First lady Michelle Obama isn’t hold­ing back.

During a com­mence­ment speech at Tuskegee University on Saturday, Obama spoke frankly about the role her racial iden­ti­ty played dur­ing the 2008 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. “As poten­tial­ly the first African-American first lady, I was also the focus of anoth­er set of ques­tions and spec­u­la­tions, con­ver­sa­tions some­times root­ed in the fears and mis­per­cep­tions of oth­ers,” she told the class of 2015. “Was I too loud or too emas­cu­lat­ing? Or was I too soft? Too much of a mom and not enough of a career woman?”

Obama ref­er­enced her satir­i­cal por­tray­al on a July 2008 cov­er of the New Yorker mag­a­zine as a ter­ror­ist. “Then there was the first time I was on a mag­a­zine cov­er,” Obama told the grad­u­ates at the his­tor­i­cal­ly black Alabama col­lege. “It was a car­toon draw­ing of me with a huge afro and a machine gun. Now, yeah, it was satire, but if I’m real­ly being hon­est, it knocked me back a bit. It made me won­der ‘just how are peo­ple see­ing me?’”

During a com­mence­ment speech at Tuskegee University on Saturday, Obama spoke frankly about the role her racial iden­ti­ty played dur­ing the 2008 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. “As poten­tial­ly the first African-American first lady, I was also the focus of anoth­er set of ques­tions and spec­u­la­tions, con­ver­sa­tions some­times root­ed in the fears and mis­per­cep­tions of oth­ers,” she told the class of 2015. “Was I too loud or too emas­cu­lat­ing? Or was I too soft? Too much of a mom and not enough of a career woman?”

Directing her remarks to her African-American audi­ence, Obama spoke from her own expe­ri­ence on how racial inequal­i­ty impacts oppor­tu­ni­ty. “The road ahead is not going to be easy,” Obama said. “It nev­er is, espe­cial­ly for folks like you and me.”Obama then aired a laun­dry list of slights she said black Americans deal with on a reg­u­lar basis.

“We’ve both felt the sting of those dai­ly slights through­out our entire lives. The folks who crossed the street in fear of their safe­ty, the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those depart­ment stores. The peo­ple at for­mal events who assumed we were the help,” Obama said. “And those who have ques­tioned our intel­li­gence, our hon­esty, even our love of this coun­try, and I know that these lit­tle indig­ni­ties are obvi­ous­ly noth­ing com­pared to what folks across the coun­try are deal­ing with every sin­gle day. Those nag­ging wor­ries about whether you’re going to get stopped or pulled over for absolute­ly no rea­son. The fear that your job appli­ca­tion will be over­looked because of the way your name sounds.”

Obama also stressed that those expe­ri­ences were “not an excuse” to “lose hope.”
http://​www​.bloomberg​.com/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​015 – 05-10/michelle-oba­ma-lets-loose-on-race-in-grad­u­a­tion-speech

Three men and a woman have been charged in the fatal shoot­ing of two police offi­cers dur­ing a traf­fic stop in the south­ern Mississippi city of Hattiesburg, author­i­ties said Sunday. The offi­cers, Benjamin J. Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 25, were gunned down Saturday night after Deen pulled over a Hyundai for a speed­ing vio­la­tion and called for back up, offi­cials said.

Four sus­pects, includ­ing two broth­ers, were arrest­ed in dif­fer­ent loca­tions after a man­hunt that last­ed into the ear­ly hours of Sunday morn­ing. Marvin Banks, 29, was charged with two counts of cap­i­tal mur­der, and counts of grand theft auto and being a felon in pos­ses­sion of a firearm. Joanie Calloway, 22, was charged with two counts of cap­i­tal mur­der, while Curtis Banks, 26, was charged with acces­so­ry after the fact of cap­i­tal mur­der. Cornelius Clark was arrest­ed lat­er and faces obstruc­tion charges, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree told NBC News. Clark, 28, was alleged­ly a pas­sen­ger in the vehi­cle at the time of the shoot­ing. The sus­pects fled, with Marvin Banks alleged to have escaped in one of the offi­cers’ vehi­cles, said Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.

DuPree said the loss of Tate, who had an “infec­tious smile” and Deen, who was a mar­ried father of two, was “a tragedy for all Americans.” Tate’s moth­er, Yolanda Ross, told NBC sta­tion WDAM of Laurel that the last words her son spoke to here were “I love you, too, Mama.” “It’s not an easy thing to deal with,” Ross said. “He was a won­der­ful son. A moth­er could­n’t ask for any­one bet­ter.” DuPree told MSNBC’s Alex Witt on Sunday after­noon that he still could­n’t spec­u­late on the motive of the sus­pects. “I wish we could get into the head of peo­ple who do these kind of things,” DuPree said. “It was a traf­fic stop, and some­thing hap­pened to make the offi­cer believe he need­ed to call for back­up, which he did.” Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said in a state­ment that he was “mourn­ing” the loss of the offi­cers. “This should remind us to thank all law enforce­ment for their unwa­ver­ing ser­vice to pro­tect and serve,” he wrote.nbc​news​.com

In this Aug. 24, 2013, pho­to made from a police dash cam­era video and released by the Dover Police Department, Dover Police Cpl. Thomas Webster, cen­ter, kicks Lateef Dickerson. (Dover Police Department)

Matthew Ajibade was a 22-year-old Nigerian-born artist and stu­dent at Savannah Technical College whose cre­ative flair led him to pur­suits such as fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy and design­ing t‑shirts. He even had his own print design com­pa­ny called Afridale.

But Ajibade also had bipo­lar dis­or­der. And now Ajibade is dead.

He died in a Georgia jail cell under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances after police arrest­ed him for domes­tic bat­tery and resist­ing arrest. Police say when they came upon Ajibade and his girl­friend on New Year’s day on a Savannah street, her face was bruised and her nose was bleed­ing. Ajibade was appar­ent­ly in the midst of a bipo­lar episode. But instead of tak­ing him to the hos­pi­tal, police brought him to Chatham County jail, where they say he got into a scuf­fle with guards.

