Capitol Heights, MD — Martique Vanderpool, a 30-year old former police officer from Maryland, was arrested for allegedly raping a woman after conducting a traffic stop. He is facing additional charges since it has been determined that he is also HIV positive. In September 2019, Vanderpool stopped a woman for speeding in Capitol Heights. He allegedly forced the woman to have sex with him at the police station or else, she will be jailed. Vanderpool, who resigned from the police department after the incident, was recently indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts, including first-degree rape, reckless endangerment, misconduct in office and knowingly attempting to expose someone to HIV.
He was initially arrested in December but was later released on bond. He was arrested again on Wednesday and is now being held without bond. The authorities are worried that there could have been others who were victimized by Vanderpool. They are asking the public to report any other incident that involved him. “This conduct creates in me concerns that we have other people that may have been impacted whether as the victims of crime or in relationships with the individual in question,” Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said at a news conference.[BN]
Every single member of the Republican caucus in the US Congress and every member of the Republican caucus in the United States Senate took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Defense of the constitution is so important that these public servants are required to swear an oath to defend it even before taking office. These public officers, most of whom call themselves Christians, take the oath by swearing on a Bible.
Yet, like the unanimous Republican response to the Trump impeachment in the house, Senate Republicans will treacherously abdicate their most sacred duty in defense of the constitution, and give total fealty, to arguably the most corrupt and degenerate President in American history. Suggesting that Donald Trump is arguably the most dangerous and degenerative occupier of the white house says a lot, because, most of that lot have been horrible characters.
The tragic irony is that, though Donald Trump and his white base would rather have a dictatorship than an open pluralistic society, (according to polling), he will not be president forever. Eventually, there will be a Democrat in the White House, Democrats will control the Senate, maybe even the House and Senate while holding the white house. The Democrat in the White House could and may use what Donald Trump is allowed to get away with as a precedent for pushing the envelope. Republicans may think they will be in the majority forever, but the damage they are doing to the Republic is not just for Trump to get away with high crimes and misdemeanors, it is for all future presidents, Democrats, and Republicans. Worse yet, the two parties are so far apart ideologically, there is next to no chance they will come together to legislate and codify into law, best practices which stipulates how a president shall behave.
Someone argued a few days ago these are old white men who are living in the now. They care nothing about what happens when they are gone, they say. I agree somewhat, but I also believe they see Donald Trump as the best thing for white entitlement, white identity, white supremacy, and their fraudulent white grievances. The Republican base certainly thinks so. That explains the absolute fear congressional representatives and senators in the Republican Party have of opening their mouths to say anything which could remotely be construed to be in disagreement with Trump.
The TV talking heads, and the pundits claim that Trump’s support comes from people who are economically anxious. They are blatantly lying to the public. These people are always economically anxious, whenever the factories in their midwestern towns and suburbs close they blame everyone. Immigrants, Blacks, Muslims, foreigners, and everyone in-between, become their enemy of choice. As long as Trump hates people they do not like, he is safe with them. That well of antipathy has always been there to be exploited, it took a man as immoral, amoral and deeply corrupt as Donald Trump to exploit it.
Kobe Bryant, 41, the legendary basketball star who spent 20 years with the Lakers, was killed when the helicopter he was traveling in crashed and burst into flames Sunday morning amid foggy conditions in the hills above Calabasas, sources told the Los Angeles Times. His daughter Gianna, 13, was also on board, NBA authorities confirmed. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said nine people were on the copter — a pilot and eight passengers. He would not confirm who had died until all the next of kin have been notified, he said.[LAT]
This is the second of a two-part series, on the subject of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Jamaica, for talks with Prime Minister Andrew Holness. I intend to show in the simplest form possible, that the American Secretary of State’s visit, though couched and wrapped in beautiful and flowery dressing, is nothing more than an attempt by the Trump administration in Washington DC to ensure that it keeps Jamaica in the fold, in the face of the massive Chinese foray into the Caribbean and the developing world.
Even as Pompeo was supposedly engrossed in serious bi-lateral talks with leaders of the tiny island of 2.7 million people, largely of African ancestry, house managers were presenting credible and damning evidence against Donald Trump, Pompeo’s boss, for high crimes and misdemeanors. In normal times the evidence against Trump would have been enough for the 45th occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to be sent packing. These are no ordinary times, the very existence of the American experiment is at stake. Regardless of the outcome, a new precedent will be set, and the United States will absolutely be worse off for it.
I have no doubt that the Jamaican Prime Minister recognizes that the country cannot continue under the cloak of murders and violent felonies committed daily across the country. And so I have no doubt that he believes in Pompeo’s [BS] charm offensive. He may even be dazzled by the presence of the Secretary himself, as some in the media believe that Jamaica should be honored to have the secretary himself, when a lower-rung bureaucrat would be more than enough for Jamaica, right?
[We peasants out hey in di colony do not need anyone as important as Massa’s secretary, we [is] quite comfortable with anyone white].
Clearly, some in the opinion-making business still struggle with unshackling themselves from the yoke of sub-human status. It is for that reason that the Prime Minister said the following with giddy schoolboy excitement; “For our regional engagement, the US-Caribbean 2020 Engagement Strategy also sets the course for further work to promote prosperity, energy security, health and well-being, peace and security, and ongoing high-level political engagement in the years ahead.”
In a press briefing after the talks ended Mike Pompeo said the following: “Today in our meeting, the prime minister and I strengthened our country’s friendship and set the table for greater engagement.”
