From time to time you read where I say this exis­ten­tial sit­u­a­tion in America with polic­ing is not sole­ly the fault of the low-lev­el police. It is a con­spir­a­cy that includes the entire sys­tem polit­i­cal­ly, judi­cial­ly, and of course legislatively.
In this report, you will see cops engen­der­ing in total­i­ty the 2002 film Minority Report star­ring Tom cruise.
The film was based on a spe­cial­ized police depart­ment that appre­hend­ed peo­ple based on infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed them by three psy­chics called “precogs.(w)
In oth­er words, peo­ple were arrest­ed for crimes they did not com­mit, as well as on the idea of crimes they will com­mit in the future. Preventative law enforce­ment if you will.
That kind of law enforce­ment has been on the increase all across America in recent times. The fol­low­ing sto­ry will show you how cops fol­lowed an inno­cent home­less man; hop­ing to accost him on a minor vio­la­tion that is not even a class 3 mis­de­meanor but a minor vio­la­tion that would at best war­rant a ticket.
They then threw him to the ground, esca­lat­ed the inci­dent then mur­dered him ad the District Attorney allowed them to walk away scot-free.
The ques­tion is, even if he jay­walked who was hurt by his actions? How does a vic­tim­less ordi­nance vio­la­tion by a cit­i­zen become a jus­ti­fi­able street-side exe­cu­tion by police? (mb)
Sadly this is where America is today in order to save some­one from him­self police are legal­ly jus­ti­fied to mur­der cit­i­zens. Whether it is sit­ting on the side of a high­way-police shoot man 30 times killing him; or jay­walk­ing you are not safe from the exe­cu­tion­er’s bul­lets regard­less of your men­tal or eco­nom­ic state, you are disposable.

Orange County pros­e­cu­tors ruled that Deputy Eduardo Duran was jus­ti­fied in his shoot­ing of a home­less Black man. An Orange County sher­iff who fatal­ly shot an unarmed home­less Black man in 2020 will not be fac­ing crim­i­nal charges, accord­ing to the dis­trict attorney’s office. In dash­cam footage released to the pub­lic, deputies Eduardo Duran and Jonathan Israel are seen fol­low­ing 42-year-old Kurt Andras Reinhold in their police cruis­er before stop­ping him on sus­pi­cion of jay­walk­ing in a San Clemente neighborhood.
The duo then pro­ceed­ed to detain Reinhold, at one point wrestling him to the ground, before Reinhold, they said, grabbed Israel’s gun hol­ster, prompt­ing Duran to fire two shots at him.
The two offi­cers are a part of the department’s home­less out­reach liaison.

“It is clear from the evi­dence in this case that Deputy Duran did not com­mit a crime, and that he was jus­ti­fied when he shot Reinhold,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Stephen McGreevy in a 20-page let­ter out­lin­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion. Prosecutors said that after review­ing the footage of the inci­dent and inter­view­ing the offi­cers and sev­er­al wit­ness­es, Duran was found to be in the right. In a 12-minute video com­pi­la­tion of the dash­cam, cell­phone, and sur­veil­lance footage, the two offi­cers were seen watch­ing Reinhold for sev­er­al min­utes before he was seen jay­walk­ing. “Watch this, he’s going to jay­walk,” one of the cops is heard say­ing as they pull up to Reinhold. The oth­er cop responds, “Don’t make case law.” The video doesn’t cap­ture the moment the cops exit their vehi­cle, but one is heard say­ing, “Are you going to stop or are we going to have to make you stop?”

CLEARLY ON A POWER TRIP

“For what,” Reinhold responds. After the cops told Reinhold that he was jay­walk­ing, he respond­ed by say­ing that their claims are “ridicu­lous” because he was just walk­ing and tells them to stop touch­ing him. The offi­cers are then seen try­ing to direct a vis­i­bly upset Reinhold back to the side­walk, before they tack­le him to the ground. One of the cops is heard yelling “he’s got my gun,” which seem­ing­ly cor­rob­o­rates a pre­vi­ous­ly released still pho­to of Reinhold’s hand near the gun. However, it is unclear if he took the weapon out of its hol­ster. “These offi­cers are sup­pos­ed­ly trained to deal with the home­less,” said John Taylor, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Reinhold’s wid­ow, Latoya Reinhold. “They need­ed to deesca­late the sit­u­a­tion, rather than esca­late it.” Reinhold’s fam­i­ly, includ­ing his 7‑year-old son and 8‑year-old daugh­ter, filed a claim for wrong­ful death in December 2020. “Jaywalking should not get you killed in Orange County. Being home­less should not get you killed in Orange County,” said Taylor, adding that Reinhold suf­fered from men­tal health issues in the past. Attorneys for the fam­i­ly said that they were dis­ap­point­ed but not sur­prised by the prosecutor’s deci­sion on Friday. Their law­suit against the depart­ment is still ongoing.

You would think that white men who have had things their way since before the start of the repub­lic would have some tiny bit of shame and remorse; that even though the game has been fixed in their favor for cen­turies, they still bitch and com­plain because they have to cheat to fin­ish the race…
One would think that now that those at the very bot­tom, (let me say it Black peo­ple) are try­ing to claw their way up from off their stom­achs they would receive a bit of applause from white men their oppres­sors even if they refuse to extend a hand up.
The thing that real­ly piss­es these poor excus­es for men off is that despite all that they and their prog­en­i­tors did to black peo­ple, still we rise.
It real­ly makes them mad that despite the geno­cide they waged against us for hun­dreds of years instead of dis­ap­pear­ing we con­tin­ue to mul­ti­ply and prosper.
It must real­ly scare the hell out of them when they look at the data and real­ize they are becom­ing a minor­i­ty; they are shit-scared because of what they have done and con­tin­ue to do.
Conventional wis­dom would sug­gest they change from their wicked ways. But a poi­so­nous snake remains dan­ger­ous, even when its head is chopped from the body; the head con­tin­ues to be dangerous.

You may write me down in history
With your bit­ter, twist­ed lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassi­ness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my liv­ing room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the cer­tain­ty of tides,
Just like hopes spring­ing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and low­ered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soul­ful cries?