A day lat­er, his old­er broth­er Chris Oladapo got a phone call from some­one at the jail, telling him his lit­tle broth­er was dead.

“We want to know why,” Oladapo, 26, said Tuesday sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and friends at Wright Square in Savannah. “Why is a young, cre­ative soul leav­ing us so early?”

To get answers, the fam­i­ly has hired Florida-based attor­ney Mark O’Mara, who became a house­hold name while suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ing George Zimmerman after he killed Trayvon Martin.

“There’s no blame yet,” O’Mara told savan​nah​now​.com. “There are just a lot of questions.”

His death is being probed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, at the request of the coun­ty sheriff’s depart­ment. O’Mara said he wants it to be fair and transparent.

When a young Black man dies in police cus­tody in Savannah, many observers are going to cast a skep­ti­cal eye on law enforce­ment author­i­ties. This is the same city where a 29-year-old Black man, Charles Smith, was killed in September while in cus­tody in the back of a police car. His death led to out­raged protests after police claimed that the 6‑foot‑9 Smith some­how man­aged to move his cuffed hands to the front of his body and kick out the police car win­dow. And the offi­cers said they sud­den­ly noticed he had a gun, which they appar­ent­ly missed — so 10-year police depart­ment vet­er­an David Jannot shot and killed Smith.

There also have been many oth­er Black men with men­tal chal­lenges who died in police cus­tody instead of being giv­en access to men­tal health services.

In Ajibade’s case, his broth­er and O’Mara asked why the men­tal­ly dis­turbed young man was tak­en jail instead of a hos­pi­tal. O’Mara said the girl­friend, who the fam­i­ly said is the per­son who called police, told them he need­ed to go to the hos­pi­tal as she hand­ed them a bot­tle of his pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion, Divalproex, which con­tained pills to treat bipo­lar disorder.

But in the police ver­sion of events, both Ajibade and his girl­friend refused treat­ment at the scene and there’s no men­tion made in the police report that she said any­thing about bring­ing him to the hospital.

This is how the ini­tial encounter is described in the police inci­dent report, accord­ing to savan​nah​now​.com:

Police say they were called to the inter­sec­tion of East Duffy and Abercorn streets about 6:15 p.m. Thursday to respond to a domes­tic inci­dent in which one per­son was chas­ing anoth­er. Officers saw Ajibade and a woman stand­ing togeth­er with a blan­ket over their heads. Ajibade was hold­ing the woman tight­ly, but she removed the blan­ket as police approached. An offi­cer saw the woman’s face was bruised and her nose was bleed­ing. Police told Ajibade to release the woman, but he refused even after sev­er­al com­mands were giv­en. When an offi­cer tried to pull them apart, Ajibade “start­ed to resist appre­hen­sion in a vio­lent man­ner, and was tak­en to the ground, so that he could be hand­cuffed,” accord­ing to the report.

Police say Ajibade con­tin­ued to resist arrest, even while on the ground of a park­ing lot at a con­ve­nience store in the 1500 block of Abercorn. Two sergeants came to the scene and medics were called, but police claim both the woman and Ajibade, who wasn’t injured, refused treat­ment. The woman told police Ajibade had been act­ing strange­ly all day, but she did not say why she thought she had been attacked. Police said Ajibade was the pri­ma­ry aggres­sor, and he was charged with bat­tery under the Domestic Violence Act and obstruc­tion by resist­ing arrest. The woman gave police a plas­tic pre­scrip­tion bot­tle, labeled as Divalproex, that con­tained pills. Police took Ajibade to jail.

Ajibade arrived at the jail at 6:40 p.m. and was placed in an iso­la­tion cell because he became com­bat­ive with deputies while being booked and his behav­ior was deemed dan­ger­ous, accord­ing to Wayne Wermuth, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. A female sergeant suf­fered a con­cus­sion and a bro­ken nose and two male deputies suf­fered injuries con­sis­tent with a fight. While per­form­ing a sec­ond wel­fare check on Ajibade, jail staff found he appeared to be non­re­spon­sive. Medical staff start­ed CPR and admin­is­tered defib­ril­la­tion while prepar­ing to take Ajibade to Memorial University Medical Center, but efforts to resus­ci­tate him were not suc­cess­ful, Wermuth said.

Ajibade’s cause of death will not be released until an autop­sy, lab results and the GBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion are com­plet­ed, offi­cials said, though O’Mara said the autop­sy was com­plet­ed Tuesday.

The jail appar­ent­ly has a sur­veil­lance sys­tem, but it’s unclear whether it record­ed any of the pro­ceed­ings. Published reports quote the Chatham County District Attorney’s office as say­ing a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing and the office will “han­dle the mat­ter fur­ther, should it become necessary.”

Denver, CO — A recent­ly pro­posed bill in Colorado impos­ing legal penal­ties on police offi­cers who inter­fere with cit­i­zens film­ing them could soon become law. The state’s House Of Representatives passed the bill this week, and it will now move on to vote in the Senate. If it becomes law, the bill would report­ed­ly require police offi­cers to have someone’s con­sent or a war­rant to phys­i­cal­ly take or destroy a per­sons cam­era or footage. If an offi­cer vio­lates this law, the vic­tim would then be able to seek dam­ages up to $15,000 plus attor­ney fees. This would also be the first law in the coun­try that would guar­an­tee civ­il dam­ages to peo­ple who have their record­ing rights vio­lat­ed by police.

After pass­ing in the House on Wednesday, Colorado House Bill 15 – 1290 will now make its way to the Senate for a final vote. Police union offi­cials are not hap­py about the bill, and they say that it treats offi­cers unfair­ly and holds them to a stan­dard that cit­i­zens are not held to, which is iron­ic because police typ­i­cal­ly behave as if they were above the law, and not sub­ject to the same stan­dards as every­one else. “The CACP does not believe that the peo­ple who put their lives at risk every day should have dif­fer­ent stan­dards of lia­bil­i­ty than any­one else in gov­ern­ment,” police union rep­re­sen­ta­tive AnneMarie Jensen, said in a state­ment. According to 7 News Denver,  Rep. Joe Salazar, co-spon­sor of the bill, said House Bill 15 – 1290 has sup­port from both Democrats and Republicans and is not intend­ed to penal­ize police. “It takes a very spe­cial per­son to be a police offi­cer,” Salazar said. “We want to hon­or them, but at the same time, we have a few bad apples who need to be aware that their con­duct now has major, major consequences.”