Does anyone seriously believe that the bonds between Jamaica and the United States need strengthening? Whether it is prosperity, energy security, health and well-being, peace and security, or high-level political engagement, the United States has had more than enough time to strengthen those areas over the last decades. And so the question must be, “why now”? What about the mass deportations of people who committed only minor infractions, some who are even innocent? What about the mass influx of illegal automatic weaponry flooding Jamaica’s streets and alleyways, is America helping to stop it? What about infrastructural development, why did the United States not offer Jamaica low-interest loans over the years? Those infrastructure development loans would have helped to make Jamaica a first-world nation as Israel is? Jamaica is smaller than the state of Israel, so if America wanted to help Jamaica, it would be rather easy to help Jamaica’s development over the years. Those loans would have provided good jobs for Jamaicans, which in turn would lessen the need for Jamaicans to line up seeking a way into the United States. Or, is taking money from poor Jamaicans who line up expecting to get a visitors visa an easier way to extract from the poor what little they have? Even though the vast majority of those people will never receive a visa to set foot in the United States?
There are roughly 39 million African-American people living in the United States. That number is greater than the entire population of Canada, with its 37.59 million. Black spending power is 1.3 trillion dollars annually, according to [Neilsen]. Despite that numeric strength and economic spending power, the United States still treats its black citizens as second class citizens, and without the respect they deserve. It behooves those giddy with excitement that [massa] came down to the [colony] to grace the peasantry with his presence, and to offer platitudes, to cool off on drinking too much of the cool-aid. As I wrote before Pompeo started his talks with Holness, the singular reason he is in Jamaica is to whip Jamaica in line over China’s growing influence in the region. Of course, this did not require much critical thinking. Last year the American Ambassador to Jamaica, some guy named Donald Tapia, had the gall to lecture the Island about accepting loans from China. And then Pompeo made clear the real reason for his visit by admonishing the Island about accepting loans from China. The United States is itself heavily indebted to China. If America is so heavily indebted to China, why should Jamaica not have the right to exercise its discretion on who it borrows from and under what conditions? Who gives Pompeo, and the United States the right to exercise paternalistic authority over Jamaica? Is Jamaica unequal to the task of self-determination?
I hate to say I told you so but .… actually, I don’t, I told you so. If Jamaica is able to secure low-interest loans from China, America loses out on its high-interest loans to Jamaica. If Jamaica sees benefit in dealing with China, the Asian behemoth becomes a lot more attractive to the Island, as it does to other Caribbean nations. It is for that reason that the stance taken by Barbados & Trinidad & Tobago is so valiant. I understand the utopian view Jamaicans at home have of the United States, who could blame them. If we wish to speak the truth, most of us believed that American streets were paved with gold when we saw the beautiful picturesque images of the Manhattan skyline. In our minds, there were no potholes. Friends and I joked recently, many believed there were no mosquitos in America.
Despite the best mental images we had of what America was, before we first set foot on American soil, she remains everything but what we imagined. No, the streets are not paved with gold, they are pot-holed infested. Sure the Manhattan night-time skyline is picturesque, but the background darkness masks the hunger, homelessness, and despair of tens of thousands, it is a beautiful wallpaper that covers up the decaying walls, of poverty and racial exclusion. For the hard-working people of color raising their boys in Manhattan and other metropolitan centers across the country is a daily grind of nerves. Their fears are not that their boys will be murdered by their contemporaries so much, as it is that they will be murdered by the very people they pay to protect them, the police. Poor whites with no influence are hardly any better off, poverty, economic anxiety, and drug abuse are wreaking havoc all across the nation. When it affects blacks they are lazy crack addicts, this time the label is the opioid crisis. If America refuses to fix its own people, why in hell would it want to help black people in Jamaica?
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Mont Belvieu, TX — Deandre Arnold, a high school student from Texas, is reportedly being discriminated against because of his hair style of choice. His school, Barbers Hill High School in the city of Mont Belvieu, has suspended him and banned him from participating in his own graduation unless he cuts his locks to a shorter length.
School officials claim their decision is based on their long-standing policy wherein “no dress code policy that prohibits any cornrow or any other method of wearing of the hair, our policy limits the length. It’s been that way for 30 years,” Superintendent Greg Poole told KHOU 11.
However, activists believe that it is yet again another case of racial discrimination.
“The dress code is designed by white people for white people and is damaging to Black bodies,” Black Lives Matter activist Ashton Woods said.
“This is a Black and white issue, Deandre (and) his family should not have to go through this. But I expect it from a board that has zero diversity,” stated Gary Monroe, with the United Urban Alumni Association.
A number of activists supported Deandre and his family in their discussion with the Barbers Hill school board, hoping to come to a favorable resolution. They thought that the issue was an insignificant obstruction to the teen’s education that might also be experienced by others.
“We’re here for Deandre, but it’s about more than that, this is about all the other Deandres that could come through Barbers Hill,” Sandy Arnold, Deandre’s mother said.
Moreover, Deandre’s family, together with their supporters, are planning to take the case to federal court if the school wouldn’t come up with a resolution 48 hours after their meeting.
It is not often that the Editorial pages of newspapers get it right. In fact, in most cases, Editorial boards are so out of the loop that their opinions evoke disbelief and even ridicule. The Editorial page of the Jamaica Observer for Tuesday, January 21st decided that it did not want to break that cycle. In its headline titled; ” Mr. Pompeo’s visit an opportunity for our region”, the publication trotted out old bullet points on the supposed friendship benchmarks between the United States and Jamaica. They are older than the weevil infested American flour and cornmeal handouts, labeled, ‘in god we trust” from the 1960s.
The Editorial is in response to Barbados and now Trinidad & Tobago’s decision, not to meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Kingston Jamaica. Pompeo is slated to begin a two-day meeting with Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness. In its gushing endorsement of the visit, the Editorial argued; “instead of seeing the visit as a threat to the notion of Caribbean unity, we should grasp the opportunity for the region to further strengthen its relationship with our long-standing friend, the United States”.
Without giving credence to the salient reasons given by Jamaica’s Caribbean neighbors for not attending the meeting with Pompeo, the Editorial, in juvenile fashion said; “we regard Mr. Pompeo’s decision to come here as a further demonstration of his Government’s commitment to the long-standing friendship between Kingston and Washington”. The naïveté of the foregone is beyond laughable. What friendship? ” It’s a friendship that this newspaper values highly, because we remember when it was threatened by the adventurism of a left-leaning Administration in the 1970s, which not only plunged Jamaica into the Cold War, but ruined the economy, resulting in a brain drain and the erosion of the middle class”. True, but there was no mention of the role the United States played in the processes which brought Jamaica to financial ruin in the ’70s.