Does my haugh­ti­ness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sex­i­ness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meet­ing of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s root­ed in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leap­ing and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of ter­ror and fear
I rise
Into a day­break that’s won­drous­ly clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ances­tors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
(The great Maya Angelo)

Before Joe Biden was elect­ed to the pres­i­den­cy, he pledged that if a vacan­cy came up dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy, he would nom­i­nate a Black woman to the high­est court.
He won, and a vacan­cy has opened up. President Biden has restat­ed his com­mit­ment to nom­i­nate a Black woman to the high court.
The pres­i­dent has­n’t yet named any­one, but it has­n’t stopped the small-penis black woman-hat­ing lit­tle runts from bitch­ing that the yet unnamed Black woman is unqualified.
This means that the haters, most far less qual­i­fied than any of the judges being talked about, are say­ing being Black is dis­qual­i­fy­ing peri­od. They make no effort to chal­lenge the superb edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions of any of the judges whose names are being bandied about; they go straight for race.
This is noth­ing new In America, but one would have thought that these penile defi­cient, less-thans, would have some shame about the things they say about their superiors.
To har­bor such hatred of Black peo­ple as right-wing white men at all lev­els do, includ­ing US Senators, can only smack of one thing, ‘small penis syn­drome.

The idea that they would come out against some­one yet unnamed sole­ly based on race shows the des­per­a­tion and sense of dan­ger they antic­i­pate when the play­ing fields are a lit­tle less slant­ed in their favor.
They had no prob­lem when the most cor­rupt imbe­cil­ic per­son ever to occu­py the white house in our life­time shov­eled three con­tro­ver­sial white can­di­dates onto the court.
So many unan­swered ques­tions remain about why did Anthony Kennedy sud­den­ly resign and was replaced with Brett Kavanaugh. So many ques­tions remained about who paid off Brett Kavanaugh’s stu­dent loans. So many ques­tions remain about why the FBI did not do a real inves­ti­ga­tion into Kavanaugh’s back­ground before he was placed onto the court.
Let’s not both­er to men­tion the unscrupu­lous and dis­hon­est process that placed Neil Gorsuch and Amey Coney-Barrett on the court.
Also, let us not both­er to men­tion that oth­er pres­i­dents have cam­paigned on who they intend­ed to place on the high­est court should they be elect­ed, includ­ing the for­mer guy.

The racist right has ini­ti­at­ed attempts to ban books, stop the teach­ing of American racism in schools, rad­i­cal­ly ger­ry­man­der con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts that water-down black vot­ing pow­er, anti-vot­ing laws, and a raft of oth­er unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic attacks against the majority.
They are dis­man­tling the sys­tem to main­tain white pow­er with the help and sup­port of Donald Trump’s three hacks on the supreme court.
Who could for­get how the Robert’s court for no appar­ent rea­son, decid­ed to dis­man­tle sec­tion (4B) of the 1965 vot­ing rights act under the guise that it worked well but was no longer needed.
The Federal judi­cia­ry has always been com­plic­it in the oppres­sion of African-Americans from the start; its col­lu­sion against peo­ple of col­or con­tin­ues today.
The right’s strat­e­gy has been to stack the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry, includ­ing the supreme court, with young right-wing ide­o­logues to set up minor­i­ty rule. Kudos to them it has been pure genius-but is a strat­e­gy that must be defeat­ed using every legal tool available.

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

Mitch McConnell’s Freudian slip of the tongue as he addressed vot­ing rights may have been shock­ing to some who are will­ful­ly blind. Still, it is dif­fi­cult to see how any­one could believe the Kentucky Senator is any­thing but an old under­cov­er racist.
Speaking after Republicans, with the help of fake Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, killed pas­sage of a new vot­ing rights bill, McConnell said the following.
“Well, the con­cern is mis­placed. Because if you look at the sta­tis­tics, African American vot­ers are vot­ing in just as high a per­cent­age as Americans”. “Ouch,” how could he let that slip? McConnell has been rather care­ful and delib­er­ate with his speech his entire career, but it can be rather dif­fi­cult to hold in who you are for so long.

Mitch’s slip of the tongue and his attempts to link him­self to Dr. Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights cam­paign were both trans­par­ent and pathet­ic. How telling is it that as soon as a white racist is con­front­ed with their racism, they default to hav­ing black friends or some dis­tant asso­ci­a­tion with some­one black.
I have always said the efforts employed in cov­er­ing up a crime are evi­dence of a crime.
But Mitch McConnell was­n’t done try­ing to con­vince the world what we heard from his mouth was­n’t real. Along with the lat­er pre­pared faux out­rage, he went on try­ing to con­vince us it was just an error.“This out­ra­geous mis­char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of my record as a result of leav­ing one word out inad­ver­tent­ly the oth­er day … is deeply offen­sive,” he said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence in Louisville Friday. “I’ve nev­er been accused of this sort of thing before. It’s hurt­ful and offen­sive, and I think some of the crit­ics know it’s total­ly non­sense.”Mitch said.
“Bitch Please.”
What total bull­shit, the old cur­mud­geon had just ral­lied his cau­cus to vote against the right of Black People to freek­ing vote in the year 2022.

After lit­er­al­ly infer­ring that Black vot­ers are not Americans, some­thing white suprema­cists have main­tained for as long as the coun­try exist­ed, Mitch McConnell went back to the micro­phone. This is where the slip­pery tur­tle that is Mitch came through, and many missed it.
Back at the micro­phone, he claimed he left out the word ‘almost’
Again here is Mitch’s ini­tial state­ment. “Well, the con­cern is mis­placed. Because if you look at the sta­tis­tics, African American vot­ers are vot­ing in just as high a per­cent­age as_​_​_​_​Americans. “Almost does not work there.
See, what Mitch attempt­ed to do there was to play to his age; he want­ed at that moment to be seen as a bum­bling old man who makes mis­takes, not a racist who got caught.
At that moment, the astute, ever schem­ing, delib­er­a­tive Senate Minority leader would glad­ly be seen as a bum­bling old fool rather than a rabid racist.
After his first attempt at cor­rect­ing the record, he left the podi­um then returned to say the word he left out was ‘all”.
Nicely played Mitch, but that nice maneu­ver did not slip by me; I saw the play developing.
Nice try, though!

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

“HONK IF YOU HATE N*GGERS,” the sign read on Saturday in Sumter, South Carolina

Police are on a search in South Carolina for the per­son who tam­pered with an elec­tron­ic road sign, chang­ing its text to dis­play a racial slur. The text on the sign, set up in the city of Sumter, was altered to dis­play an offen­sive com­mand that includ­ed the n‑word. Sumter has a pop­u­la­tion of rough­ly 43,000 with a racial divide of rough­ly 49% Black and 44% white, accord­ing to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“HONK IF YOU HATE N*GGERS,” the sign read.

The Sumter Police Department said its offi­cers were noti­fied about the sit­u­a­tion around 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. The dig­i­tal mes­sage board was placed in a high-traf­fic area on on South Pike West near US Route 76 in East Sumter to warn dri­vers about an ongo­ing road con­struc­tion project, offi­cials say.

The racist lan­guage on the sign has been removed, police said. Sumter Police Chief Russell Roark char­ac­ter­ized the inci­dent as an extreme­ly dis­turb­ing “scar on the city and its res­i­dents that is in no way indica­tive of the com­mu­ni­ty where we work and live.”

