­ter­day, I said he was exe­cut­ed,” Ferebee said. “This autop­sy report showed me that was correct.”
The autop­sy also showed an addi­tion­al four gun­shot wounds to Brown’s arm.“That wasn’t enough?” Ferebee said. “They’re going to shoot him in the back of the head? … That’s not right at all.

“Man, stuff got­ta change. It’s real­ly got­ta change for real.”
The press con­fer­ence drew angry shouts from spec­ta­tors, espe­cial­ly when moth­ers of oth­er police vio­lence vic­tims spoke.“All Black men are not ter­ror­ists,” said Tamika Thatch of High Point, whose son was killed in a church in November.
Motioning to Brown’s son, she said, “If his dad­dy killed them, he would nev­er walk the streets again. We need to hold them to the same account­abil­i­ty. They need to be locked up today. Yesterday. Last week.”
Elizabeth City offi­cials on Tuesday announced an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. cur­few in the town start­ing Tuesday night.
Members of the New Black Panther Party from Washington, D.C., stood in the park­ing lot for the news con­fer­ence and called Brown’s death an “assas­si­na­tion” and sought the imme­di­ate release of the footage.

.….

As attor­ney Ben Crump spoke, some mem­bers called him a “boot-lick­ing ambu­lance chas­er,” insist­ing the streets would get jus­tice. And while Khalil urged against vio­lence, attor­ney Bakari Sellers said calls for peace are not the family’s responsibility“If we want calm, if we want jus­tice,” Sellers said, “that onus is not on the fam­i­ly. That onus is on peo­ple who are hid­ing information.”

Sellers said the fam­i­ly arranged an inde­pen­dent autop­sy, “because the med­ical report we got just said, ‘shot to the head,’ and we want­ed to make sure that it was clear­ly denot­ed that he was shot in the back of the head.”
Attorneys Wayne Kendall and Crump described the details of the autop­sy report with dia­grams show­ing five bul­let wounds, with the fatal shot killing Brown with­in min­utes, they said. It caused him to lose con­trol of his vehi­cle and crash into a tree, they said.

The bul­let went into the base of his neck and “per­fo­rat­ed and pen­e­trat­ed his skill and his brain,” Crump said. Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, an Elizabeth City attor­ney who has worked with the fam­i­ly, said it was “an assas­si­na­tion of this unarmed black man.” “That is painful,” Lassiter said. “We are tired. Mothers are tired. Sisters are tired. Fathers are tired. Communities are tired.” Family mem­bers of Andrew Brown Jr. were shown only 20 sec­onds of footage from one of many body-worn cam­eras from the day he was killed, at the Pasquotank County Public Safety build­ing in Elizabeth City, N.C. on Monday, April 26, 2021

Also Tuesday, the FBI said that it has opened a fed­er­al civ­il rights inves­ti­ga­tion into Brown’s death. The FBI will work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina and the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. “As this is an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, we can­not com­ment fur­ther,” FBI spokes­woman Shelley Lynch said. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein tweet­ed sup­port Tuesday for the State Bureau of Investigation’s work on the case.
“A num­ber of peo­ple have asked me to take over this pros­e­cu­tion. I want to clar­i­fy that under North Carolina law, the District Attorney, not the Attorney General, con­trols the pros­e­cu­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es,” Stein tweet­ed. “For my office to play a role in the pros­e­cu­tion, the District Attorney must request our assis­tance. My office has reached out to District Attorney Andrew Womble to offer that assis­tance, which he has acknowledged.

Lassiter was allowed to view a 20-sec­ond snip­pet of the video on Monday with Brown’s son Ferebee and Ferebee’s moth­er, Mia Ferebee. Lassiter said the video showed Brown was shot mul­ti­ple times while he sat in his vehi­cle with his hands on the steer­ing wheel, call­ing it “an exe­cu­tion.” Lassiter said she watched the video more than 10 times, tak­ing notes. “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” she said Tuesday. “I had night­mares. The images from that video stayed with me.” Though the fam­i­ly has seen the 20 sec­onds of body-worn cam­era footage, it has not been released pub­licly, despite pres­sure from law­mak­ers and civ­il rights lead­ers. Law enforce­ment agen­cies can­not release offi­cers’ body cam­era footage, so it’s up to a judge in this case, per North Carolina law.