One of the inci­dents that caught the atten­tion of Salazar was the case of Bobbie Ann Diaz. Diaz was try­ing to film what hap­pened after police shot and killed 17-year-old Jessica Hernandez.  As Diaz was try­ing to film the inci­dent, she says an offi­cer stopped her and threat­ened her with arrest if she con­tin­ued to film. “At that time, (the offi­cers) put Jessie down and they were on their knees yelling at Brianna that she bet­ter not record. She bet­ter not,” Diaz said. “She got scared. She got inti­mat­ed. These are big offi­cers and she didn’t want to make things worse.” Diaz didn’t know that she was pro­tect­ed by law to film the police as long as she wasn’t inter­fer­ing with their inves­ti­ga­tion. Only through shin­ing light into the dark­ness, i.e., film­ing police encoun­ters, will enough peo­ple final­ly see how cor­rupt and vio­lent this sys­tem is becom­ing. Your right to film the police must be protected.

John Vibes is an author, researcher and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist who takes a spe­cial inter­est in the counter cul­ture and the drug war. In addi­tion to his writ­ing and activist work he orga­nizes a num­ber of large events includ­ing the Free Your Mind Conference, which fea­tures top cal­iber speak­ers and whis­tle-blow­ers from all over the world. You can con­tact him and stay con­nect­ed to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chap­ter Book enti­tled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at book​patch​.com.Read more at http://​the​freethought​pro​ject​.com/​l​e​g​i​s​l​a​t​i​o​n​-​f​i​n​e​s​-​c​o​p​s​-​1​5​0​0​0​-​i​n​t​e​r​f​e​r​i​n​g​-​c​i​t​i​z​e​n​s​-​f​i​l​m​-​t​h​e​m​-​p​a​s​s​e​s​-​h​o​u​s​e​/​#​3​F​F​0​W​R​O​j​O​L​G​1​6​A​z​m​.99

Suggesting that Hamas’ Mashaal is more com­mit­ted to peace than Netanyahu, Carter says he had no desire to meet with PM dur­ing trip.

Former US President Jimmy Carter had harsh words for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday, say­ing a meet­ing with him would be a “waste of time.”

Carter is in the midst of a three-day vis­it to Israel work­ing to bring about a two-state solu­tion. He met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Saturday, but did not meet with Netanyahu or President Reuven Rivlin.

According to Carter, he had no inten­tions of meet­ing with Netanyahu, who refused to meet with him in any case, but would have liked and did request to meet with the President.

Rivlin, how­ev­er, on the advice of the Foreign Ministry, declined, due to Carter’s staunch “anti-Israel opin­ions” and known sym­pa­thy for Gaza-based ter­ror orga­ni­za­tion Hamas.

In addi­tion to call­ing a meet­ing with Netanyahu a “waste of time,” the for­mer President took anoth­er shot at the Prime Minister dur­ing an inter­view with Channel Two News, assert­ing that peace is not on his agenda.

“The [Elders Group] stands for peace and human rights, and if human­rights and peace are not on Netanyahu’s agen­da, I under­stand why he does not want to meet us,” Carter charged.

Earlier on Saturday, Carter urged Palestinian Arabs to hold elec­tions to end the rapid­ly grow­ing fierce enmi­ty between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria.

During the Channel Two inter­view, Carter main­tained his stance that Hamas is not a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, adding that Hamas polit­buro chief Khaled Mashaal is “strong­ly in favor of the peace process.”

While say­ing he “deplored” crim­i­nal acts” by mem­bers of Hamas against “inno­cent” Israeli cit­i­zens, Carter claimed not all mem­bers of Hamas are ter­ror­ists, and that he is seek­ing the mod­er­ate mem­bers of the organization.

He was not so com­pli­men­ta­ry in his assess­ment of Netanyahu, say­ing thatthe Prime Minister is not “in favor of a two-state solu­tion” and there­fore not com­mit­ted to peace.

“I don’t see that deep com­mit­ment on the part of Netanyahu to make con­ces­sions which [for­mer prime min­is­ter] Menachem Begin did to find peace with his poten­tial ene­mies,” Carter said.

As Justice Department offi­cials began meet­ing with com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers in Baltimore this week in the ear­ly stages of their civ­il rights inquiry into the death of Freddie Gray, they heard repeat­ed com­plaints about a state law that gives spe­cial legal pro­tec­tions to police offi­cers sus­pect­ed of abus­ing their pow­er. The law is sim­i­lar to at least a dozen across the coun­try, com­mon­ly known as police offi­cers’ bills of rights. But Maryland’s, enact­ed in the ear­ly 1970s, was the first and goes the fur­thest in offer­ing lay­ers of legal pro­tec­tion to police offi­cers. Among its pro­vi­sions is one that gives offi­cers 10 days before they have to talk to inves­ti­ga­tors. “There should be no rea­son why they should have 10 days to get their sto­ry togeth­er,” said Tré Murphy, coör­di­na­tor for the Baltimore United for Change Coalition, who attend­ed one of the meet­ings. “They are not being held account­able, and frankly, we need to do some­thing about it.”

Seventy-sev­en-year-old Hollywood icon Morgan Freeman has been watch­ing cov­er­age of the protests in Baltimore, and he is far from sat­is­fied with what he’s been see­ing. “Look at MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN,” he told the Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern. “Go between those three. There’s a take, there’s a take, and there’s a take. It’s just com­men­tary. CNN wants to be pure news, but the oth­ers are just com­men­tary. They’re just com­ment­ing on things.”

“Fuck the media,” he added. He did acknowl­edge, how­ev­er, that the cov­er­age was bet­ter than Ferguson, because at least “some young reporters” are lis­ten­ing to the com­plaints of the pro­test­ers — pro­test­ers who, in an inter­view with Newsweek’s Zach Schonfeld, Freeman said he supported.