Sumter Police Department

on Sunday

Racial epi­thet inves­ti­ga­tion update

Officers have obtained video footage show­ing a man walk­ing in the area of a mes­sage board that was tam­pered with and the mes­sage altered to dis­play a racial epi­thet on Saturday.
The mes­sage was report­ed to police at about 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
The depart­ment has since learned that the sign belongs to a paving com­pa­ny involved with an ongo­ing road improve­ment project on South Pike West. …See more

“We will inves­ti­gate this to the fullest,” Roark said in a statement.

On Sunday, Sumter Police released screen­shots of sur­veil­lance video footage that they said shows a man walk­ing near the cor­rupt­ed sign on Saturday. The depart­ment is offer­ing a $5,000 reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to an arrest.

“Anyone who rec­og­nizes this per­son or knows any­thing about this inci­dent is asked to call the Sumter Police Department at 803−436−2700 or Crime Stoppers at 1 – 888-CRIME-SC,” the depart­ment said.

The 911 call made by the sheriff’s deputy that shot and killed a Black man in North Carolina has been released. The city coun­cil has now request­ed that the U.S. Department of Justice get involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion. Deputy Jeffrey Hash called 911 after he shot Jason Walker on Saturday, Jan. 8, in Fayetteville, North Carolina
The almost four-minute call records Hash as say­ing, “I just had a male jump on my vehi­cle and broke my wind­shield. I just shot him. I am a deputy sher­iff.” “You said you shot him?” the dis­patch­er asked the deputy.

“Yes, he jumped on my car, please,” he respond­ed. When the dis­patch­er asked for his name, Hash said, “I am a lieu­tenant with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.” Later in the call, the dis­patch­er asks Hash if he is near the vic­tim, he replies, “I am. He’s gone. He’s gone, ma’am.” “Is he breath­ing?” the dis­patch­er inquires. The deputy answered, “No, ma’am, he is not. He’s gone.” Hash then asks for “units out ’cause there are peo­ple gath­er­ing.” During the call, the deputy tells the dis­patch­er that his vehi­cle is a red Ford F‑150. He then states, “He shat­tered my wind­shield.” Also heard on the call is an exchange that Hash had with a wit­ness, Elizabeth Ricks, the woman who tried to assist Walker after he was shot. The call cap­tures Hash telling her to leave the scene.

“Just keep mov­ing, ma’am,” he says to Ricks. She replies to him, “I’m a trau­ma nurse.” To her qual­i­fi­er, he says, “I’m a deputy sher­iff. Come here. He jumped on my vehi­cle. I just had to shoot him.” The dis­patch­er joins in the con­ver­sa­tion and asks for clar­i­ty on what actu­al­ly hap­pened, to which Hash sub­mit­ted his ver­sion. “I was dri­ving down the road and he came fly­ing across Bingham Drive, run­ning, and then I stopped so I wouldn’t hit him and he jumped on my car and start­ed scream­ing; pulled my wind­shield wipers off, and start­ed beat­ing my wind­shield and broke my wind­shield,” Hash recalled. “I had my wife and my daugh­ter in my vehi­cle.” The dis­patch­er asked, “Did he have any weapons, sir?” Hash said that Walker did not have a firearm, and again, assert­ed his ver­sion of the sto­ry, “He just tore my wipers off and start­ed beat­ing. … He bust­ed my wind­shield.” Turning her atten­tion to the vic­tim, who Hash had already said was not breath­ing, the dis­patch­er asked about how many peo­ple are present at the site of the crime. “There are tons of cars and peo­ple gath­er­ing around,” he stat­ed. The 911 call con­tin­ued to pick up con­ver­sa­tions from those who gath­ered around Walker’s body. One key voice is Ricks, the trau­ma nurse Hash told to “keep mov­ing.” Ricks can be heard say­ing that the man is still alive. Hash final­ly asks for help, say­ing, “He has a light pulse right now. I need EMS now.” The dis­patch­er asks where the man was shot, but nei­ther Hash nor Ricks has the infor­ma­tion. Hash reveals to the dis­patch­er, “I’m see­ing blood on his side, ma’am.”

Ricks is heard try­ing to save him, notwith­stand­ing Hash’s request for EMS’s arrival on the scene. The call records her in the back­ground ask­ing for a shirt or some­thing to stop the bleed­ing. Others in the back­ground repeat the dispatcher’s ques­tions about where Walker was shot, but Hash con­tin­ues to say that he doesn’t know and repeats his ver­sion of what hap­pened, “He was on the front of my vehi­cle. He jumped on my car.” Ricks snaps, “I don’t care about that, where is the entry point?” Hash respond­ed to her and says to the dis­patch­er, who tells him to stop talk­ing to the peo­ple on the scene, “People are hos­tile right now.” Hash’s “hos­tile” com­ment was cap­tured on the two-minute cell­phone video of the after­math of the shoot­ing, record­ed by Chase Sorrell, Ricks’ boyfriend. Ricks and Sorrell are key wit­ness­es to the fatal shooting.The Fayetteville Observer reports that the two say they were dri­ving about two car lengths behind Hash when the nurse saw Walker stand­ing on the side of the road. Ricks main­tains that Walker wait­ed for one car to go by before he start­ed to cross the street. That is when Hash’s truck came by and struck the 37-year-old Black man, and Hash got out of the car and shot the man four times, the nurse says. After that, she got out of her car to attempt to save his life as he lay dying next to the back wheels of the Ford pick­up truck.

Ricks’ account of Walker being hit by a car con­tra­dicts police claims released ear­li­er this week. Fayetteville Police Chief Gina Hawkins said on Sunday, Jan. 9, the pick­up truck had a “black box” that would have reg­is­tered if the vehi­cle struck “any per­son or thing.” She also added that one eye­wit­ness said to her office that Walker was not hit by the truck. The Fayetteville news­pa­per reports that Ricks says she gave a wit­ness state­ment to police at the scene of the shoot­ing. Since the shoot­ing, Hash has acquired rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Parrish Daughtry, his lawyer, shared on Tuesday that her client was “dev­as­tat­ed” about the inci­dent. She said, “Lt. Hash is dev­as­tat­ed for Mr. Walker’s fam­i­ly, his own fam­i­ly, the greater com­mu­ni­ty and dev­as­tat­ed by these events. Beyond that, I’m real­ly pro­hib­it­ed from dis­cussing the facts.” Walker’s fam­i­ly also acquired the ser­vices of a lawyer. Ben Crump, the civ­il rights attor­ney that has rep­re­sent­ed vic­tims in many high-pro­file cas­es such as those of George Floyd and Trayvon Martin, will rep­re­sent the inter­ests of the fam­i­ly of the deceased.