“After all, given the volume of high-intensity geopolitical events now in train globally, and the fact that the US is playing a significant role in many of these issues, Washington could easily have assigned a junior in rank to MrPompeo to travel to Jamaica for these talks”.
Oh Lord, this level of self-doubt and second class mindset is extremely difficult to shake, but I thought that these people would have had a little more self-assuredness. In virtually every so-called high-intensity geopolitical event across the Globe, there are American fingerprints. Most are of American creation.
“Some seem to expect that all member states of Caricom should be at the meeting. That is obviously unnecessary, because if Caricom is acting like one, there should be no need for a roomful of leaders”.
By that statement, the cocooned Editorial in one fell-swoop gave Prime Minister Andrew Holness carte-blanch to speak on behalf of all of CARICOM. I have a feeling that member states of CARICOM may have something to say about that. Despite CARICOM, member states within the organization have very strong opinions on their individual autonomy. Students of history know that it is for that very reason that the proposed “west indies federation” reminded just that, a proposal.
“So, we welcome Secretary Pompeo in the spirit of friendship and hope that the talks will be fruitful. For certainly, his country has proved, over many decades, that it is a friend in times of need and that it values the excellent relationship between both our countries”.
Several books can be written about the supposed relationship/friendship between the United States and Jamaica. Fundamental to the topic, however, would be the appropriate dispensation of the myth, that the United States is a friend of any country, much less Jamaica. I would like to state the obvious for the Observers Editorial board, nations have strategic interests, not friendships.
It is difficult to change the minds of some people with pre-formed opinions that the US is an unvarnished friend to Jamaica. Any such belief is to ignore, or worse, display a dangerous ignorance of the differences between the two political parties in the United States. To believe that the American foreign policy of the 1970s is static, and therefore the same today as it was in the 70s, is just another example of that profound ignorance and naiveté. Mike Pompeo is of an administration that is vehemently opposed to countries with black and brown populations. Donald Trump, Pompeo’s boss, calls countries like Jamaica, the Caribbean region and Africa *shithole countries*. He would kick every black and brown person out of the United States if he could do so. In fact, he has consistently asked his advisors, why is America letting black and brown people in? He has explicitly stated his preference for immigrants from Sweden. Sweden for Trump represents white qualification. It is impossible to make the argument that Mike Pompeo, a pompous, arrogant, and bloviating crud, is in Jamaica for Jamaica’s interest.
Let us dispense with the nonsense about friendships, as per the Observer; We expect, of course, that the unfortunate developments in Venezuela, as well as China’s growing influence in this region, will come up for discussion. (Said the Observer). The United States is a friend to one country in the word, and one country only, and that country is Israel. Mike Pompeo is in Jamaica on a whip mission. He is there to use Jamaica’s influence in the region, to help the United States to counter China’s burgeoning incursion in the region. There is a legitimate conversation to be had about Communist China’s intentions across the globe. History shows that America’s wars, including the war in Vietnam, was about curtailing what America saw as the scourge of Communism, the red menace. Even as America fought those wars, conscientious Americans were demonstrating in cities across the US, on College campuses, in the streets, many were beaten by police, many were murdered by national guard troops, and in the American, government the debate about communism raged with Joseph Mcarthy-like fervor. This pitted Americans against Americans.
Past is prologue, it is time that opinion-makers do the research necessary before leading the Jamaican people down rabbit holes they have no business going into. China’s influence across the globe is a threat, but it will require will and common sense to thwart that threat. China is not approaching the developing world with bullets and bayonets. China is doling out dollars and do-good. That approach is difficult to stop. Mike Pompeo is in Jamaica to try to counter that influence in America’s national security interest. Not Jamaica’s.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
As a practicing Christian, I have always believed that the words of the Bible, parts of which have been assigned directly to the supreme God, becomes manifest in front of our eyes because of human doings, rather than anything magical or mystical. Having given this subject much thought, and having observed the rapid cultural metamorphosis from a situation in which truth is at the very least an established baseline, to the proliferation and acceptance of lies, I am moved to put my thoughts into words.
2 Thessalonians 2:1 – 3 New King James Version (NKJV) Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of [a]Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of [b]sin is revealed, the son of perdition.
I never subscribed to the theory that any single individual represented the frightening system of government the Bible predicts, (the system of the antichrist), will precede the second coming of our Lord and Savior Yeshua the Christ. However, having read and assimilated the word of God as best I could, and having studied keenly historical and current events, I long concluded that the frightening system to come has little to do with any single individual. So no,.…… I do not believe that Donald Trump is the Antichrist as white Christians believed President Barack Obama to be. Nevertheless, I believe that as a species we have woven ourselves so tightly into a cocoon of ungodliness, that we would not know how to disentangle, even if we wanted to. As a consequence, the fulfillment of the scriptures is guaranteed because of our own actions.
While Barack Obama was competing for the presidency of the United States he underwent all kinds of attacks, many of which were not only unwarranted, but downright racist, dirty, and stupidly conspiratorial. He was accused of being a Muslim, as if being a Muslim was a constitutional block against attaining the US presidency. It is not! He was accused of being a Manchurian candidate, and after he won he was accused of being a Manchurian president intent on destroying the Republic. A manchurian candidate is a person, especially a politician, being used as a puppet by an enemy power. The term is commonly used to indicate disloyalty or corruption, whether intentional or unintentional.
Most of those scurrilous theories came from FOX misinformation, and the bevy of right-wing nut jobs on talk radio which blared out rabid hatred daily. Those theories eventually got picked up by white Evangelical Christians and inevitably bled into the mainstream conversation and became pseudo-facts, alternative facts. The reality is that those alternative facts infiltrate the brain of people, not just those characterized as the [deplorables], but by people who have advanced degrees, including black people with PhDs who ought to know better, have bought into the lies, and the deceit which has taken over the national consciousness.