“I was watch­ing the news last night,” he said, “and [a pro­test­er] said, ‘You know, when we were out here march­ing peace­ful­ly, nobody was here. And now we start burn­ing the place down, every­body is lis­ten­ing. What do you think we’re gonna do to be heard?”

“She’s got a point there,” he added. Freeman con­tin­ued, not­ing that tech­nol­o­gy has it made it pos­si­ble to doc­u­ment “the ter­ror­ism [the black com­mu­ni­ty] suf­fers from the police.”

“Because of the tech­nol­o­gy — every­body has a smart­phone — now we can see what the police are doing,” he explained. “We can show the world, ‘Look, this is what hap­pened in that sit­u­a­tion.’ So why are so many peo­ple dying in police cus­tody? And why are they all black? And why are all the police killing them white?”

Freeman added that the most com­mon excuse police have used when involved in fatal shoot­ings is they feared for their safe­ty. “Well, now we know — you feared for your safe­ty while a guy was run­ning away from you, right?”

As he told Stern in the Daily Beast inter­view, “now, at least, you can see his hands were up in the air. ‘What part of your safe­ty were you afraid of?’ The guy was run­ning away, ‘What part of your safe­ty was in danger?’”

The wit­ness that record­ed video of Freddie Gray’s seem­ing­ly painful arrest, Kevin Moore, was tak­en into cus­tody by Baltimore police, accord­ing to a report.

In the wake of Gray’s death, Moore came for­ward with cell phone footage of the con­tro­ver­sial arrest and lat­er said police tack­led the 25-year-old vic­tim like “a piece of origami.”

It’s believed police detained Moore Thursday night along with two oth­er peo­ple after hand­ing over a copy of this video to detec­tives with the department’s Office of Internal Oversight.

Photography is Not a Crime reports author­i­ties took Moore into cus­tody at gun­point dur­ing a traf­fic stop. He was released two hours later.

It’s not clear what charges Moore faces, but the Baltimore Sun pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed that police want­ed Moore for questioning.

An image from sur­veil­lance footage was released by Baltimore police show­ing Moore at the site of Gray’s cap­ture, an intim­i­da­tion tac­tic, Moore believed.

“They plas­tered my face all over the Internet like (they) don’t know who I am when (they) very well know who I am,” Moore told Photography is Not a Crime after his arrest.

The two sus­pects, iden­ti­fied as Chad Jackson and Tony White, by Counter Current News, are mem­bers of We Cop Watch.

Attempts by the Daily News to reach orga­niz­ers behind We Cop Watch were not imme­di­ate­ly returned.

This is a devel­op­ing sto­ry and will be updated.

Marilyn Mosby announces charges during a news conference on Friday,

Baltimore’s chief pros­e­cu­tor is promis­ing jus­tice for Freddie Gray.

Six cops were charged Friday in the death of Gray, whose fatal neck injury while in police cus­tody has sparked mas­sive protests.

The crim­i­nal charges — includ­ing mur­der, manslaugh­ter and assault — were announced by State Attorney Marilyn Mosby dur­ing a dra­mat­ic press con­fer­ence in front of City Hall.

STATE’S ATTORNEY MARILYN MOSBY FACES TALL TASK WITH FREDDIE GRAY CASE: “THIS CITY WILL BURN IF SHE DOESN’T INDICT”

“Mr. Gray’s death was a homi­cide,” she said, prompt­ing some in the crowd to applaud and call out “Justice!” as she announced the prosecution.

The 25-year-old Gray “suf­fered a severe and crit­i­cal neck injury” while being dri­ven unre­strained in a police wag­on April 12 and “was not breath­ing at all” by the end of the ride,” Mosby said. He died a week later.

The offi­cers — who detained him even though he com­mit­ted no crime — also ignored his repeat­ed pleas for help, Mosby charged.

The dri­ver of the van, Officer Caesar Goodson, was charged with depraved mur­der that car­ries a max­i­mum sen­tence of 30 years in prison plus oth­er counts includ­ing manslaughter.

Lt. Brian Rice, the high­est rank­ing cop involved, was hit with manslaugh­ter, assault and mis­con­duct charges.

Four oth­ers — Officers William Porter, Edward Nero, Garett Miller and Sgt. Alicia White — were var­i­ous­ly charged with manslaugh­ter, assault, mis­con­duct and false imprisonment.

FREDDIE GRAY TIMELINE: THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO HIS DEATH IN BALTIMORE POLICE CUSTODY

They all face up to 10 years behind bars for the top count. The six cops, who’ve been sus­pend­ed since Gray’s death, are expect­ed to get arraigned Friday afternoon.

Mosby, who at 35 is the youngest top pros­e­cu­tor of a major city, said the accu­sa­tions “are not an indict­ment on the entire force.”

She said they were the result of a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion by the police integri­ty unit, inves­ti­ga­tors and evi­dence col­lect­ed by police and the med­ical examiner.

And she called on street pro­test­ers to avoid the vio­lence and riots that erupt­ed ear­li­er this week.

“I heard your calls of ‘no jus­tice, no peace,’” Mosby said. “Your peace is sin­cere­ly need­ed as we seek to deliv­er jus­tice for this young man.”

The ral­lies respond­ing to the police cus­tody death still show no sign of stop­ping, with Trayvon Martin’s mom arriv­ing Friday for a 3 p.m. ral­ly led by a promi­nent local pastor.

Freddie Gray, seen here in an image taken by his fiancé Jamiea Speller in the summer 2013, died on April 19^th while in police custody in Baltimore.

After Monday’s destruc­tive demon­stra­tions — which led to build­ings and cars being burned and at least 20 police offi­cers get­ting injured — each night has seen increas­ing­ly peace­ful protests, save for a brief flare-up between pro­test­ers and police Tuesday night.

WITNESS BEHIND FREDDIE GRAY’S ARREST VIDEO DETAINED BY BALTIMORE COPS: REPORT

Employees at the CVS that infa­mous­ly burned down at the start of the riots have been work­ing at oth­er loca­tions and even those who don’t are get­ting com­pen­sa­tion, the com­pa­ny said.