Lassiter said the family’s legal team believes that detec­tives had been observ­ing Brown for a year, in part through the use of a cam­era mount­ed to a pole near his house. Attorneys have said offi­cials should release footage from that cam­era in addi­tion to offi­cers’ body cam­eras and a dash cam­era in a police van. Protesters have been march­ing in Elizabeth City night­ly since Brown’s shoot­ing, some­times for hours, always with dis­tanced police escorts. On Monday night, near­ly every restau­rant down­town was closed. More than 200 peo­ple marched through down­town that evening demand­ing offi­cials “Release the tape!” The News & Observer report­ed. Elizabeth City remains in a state of emer­gency, which was declared in antic­i­pa­tion of protests sur­round­ing the body-cam footage. Lassiter said Tuesday that despite the occa­sion­al busi­ness in town that has board­ed up its win­dows this week, the march­es and protests have been peace­ful. “That’s how you know, if some­thing hap­pens, if there is vio­lence, it’s not us,” Lassiter said. During Monday night’s march, Mallory Thornton of Durham used a bull­horn to call chants, and at least twice stopped to chal­lenge police offi­cers block­ing traf­fic for the crowd.

Among the many things that will be said about the con­vic­tion of Derek Chauvin is that this is a sem­i­nal moment, this is a water­shed moment, this is a defin­ing moment, this is a moment of intro­spec­tion for police departments.
No, it isn’t.
All this ver­dict rep­re­sents is a case so cold-blood­ed in its bar­barism (that [the] jury), not an all-white one in some oth­er cor­ner of Minnesota, could not turn its back, know­ing that the world was watching.
It does not mean that America is any clos­er to a reck­on­ing on race; it does not mean that American law enforce­ment will be any more judi­cious with the use of force in com­mu­ni­ties of color.
Built into how police behave in com­mu­ni­ties of col­or (black communities)is an innate belief that res­i­dents of those com­mu­ni­ties are dif­fer­ent and there­fore unde­serv­ing of respect.
The gen­er­al per­cep­tion by far too many non-Black Americans is that African-Americas have a duty to wait until they decide what mea­sure of human­i­ty they should enjoy (if any). It is an arro­gant per­cep­tion that would con­demn Black peo­ple to accept a per­ma­nent state of sec­ond-class cit­i­zen­ship, even after over four hun­dred years of geno­cide and oppression.
Not all police offi­cers who work in Black neigh­bor­hoods are bad peo­ple; how­ev­er, it does mean that there is an unde­ni­ably wide chasm between the world-views of the two groups. The con­se­quences of those two com­pet­ing views get played out in the con­stant police killings of inno­cent Blacks.

Police offi­cers do not oper­ate with near­ly the same care when inter­act­ing with African-Americans as they do when deal­ing with whites.
A Black com­plainant calls the police about an alter­ca­tion with some­one white, which usu­al­ly results in police treat­ing the black caller as the offend­er and the white as the vic­tim when they arrive. Their first instinct is to go to the white per­son to get his/​her ver­sion of events, and there­after their reac­tions are shaped by the offend­er’s side of the story.
Police units in pre­dom­i­nant­ly black neigh­bor­hoods are prepped that the cit­i­zens are bar­bar­ians unwor­thy of respect.
The vast major­i­ty of police calls are [not] calls about the com­mis­sion of crimes.
For exam­ple, a recent­ly released dis­patch by the New Haven, Connecticut police shows that less than 4.4% of calls to their 911 sys­tem were for calls about assault, gun­fire, rob­bery, rape, stab­bing, mur­der, or per­son shot.
Over a whop­ping 95.6% of those calls were for ser­vice that requires no vio­lence and does not include the need for violence.
The ques­tion then remains, why are armed agents of the state being sent to these calls?
In June 2020, a New York Times arti­cle titled (How Do the Police Actually Spend Their Time?) asked, “what share of polic­ing is devot­ed to han­dling vio­lent crime? Perhaps not as much as you might think. A hand­ful of cities post data online show­ing how their police depart­ments spend their time. The share devot­ed to han­dling vio­lent crime is very small, about 4 percent.