I was absolutely shocked that a Ph.D., who is also a black man, and a Pastor, told me that he would rather have Donald Trump remain in the presidency than vote for Pete Buttegeig because he is a homosexual. He won’t vote for Joe Biden because he is boring, and he will not vote for either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren because they are Socialists/Communists. He based every statement he made on his Christian faith, not on his intellectual capabilities.
My Ph.D. lamented that his taxes are being used to take care of people who ought to be working. [Did I tell you that he is also a Pastor]? I stood there in utter shock as he berated the Democrats, pointing to New York City’s Mayor Bill De Blasio who he argues wants to give away everything to people for free, people he believes ought to be working. Dumfounded, I stood there, mouth agape at what I was hearing, I was almost at a loss for words, something that doesn’t happen often. I harkened back to Yeshua’s teachings, take care of the poor, take care of the orphan and the widowed, visit the incarcerated.
As small business and property owners, my wife and I pay what we believe are over and above what we should be paying in taxes. Am I sometimes mad that we get nothing back for all that is taken from us? You bet! But the way funds in the federal budget are allocated should leave no one with the wrong idea about welfare. Corporate welfare is the problem, not the crumbs which are tossed to the poorest Americans. The thing that puzzles me most is the way the poorest people have been conned into militating for the interest of the rich over their own interests.
Exasperated I pulled up this page, turned my computer screen around and showed him this pie-chart. His first reaction was that it was exaggerated, I asked him for proof, he gave up and went onto something else. I wanted to be fair so I found PolitiFact’s piechart. Politifact is well respected as a non-partisan arbiter of political claims.
Politifact argues its chart is more representative of the true federal spending allocations. [“To get numbers that approximate this, the pie chart(chart number one), cherry-picks just discretionary spending. But that means the pie chart represents only about one-third of federal spending. Once you include the 60 percent of the budget that is mandatory spending, the military share plunges from 57 percent to 16 percent, and the categories that include Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid collectively account for a majority of federal spending. Spending on food and agriculture is still small, but it does quadruple from 1 percent to 4 percent.]
That is PolitiFact’s assessment, I disagree, because Social Security is money paid to the government by working Americans, that money should be locked away to do what social security was intended to do and ought not to have been part of the national budget year to year. The fact that social security commitments have to be honored from the federal budget is exactly because those funds have been raided to finance illegal wars overseas. So technically, a more accurate picture would be to add social security’s 25.3% to the military’s 16.2% for a grand total of 41.5%. So we are back closer to the first pie chart’s number of 57%.
To be fair, I wanted you, our readers, to have access to both charts so that you may make an informed decision. Given a scenario in which the actual truth is that federal spending actually lands somewhere in the middle of the two depictions, or worse, even falls where [Politifact] places the numbers, how can we justify spending that share of the pie on weapons of mass destruction, instead of on poor Americans? If we (a) set aside Donald Trump’s mountain of negatives which ought to have disqualified him from the presidency, (at least according to normal ethical standards), and (b) are able to set aside the idea that anyone calling themselves Christians, (much less Africa-American and Christian) would accept Donald Trump, we are still left with the disproportionate allocation of federal dollars to contemplate.
How do we, who call ourselves Christians reconcile that amount of resources going toward corporate interest, yet we complain about the meager crumbs going toward helping the most vulnerable? Are we so socialized into apathy and disdain toward the poor that we would rather continue the trickle-down theory which says if we give more to the rich some will fall from their tables so that the poor can eat the crumbs? It seems that my Ph.D. friend and the Evangelical movement has done just that.
T‑party “patriots” demonstrate against Obama’s policies
During his presidency, Barack Obama asked the people earning half a million dollars or more annually to pay a little more in taxes. Polls at the time showed that the majority of people in that income bracket were quite fine with paying a little more in taxes so that other social obligations could be addressed. Ironically, it was the poorest people in the Southern and Midwestern States who came out with tiki-torches and pitchforks, they called Obama all kinds of derogatory names, socialist, communist, and those were the good names. The median income in those states was about $35.000, yet they were out fighting the fight of millionaires and billionaires.
In a September 2019 article for [The Atlantic], Columnist Derek Thompson wrote, ” By the early 2000s, the share of Americans who said they didn’t associate with any established religion (also known as “nones”) had doubled. By the 2010s, this grab bag of atheists, agnostics, and spiritual dabblers had tripled in size. The stark reality is that fewer and fewer young people are subscribing to their parent’s religious practices. Is this part of the falling away from the faith? I do not pretend to have those answers. Daniel 12:4 (KJV) But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. The proliferation of knowledge has never been greater at any time in recorded history. The Internet and social media allow for the mass dissemination of information across continents in nano-seconds. While this is happening, Pastors and Parishioners alike, are making a mockery of the word of God, the young people are watching and many are saying “we want none of it”.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Atlanta, GA — Six female Georgia lawmakers have taken historic action by filing a bill that requires all state and local law enforcement departments to create a ‘use of force’ database that is accessible by the public. The Use of Force Act (House Bill 636) was filed by State Representatives Renitta Shannon, Sandra Scott, Erica Thomas, Pam Stephenson, Park Cannon, and Bee Nguyen.
he Bill comes on the heels of a considerably large number of high profiled officer-involved shooting cases in Georgia. The names of the victims include Jimmy Atchison, Veltavious Griggs, JaMarion Robinson, Caine Rogers, DeAundre Phillips, Nicholas Thomas, Anthony Hill, Alexia Christian, Kevin Davis, and many others. The cases of Atchison and Griggs were both heavily featured on BET’s Copwatch America docuseries.
After the show premiered, former Atlanta police officer Sung Kim was forced to resign for the shooting of Jimmy Atchison. Witnesses say the father of two say was surrendering with his hands up when he was shot in the face. The FBI Task Force attempted to arrest Atchison for his alleged involvement in an armed robbery. The APD police report stated at the time of the Atchison’s murder that “a follow-up interview is needed with Brogan to check the discrepancies in the two stories.” A witness to the alleged armed robbery told police that Atchison didn’t rob anyone.