“Given the extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances this week, we are pay­ing our Baltimore employ­ees for their reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled hours,” said spokesmo­man Erin Britt.

VIEW GALLERYPeaceful pro­test­ers in the wake of Baltimore riots

On Thursday night, the streets were qui­et and calm by cur­few time, with reporters on the streets appear­ing to out­num­ber pro­test­ers. New York Knicks play­er Carmelo Anthony, a Baltimore native, walked with pro­test­ers Thursday and urged his home­town to “rebuild.” Some police offi­cers were seen hug­ging protesters.

Is it pos­si­ble that Freddie Gray could have sev­ered his own spine and crushed his own voicebox?

From a med­ical stand­point, it is unlike­ly that the 25-year-old Baltimore man injured him­self in the back of that van. The sever­i­ty of his injuries seem too grave for him to have done that to him­self sim­ply by thrash­ing around or bang­ing his head on some­thing. It is more like­ly that there was some type of direct blow to either the front or back of his neck, or some­where along the spinal cord along his back. How does a spinal cord injury hap­pen? A spinal cord injury is “dam­age to the spinal cord that results in a loss of func­tion such as mobil­i­ty or feel­ing.” This type of injury is most often caused by a trau­mat­ic blow of the kind that would be sus­tained in a car acci­dent, severe fall or an act of violence.

There must be a sud­den, trau­mat­ic blow to the spine that frac­tures, dis­lo­cates, crush­es or com­press­es one or more of the ver­te­brae, or when a gun shot or knife pen­e­trates the spinal cord. After a spinal cord injury, bleed­ing, inflam­ma­tion and swelling occurs, and flu­id builds up in and around the spinal cord.

POLICE VAN THAT FREDDIE GRAY RODE IN MADE UNREPORTED STOP

Without imme­di­ate treat­ment, this can lead to per­ma­nent paral­y­sis, or in Gray’s case, death. Baltimore police offi­cers have already been sus­pend­ed for fail­ing to get Gray prompt med­ical care.

The high­er in the back or neck the spinal cord injury occurs, the more dys­func­tion a per­son will have as a result. So with a spinal cord injury that occurs from a blow to the neck, a per­son usu­al­ly los­es func­tion in the arms and legs.

The Washington Post on Wednesday obtained tes­ti­mo­ny alleged­ly giv­en by anoth­er pris­on­er who was in the van with Gray, who said he may have injured him­self dur­ing the ride in the back of the van to the police station.

The man said he could hear Gray “bang­ing against the walls” of the van and believed that he “was inten­tion­al­ly try­ing to injure him­self,” accord­ing to a police doc­u­ment quot­ed by the news­pa­per. They were sep­a­rat­ed by a met­al par­ti­tion, and the man did not actu­al­ly see Gray try­ing to harm himself.

As seen in a video tak­en by a wit­ness who saw Gray being put into the back of the van, Gray was being dragged by the cops into the van, and it seems as though he was unable to walk.

The abil­i­ty to con­trol your limbs after a spinal cord injury depends on where along the spinal cord the injury took place, and how severe the injury is. If Gray was show­ing signs of loss of func­tion in his legs before being put in the van, how could the injury have tak­en place in the van?

There are a num­ber of signs and symp­toms that can occur very short­ly after a per­son suf­fers a spinal injury. These include extreme back pain, pres­sure in the neck, head or back, weak­ness, loss of coör­di­na­tion or paral­y­sis in any part of the body, as well as dif­fi­cul­ty with bal­ance and walk­ing, impaired breath­ing after injury and odd­ly posi­tioned or twist­ed neck or back.

As seen on the video, Gray was clear­ly in pain, scream­ing that he was hurt, and could not walk. He was also hav­ing trou­ble breath­ing because he kept ask­ing for his inhaler.

Now, let’s talk about the crushed lar­ynx. Also known as a laryn­go­tra­cheal injury, a crushed lar­ynx is pret­ty rare in adults, except when there is blunt force trau­ma to the front of the neck, such as stran­gu­la­tion, or blows to the tra­chea from fists or feet.

BENJAMIN TODD JEALOUS: BLACK, WHITE, BLUE, AND FREDDIE GRAY

This is usu­al­ly caused by a car acci­dent when the pas­sen­ger does not have a seat­belt on, in the front seat, or dri­ving, and there are no pro­tec­tive airbags.

In this case, the per­son in the front seat or dri­ver is thrown for­ward and the front of the neck either hits the dash­board or steer­ing wheel.

The direct blow to the front of the neck crush­es the lar­ynx against the spine of the neck. This type of injury can also occur dur­ing sports, fights, falling for­ward onto a blunt object such as the han­dle bars of a bicy­cle, or dur­ing stran­gu­la­tion. Depending on the sever­i­ty of the impact, the lar­ynx and tra­chea can com­press against the spine.

Is it pos­si­ble that Gray’s lar­ynx was crushed first, caus­ing the spinal cord injury? Maybe that caused the spinal cord injury. In order for this to hap­pen, there would have to have been a direct blow to the front of his neck, which is unlike­ly to have been a self-imposed injury in the back of the van.

This could also explain why Gray had trou­ble breath­ing. If the blow to the front of the neck is severe and/​or low, the lar­ynx and tra­chea can become com­plete­ly sep­a­rat­ed, caus­ing air­way obstruc­tion and dif­fi­cul­ty breathing.

With this type of injury, the neck must be imme­di­ate­ly sta­bi­lized to pre­vent wors­en­ing of unrec­og­nized cer­vi­cal spine injuries. Gray alleged­ly asked for med­ical atten­tion mul­ti­ple times, yet he did not receive it until after he arrived at the police sta­tion, where he was found uncon­scious in the back of the van.

It is unclear which injury hap­pened first, or whether one caused the oth­er, but it seems clear that there was near­ly no way he caused the fatal injuries himself.

Dr. Samadi is a board-cer­ti­fied uro­log­ic oncol­o­gist trained in open and tra­di­tion­al and laparo­scop­ic surgery, and an expert in robot­ic prostate surgery. He is chair­man of urol­o­gy, chief of robot­ic surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital and pro­fes­sor of urol­o­gy at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. He is a med­ical cor­re­spon­dent for the Fox News Channel’s Medical A‑Team and the chief med­ical cor­re­spon­dent for am970 in New York City, where he is heard Sundays at 10 a.m.