A Georgia sheriff’s deputy in mid­dle Georgia has been “sus­pend­ed with­out pay pend­ing ter­mi­na­tion” after alleged­ly call­ing mur­der vic­tim Ahmaud Arbery a “crim­i­nal” on social media. In addi­tion to label­ing the slain jog­ger as a crim­i­nal, he is accused of smug­ly writ­ing, “he still got the death penalty.”

Houston County Deputy Paul Urhahn com­ment­ed on the Macon outlet’s Facebook post about the recent sen­tenc­ing of Arbery’s killers, Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan. The deputy replied, “That crim­i­nal Arbery still got the death penal­ty though.” On Friday, Jan. 7, the three men were hand­ed down life sen­tences for their roles in the 25-year-old’s death. The McMichaels both received life sen­tences with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, plus an addi­tion­al 20 years. Bryan, a McMichael’s neigh­bor, was sen­tenced to life in prison with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole in 30 years

Judge Timothy Walmsley stat­ed at sen­tenc­ing, “Ahmaud Arbery was then hunt­ed down and shot, and he was killed because indi­vid­u­als here in this court­room took the law into their own hands.”

Despite delet­ing the com­ment, screen­shots have been shared across social media, land­ing in the Houston County Sheriff’s Office. Over the week­end, the sheriff’s office launched an inves­ti­ga­tion, and on the morn­ing of Monday, Jan. 10, decid­ed to sus­pend Urhahn with­out pay and pend­ing termination.

Sheriff Cullen Talton wrote a let­ter detail­ing how the deputy vio­lat­ed sev­er­al of the department’s poli­cies, all relat­ing to code of conduct:

• Page 5 (4A) – An offi­cer must at all times, on and off duty, con­duct him/​herself in a man­ner which does not bring dis­cred­it to the depart­ment or county.
• Page 5 (4B) – Conduct unbe­com­ing of an offi­cer shall include that conduct
• (2) – Which has a ten­den­cy to destroy pub­lic respect for employ­ees and con­fi­dence in the department.

The blow­back from the com­ment did not stop with the depart­ment. Activist Eli Porter, a mem­ber of the Poor And Minority Justice Association told WGXA, “That deputy rep­re­sents that entire depart­ment, and for him to say some­thing like that — I’m just … it got under my skin.”

Porter believed that the sheriff’s imme­di­ate response com­mu­ni­cat­ed a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the com­mu­ni­ty, show­ing every­one that “the sheriff’s office does not stand with what Paul said.”

Few peo­ple have expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the dis­graced officer.

Kimberly Ochelli wrote, “Exactly the type of per­son we do not need to be a Peace Officer not only in our beau­ti­ful city, but any­where. He deserved exact­ly what he earned.”

“He deserves to lose his job,” Laurie Hardeman post­ed in the com­ment sec­tion. “When a racist shows his true col­ors they need to learn just how igno­rant they act. And it reflects on how he or she was brought up and how igno­rant their fam­i­ly is also.”

But some believed that his free­dom of speech had been violated.

“The man has a right to his opin­ion, why should some peo­ple be denied their right to express them­selves because they work in cer­tain areas,” wrote Will Maddox.

Lawana Henrich asked, “I do not know what he said but what hap­pened to free­dom of speech?

Urhahn has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to appeal this deci­sion over the next 10 days. If he does not, his ter­mi­na­tion will be effec­tive on Jan. 20.

Some time ago, I post­ed an image of a cop on social media that I thought demon­strat­ed where American polic­ing real­ly was.
As a for­mer Jamaican police offi­cer who ful­ly under­stands the impor­tance of deport­ment and per­cep­tions, I thought it impor­tant to raise aware­ness of what I perceived.

Here is anoth­er who was fired in Michigan for being real­ly dis­re­spect­ful to a Black man he arrest­ed for col­lect­ing sig­na­tures for a Tenant’s Association in his hous­ing development.
It is impor­tant to under­stand that fir­ing a cop in the United States is real­ly not pun­ish­ment. They go to anoth­er depart­ment where they are usu­al­ly paid more mon­ey and pro­mot­ed. Unless they are decer­ti­fied and crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed, no pun­ish­ment met­ed out real­ly matters.

This cop works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His name is Ian Lichterman.

In 2016 Buzzfeed news said this about the Lichterman tat­toos snapped after he was seen doing crowd control.
It has become clear if it wasn’t before, that white suprema­cist ide­ol­o­gy has per­me­at­ed the halls of American author­i­ty — from the White House, where anti-immi­grant nativists Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Sebastian Gorka were hired as advis­ers to Trump; to the prison sys­tem, where three Florida cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers, found to be Ku Klux Klan mem­bers, were con­vict­ed of plot­ting to kill a black inmate; to the church, where a Catholic priest and part-time his­to­ry teacher in Virginia was forced to resign after a parish­ioner dis­cov­ered that he‘d orches­trat­ed at least six cross burn­ings dur­ing his time in the KKK; to the mil­i­tary, where a for­mer Marine Corps recruiter and staff sergeant, who retired in January, became leader of the white suprema­cist group Vanguard America; to the fire sta­tion, where a fire­fight­er in Ohio wrote in a Facebook com­ment that he’d rather save a dog than a black per­son because “one dog is more impor­tant than a mil­lion niggers.”

How many of these peo­ple do you think are oper­at­ing in plain sight in police depart­ments across the coun­try, killing, maim­ing, and lying on reports?
In the image above, the white suprema­cists-cops in Jasper, Alabama, PD, cel­e­brat­ed with white pow­er signs after col­lar­ing an African-American fugi­tive. The cow­ard­ly punks then lied that the signs were a kid’s game. Their pun­ish­ment, two weeks with­out pay, they were allowed to con­tin­ue to be slave catch­ers. As you know, American polic­ing derived from slave-catch­ing and remains so today.
In August of 2020, the Brennan Center For Justice said in a Summary;The government’s response to known con­nec­tions of law enforce­ment offi­cers to vio­lent racist and mil­i­tant groups has been strik­ing­ly insuf­fi­cient.
This writer has made the very same point repeat­ed­ly over the years, albeit less artic­u­late, since the FBI 2006 inter­nal memo was made pub­lic that warned of white suprema­cists infil­trat­ing police depart­ments using what they refer to as ghost skins actors. At the time the memo was writ­ten, the FBI warned that the prac­tice of white suprema­cists infil­trat­ing police depart­ments was a threat to nation­al security.
Ghost skins refer to hate group mem­bers and sym­pa­thiz­ers who don’t overt­ly dis­play their beliefs to blend into soci­ety then advance their white suprema­cist causes.
Part of the rea­son they have cho­sen to enter law enforce­ment is to have mem­bers alert them to poten­tial inves­ti­ga­tions against them, the Brennan Center For Justice said.
It is safe to say that 15 years lat­er, no seri­ous steps have been tak­en to rein in, much less erad­i­cate that can­cer from law enforce­ment despite the increased inci­dences of police vio­lence lead­ing to the deaths of more peo­ple of col­or year over year.
The Supreme Court has basi­cal­ly been mum while Federal appeals courts have giv­en police more and more pow­er to abuse the rights of cit­i­zens under the dubi­ous cloak of qual­i­fied immunity.

