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

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

.….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AND EVEN AS THE VERDICT WAS JUST READ IN THE CHAUVIN CASE AN OHIO COP MURDERED A 16-YEAR OLD GIRL

Columbus Police said one per­son was killed in an offi­cer-involved shoot­ing on the east side of the city Tuesday afternoon.
One per­son was ini­tial­ly tak­en to Mount Carmel East hos­pi­tal in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, accord­ing to Columbus Police, and was pro­nounced dead at 5:21 p.m.
Family mem­bers on the scene iden­ti­fied the per­son killed as 16-year-old Makiyah Bryan. Police said the ini­tial call for a stab­bing was received at approx­i­mate­ly 4:30 p.m., with the shots fired call com­ing in at 4:45 p.m.

Columbus Police con­firmed that it has request­ed the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) respond to the scene. BCI is often tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing shoot­ings involv­ing police officers.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther pre­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as a young woman in a tweet Tuesday evening.
Ben Crump, who rep­re­sent­ed the Floyd fam­i­ly in their civ­il case against the city of Minneapolis, tweet­ed about the shoot­ing say­ing “As we breathed a col­lec­tive sigh of relief today, a com­mu­ni­ty in Columbus felt the sting of anoth­er police shooting.

A crowd had gath­ered Tuesday night at the scene on Legion Lane, which police had par­tial­ly blocked off to traf­fic. Others gath­ered at the city’s police head­quar­ters to protest, a week after offi­cers pep­per-sprayed a group that tried to enter the head­quar­ters over the police killing of a man who had a gun in a hos­pi­tal emer­gency room.The shoot­ing hap­pened about 25 min­utes before a judge read the ver­dict con­vict­ing for­mer Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin of mur­der and manslaugh­ter in the killing of Floyd.Kimberly Shepherd, 50, who has lived in the neigh­bor­hood for 17 years, said she knew the vic­tim. “The neigh­bor­hood has def­i­nite­ly went through its changes, but noth­ing like this,” Shepherd said of the shoot­ing. “But this is the worst thing that has ever hap­pened out here and unfor­tu­nate­ly it is at the hands of police.”Shepherd and her neigh­bor Jayme Jones, 51, had cel­e­brat­ed the guilty ver­dict of Chauvin. But things changed quick­ly, she said.“We were hap­py about the ver­dict. But you couldn’t even enjoy that,” Shepherd said. “Because as you’re get­ting one phone call that he was guilty, I’m get­ting the next phone call that this is hap­pen­ing in my neighborhood.”

Darnella Frazier was only 17-years-old when she saw Derek Chauvin in broad day­light mur­der­ing George Floyd. Young Darnella instant­ly thought about what she could do; she took out her cell­phone and began record­ing. Darnella was going to Cup Of Foods with her young cousin to get snacks when she saw police offi­cers kneel­ing on the back and neck of a man who was already hand­cuffed and was on the ground.
Ironically, that man was arrest­ed for hav­ing sup­pos­ed­ly passed a fake $20 bill at the same cup-of foods con­ve­nience store.

Young Darnella did not know the impact the video she record­ed that fate­ful day and uploaded to Facebook would have in bring­ing some sem­blance of jus­tice to anoth­er iter­a­tion of police mur­der, that pre­vi­ous­ly would­n’t even be investigated.
But it was impactful.
Darnella was one of 18 pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es who tes­ti­fied at the tri­al of now-con­vict­ed killer cop Derek Chauvin.
Ms. Frazier is 18 now, she wept uncon­trol­lably as she tes­ti­fied at the tri­al of Derek Chauvin, trau­ma­tized, “I regret not phys­i­cal­ly engag­ing the four offi­cers at the scene, but they were the ones ulti­mate­ly at fault.”
“It’s been nights I stayed up apol­o­giz­ing and apol­o­giz­ing to George Floyd for not doing more and not phys­i­cal­ly inter­act­ing and not sav­ing his life,” Darnella tes­ti­fied through her tears.