The proposed Georgia law would require law enforcement to take significant action in officer-involved incidents such as:
* Report every use of force incident in writing,
* Ensure that the incidents are entered and maintained in a database that can be accessed by the public,
* and detail any and all law enforcement officers that have been disciplined as a result of the use of force.
If the legislation passes, law enforcement agencies will be required to update the database with the information from the previous month.
News of the lawmaker’s historic initiative went viral on social media, including retweets from Kathy Griffin and Shaun King. You can follow the discussion below:
Driving accountability for excessive use of force by #police is something I’ve consistently fought for. This article talks about a bill I sponsored in 2019, that is the first of a series of bills. Help me continue the fight
Just two weeks after five people were wounded and one killed in Port of Spain, the capital city recorded another multiple shooting this afternoon. This time, three people, including an 18-year-old woman, were shot.
The victims are Aaron “Max” Broomes, who was shot in the head, Shakira Mona, who was shot in her leg and arm, and Kayode “Toes” Donawa who was shot multiple times to his chest. Broomes and Donwa, died at the Port of Spain General Hospital.
Mona is listed in serious condition. A fourth man was injured as he ran from the gunfire. The Express was told that the gunfire erupted at around 2:25p.m. along Queen Street, in the vicinity of Nelson Street. The men walked to a northern area off the roadway where they opened fire on a group of people. They then returned to the Tiida and drove away. The police and emergency health services were immediately notified and the injured parties were rushed for medical treatment at the General Hospital. An All-Points Bulletin was issued and a vehicle was spotted along the Eastern Main Road, Laventille.
Officers attempted to intercept the vehicle, but its occupants opened fire on them. Officers fired on the suspects but they ran into the hills of Laventille, one of them carrying an automatic rifle. No police officer was injured during the exchange, but investigators believe that the gunmen were wounded. The vehicle was subsequently impounded. An active search is underway for the gunmen.
If you can’t beat them join them, or better yet, if you see that a system can be financially lucrative, cash in. Either one of those mindsets could define the way the Jamaican crime fight has been viewed by the people with the power to change the system. Who says crime does not pay, it is certainly not true in Jamaica?
In a country that is deemed to be 84% corrupt by rating agency [Transparency International], it is important that we understand that political corruption has served as a shining beacon for our nation’s youth to look at and decide,” we want our share.“ Most of our people have surrendered our sense of outrage on the altar of hopelessness. We see resignation and apathy, we see a sense of surrender to the status quo. Have you noticed that the two political parties cannot find common ground on anything except on things that are bad for the country? Things like an increase in their pay. INDECOM, no prosecutorial power for the Contractor General, etc. The people see the outrage but they say they cannot do anything about it so they accept it is par for the course.
They see the politician who has never had a job outside of politics. Not a single day of gainful employment, yet he/she has a huge mansion and a multi-million US$ bank account. Where did they get the money from? We can do the math, we can calculate how long a person has been a member of parliament. We know what a member of parliament earns. Where have they gotten the US$ multi-million-dollar bank account from? No, mister and miss political toadie, we do not envy them their ill-gotten wealth, maybe you are impressed by that, but we aren’t. If we are to build a country we must demand honesty and integrity from those who have stepped forward to lead. It cannot be that we brush these important questions aside, then expect the very corrupt people we allowed to slide through, to represent our best interest.
In the meantime, the average person finds it more and more difficult to survive
How many trillions have politicians in both political parties siphoned away from the people without consequence? Yet you gleefully don your orange and green regalia and cheer them on as they lie to you and you vote them into office to steal from you some more. They do nothing about crime, because a corrupt society that is inundated by corruption and violence will not be focused enough to pay attention to what they are doing. They import white overseers from England supposedly to help with modernizing our police department, playing into the stereotypical perceptions that we cannot govern ourselves.
So we asked [Massa] to come down and show us how to do it. Of course [Massa] came saw and conquered, but that is what [Massa] have always done right? He couldn’t, wouldn’t, and certainly didn’t do shit about changing the paradigm, but he sure disrespected our officers and… aah hell.….why not take a bride and monetize the carnage? Why substantively change the situation when it is easier and more profitable to benefit financially from it? It made perfect sense to cash in on the insecurity and anxiety, why not invest in a security company?
As a nation, we keep making the same mistakes while expecting different outcomes. Our laws are heavily slanted toward the protection of criminals instead of the protection of the law-abiding. We dutifully allow foreigners to infiltrate our very law-making bodies until now every bit of legislation that passes the parliament has foreign influence in every word. How can a nation claim to be independent when it is incapable of governing itself?
What country in the world would accept any Jamaican interference in its law enforcement or legislative process? Why then does Jamaica allow foreign groups and local groups funded by foreign countries to influence our criminal code? It is so much easier and more lucrative to be a criminal in Jamaica than it is to be a law-abiding citizen. That is the reason no one bothers to tell the police anything. The failure of leadership in both parties on the issue of crime and corruption may not be incompetence at all. Dirty money funds political parties and enrich politicians. The deeply entrenched crime factions in the society have deep connections uptown, the political leadership cannot bite the hand that feeds them. That’s the bottom line, the dead and dying are mere collateral damage.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
The governor said law enforcement had intercepted “extremist rhetoric” similar to the lead-up to Charlottesville days before pro-gun activists are holding a rally.
In response to what he described as “credible intelligence” of threats of violence at an upcoming gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency and will temporarily ban individuals from carrying firearms on Capitol grounds.
The governor said at a press conference Wednesday that authorities believe “armed militia groups plan to storm the Capitol” during the January 20 rally.
He also said that law enforcement had intercepted threats and “extremist rhetoric” similar to what was observed prior to the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. “We will not allow that mayhem and violence to happen here,” he said.