Despite the killings and assaults, and the con­vic­tion of Chauvin, I doubt seri­ous­ly whether police offi­cers are say­ing,’ geez, I got­ta show more respect to the black peo­ple I come across”.
I doubt­ed whether the cop who put four bul­lets into the body of 16-year old Ma’Khia Bryant would have shot a young white girl even though she had a knife and, in all prob­a­bil­i­ty, may have stabbed the oth­er girl with it.
Again I ask do you use lethal force because you know you will get away with it, or do you use it because you are con­vinced that it is your only option?
The idea being pop­u­lar­ized by police depart­ments is that [force] means dead­ly force. This is not true; there are vary­ing degrees of force; this is why offi­cers are equipped with batons, pep­per-spray tasers, and guns.
The lev­el of force that police use should only be enough to sub­due an unruly sub­ject. That force does not have to be equal to the lev­el of resis­tance com­ing from an offend­er; it can be greater but just enough to gain control.
For exam­ple, after George Floyd was hand­cuffed, the police offi­cers had no legal author­i­ty to keep him on the ground with their knees on his neck and back.
The lev­el of force applied does [not]have to be lethal; force does not go from zero to a hun­dred. The offi­cer who shot 16-year old Ma’Khia Bryant had every right to use force to stop her from stab­bing anoth­er per­son; whether he made the right deci­sion when he decid­ed to go to lethal force as the first option is the issue?

Were Sheriff’s deputies jus­ti­fied in shoot­ing Andrew Brown Jr. to death, a Black res­i­dent of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on Wednesday, April 21^st, when they tried to serve him with a search war­rant about 8:40 a.m? Why did they not shoot Alvin Oeltjenbruns a white man, after he hit one cop in the head with a ham­mer and drove away in the video above?
Was a cop jus­ti­fied in killing 12-year-old Tamir Rice imme­di­ate­ly on arrival on the scene as the kid played in the park with his toy gun? What 12-year-old boy has not played cops and rob­bers with their toy gun grow­ing up? Should a child who is play­ing with a toy gun wor­ry about being killed by police?
Was police jus­ti­fied in chok­ing Eric Garner to death for sell­ing loose cig­a­rettes? Was police jus­ti­fied in killing Sandra Blan over not sig­nal­ing a right turn? Was police jus­ti­fied in Firing over twen­ty bul­lets into 23-year-old Sean Bell’s car, killing him on the day he was sup­posed to be mar­ried? Was the police jus­ti­fied in mur­der­ing Amadou Diallo when they fired a total of forty-one bil­lets, end­ing his life for absolute­ly no rea­son? What about the mon­sters who arrived and imme­di­ate­ly killed John Crawford (111)inside a Walmart because he had a rifle? Walmart sells the guns; Crawford was look­ing at the guns?
Was Police jus­ti­fied when they mur­dered Philando Castile inside his car with his girl­friend and her daugh­ter? What about Alton Sterling? Botham Scheme Jean, was the cop jus­ti­fied when he placed sev­en bul­lets into the back of Jacob Blake? Why would a taser not work?
What if they had no guns? Would they not resolve each sit­u­a­tion with­out the use of force?
What we hear these days com­ing from Police Chiefs and cop-apol­o­gists is,” please stop run­ning away from police.” “If only he/​she did not run.”
As a for­mer Police Officer, I did not rel­ish hav­ing to chase down a sus­pect, but I also under­stood that no one wants to lose their free­dom. In the United States, where it has been gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy to crim­i­nal­ize and incar­cer­ate Blacks, why would any­one be sur­prised that peo­ple run away from spend­ing months in for-prof­it jails and pris­ons because they were unable to pay for hav­ing a bro­ken tail-light or mak­ing a turn with­out signaling?
Their ances­tors had no prob­lem with the bru­tal­i­ty, and the muti­la­tion met­ed out to enslaved peo­ple who dared to run away from a life­time of servi­tude and geno­ci­dal abuse. They risked being beat­en to an inch of their lives; count­less were killed, they risked being torn to shreds by the vicious dogs import­ed from Cuba specif­i­cal­ly to hunt them down; still, they ran.
Why would he run away? His mas­ter treat­ed him well”?.
Unless you know the sto­ry .…..shut your mouth.

The war has moved from the provinces of Iraq & Afghanistan to the streets of the United States; the vic­tims are Black & Brown, all unarmed.
It is a ver­i­ta­ble Vietnam wall of bod­ies, the bod­ies of liv­ing breath­ing American cit­i­zens gunned down, run over, elec­tro­cut­ed, choked, beat­en, and oth­er­wise mur­dered by American police.
This list rep­re­sents only some of the vic­tims over the last decade. It is impor­tant that before cam­eras on cell phones and body cam videos, there was no account­ing by police depart­ments when they kill some­one. The Federal Bureau of Investigations had no data­base of the killings because there are no laws com­pelling police depart­ments to report the killings to Federal authorities.
The list below does not account for armed peo­ple. It rep­re­sents unarmed Black people.