If ever there was an image that summed up the African-American expe­ri­ence at the hands of white peo­ple, this has got to be it.
Nevertheless, all is not lost; the young off-duty fire­fight­er who tes­ti­fied that she want­ed to help the dying man but was pre­vent­ed from doing so.…..she is white. Several mem­bers of the jury that deliv­ered the deci­sive ver­dict that will send Derek Chauvin to prison, they too are white.
The defense attor­ney for Dereck Chauvin posit­ed to the jury a pha­lanx of lies and racist tropes, but in the end, they just believed what they saw with their eyes, as the pros­e­cu­tors asked them to.
The mur­der was one of the most shock­ing things that I have ever wit­nessed in my life­time, and I imag­ine it will be for most of all who have wit­nessed it.

After the Republicans lost the Presidential elec­tions in 2020, Donald Trump incit­ed his min­ions to storm the capi­tol build­ing. They did so, intend­ing to kill the Speaker of the House and his own vice pres­i­dent, Mike Pence.
But that was not all they did; in Georgia, they imme­di­ate­ly passed a dra­con­ian anti-vot­ing law that even crim­i­nal­izes any­one offer­ing a drink of water to a poten­tial vot­er stand­ing in line.
The law also ensures that the infra­struc­ture that expe­dites vot­ing be dis­man­tled in African-American com­mu­ni­ties, effec­tive­ly ensur­ing that African-Americans will be forced to stand in line expo­nen­tial­ly longer with­out any­one being able to give them a drink of water lawfully.
It is a despi­ca­ble and rep­re­hen­si­ble law that shows the evil, degen­er­a­tive men­tal­i­ty of its sub­hu­man sponsors.
Thank you, Justice John Roberts; your life­long cam­paign to undo the vot­ing Rights act has tru­ly paid off for you; you must be proud.
And oh, Justice Roberts, you knew exact­ly what would hap­pen in 2013 when you vot­ed with your Republican cronies on the court to strike down sec­tion 4 (b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for absolute­ly no reason.
I fear that in the same way that Republicans are work­ing fever­ish­ly against vot­ing rights, they will now begin to crim­i­nal­ize pho­tograph­ing police crimes.

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

Police lied that Anthony Thompson, 17, shot an officer in his school’s bathroom. They then retracted the lie but have released few other details. It is reported the cop either shot himself or was shot by his cohorts.

Notwithstanding that police can arrest armed white mass mur­der­ers, they seem to have no desire to arrest unarmed African-Americans. On April 12^th, police were called to the Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Anthony Thomson jr. is a junior.
Initial report­ing is that the police were called because the moth­er of Thompson’s girl­friend called police after her daugh­ter returned home from school ear­li­er than she should after a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion between her and Thompson with whom she had a roman­tic relationship.
The young woman is report­ed to have had marks on her face.
Police arrived at the school where the Young man was locked in a bathroom.
They imme­di­ate­ly esca­lat­ed the inci­dent and employed lethal force, killing the 17-year-old. They then report­ed that he was shot after he shot one of their own but lat­er retract­ed that sto­ry say­ing that Anthony Thompson did not shoot their officer.
Neither the police depart­ment nor the Knox County District Attorney General’s office look­ing at the evi­dence, has released the body­worn cameras.

Charme Allen, the DA, argues the video can­not be released until a full inves­ti­ga­tion into the shoot­ing is completed.
“There are rules, abun­dant, as to why I can­not release this footage,” she said at a press con­fer­ence. She cit­ed pri­va­cy rights and due process of law should charges be filed in the case. “If we release this body cam footage, there’s the pos­si­bil­i­ty that we could vio­late a law that where we could not use it in the tri­al if we were to go to trial.”
In the mean­time, the nation is left won­der­ing what to do about this epi­dem­ic of police violence.