In the 2020 Brennan Report Michael Graham stat­ed; While it is wide­ly acknowl­edged that racist offi­cers sub­sist with­in police depart­ments around the coun­try, fed­er­al, state, and local gov­ern­ments are doing far too lit­tle to proac­tive­ly iden­ti­fy them, report their behav­ior to pros­e­cu­tors who might unwit­ting­ly rely on their tes­ti­mo­ny in crim­i­nal cas­es, or pro­tect the diverse com­mu­ni­ties they are sworn to serve.
In con­clu­sion, Graham writes,The affin­i­ty some police offi­cers have shown for armed far-right mili­tia groups at protests is con­found­ing giv­en that many states, includ­ing California, Illinois, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, have laws bar­ring unreg­u­lat­ed para­mil­i­tary activ­i­ties. And it is most trou­bling because far-right mil­i­tants have often killed police offi­cers. The over­lap between mili­tia mem­bers and the Boogaloo move­ment — whose adher­ents have been arrest­ed for man­u­fac­tur­ing Molotov cock­tails in prepa­ra­tion for an attack at a Black Lives Matter protest in Nevada, incit­ing a riot in South Carolina, and shoot­ing, bomb­ing, and killing police offi­cers in California — high­lights the threat that police engage­ment with these groups pos­es to their law enforce­ment part­ners. See the full report in the link below.
https://​www​.bren​nan​cen​ter​.org/​o​u​r​-​w​o​r​k​/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​s​/​h​i​d​d​e​n​-​p​l​a​i​n​-​s​i​g​h​t​-​r​a​c​i​s​m​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​s​u​p​r​e​m​a​c​y​-​a​n​d​-​f​a​r​-​r​i​g​h​t​-​m​i​l​i​t​a​n​c​y​-​law

In 2019 the Antifascist group Seven Hills unearthed enough evi­dence on Rob Stamm, a 36-year-old sergeant in the Virginia Capitol police that had respon­si­bil­i­ty for pro­tect­ing the then gov­er­nor Ralph Northam.
Stamm was uncov­ered through his likes on far-right-wing post­ings on social media. Activists noticed a large ban­dage on Stamm’s neck at a protest against the Governor and decid­ed to dig into his back­ground upon which where they found mul­ti­ple links to the far-right. Stamm’s tat­toos also show an alleged affin­i­ty for the far-right, the most obvi­ous of which appears to be a large Iron Cross on his upper left arm, a German war medal. He also alleged­ly had a neo-Pagan Viking rune on his left bicep and what seemed to be a wolf­san­gel on his neck — an ancient Germanic sym­bol often used by far-right groups like the Aryan Nations — which he then attempt­ed to cov­er up with a more gener­ic design.

None of this was dis­cov­ered by the gov­ern­ment whose job it is to pro­tect all Americans, it was dis­cov­ered by Anti-Fascist American cit­i­zens that have been demo­nized as anti-American in right-wing media like Fox noise and others.
If unearthing dan­ger­ous and vio­lent poten­tial ter­ror­ists bur­rowed into law enforce­ment is anti-American, by def­i­n­i­tion they are say­ing being American means one must be a racist poten­tial terrorist.
This hard­ly scratch­es the sur­face, how­ev­er. In September 2018, a cop in Georgia was sus­pend­ed after it was dis­cov­ered he had liked Facebook posts pro­mot­ing the Ku Klux Klan. In July that year, a deputy at the Clark County Sherrif’s Office in Washington State was fired for mak­ing mer­chan­dise for the Proud Boys, a far-right gang.
Rob Stamm
Rob Stamm was even­tu­al­ly fired from his job after the expo­sure, how­ev­er, the fir­ing of a cop in the United States means very lit­tle. He can sim­ply move to anoth­er depart­ment where he will almost cer­tain­ly be hired and even pro­mot­ed, not despite what he alleged­ly did but because of what he did.
Unless they lose their accred­i­ta­tion to be a police offi­cer los­ing their job when uncov­ered may actu­al­ly mean a pro­mo­tion to anoth­er more tol­er­ant law enforce­ment agency.

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

No other medium highlights America’s deep race problem more than this one does fearlessly. Many people believe this is a police-only problem it isn’t. America’s race problem runs straight through every sector of American life.
How many Black lives do you think this judge ruined.

A Louisiana judge has claimed that seda­tive drugs are to blame for her usage of a racial slur, after footage was leaked online

Judge Michelle Odinet, 52, can be heard using the racial slur in a viral video clip, which was record­ed last week­end at her fam­i­ly home in Bendel Gardens, Lafayette.

While watch­ing secu­ri­ty footage of a Black male attempt­ing to break into the house, Ms Odinet, along­side oth­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly, can clear­ly be heard using the n‑word, as well as oth­er profanity.

After one of the younger chil­dren says, “And mom’s yelling n****r, n****r,” a female voice appears to respond, “We have a n****r. It’s a n****r, like a roach.”

A short clip of the inci­dent was shared on Twitter by Huffington Post edi­tor Philp Lewis, which has since been shared over 6000 times.

Judge Michelle Odinet, 52, can be heard using the racial slur in a viral video clip, which was record­ed last week­end at her fam­i­ly home in Bendel Gardens, Lafayette. While watch­ing secu­ri­ty footage of a Black male attempt­ing to break into the house, Ms Odinet, along­side oth­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly, can clear­ly be heard using the n‑word, as well as oth­er pro­fan­i­ty. After one of the younger chil­dren says, “And mom’s yelling n****r, n****r,” a female voice appears to respond, “We have a n****r. It’s a n****r, like a roach.” A short clip of the inci­dent was shared on Twitter by Huffington Post edi­tor Philp Lewis, which has since been shared over 6000 times.

I had no idea seda­tives could bring out Racism;(sarcasm) even so, does this light-heart­ed ban­ter sounds like she was sedat­ed? I sub­mit that she sound­ed rather elat­ed, not sedated.

However, in response to her alleged usage of the racial slur, Judge Odinet blamed it on seda­tives, which she claimed to have start­ed tak­ing fol­low­ing the bur­glary attempt.