Daunte Demetrius Wright, October 27, 2000 — April 11, 2021. Marvin David Scott III, 1995 — March 14, 2021. Patrick Lynn Warren Sr., October 7, 1968 — January 10, 2021.Vincent “Vinny” M. Belmonte, September 14, 2001 — January 5, 2021. Angelo Quinto, March 10, 1990 — December 26, 2020. Andre Maurice Hill, May 23, 1973 — December 22, 2020. Casey Christopher Goodson Jr., January 30, 1997 — December 4, 2020.Angelo “AJ” Crooms, May 15, 2004 — November 13, 2020.Sincere Pierce, April 2, 2002 — November 13, 2020. Marcellis Stinnette, June 17, 2001 — October 20, 2020. Jonathan Dwayne Price, November 3, 1988 — October 3, 2020. Dijon Durand Kizzee, February 5, 1991 — August 31, 2020. Rayshard Brooks, January 31, 1993 — June 12, 2020. Carlos Carson, May 16, 1984 — June 6, 2020. David McAtee, August 3, 1966 — June 1, 2020. Tony “Tony the Tiger” McDade, 1982 — May 27, 2020. George Perry Floyd, October 14, 1973 — May 25, 2020. Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, 1999 — May 6, 2020. Michael Brent Charles Ramos, January 1, 1978 — April 24, 2020. Daniel T. Prude, September 20, 1978 — March 30, 2020. Breonna Taylor, June 5, 1993 — March 13, 2020. Manuel “Mannie” Elijah Ellis, August 28, 1986 — March 3, 2020. William Howard Green, March 16, 1976 — January 27, 2020. John Elliot Neville, 1962 — December 4, 2019. Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, November 28, 1990 — October 12, 2019. Elijah McClain, February 25, 1996 — August 30, 2019. Ronald Greene, September 28, 1969 — May 10, 2019. Javier Ambler, October 7, 1978 — March 28, 2019. Sterling Lapree Higgins, October 27, 1981 — March 25, 2019. Gregory Lloyd Edwards, September 23, 1980 — December 10, 2018. Emantic “EJ” Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., June 18, 1997 — November 22, 2018. Charles “Chop” Roundtree Jr., September 5, 2000 — October 17, 2018. Chinedu Okobi, February 13, 1982 — October 3, 2018. Anton Milbert LaRue Black, October 18, 1998 — September 15, 2018. Botham Shem Jean, September 29, 1991 — September 6, 2018. Antwon Rose Jr., July 12, 2000 — June 19, 2018. Saheed Vassell, December 22, 1983 — April 4, 2018. Stephon Alonzo Clark, August 10, 1995 — March 18, 2018. Dennis Plowden Jr., 1992 — December 28, 2017. Bijan Ghaisar, September 4, 1992 — November 27, 2017. Aaron Bailey, 1972 — June 29, 2017. Charleena Chavon Lyles, April 24, 1987 — June 18, 2017. The Fetus of Charleena Chavon Lyles (14−15 weeks), June 18, 2017. Jordan Edwards, October 25, 2001 — April 29, 2017. Chad Robertson, 1992 — February 15, 2017. Deborah Danner, September 25, 1950 — October 18, 2016. Alfred Olango, July 29, 1978 — September 27, 2016. Terence Crutcher, August 16, 1976 — September 16, 2016. Terrence LeDell Sterling, July 31, 1985 — September 11, 2016. Korryn Gaines, August 24, 1993 — August 1, 2016. Joseph Curtis Mann, 1966 — July 11, 2016. Philando Castile, July 16, 1983 — July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, June 14, 1979 — July 5, 2016. Bettie “Betty Boo” Jones, 1960 — December 26, 2015. Quintonio LeGrier, April 29, 1996 — December 26, 2015. Corey Lamar Jones, February 3, 1984 — October 18, 2015. Jamar O’Neal Clark, May 3, 1991 — November 16, 2015. Jeremy “Bam Bam” McDole, 1987 — September 23, 2015. India Kager, June 9, 1988 — September 5, 2015. Samuel Vincent DuBose, March 12, 1972 — July 19, 2015. Sandra Bland, February 7, 1987 — July 13, 2015. Brendon K. Glenn, 1986 — May 5, 2015. Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., August 16, 1989 — April 19, 2015. Walter Lamar Scott, February 9, 1965 — April 4, 2015. Eric Courtney Harris, October 10, 1971 — April 2, 2015. Phillip Gregory White, 1982 — March 31, 2015. Mya Shawatza Hall, December 5, 1987 — March 30, 2015. Meagan Hockaday, August 27, 1988 — March 28, 2015. Tony Terrell Robinson, Jr., October 18, 1995 — March 6, 2015. Janisha Fonville, March 3, 1994 — February 18, 2015. Natasha McKenna, January 9, 1978 — February 8, 2015. Jerame C. Reid, June 8, 1978 — December 30, 2014. Rumain Brisbon, November 24, 1980 — December 2, 2014. Tamir Rice, June 15, 2002 — November 22, 2014.