The decision to ban all weapons, including firearms, won’t sit well with the thousands of gun lovers who are expected to descend on Richmond to participate in what was billed as an open-carry affair and an opportunity to flex Second Amendment rights.
“No weapons will be allowed on Capitol grounds,” said Northam, a Democrat. “Everything from sticks and bats to chains and projectiles…. The list also includes firearms. It makes no sense to ban every other weapon but allow firearms when intelligence shows that armed militia groups plan to storm the Capitol.”
On the Facebook page for the rally, several attendees are already saying they won’t comply and leave their weapons at home — even though Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney has vowed a hard line on rule-breakers. “Violations of the law will not be tolerated,” Stoney said.
The January 20 event, dubbed “Lobby Day,” was organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a pro-Second Amendment nonprofit, in response to new gun control legislation introduced by the Democrat state Legislature. Northam acknowledged that the organizers had been planning the rally for some time. “I believe them when they say this is a peaceful event — that’s what democracy is,” said Northam. “Unfortunately, they have unleashed something much larger, something they may not be able to control.”
Upwards of 5,000 people said on the Facebook page that they plan to attend. Event organizers have warned the state that as many as 100,000 could show up.
A website for the rally shows that at least 60 buses are scheduled to transport attendees into Richmond on Monday. And there’s word that carpools are being organized. What’s more, armed militia groups are also planning to attend, and some have even described the event as a “boogaloo” — a term that the far right uses to describe a second civil war.
In addition to banning weapons on Capitol grounds, Northam also said he’d established a unified command between state police, Capitol police, the Richmond police department, and the city’s first responder teams. This is a critical move — one that’s likely borne out of the lessons learned from the massive law enforcement failures during Unite the Right, which left one dead and dozens injured. Months after that rally, an independent review team released a searing 220-page report analyzing how law enforcement’s disorganization and failure to coördinate across agencies allowed the violent, ugly scenes that unfolded that day.
Northam says that the state of emergency will be lifted on Tuesday. (The story originated from onvice.com)
One of my former colleagues made a rather important observation on a social media platform today. I must say that I found his observations rather pointed even though I cannot validate the numbers killed genderwise.
He said; “In Jamaica, in any given year we will murder over a thousand of our citizens. Of those more than a thousand citizens„ probably 1 % will be women. Of that 1%, maybe a huge percentage of those weren’t directly targeted. So do we believe that the problem is ’ “violence against women?” maybe we need to change our selective outrage. Our default settings are to kill those who offend us be it man woman boy girl or a dog that attacks us. That’s the problem”.(RS)
He nailed it. I have always wondered where we would end up in our Jamaican society because we never do anything without being extra, pretentious and overdoing it. Sure, we need diversity of all kinds, but I hardly think that tipping a container too far one way or the other does any good to the contents of that container.
In February of last year, I wrote the above article in which I called out a female government minister for ignoring data in order to push what I contended was a feminist agenda. One of the things that I have observed in our society growing up, was that in many cases a poor family would make the choice to educate a girl sibling leaving the boy to fend for himself. After all, a man can always fend for himself so we have to ensure that the girl gets an education. I have always thought that way of thinking was dangerous because we lived in a society in which the man was [still] expected to take care of his family.
A man who did not take care of his children was less than a rabid dog, open to ridicule and derision, and correctly so. Nevertheless, if he was not educated the same way his sister was, how can he be expected to compete in the dog-eat-dog society in which only the fittest survive? When the UWI, the preeminent institution of higher learning freshman class year over year, is up to 85% female, is there any wonder that the men are angry and feeling left behind?
In the article last year I included some basic facts to be considered, I will incorporate some of those facts here.
There are exponentially more all-girls schools in Jamaica than boy schools. There are also myriad agencies dedicated to the support and upliftment of girls and women. (1) The Bureau of Women’s Affairs (gender affairs)Act as a catalyst to ensure that the Government addresses the problems that confront women, given the impact of patriarchy and sexism. (2) Woman Incorporated (Crisis Centre) Offering crisis counseling, referral services, and a 24-hour hotline. The issues addressed by Woman Inc. include rape, incest, domestic violence, domestic crisis, and sexual harassment. (3) Sistren Theatre Collective Brings pressure to bear on society to change the negative stereotypes of women. (4) Women’s Centre Of Jamaica Foundation Objective is to motivate young mothers to choose education instead of continuous motherhood. (5) Women’s Media Watch The organization works to improve the images of women in the media. (6) Women’s Resource And Outreach Centre Provides a place for women and youth in the Lyndhurst and Greenwich community to learn the route of self-empowerment.
This list does not begin to scratch the surface but it gives clear and unequivocal examples of the disparity in support services and to whom they are dedicated. I am yet to locate a bureau of men’s affairs. Not only are men in crisis not socialized to be vulnerable, they hardly have any place to go for help.
If you have been paying attention you would have noticed that from the classrooms to the boardrooms across the country, men have basically retreated and in some cases have all but disappeared. Who will the highly educated women enrolling in the UWI marry? In fact, when the very man who was sidelined in order that his sister could go to college, decides to educate a girl he falls in love with, and then she finds him uneducated and therefore unsuitable for her, and he kills her, why are we in shock?
The sad truth is that there is a lot to ventilate on this issue, an issue that needs psychological attention. The men who dropped out of school, or were sidelined for their sisters, or decided they did not want to bother with the long process of education, are the men being empowered by the gun. They are the men who find power and ventilation in violence, they see no other way. They are not about to give up that power, those guns will have to be pried from their fingers, one way or another.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
It is shocking that in this day and age, even when criminals who make terroristic threats are caught and convicted beyond a reasonable doubt Caribbean magistrates and judges continue to turn these monsters loose to continue with their criminal ways. Take the case of this scum who threatened to behead the Trinidad & Tobago police commissioner and also kill his wife. The braindead magistrate gave him a slap on the wrist and turned him loose back onto the streets.