“My chil­dren and I were the vic­tim of an armed bur­glary at our home,” she explained to The Current (via the Daily Mail).

“The police were called and the assailant was arrest­ed. The inci­dent shook me to my core and my men­tal state was fragile.”

“Anyone who knows me and my hus­band, knows this is con­trary to the way we live our lives. I am deeply sor­ry and ask for your for­give­ness and under­stand­ing as my fam­i­ly and I deal with the emo­tion­al after­math of this armed burglary.

The Republican judge is now fac­ing calls with­in her com­mu­ni­ty to resign from her posi­tion on the Lafayette City Court. She was first elect­ed to the posi­tion just over a year ago, win­ning 57 per cent of the vote against rival can­di­date Jules Edwards.

Leading the calls for her to stand down is Lafayette city mar­shall, Reggie Thomas. “As a proud Black man, and the Lafayette City Marshall, I strong­ly believe Judge Odinet should be held account­able,” he told the Acadiana Advocate.

“I’m sure that peo­ple of col­or will find it impos­si­ble to trust that they will be treat­ed fair­ly and equal­ly when they have to stand for judg­ment before Judge Odinet.

“This type of lan­guage can­not be accept­ed or tol­er­at­ed by any­one, espe­cial­ly those who serve as lead­ers in our city.”

One of the guid­ing prin­ci­ples of my life has been and still is that actions have con­se­quences. I will explain how actions result in dan­ger­ous and dead­ly con­se­quences imper­il­ing the per­son who ini­ti­at­ed the action and oth­ers around them.
I speak of the killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Brooklyn Center Minnesota man who was killed in the com­mu­ni­ty of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a mere 10 miles from where Derek Chauvin was on tri­al in the killing of George Floyd.

Former senior police offi­cer Kim Potter faces tri­al for killing the young father. I have thought about this case for a very long time, and I have read a lot of mate­r­i­al on what tran­spired that led to the young man’s death; and I have also thought about the issue from the per­spec­tive of a for­mer police officer.
Most of all, I have giv­en thought to some of the com­ments that peo­ple on all sides have made, most­ly along balka­nized racial and ide­o­log­i­cal lines.

Let us drill down as rea­son­able people.
Did offi­cer Kim Potter com­mit murder?
Murder is the killing of a per­son by anoth­er with mal­ice afore­thought. It is dif­fi­cult to say that the offi­cer want­ed to mur­der Daunte Wright when she attempt­ed to arrest him for hav­ing an out­stand­ing warrant.
Before The police stopped Daunte Wright, nei­ther offi­cer Kim Potter nor the oth­er offi­cers involved in the inci­dent knew that mis­ter Wright had an out­stand­ing warrant.
There are claims that Daunte Wright had no dri­ver’s license, his tags were expired, there was an order of pro­tec­tion issued against him, and of course, there was a war­rant out for his arrest on weapons charges.
At the ten­der age of 20-years old, it is fair to say that mis­ter Wright was on a slip­pery slope and head­ing for disaster.
The sem­i­nal issue here is that the police were not privy to any of that infor­ma­tion until they decid­ed to pull over his car for an air fresh­er hang­ing over his rearview mirror.

Officer Potter is report­ed to have received exten­sive train­ing in know­ing the dif­fer­ence between a taser and a ser­vice weapon. Officers whose dom­i­nant hand is their right usu­al­ly wear the taser on their left side, and their ser­vice weapon on the right.
Left-hand­ed cops would do the reverse. Some cops wear the taser on the front of their uni­form. Regardless of how it is worn, the idea is to ensure there is no mis­tak­ing the use of each weapon.
Officer Potter claimed that she mis­tak­en­ly pulled her ser­vice weapon instead of her taser when she shot Daunte Wright.
As a for­mer police offi­cer, I am ful­ly con­ver­sant that actions have con­se­quences; the imme­di­ate response of offi­cer Potter after shoot­ing mis­ter Wright can be crit­i­cized, but it is dif­fi­cult to argue that she was not trau­ma­tized immediately.
That video will go a long way in her defense that she had no inten­tion of shoot­ing mis­ter Wright.
As we try to make sense of what occurred, we must remem­ber that even if offi­cer Potter did not intend to shoot Daunte Wright-Daunte Wright is no less dead, and offi­cer Potter killed him.
The fact that mal­ice is not present does not mean there was­n’t neg­li­gence, care­less­ness, or reck­less­ness, all aggra­vat­ed, because mis­ter Wright is dead.

Daunte Wright is dead; sor­ry, I made a mis­take can­not change that fact.
There may not have been mal­ice afore­thought, but that does not exon­er­ate offi­cer Potter of culpability.
The jury is almost Lilly white, as is cus­tom­ary when police offi­cers face tri­al. It is impor­tant to see how these peo­ple will hon­or their obligations.
Daunte Wright made a series of mis­takes in his life, includ­ing choos­ing not to sub­mit to being arrest­ed. Sometimes bad deci­sions have cumu­la­tive effects, and the case of Daunte Wright’s death is a clas­sic exam­ple of the cumu­la­tive effect of bad decisions.
The most impor­tant take­away from this case is that the police pro­filed Daunte Wright using the air fresh­en­er to ini­ti­ate an ille­gal pre­tex­tu­al stop.
Daunte Wright is dead because of that pre­tex­tu­al stop. Officer Kim Potter is fac­ing felony charges because of that pre­tex­tu­al stop.
As long as police across the coun­try are allowed to use pre­tex­tu­al stops to harass the peo­ple they want to, peo­ple will con­tin­ue to die. Not just from mis­takes as in this case, but the raft of killings of inno­cent unarmed motorists by tyran­ni­cal wannabe-Rambo cops.

This is a case where the defense for for­mer offi­cer Potter should show some class and not try to impeach the char­ac­ter of Daunte Wright.-Daunte Wright’s record already impeach­es him.
But noth­ing in his record war­rant­ed the death sen­tence. In defend­ing his client, Kim Potter’s defense attor­ney has been on a tear in try­ing to make the case that mis­ter Wright got what he deserved.
They can­not help them­selves even though the defense strat­e­gy has­n’t been that the offi­cers were in fear for their lives; Potter’s defense lawyers are mak­ing the case that he deserved what he got. It is clas­sic white man’s vit­ri­ol because nei­ther he nor his chil­dren will ever face being racial­ly pro­filed by the police in America.
Officer Potter makes for a sym­pa­thet­ic fig­ure even among the litany of the illic­it police killing of minorities.
Kim Potter was oper­at­ing in a flawed sys­tem that empow­ers her to abuse rights, that sys­tem not only endan­gered the lives of Daunte Wright and his girl­friend but also placed her in the posi­tion she is in today. She should face the con­se­quences for his death, and that is the rea­son there are less­er offenses.
That is why pros­e­cu­tors appro­pri­ate­ly charged for­mer offi­cer Potter with first-degree manslaugh­ter and reck­less han­dling or use of a firearm.
She should be con­vict­ed on both charges.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mikebeckles.com.A

A man accused of racial­ly pro­fil­ing a Black work­er in a Tennessee park­ing garage with his white mom has been charged with assault after a video of the alter­ca­tion went viral on social media, the Nashville Metro police said.