Learn more at roboti​con​col​o​gy​.com and SamadiMD​.com. Follow Dr. Samadi 

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica’s most promi­nent human rights orga­ni­za­tion has closed its legal depart­ment and laid off staff after los­ing its long­stand­ing sta­tus as a char­i­ty, a leader of the group said.

Barry Wade, chair­man of the Jamaicans for Justice, said the gov­ern­ment reject­ed the watch­dog group’s appli­ca­tion to renew its char­i­ty sta­tus, forc­ing it to dra­mat­i­cal­ly cut its oper­a­tions and turn down cer­tain grants from inter­na­tion­al donors. It now also faces some $100,000 in back taxes.

Wade said Tuesday the denial came due to con­cerns about the group’s advo­ca­cy for leg­isla­tive change, a rea­son he said is “puz­zling.” He also asserts that the deci­sion is “con­trary to inter­na­tion­al norms.”

The gov­ern­men­t’s Department of Cooperatives and Friendly Societies, which reject­ed the group’s renew­al appli­ca­tion, did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to requests for comment.

Over the years, police offi­cials have por­trayed Jamaicans for Justice as being sym­pa­thet­ic to crim­i­nals and some politi­cians have accused it of try­ing to make the island look bad. But the group is wide­ly respect­ed among many. In 2008, one of its founders received the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for her work against police slayings.

Last year, the orga­ni­za­tion’s rep­u­ta­tion took a hit in Jamaica when it intro­duced a sex edu­ca­tion pro­gram for chil­dren’s group homes that it acknowl­edged was not prop­er­ly vet­ted. The mat­ter made head­lines for weeks on the island, in large part because the sex edu­ca­tion mate­r­i­al for young wards of the state includ­ed ref­er­ences to anal sex, which is ille­gal in Jamaica.

In 2013, the rights group waged a peti­tion and online video cam­paign demand­ing reforms in the treat­ment of chil­dren in state care that prompt­ed Youth Minister Lisa Hanna to describe the work as “dan­ger­ous and clear­ly designed to dam­age the rep­u­ta­tion of the country.”

In a Tuesday state­ment, Jamaicans for Justice said a new board elect­ed over the week­end will focus on get­ting the group’s char­i­ta­ble sta­tus back and hope­ful­ly reach a set­tle­ment with the gov­ern­ment regard­ing back taxes.

Baltimore cops twist­ed Freddie Gray like “origa­mi,” says the man who filmed the fatal­ly wound­ed 25-year-old’s arrest. Witness Kevin Moore is speak­ing out on the con­fronta­tion between police offi­cers and Gray, who died of a sev­ered spinal cord. “They had him fold­ed up like he was a crab or a piece of origa­mi,” Moore told the Baltimore Sun. “He was all bent up, and the offi­cer had his knee in his neck. He was just scream­ing, like scream­ing for life.“The death of Gray a week after the April 12 bust inflamed ten­sions between cops and black res­i­dents with the police union boss describ­ing pro­test­ers as a “like a lynch mob.” Union boss Gene Ryan acknowl­edged demon­stra­tions had been peace­ful but blast­ed pro­test­ers’ “rhetoric” after Gray’s death.

“In fact, the images seen on tele­vi­sion look and sound much like a lynch mob in that they are call­ing for impris­on­ment of these offi­cers with­out them ever receiv­ing the due process that is the Constitutional right of every cit­i­zen, includ­ing law enforce­ment offi­cers,” Ryan said in a writ­ten state­ment. The con­tro­ver­sial descrip­tion infu­ri­at­ed crit­ics who bashed the union leader as impos­si­bly tone deaf to one of the grimmest reminders of racial injus­tice in this country’s his­to­ry. “We’ve been the vic­tims of the lynch­ing and now we’re the lynch mob?” Gray fam­i­ly attor­ney Billy Murphy told the Baltimore Sun. “The pres­i­dent of the police union called peace­ful protests and the anger at the death of a man to severe and unfath­omable injuries while in police cus­tody a lynch mob? It does­n’t get more insen­si­tive or insult­ing than that. These remarks illus­trate why black peo­ple and the police don’t get along.”

Ryan should rethink his pri­or­i­ties, the attor­ney said. “He needs to issue an apol­o­gy at the speed of light and focus on the more impor­tant issues of how this black man did­n’t deserve to die and have his spinal cord sev­ered and his neck bro­ken — how that hap­pened,” Murphy told the Baltimore Sun. Ryan lat­er backed off the inflam­ma­to­ry lan­guage. “Maybe I need to reword that,” he said at a news con­fer­ence. Gray could be heard in a cell phone video scream­ing as two offi­cers dragged the hand­cuffed 25-year-old to a police van and loaded him inside.

He was lat­er tak­en to a hos­pi­tal where doc­tors dis­cov­ered his spinal cord was almost com­plete­ly sev­ered. Gray slipped into a coma and died a week lat­er. Union lead­ers main­tain the injuries hap­pened inside the van but claim they’re not sure how. The case is now being inves­ti­gat­ed by the Department of Justice.

The union rushed to sup­port the six offi­cers involved while lay­ing blame for the arrest on Gray, who was car­ry­ing a pock­et knife when he was stopped.“Had he not had a knife or a an ille­gal weapon on him, he would have been released after the prop­er paper­work was done,” union attor­ney Michael Davey said at a news conference.

dmmurphy@​nydailynews.​com

Walter Scott’s death in South Carolina, at the hands of now-fired North Charleston police offi­cer Michael Slager, is one of sev­er­al instances from the past year when a black man was killed after being pulled over while dri­ving. No one knows exact­ly how often traf­fic stops turn dead­ly, but stud­ies in Arizona, Missouri, Texas, Washington have con­sis­tent­ly shown that cops stop and search black dri­vers at a high­er rate than white dri­vers. Last week, a team of researchers in North Carolina found that traf­fic stops in Charlotte, the state’s largest city, showed a sim­i­lar racial dis­par­i­ty — and that the gap has been widen­ing over time.

The researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill ana­lyzed more than 1.3 mil­lion traf­fic stops and search­es by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police offi­cers for a 12-year peri­od begin­ning in 2002, when the state began requir­ing police to col­lect such sta­tis­tics. In their analy­sis of the data, col­lect­ed and made pub­lic by the state’s Department of Justice, the researchers found that black dri­vers, despite mak­ing up less than one-third of the city’s dri­ving pop­u­la­tion, were twice as like­ly to be sub­ject to traf­fic stops and search­es as whites. Young black men in Charlotte were three times as like­ly to get pulled over and searched than the city-wide aver­age. Here’s a chart from the Charlotte Observer’s report detail­ing the findings:

The nor­mal­iza­tion of U.S.-Cuban rela­tions could mean a dras­tic change for two most-want­ed American fugi­tives after decades of liv­ing free on the island nation.

President Obama’s call to remove Cuba from the list of state spon­sors of ter­ror­ism opened the door for the pos­si­ble extra­di­tion of cop killer Joanne Chesimard and ter­ror­ist bomb­mak­er Guillermo Morales.

“We believe that the strong U.S. inter­est in the return of these fugi­tives will be best served by enter­ing into this dia­logue with Cuba,” Obama said.

Both Chesimard and Morales escaped the U.S. in 1979 after their arrests: he through a win­dow in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital, and she from a New Jersey prison with the help of armed com­rades.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/changing-u-s-cuba-relations-bring-return-criminals-article‑1.2188414

A jury has found Aaron Hernandez guilty of first-degree mur­der in the fatal shoot­ing of semi-pro foot­ball play­er Odin Lloyd.

On Wednesday, Judge E. Susan Garsh sen­tenced Hernandez, the for­mer New England Patriots tight end, to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole for killing Lloyd on June 17, 2013. The sen­tence was mandatory.

The jury found that the ex-NFL play­er mer­it­ed the con­vic­tion by “rea­son of extreme atroc­i­ty or cruelty.”

Hernandez, 25, and two accom­plices picked up Lloyd, 27, a land­scap­er who played semi­pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball, at his home on the pre­text that they would par­ty togeth­er. Instead they drove through the dark­ness to an indus­tri­al park in North Attleborough near the foot­ball player’s spa­cious home, where Hernandez shot Lloyd sev­er­al times with a .45-cal­iber Glock pis­tol, includ­ing two kill shots to Lloyd’s chest as he writhed in pain on the ground.

The jury also con­vict­ed Hernandez on weapons and ammu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion charges.

MORE: Key Moments From The Aaron Hernandez Murder Trial

Hernandez’s fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, wept open­ly in court after hear­ing the verdict.

In a state­ment read after the judge hand­ed down the con­vic­tion, Ursula Ward, Lloyd’s moth­er, called her son the “back­bone” of her family.

“My heart stopped beat­ing [when he died],” Ward said. “I want­ed to go into the hole [with Odin].”

Deliberations stretched out sev­en days before jurors in Bristol County Superior Court announced their deci­sion on Wednesday morn­ing. Testimony in the tri­al last­ed about two months and was at times inter­rupt­ed by severe weather.

A court offi­cer places hand­cuffs on the wrists of for­mer New England Patriots foot­ball play­er Aaron Hernandez after the guilty ver­dict was read dur­ing his mur­der tri­al at the Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River, Mass., Wednesday, April 15, 2015.

Hernandez’s defense admit­ted that he wit­nessed the shoot­ing of Lloyd but argued that he has no rea­son to throw his career away by killing some­one. The pros­e­cu­tion was nev­er able to estab­lish Hernandez’s motive, accord­ing to WCVB.

“Did he make all the right deci­sions? No,” his lawyer, James Sultan said dur­ing clos­ing argu­ments. “He was a 23-year-old kid who wit­nessed some­thing, a shock­ing killing, com­mit­ted by some­one he knew. He did­n’t know what to do, so he just put one foot in front of the other.”

Hernandez’s alleged accom­plices, Ernest Wallace Jr. and Carlos Ortiz, will be tried separately.[Huffingtonpost.com]

It was a mistake.

That’s the blasé expla­na­tion Oklahoma offi­cials gave after the fatal shoot­ing of an unarmed black man by a white deputy who acci­den­tal­ly pulled his gun when he meant to use his Taser. The botched encounter was cap­tured on a dis­turb­ing video released by police on Friday — nine days after the fatal Tulsa shooting.

“He shot me! He shot me, man. Oh, my god. I’m los­ing my breath,” Eric Harris says as he strug­gles on the ground fol­low­ing the April 2 shoot­ing, which flew under the radar until video emerged a week later.

“F— your breath,” a cal­lous offi­cer can be heard say­ing. “Shut the f— up!”

Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, 73, (below) shout­ed “Taser! Taser!” before pulling the trig­ger on his gun, fir­ing a round into Harris.

“I shot him!” the for­mer police­man says, drop­ping his gun. “I’m sorry.”

Bates was assist­ing oth­er deputies who were try­ing to take Harris into cus­tody after the felon fled from police dur­ing a sting oper­a­tion, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office’s said.

“You shouldn’t have f — –g ran!” anoth­er deputy screams, as Harris is held down by his neck and head.

Harris, who was in his 40s, was pro­nounced dead about an hour after the shoot­ing, author­i­ties said.

He had bolt­ed from offi­cers who were try­ing to arrest him for sell­ing a 9 mm. semi­au­to­mat­ic pis­tol and ammu­ni­tion to under­cov­er cops.

Harris, who was unarmed, had report­ed­ly done time for assault and bat­tery on an officer.

He was “absolute­ly a threat when going down,” Tulsa Police Sgt. Jim Clark said at a news conference.

Sheriff’s Capt. Billy McKelvey claims the arrest­ing offi­cers were not aware Harris had been shot, despite the gun­shot noise and Bates’ admis­sion. They called para­medics and fire­fight­ers, and ren­dered aid when they real­ized, McKelvey said.

“He made an inad­ver­tent mis­take,” McKelvey said.