Akai Kareem Gurley, November 12, 1986 — November 20, 2014. Tanisha N. Anderson, January 22, 1977 — November 13, 2014. Dante Parker, August 14, 1977 — August 12, 2014. Ezell Ford, October 14, 1988 — August 11, 2014. Michael Brown Jr., May 20, 1996 — August 9, 2014. John Crawford III, July 29, 1992 — August 5, 2014. Tyree Woodson, July 8, 1976 — August 2, 2014. Eric Garner, September 15, 1970 — July 17, 2014. Dontre Hamilton, January 20, 1983 — April 30, 2014. Victor White III, September 11, 1991 — March 3, 2014. Gabriella Monique Nevarez, November 25, 1991 — March 2, 2014. Yvette Smith, December 18, 1966 — February 16, 2014. McKenzie J. Cochran, August 25, 1988 — January 29, 2014. Jordan Baker, 1988 — January 16, 2014. Andy Lopez, June 2, 2000 — October 22, 2013. Miriam Iris Carey, August 12, 1979 — October 3, 2013. Barrington “BJ” Williams, 1988 — September 17, 2013. Jonathan Ferrell, October 11, 1989 — September 14, 2013. Carlos Alcis, 1970 — August 15, 2013. Larry Eugene Jackson Jr., November 29, 1980 — July 26, 2013. Kyam Livingston, July 29, 1975 — July 21, 2013. Clinton R. Allen, September 26, 1987 — March 10, 2013. Kimani “KiKi” Gray, October 19, 1996 — March 9, 2013. Kayla Moore, April 17, 1971 — February 13, 2013. Jamaal Moore Sr., 1989 — December 15, 2012. Johnnie Kamahi Warren, February 26, 1968 — February 13, 2012.Shelly Marie Frey, April 21, 1985 — December 6, 2012. Darnisha Diana Harris, December 11, 1996 — December 2, 2012. Timothy Russell, December 9. 1968 — November 29, 2012. Malissa Williams, June 20, 1982 — November 29, 2012. Noël Palanco, November 28, 1989 — October 4, 2012. Reynaldo Cuevas, January 6, 1992 — September 7, 2012.Chavis Carter, 1991 — July 28, 2012. Alesia Thomas, June 1, 1977 — July 22, 2012. Shantel Davis, May 26, 1989 — June 14, 2012. Sharmel T. Edwards, October 10, 1962 — April 21, 2012. Tamon Robinson, December 21, 1985 — April 18, 2012. Ervin Lee Jefferson, III, 1994 — March 24, 2012. Kendrec McDade, May 5, 1992 — March 24, 2012. Rekia Boyd, November 5, 1989 — March 21, 2012. Shereese Francis, 1982 — March 15, 2012. Jersey K. Green, June 17, 1974 — March 12, 2012. Wendell James Allen, December 19, 1991 — March 7, 2012. Nehemiah Lazar Dillard, July 29, 1982 — March 5, 2012. Dante’ Lamar Price, July 18, 1986 — March 1, 2012. Raymond Luther Allen Jr., 1978 — February 29, 2012. Manual Levi Loggins Jr., February 22, 1980 — February 7, 2012. Ramarley Graham, April 12, 1993 — February 2, 2012. Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., April 12, 1943 — November 19, 2011. Alonzo Ashley, June 10, 1982 — July 18, 2011. Derek Williams, January 23, 1989 — July 6, 2011. Raheim Brown, Jr., March 4, 1990 — January 22, 2011. Reginald Doucet, June 3, 1985 — January 14, 2011. Derrick Jones, September 30, 1973 — November 8, 2010. Danroy “DJ” Henry Jr., October 29, 1990 — October 17, 2010. Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones, July 20, 2002 — May 16, 2010. Steven Eugene Washington, September 20, 1982 — March 20, 2010. Aaron Campbell, September 7, 1984 — January 29, 2010. Kiwane Carrington, July 14, 1994 — October 9, 2009. Victor Steen, November 11, 1991 — October 3, 2009. Shem Walker, March 18, 1960 — July 11, 2009. Oscar Grant III, February 27, 1986 — January 1, 2009.