A 35-year-old Princes Town man was found guilty last Friday of threatening to behead Police Commissioner Gary Griffith and murder his wife Nicole Dyer-Griffith. Police said Mahindra Ramdath appeared before magistrate Sarah Da Silva in the Port of Spain Magistrates Third Court charged with the misuse of a telephone contrary to section 106 of the Summary Offences Act 11:02. Ramdath was found guilty and bonded to a sum of $10,000 to keep the peace and be of good behavior for two years. Ramdath made the threats when he called the E999 hotline in November 2018. The call was traced and Ramdath was arrested at his Palmyra Village home hours later. He was charged by acting Insp Rajesh Gokool of the Port-of-Spain CID. Ramdath was sent for a psychiatric evaluation at the St Ann’s Hospital after he appeared before magistrate Sanara Toon-McQuilkin in 2018.
So what happens now if this man murders Gary Griffiths, or worse kill his wife who isn’t even a police officer, would it be fair to expect an eye for an eye with this magistrate who clearly should be somewhere in a daycare center where she would be better suited? You decide.
I wonder what would have happened if Jamaica’s elites had thrown their collective weight behind our budding democracy in the early days. A Democracy that rose from the ashes of colonialism and the challenges of the 70’s which literally questioned the very idea of whether us Jamaicans could govern ourselves. Wonder where our country would be if those who had loud important voices capable of shaping opinions, used those powers and perches to push and demand a society centered around the concept of the rule of law? After all, it is rather easy and convenient to blame everyone else for what we failed to do for ourselves. As Jamaicans, we have certainly blamed the Americans and the CIA for our own stupid failings even as we have blamed the Cubans who were simply looking to broaden its sphere of communist influence. What we did as Jamaicans were totally up to us and not anyone else.
Wonder where our country would be if the newspaper editorials, radio gabbers, and television talking heads used their mediums to educate and challenge our people to respect authority? I guess we will never know, and so I find it curious that the very same entities are all caught up in hand-wringing at the seriousness of the murder madness gripping the Island. Nobody seems to understand what to do or have any practical ideas on the way forward. In fact, if you looked at the Observer Editorial page you would walk away believing those jokers were always concerned about the criminal behavior patterns of our people. The travesty of this reality, is that they really believe that there is some way of getting to the cosmopolitan society they crave, without dirtying their hands.
The sense of empathy that is demonstrated in the Observer’s Editorial page for police commissioner Antony Anderson is astounding, to say the least. This led me to wonder, where was that support over the years for the police? Where was that kind of understanding? The Observer’s Editors are not only empathetic, but they were also falling over themselves to create a narrative that legitimizes the very inaction of Anderson. Speaking to the commissioner’s failure to challenge Andrew Holness, the prime minister and Peter Phillips the opposition leader, into collective action on crime they had the following to say.
OBSERVER
He has used every opportunity he gets to articulate and paint the big picture on the fight against crime, including his latest interview carried in the Sunday edition of this newspaper, in which he implores Jamaicans to fight this scourge together. And yet we could not help noticing the fact that, in what was his first major interview for the new year, our top crime-fighter and guardian of the nation completely avoided any reference to the role of our elected politicians who should provide leadership. Could it be that General Anderson himself sees no practical use in calling on the Government and Opposition to provide the leadership in mobilizing the country to put partisanship aside and unite against the criminals?
[Get the fuck out of here], are you kidding me? Not only has Antony Anderson failed as all other commissioners of police have failed, (arguably not all because of their own incompetence, but because of the system set up for them to fail. Nevertheless, no segment of this media fraternity showed any degree of empathy to previous commissioners of police who came up through the ranks. They cared even less about the hard-working grunts who risked life and limb for the shitty beans they are paid for their troubles. On the contrary, the media was not only hostile, but has demonstrably incited violence against police officers.
OBSERVER
General Anderson’s Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has been consistent in its position on the importance of partnerships and public engagement, stressing that the overall effort to remove disorder and mobilize the groundswell of support among our citizens for a safer Jamaica “requires continuous engagement with the public and private sectors, community-based interests, and our international partners”.
Blah, blah, blah what a load of crock? Had previous commissioners not said and done the very same things for years? Under Antony, Anderson, crime has basically continued to climb year over year, with well over 1300 homicides for the year that just ended. Any other commissioner of police would have been berated and classified as a failure. The men and women under the Commissioner would be demeaned as incompetent uneducated fools. So what we are up against today is that the [bull-puckey]that this very group of people who told the nation that he reason crime was climbing was that the police force was made up of a bunch of illiterate idiots. Now that wasn’t a total lie, but what the force lacked in formal education it certainly made up for in dedication from its officers.
The elitist’s elements in our country clamored for a force filled with their cronies from the UWI and other institutions, they got them. That is the reason Antony Anderson has received latitude that no one before him did. They are now too ashamed to say that their efforts at social engineering had failed, and failed miserably, so they pretend that it’s not even happening. In the meantime, the crime situation continues unabated, and all Anderson and his enablers in the Editorial rooms have is hope and a whole lot of bullshit. Unfortunately for Jamaicans hope is not a strategy, neither is bullshit.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Denton, TX — Ryan Matthews from Texas was just 17-years old when he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He later spent 5 years on death row, but was later exonerated and released. Now at 39-years old, he is celebrating being a college graduate.
In April 1997, Matthews was believed to be the culprit in fatally shooting a 43-year old businessman, who is white.
Throughout the trial, he maintained his innocence and there was really no evidence linking him to the crime. But he was still found guilty by 11 white jurors and 1 black juror. He was sentenced to death at the age of 19.
Activists and his family fought for his freedom. DNA evidence eventually proved his innocence and the real killer finally confessed. After 5 years on death row, he was exonerated and released in 2004.
“All these years ago when I first came home, a reporter asked me what I wanted to do, and I told them I wanted to go to school,” Matthews told WFAA.
And he did just that. He enrolled at TWU in Denton, Texas where he has recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in applied arts and science.
Inspired by his story, his sister and 71-year old mother followed suit and also continued studying.