According to an arrest war­rant filed Dec. 2, Edward Brennan took a swing at Johnny Martinez, who was check­ing cars for park­ing per­mits in the Nashville garage, after his mom called the police because Martinez refused to show them iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. “A rea­son­able per­son would regard the con­tact as extreme­ly offen­sive or provoca­tive,” caus­ing Martinez to fear “immi­nent bod­i­ly injury, the war­rant states.

Martinez told The Daily Beast that he was work­ing in the River House apart­ment building’s park­ing garage on the evening of Nov. 27, when he saw the white moth­er and son mon­i­tor­ing him.

“As I was doing my rounds…I noticed peo­ple watch­ing me,” he explained.

As he con­tin­ued to work, Martinez said he tried to avoid the pair until the moth­er alleged­ly told him, “You don’t belong here. How did you get here?”

In a video orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on YouTube, Martinez can be seen film­ing the moth­er and son as they ques­tion him. Brennan tells Martinez that he will call the police, and the moth­er — iden­ti­fied as “Bitsy” — asks for Martinez’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Brennan then walks toward a car off-cam­era while the moth­er con­tin­ues pes­ter­ing Martinez.

When the son comes back on cam­era, he strikes Martinez, knock­ing a bot­tle open­er off his key­chain. Martinez told The Daily Beast that when he went to pick it up, Brennan alleged­ly tried to attack him again.

“When he attacked me, he swung, he almost hit me in the face,” Martinez said. “He broke this bot­tle open­er off of my keys. When I went to go pick it up, he lunged.”

Martinez said that he wait­ed for the police to show up, but the mom and son left. When reached for com­ment, Edward Brennan hung up on The Daily Beast.

Martinez explained that he worked for a boot­ing com­pa­ny that has hun­dreds of con­tracts with prop­er­ties across Nashville. His job was to make sure that vehi­cles at those prop­er­ties had per­mits to park at those locations.

“If they didn’t have a per­mit, we would immo­bi­lize the vehi­cle. We would put a boot on it,” he said.

He explained that he thinks it’s nor­mal for peo­ple to be curi­ous about what he’s doing while check­ing cars. But with his large head­lamp, knee pads, and lan­yard, he should appear offi­cial enough for peo­ple to believe he’s working.

River House apart­ments declined to com­ment on the matter.

Martinez said that he was more shocked than any­thing about the inci­dent, which left him feel­ing anx­ious days later.

“I felt like crap,” he said. “I thought I was going to have a typ­i­cal Karen moment.”
(This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed at the dailybeast)

The Justice Department has offi­cial­ly closed its inves­ti­ga­tion into the infa­mous killing of Emmett Till with­out fed­er­al charges for a sec­ond time, leav­ing only more ques­tions after a poten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant claim from one of the last liv­ing wit­ness­es led inves­ti­ga­tors on a fresh hunt for evidence.

Continue read­ing →

The three men charged with mur­der­ing Ahmaud Arbery have been found guilty by a Georgia jury of their peers.
A jury has returned guilty ver­dicts against all three defen­dants in the mur­der of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots, was con­vict­ed on all counts, includ­ing the charge of mal­ice mur­der. His father Gregory McMichael and neigh­bor William “Roddie” Bryan was con­vict­ed of felony mur­der and oth­er charges

Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was shot to death while jog­ging in the neigh­bor­hood in February 2020. Cellphone video showed the men chas­ing Arbery and cor­ner­ing him with their pick­up trucks before a scuf­fle that end­ed with Travis McMichael shoot­ing Arbery at close range with a shotgun.

As the first guilty ver­dict was read aloud, peo­ple in the pub­lic gallery were heard audi­bly gasp­ing. Marcus Arbery, the father of Ahmaud Arbery, could be heard say­ing, “Long time com­ing,” before being told by secu­ri­ty to leave the court­room. Judge Timothy Walmsley remind­ed the court­room to remain silent as he con­tin­ued to read the rest of the jury’s ver­dicts aloud. [See below for a full break­down of the charges against each defendant.]

As he stood to leave the court­room, Travis McMichael, look­ing red-faced, mouthed the words “love you” to his mother.

The Associated Press reports the three men face min­i­mum sen­tences of life in prison. The judge will decide whether that comes with or with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

A sen­tenc­ing date has yet to be scheduled.

“The ver­dict today was a ver­dict based on the facts, based on the evi­dence, and that was our goal, was to bring that to that jury so that they could do the right thing, because the jury sys­tem works in this coun­try,” the lead pros­e­cu­tor in the case, Linda Dunikoski, said out­side the cour­t­house after the ver­dict was announced. “And when you present the truth to peo­ple and they can see it, they will do the right thing, and that’s what this jury did today in get­ting jus­tice for Ahmaud Arbery.”

“I nev­er thought this day would come, but God is good,” Arbery’s moth­er, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said at a news con­fer­ence after the ver­dict, adding that her son “will now rest in peace.”

The McMichaels and Bryan are also fac­ing fed­er­al hate crimes charges. A sep­a­rate tri­al in the fed­er­al case is sched­uled to begin on February 7, 2022.

The defense in the mur­der tri­al cen­tered around the claim that the three men act­ed under the state’s cit­i­zen’s arrest law — which was in effect at the time but has since been repealed — because they were sus­pi­cious Arbery might have been involved in neigh­bor­hood bur­glar­ies. They argued they had a right of self-defense against Arbery who, one defense attor­ney said, “chose to fight.”

The pros­e­cu­tion dis­put­ed that and argued that the three men had no legit­i­mate rea­son to chase down and con­front Arbery.

“All three of these defen­dants made assump­tions — made assump­tions about what was going on that day, and they made their deci­sion to attack Ahmaud Arbery in their dri­ve­ways because he was a Black man run­ning down the street,” Dunikoski told the jury.

Though Arbery had gone inside a house under con­struc­tion in the neigh­bor­hood, “noth­ing had ever been tak­en from the con­struc­tion site,” Dunikoski said, and the defen­dants had no direct knowl­edge link­ing him to any crime when they began their pursuit.

“He was try­ing to get away from these strangers that were yelling at him, threat­en­ing to kill him. And then they killed him,” she said, adding that Arbery was killed “for absolute­ly no good rea­son at all.”