Cops thanked Kyle Rittenhouse, who trav­eled across state lines from Illinois to Wisconsin with an assault weapon, and gave him water.
Kyle Rittenhouse would go on to mur­der two pro­tes­tors in Kenosha, Wisconsin; that same night last sum­mer, protests erupt­ed when a cop, Rusten Sheskey, fired seven(7) bul­lets into the back of Jacob Blake at point-blank range, par­a­lyz­ing him from the waist down.
New infor­ma­tion due to a data breach shows that cops are also donat­ing to Rittenhouse’s crowd­fund­ing effort.
One Virginia cop who works in inter­nal affairs must have for­got­ten the mean­ing of ‘anony­mous, he donat­ed to Rittenhouse’s effort using his email address, but that was not all; he offered words of com­fort to Rittenhouse.
The Guardian reports that a data breach at a Christian crowd­fund­ing web­site has revealed that serv­ing police offi­cers and pub­lic offi­cials have donat­ed mon­ey to fundrais­ers for accused vig­i­lante mur­der­ers, far-right activists, and fel­low offi­cers accused of shoot­ing black Americans.

One dona­tion for $25, made on the 3^rd of September last year, was made anony­mous­ly but asso­ci­at­ed with the offi­cial email address of Sgt William Kelly, who cur­rent­ly serves as the exec­u­tive offi­cer of inter­nal affairs in the Norfolk police depart­ment in Virginia. That dona­tion also car­ried a com­ment, read­ing: “God bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You’ve done noth­ing wrong.” The com­ment con­tin­ued: “Every rank and file police offi­cer sup­ports you. Don’t be dis­cour­aged by actions of the polit­i­cal class of law enforce­ment lead­er­ship.”
If noth­ing else comes of these rev­e­la­tions, the FBI’s report­ing that a size­able num­ber of those iden­ti­fied com­mit­ting crimes on January 6^th, 2021 were police offi­cers, active duty, and for­mer mil­i­tary mem­bers demol­ish­es the con­stant lie about only a few bad apples exists in police departments.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​k​y​l​e​-​r​i​t​t​e​n​h​o​u​s​e​-​s​e​e​n​-​a​t​-​b​a​r​-​f​l​a​s​h​i​n​g​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​p​o​w​e​r​-​s​i​gn/

There is new evi­dence that Qanon sup­port­ers are among the élite units with­in the United States Military. But that should come as no sur­prise; that white suprema­cy has once again reared its ugly head in the mil­i­tary; it nev­er left; it was always there.
Donald Trump’s lega­cy of racism and divi­sion gave strength to the imbe­cil­ic weak­lings whose default option for their fail­ures is racism. Like Trump, who squan­dered his father’s for­tune and built a moun­tain of debt, his fol­low­ers have not found a way to cash in on white priv­i­lege, so hatred is all they are left with.
This is how low the right has become; vio­lent mass mur­der­ers are sup­port­ed by those who wear the uni­form of police officers.
It makes my stom­ach turn; as a police offi­cer, regard­less of your polit­i­cal beliefs, crim­i­nals are crim­i­nals, your sup­port for them fur­ther demon­strates to the world that you are Nazis in police uni­form. It fur­ther reveals the lie that there are only a few bad cops. At this point, it seems that there [may] be a few decent cops left in the over 18,000 police depart­ments across America.
You deserve no respect, no def­er­ence; you are com­mon thugs.

.

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

Racism is becom­ing a very expen­sive pos­ture to main­tain. Unfortunately, this pos­ture is not only evi­dent in the United States now. This has been evi­dent in Israel for decades, where the Apartheid Israeli state fences itself off from the Palestinian peo­ple who have occu­pied Palestine for thou­sands of years.
This seems to be only the begin­ning as the younger gen­er­a­tion takes a stand against white supremacy.