“So I decided to go back and pursue my Ph.D. because hopefully, I’ll be able to do some legislative work and get some of that wrongful conviction and reintegration legislation changed,” said Monique Coleman, Matthews’ sister.
Pauline Matthews, their mother, is proud of what they’ve accomplished.
Moreover, Ryan plans to pursue graduate school to focus on business. But he admitted he still feels bitter about his past sometimes.
“I am because of what happened, but I can’t because it would stop me from moving forward… I’m trying to be the best I can be,” he said.
The rules are the rules, are the rules. When a candidate decides to run for president of the United States, he or she has to be mature enough to know that he or she will have to appeal to a wide cross-section of people, raise a lot of money, and run a near-flawless campaign, which if he or she is lucky will resonate with people. As such, messaging, likeability, electability, becomes crucial to a candidate’s viability.
As far as the Democrats running to unseat Donald Trump are concerned, they all knew the rules of the game when they decided to enter the race. It is for that reason that I shed no tears for Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Wayne Messam, Corey Booker or any other minority candidate who drops out or will drop out of the race, then complain about the rules. You have noticed that I have not mentioned Hawai’s, Tulsi Gabbard. I did not for the simple reason that I do not believe she sees herself as a minority. Furthermore, I for one, do not see her as a legitimate Democratic candidate for the presidency.
Senator Corey Booker
The Democratic party which gets its votes largely from African Americans and coalitions in large urban centers still follows the right-wing Republican party in the way it selects its nominees for president. I never understood why the party needed to cater to voters in New Hampshire and Iowa, two states which hardly have any black or other significant numbers of minority voters? It is for that reason, that by the time the New Hampshire and Iowa voters have had their say in who they want to vote for, the issues important to minority communities, (the backbone of the Democratic party), are either watered down or doesn’t exist on the party’s platform any longer.
Despite that, I do not believe that minority candidates should complain about not being on the debate stage because of the rules. They all agreed to the rules when they decided to run. What they should be focused on is making sure that the party’s primary voting begins in states in which large minority populations reside. This will not happen in this election cycle, but the party’s coalitions should endeavor to make sure that this practice becomes a thing of the past.
Julain Castro
A lot of issues came to the fore this cycle, many of the candidates who ran on some of those issues are both white and male, many of them are already gone, they made no impact. It follows therefore that the contention of the minority candidates cannot in good faith be that race is the reason they are not on the debate stage or were forced to drop out of the race. Joe Sestak ran on accountability. John Delaney ran on bi-partisanship. John Hickenlooper ran on pragmatism. For Jay Inslee, it was climate change. Tim Ryan ran on being a blue-collar guy. Eric Swalwell ran on gun control. Seth Moulton ran on his military service. Mike Gravel ran as an anti-war candidate. Michael Bennett ran on pragmatism as well I suppose. For Steve Bullock citizens united was the issue and for Beto O’rourke, it was immigration as well. None of those issues resonated singularly with primary voters enough, or generated enough enthusiasm to keep those candidates in the race. They all folded their respective campaigns.
Senator Kamala Harris
That leaves us with what pundits and prognosticators say is the single issue driving Democratic voters, (the need to find a candidate who they feel can defeat Donald Trump). This is no ordinary cycle, despite his soaring rhetoric and message of hope and change, was he running this cycle, Barack Obama’s presidency would likely not happen. The anger and derision of the Trump presidency have had millions of Americans almost literally holding their breaths in anticipation of the next presidential elections when they will be able to exhale. It is for that reason I believe those perfectly good candidates like Booker Harris, Castro and others got flushed out early. It is for that reason white male candidates with lesser name recognition did not make the cut either.
The candidates still in the runnings, Joe Biden, the former vice-president, well known US Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the young and exciting Pete Buttigieg, US Senator Amy Klobuchar from the midwest and the billionaires who can finance their own campaigns even if they are unable to make the stage, can hardly be said to be there because of their skin color, but are there because of name recognition and their fat bank accounts. Amy Klobuchar a daughter of the midwest may still be a viable candidate even if she is not successful in the Iowa caucuses less than a month away. Democrats sent packing this cycle, black, white, latino, or female, failed the early electability test that’s it. Nothing about it is racial.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Parchman, MS — Terrandance Dobbins, Walter Gates, Gregory Emary, Roosevelt Holliman, and Denorris Howell – who were all Black men – have been killed in prisons across the Mississippi state. Activists say the suspicious deaths are caused by negligence and malpractices in the state’s prison system.
In the past week, several videos and pictures of deplorable conditions and scenes including fires and violence inside the prisons allegedly recorded by different inmates have surfaced on the Internet.
Until Freedom, an organization that advocates for prison reform, and Yandy Smith, a businesswoman, and reality TV star, shared the videos on their social media and has since garnered thousands of views and comments.
The Mississipi Department of Correction addressed the incidents in a statement last Friday.
“Four inmates have died and several have been injured at two state prisons and one regional during major disturbances since Sunday,” the statement read. “One death occurred at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, (SMCI) in Leakesville, two at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP) at Parchman, and one at the Chickasaw County Regional Correctional Facility (CCRF) in Houston, Miss. MDOC investigators have determined a fifth death and a minor fire, both at MSP, are unrelated to the major disturbances.”
State officials and authorities claim that an alleged drug war has caused the chaos and the death of some prisoners.
However, the prisoners and activists claim that the prison guards did not really protect them from the violence and that the conditions inside the prisons are unacceptable even before.
In fact, an inspection conducted by the Mississippi State Department of Health last year found that the MSP is still in a hazardous condition that repeatedly caused deaths to a number of inmates in the prison, despite numerous complaints and lawsuits over the years.
Moreover, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said that the inmates are the reason for the violence and the poor condition of the prison.
“The inmates are the ones that take each other’s lives, the inmates are the ones that fashion weapons out of metal. The inmates are the ones that do the damage to the very rooms they are living in,” Bryant told reporters in a video shared on Instagram by Until Freedom.
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