The jury was able to hear from Travis McMichael when he took the stand in his own defense. He tes­ti­fied that he had heard about break-ins in the neigh­bor­hood and had pre­vi­ous­ly seen a Black man “lurk­ing” and “creep­ing” around a house under construction.

He tes­ti­fied that when his father spot­ted Arbery on February 23, they decid­ed to dri­ve up along­side him and ques­tion him. As the con­fronta­tion ensued, McMichael said he was forced to make a split-sec­ond “life-or-death” deci­sion when he said Arbery grabbed for his shotgun.

“It was the most trau­mat­ic event of my life,” he told the court.

But under cross-exam­i­na­tion, McMichael acknowl­edged that Arbery was “just run­ning” and did not threat­en them.

The oth­er two defen­dants did not tes­ti­fy at the trial.(CBSnews.com)

#White privilege

A Baltimore County, Maryland, police offi­cer con­vict­ed of rap­ing a woman and assault­ing anoth­er was sen­tenced to home deten­tion after a judge found that there was no “psy­cho­log­i­cal injury” in one of the cas­es, pros­e­cu­tors said Monday.

Baltimore County Circuit Judge Keith Truffer sus­pend­ed all but four years of a 15-year prison term and ordered the offi­cer, Anthony Westerman, to serve it at home, NBC affil­i­ate WBAL report­ed. In a state­ment to NBC News, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger said the sen­tence was “not appro­pri­ate” for a police offi­cer, who “should know as well or bet­ter than oth­ers the rep­re­hen­si­bil­i­ty of such an act.” “I fear this could cause rape vic­tims to hes­i­tate to report their crimes if they do not feel like they will get jus­tice,” he said. Westerman, who had plead­ed not guilty to charges of sec­ond-degree rape, sec­ond-degree assault and oth­er crimes, was con­vict­ed in August, court records show.
Read the full sto­ry here. https://​www​.nbc​news​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​u​s​-​n​e​w​s​/​m​a​r​y​l​a​n​d​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​-​c​o​n​v​i​c​t​e​d​-​r​a​p​e​-​s​e​n​t​e​n​c​e​d​-​h​o​m​e​-​d​e​t​e​n​t​i​o​n​-​r​c​n​a​6​416

Before dou­ble mur­der­er Kyle Rittenhouse was set free by a dis­grace­ful, almost all-white jury, Bruce Shrouder, the judge over­see­ing the tri­al, all but freed the fresh-faced killer.
Shrouder’s anger and dis­dain for the pros­e­cu­tion’s case and his lovey-dovey treat­ment of the youth­ful dou­ble mur­der­er Kyle Rittenhouse was one of the worst instances of white ‑pow­er dis­played in a courtroom.
But as black is to white and front is to back, Shrouder’s love affair with the defense and the ruth­less killer should only be processed against the back­ground of white judges’ racial ani­mus toward black defendants.
Those judges sen­tence black defen­dants to expo­nen­tial­ly harsh­er sen­tences than they do white defen­dants. On aver­age, a black defen­dant receives 20% more time in prison than a white defen­dant who com­mits the same offense.
In 2017 the Washington Post report­ed Black men who com­mit the same crimes as white men receive fed­er­al prison sen­tences that are, on aver­age, near­ly 20 per­cent longer, accord­ing to a report on sen­tenc­ing dis­par­i­ties from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC).

If you ever won­dered what the term insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism means, this is it. It is the built-in racial ani­mus in the United States that is nei­ther sub­tle nor implicit.
This trav­es­ty of a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is a dis­grace­ful spec­ta­cle that should­n’t fool any­one into believ­ing it works the same for all Americans.
From Police to Prosecutors, judges, and every bot­tom feed­er on the food chain, the ani­mus toward peo­ple of col­or is a dis­grace to the entire world. It is well-oiled machin­ery of racism and racial privilege.
Shroeder insist­ed that Prosecutors not refer to the two men who died and one injured at the hands of Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as victims.
His log­ic is that it is exact­ly what the jury is sup­posed to be find­ing out, the ques­tion of whether or not they are vic­tims or just … well, by his log­ic, dis­pos­able loot­ers and arsonists.
In fact, he told the defense attor­neys for Kyle Rittenhouse that they could label the two deceased arson­ists and loot­ers if they could prove it.
To an apol­o­gist of this sys­tem, this seems a fair trade­off, but to some­one attuned to the sys­tem, these were guardrails put in place to pre­serve the sanc­ti­ty of white fragility.…white innocence.
Berating the hap­less pros­e­cu­tors while act­ing as a pseu­do defense attor­ney for Rittenhouse, Bruce Shrouder laid the per­fect foun­da­tion for the coup de grâce, the not guilty ver­dict by the almost lily-white jury.

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We wit­nessed a dou­ble-mur­der­er close to an unper­turbed tri­al judge as if it was the most com­mon thing in the world. Someone asked me why it is that Black defen­dants are gen­er­al­ly shack­led? Hands shack­led to chains around their waists, and feet shack­led togeth­er, reduc­ing them to shuf­fling unsym­pa­thet­ic crea­tures that must be guilty.
On the oth­er hand, we saw Rittenhouse in a suit sit­ting and talk­ing, wear­ing a suit in all his white fresh-faced glory.
To begin with, a per­son in a suit is a more sym­pa­thet­ic fig­ure than a shack­led one. The very shack­les make the defen­dant unsym­pa­thet­ic, already condemned.
So how do some mur­der­ers get to wear suits while oth­ers are shack­led like run­away slaves?
Judges grant white killers bail, so they get to wear suits to court.
Judges hard­ly grant the Black accused bail or set bail at such an incred­i­ble out­ra­geous amount that they can­not afford to post bond. So the Black defen­dant is brought to court in shack­les.…… pre­sumed guilty even before a trial.

This writer is not mak­ing a case for bail for mur­der accused, even though I respect the idea of inno­cent until proven guilty; I am mere­ly stat­ing the bla­tant inequity in the system.
On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was gunned down in Miami Gardens by a wannabe white, wannabe cop vig­i­lante George Zimmerman.
The polit­i­cal right rose in defense of the vig­i­lante killer, and the sys­tem found Zimmerman not guilty. Kyle Rittenhouse, a vig­i­lante, left his home state of Illinois and went to Wisconsin, where he mur­dered two men and seri­ous­ly injured anoth­er. The Political right rose in defense of this killer; the sys­tem found him not guilty.
The mes­sage inher­ent in these acquit­tals and oth­ers is that more and more the polit­i­cal rights have so cor­rupt­ed the sys­tem that jus­tice may now be an idea only.
The coun­try is fast approach­ing full fas­cist mode…

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