It is incon­ceiv­able that cops have decid­ed to stop tar­get­ing African-American motorists sole­ly based on their skin color.
The way police behave can­not be decou­pled from the foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ple on which polic­ing was built in the first place. Policing came from slave catch­ing. I sup­pose I sound like a bro­ken record, so be it. Regardless of the fan­cy uni­forms and the ties and all the new accou­ter­ments, police are basi­cal­ly lit­tle more than a blue line that sep­a­rates the races.
They are trained to fire mul­ti­ple bul­lets to stop a 16-year-old girl with a knife but not to fire once at a 61-year-old white male who assault­ed civil­ians, struck a cop in the head with a ham­mer, and drove away, almost killing anoth­er cop.
The lack of respect they feel for African-Americans embold­ens them to kill any black per­son for con­tempt of cop, but han­dle white mass ‑mur­der­ers with respect.
This is not about peo­ple com­mit­ting crimes; it is about peo­ple who are inher­ent­ly racist being trained as police offi­cers and giv­en the pow­er of the states to kill.

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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. 

THESE SHOOTINGS ARE NOT ISOLATED CASES, THERE IS A SYSTEM STRATEGY AFOOT BY WHITE SUPREMACISTS IN POLICE DEPARTMENTS TO SHOW WHO IS BOSS.

A Black man was shot and killed in North Carolina on Wednesday by sheriff’s deputies car­ry­ing out a search war­rant, offi­cials said, an inci­dent that drew nation­al atten­tion and dozens of pro­test­ers to the streets of Elizabeth City.
Nearly 200 peo­ple gath­ered Wednesday night in Elizabeth City to protest the death and call for justice.
Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten iden­ti­fied the man as Andrew Brown Jr. News sta­tion WAVY report­ed that fam­i­ly mem­bers said Brown was 40 years old, but pub­lic records show he was 42.
The shoot­ing hap­pened at about 8:30 a.m. in Elizabeth City. Officials pro­vid­ed few details about the shoot­ing, say­ing the State Bureau of Investigation has tak­en over. Officials did not say what the war­rant was for, nor how many shots were fired at Brown. The deputy, who has not been iden­ti­fied, has been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave, pend­ing the out­come of the SBI’s review, Wooten said.

As ten­sions rose through the city, Wooten said local law enforce­ment agen­cies and the State Highway Patrol came to Elizabeth City on Wednesday “to ensure the safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of the cit­i­zens in our com­mu­ni­ty.” The City Council in Elizabeth City, rough­ly 165 miles north­east of Raleigh, held an emer­gency meet­ing Wednesday evening that became emo­tion­al as coun­cil mem­bers voiced their con­cerns and fears.“There are a lot of peo­ple hurt­ing in our city,” Councilman Gabriel Adkins said at the meet­ing. “We have a lot of hurt people.“I’m afraid. You know, I mean let’s be real. We talk about trans­paren­cy, I’m gonna be trans­par­ent,” Adkins said. “I’m afraid as a Black man walk­ing around this city, dri­ving my car down the road, try­ing to make sure that I’m dri­ving the speed lim­it, try­ing to make sure that I wear my seat belt, try­ing to make sure that do every­thing right.”