Sgt. Dave Walker told the Tulsa World that police “would not inves­ti­gate the death unless the sheriff’s office asked them to, and they have not asked us to.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/video-shows-tulsa-man-shot-deputy-meant-stun-article‑1.2181787

This week­end, the Bundy ranch in Nevada will host a reunion to cel­e­brate own­er Cliven Bundy’s con­tin­ued law­less­ness. Bundy became a hero of the far-right a year ago when his refusal to pay 20 years’ worth of fed­er­al graz­ing fees for his cat­tle — totalling $1.1 mil­lion—brought fed­er­al agents to col­lect, which Bundy and sev­er­al hun­dred armed right-wing mili­tia mem­bers repelled with a show of force. Fox News and oth­er right-wing news out­lets raced to the ranch to report on what Bundy sup­port­ers called the “Second American Revolution” and the “American Spring,” the moment when the rhetoric of “tyran­ny” and “total­i­tar­i­an­ism” under President Obama would mate­ri­al­ize into actu­al armed con­flict against the loath­some fed­er­al government.

Two extrem­ists, Jerad and Amanda Miller, who trav­eled to Bundy’s ranch, only to be turned out, would go on to exe­cute two Nevada police offi­cers in June, drap­ing the famil­iar Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag over the corpses and pin­ning a note to their gov­ern­ment vic­tims say­ing, “This is the start of the rev­o­lu­tion.” Jerad and Amanda heard the call for a “range war” and took it upon them­selves to be the van­guard of the Bundy rebellion.

In the end, the two offi­cers were the only casu­al­ties and Bundy’s boys went home with not so much as a band-aid, as fed­er­al agents were backed down by a ver­i­ta­ble army of mili­ti­a­men. The gov­ern­ment blinked, and Bundy was allowed to con­tin­ue to flout a law he’d decid­ed didn’t apply to him.

That, ladies and gen­tle­men, is white power.

And this is black vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty: In the inter­ven­ing year since the Nevada show­down, much of America has become out­raged by a series of cas­es of unarmed black men killed by police. The epi­dem­ic of police vio­lence against black men has been ongo­ing for decades, of course, but a con­flu­ence of a new pub­lic atten­tive­ness and video evi­dence in some cas­es has pushed the cri­sis into the main­stream discourse.

The lat­est case, the shock­ing mur­der of Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC, should be held up for com­par­i­son with the Bundy stand­off. Before the video sur­faced and con­tra­dict­ed his report, Scott’s killer, Officer Michael Slager, jus­ti­fied his use of dead­ly force by claim­ing that Scott gained con­trol of Slager’s taser, thus mak­ing him a threat wor­thy of fatal elimination.

So the threat of a 50-year-old black man with a taser is so great that 8 shots into the back can be jus­ti­fied — but line up hun­dreds of white men on horse­back and armed to the hilt with mil­i­tary-grade weapons, and agents of the gov­ern­ment are powerless.

A sin­gle unarmed black man in Staten Island sell­ing loosies is con­sid­ered enough of a threat to be choked to death in broad day­light. Yet armed ex-mil­i­tary men pro­tect­ing a crim­i­nal with high-pow­ered rifles trained on fed­er­al agents are not enough of a threat to law and order to sim­i­lar­ly mer­it the use of force.

Is that what we learn when we look at the cas­es? Does the specter of some imag­ined vio­lent nature of black men exceed the fear stoked by white men with actu­al guns, actu­al­ly point­ed at state agents, fin­gers on triggers?

Or is it that the Bundy army was too much of a threat? The sim­mer­ing anger on the American right since President Obama’s elec­tion has seethed just at the precipice of vio­lence, and for Obama’s troops — as they would be viewed — to right­ly fire on white peo­ple angry about tax­es would have no doubt enraged extrem­ists to a degree unseen since per­haps the 19^th cen­tu­ry. These weren’t the creepy cultists of the Waco stand­off; Bundy was a hero head­lin­ing Fox News, the Drudge Report, and the oth­er lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive news out­lets. He would have been a mar­tyr to Tea Partiers and the far right.

The mili­tia and “Patriot” move­ments have seen “stun­ning growth” dur­ing the Obama years, accord­ing to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks vio­lent extrem­ism. Bloodshed at the Bundy ranch could have very well sparked vio­lence else­where, just as the fed­er­al sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco dur­ing the 1990s ani­mat­edthe nascent mili­tia and Patriot movements.

What les­son then have we learned from Cliven Bundy? What les­son do we learn from Walter Scott? Or Eric Garner. Or Michael Brown? Sean Bell?Oscar Grant? Amadou Diallo? Ramarley Graham? Maybe the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in Texas has the right idea. Named after Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton, the group takes advan­tage of open car­ry laws in the Lone Star State to patrol their neigh­bor­hoods in squads of men and women armed with assault rifles, what Newton and the Panthers did in Oakland in 1966.

But while Panther-style armed resis­tance might pro­tect some vic­tims from police vio­lence, it’s hard to imag­ine it rem­e­dy­ing the under­ly­ing prob­lem: white suprema­cy and the assump­tion of black men as almost super­nat­u­ral­ly dan­ger­ous. That’s why Slager’s ini­tial sto­ry about Walter Scott would have prob­a­bly suf­ficed, were it not for the video; the per­ceived threat posed by black men is that great. And it’s why Bundy’s men were per­mit­ted to point sniper rifles at state offi­cials and still not be con­sid­ered a threat wor­thy of elimination.

Saturday will be a day of cel­e­bra­tion in Nevada; the day brings a funer­al to North Charleston.
Read more@ http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​5​/​0​4​/​1​0​/​t​h​i​s​_​i​s​_​w​h​a​t​_​w​h​i​t​e​_​s​u​p​r​e​m​a​c​y​_​l​o​o​k​s​_​l​i​k​e​_​a​_​p​a​r​t​y​_​a​t​_​t​h​e​_​b​u​n​d​y​_​r​a​n​c​h​_​a​_​f​u​n​e​r​a​l​_​i​n​_​n​o​r​t​h​_​c​h​a​r​l​e​s​t​on/