Officials repeat­ed­ly empha­sized that it was the Pasquotank Sheriff’s Department and not the Elizabeth City Police Department involved in the shoot­ing. Six deputies and offi­cers stood in front of the door to City Hall, block­ing pub­lic entry. Outside, a group of about 30 pro­test­ers swelled to near­ly 200 while the meet­ing was going on. Protesters took turns with a megaphone.“I grew up with Andrew Brown!” said Deshawn Morris. “I knew him! I knew his fam­i­ly! That man didn’t get his due process today. That could be you tomorrow!
About 7 p.m., coun­cil mem­bers emerged to screams and jeers, strug­gling to be heard. Councilman Darius Horton wore a Black Lives Matter shirt and assured the crowd the inves­ti­ga­tion will con­tin­ue. “If we didn’t have this emer­gency meet­ing, they wouldn’t have had this oppor­tu­ni­ty,” Councilman Michael Brooks said of the pro­test­ers. “If they would stay focused and let the SBI fin­ish the inves­ti­ga­tion. They have to vent right now. Otherwise, we’ll be fine.”During the meet­ing, Adkins remind­ed peo­ple to stay calm and trust the State Bureau of Investigation to “do its job.
Horton said at the meet­ing that offi­cials need to be trans­par­ent about what hap­pened. “We don’t have the infor­ma­tion, but it needs to be put out in the fore­front. The body cam­eras, that needs to be released imme­di­ate­ly,” he said.

The Pasquotank deputies involved had body-worn cam­eras, Sheriff Wooten said.“We will be trans­par­ent, and we will take the prop­er action based on the find­ings of [the SBI] inves­ti­ga­tion,” he said. He said he did not have a time­line for when the body-worn cam­era footage would be released. The crowd chant­ed “Say his name! Andrew Brown!” and “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” as they marched through down­town after 7 p.m. “We’re deal­ing with issues in our com­mu­ni­ties,” said Rev. Timothy Stallings Sr., lead­ing a prayer. “Personal issues! Stress issues! Life-filled issues! We need our law enforce­ment not to shoot us but to come help us out.” Some of those gath­ered were friends of Brown. “I’ve been know­ing him 30 years, and he wasn’t a vio­lent per­son,” said Daniel Bowser. “He didn’t mess with guns, he didn’t tote no guns. “I don’t care what they put out there, he didn’t deserve to die.” Martha McCullen, an aunt of Brown, told The Associated Press that she raised him after his par­ents died. “The police didn’t have to shoot my baby,” McCullen told The AP. “Andrew Brown was a good per­son. He was about to get his kids back. He was a good father. Now his kids won’t nev­er see him again.”

As the sun went down, about 100 pro­test­ers remained, crowd­ing onto busy Ehringhaus Street, tak­ing knees simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as they blocked traf­fic. They asked for Sheriff Wooten for a pub­lic account­ing of what is known and what will be inves­ti­gat­ed, promis­ing to stay peace­ful and return Thursday. “We are ask­ing for trans­paren­cy, to not have to lis­ten to rumors,” said Keith Rivers, pres­i­dent of the Pasquotank branch of the NAACP. He also said the sher­iff should be reach­ing out to Black lead­ers. “If it was a white man who was shot, would he address the white com­mu­ni­ty?” Elizabeth City offi­cials did not impose a cur­few on Wednesday but said they would con­sid­er one if need­ed. Brown’s death comes less than 24 hours after for­mer Minneapolis police offi­cer Derek Chauvin was con­vict­ed of mur­der in the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Floyd died after Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than nine min­utes last May.

His death sparked nation­wide protests call­ing for increased police account­abil­i­ty and changes in the way offi­cers inter­act with Black peo­ple. State Rep. Howard Hunter, whose 5^th District seat encom­pass­es Pasquotank County, spoke out Wednesday after­noon. “Understandably so, con­stituents are on the edge and very much dis­trust­ful of police in gen­er­al; and in light of the fact that very lit­tle infor­ma­tion has been released at this time; unfor­tu­nate­ly they may have doubts in the verac­i­ty of infor­ma­tion when released.”

Situated in far north­east­ern North Carolina near the Virginia bor­der, Elizabeth City is home to about 18,000 peo­ple, near­ly half of rur­al Pasquotank County’s total pop­u­la­tion. Half of the city’s res­i­dents are Black, com­pared to about 13% statewide, accord­ing to Census Bureau data. Elizabeth City State University, a his­tor­i­cal­ly Black col­lege, can­celed class­es after 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. School offi­cials encour­aged stu­dents and staff to con­tact the coun­sel­ing cen­ter if they are in need of emo­tion­al sup­port. District Attorney Andrew Womble, whose juris­dic­tion spans sev­er­al North Carolina coun­ties, includ­ing Pasquotank, promised a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion. “What we are look­ing for at this time will be accu­rate answers and not fast answers,” Womble said.