The Richland County Sheriff’s Department has shut down access to a Northeast neigh­bor­hood after peace­ful protests have turned disruptive.
Around 8:20 p.m., deputies were dis­patched to Jonathan Pentland’s home after receiv­ing reports that it had been vandalized.
Upon arrival, offi­cials found that objects had been thrown at the home and through an upstairs win­dow. A light fix­ture attached to the home was also broken.
Pentland was even­tu­al­ly arrest­ed for con­fronting a Black man walk­ing on the side­walk out­side of his home, but only after a video of the encounter went viral on social media and view­ers react­ed with out­rage. He has been arrest­ed and charged with third-degree assault and battery.
Jail records show Pentland has since been released from the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
Officials say the fam­i­ly has been removed from the home by law enforce­ment and trans­port­ed to anoth­er location.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, where police offi­cer Kim Potter shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright, police erect­ed a bar­ri­cade around her home, and offi­cers main­tain a defen­sive posture.
Of course, the Derek Chauvin tri­al defense con­tin­ues to blow smoke up the jury’s ass that what we wit­nessed with our own eyes we did not see.

This hap­pened On Monday in Richland County, South Carolina, as a young African-American man walked through a neigh­bor­hood; he was con­front­ed by a white man who harassed and assault­ed him, then threat­ened him with even more violence.

The inter­net did what it does, and soon, the aggres­sor was iden­ti­fied as a sol­dier sta­tioned at Fort Jackson. Jonathan Pentland has been arrest­ed and charged with third-degree assault and bat­tery. That charge car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $500 fine or 30 days in jail. The video is being inves­ti­gat­ed by police, Fort Jackson mil­i­tary offi­cials, and the Department of Justice and has drawn pro­test­ers to the neigh­bor­hood, accord­ing to WISNEWS 10.

Jonathan Pentland and his wife are seen harass­ing a young black man, and Pentland shoves him at one point. Pentland aggres­sive­ly ques­tions the black man, named Deandre, about why he is in the neigh­bor­hood, what he’s doing, and where he lives. His wife encour­ages him. A third white woman is seen on the phone, and it appears as though she is call­ing the police.

If you real­ly want to know just how far America has trav­eled from its despi­ca­ble & shame­ful racist past, these images explain it. America’s race prob­lem is not get­ting bet­ter, it is get­ting more entrenched.

IN AMERICA THIS IS UNFORGIVABLE

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH FELONIES FOR KNOCKING ON A DOOR

IN AMERICA THESE HOODLUMS, THUGS, AND ANARCHISTS ARE DESCRIBED AS PATRIOTS

IN AMERICA SERVING YOUR COUNTRY AND COMMITTING NO OFFENSE, GETS YOU THIS 

IN AMERICA IF YOU ARE WHITE MURDERING SEVERAL PEOPLE GETS YOU THIS

In America, a white cop who fires seven (7) bullets into the back of a Black man, paralyzing him from the waist down, has nothing to worry about. He is back on the job.
Department policy!

It is depart­ment policy!
How many times have you heard that state­ment after a cop shoots, injury, or kills some­one, usu­al­ly a per­son of color?
But how on earth can police (depart­men­t’s pol­i­cy), what­ev­er they are, super­sede state law?

This is a ques­tion that needs answers; the pub­lic deserves answers; the real­i­ty is that no one both­ers to ask these ques­tions because only cer­tain peo­ple are los­ing their lives at the hands of the police.
How does a Police Department get to set pol­i­cy that defies com­mon sense, decen­cy, is moral­ly and legal­ly wrong.…. well, every­where else, just not in the United States?
In America, whether there are protests on the streets or not, regard­less of the lack of atten­tion to it, police kill three (3) liv­ing breath­ing human beings every day.
But the killings by white police, do not tell the whole sto­ry, in the rare instance that the vic­tim mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vives despite the bar­rage of bul­lets fired into their bod­ies, noth­ing hap­pens to the state-spon­sored killers.

That is exact­ly what hap­pened in Wisconsin.….….Rusten Sheskey, the cop who put sev­en (7) bul­lets into Jacob Blake’s back in August of last year, is now back on the job.
Kenosha police respond­ed to a “report­ed domes­tic inci­dent” on Aug. 23 when Sheskey, who is white, fired sev­en rounds at the 29-year-old Blake, Black, as he opened and leaned inside the driver’s side door of a parked SUV.
All of this as Derek Chauvin is being tried for mur­der, and anoth­er white cop mur­dered Daunte Wright.

As the debate about police mis/​conduct rages at least in con­sci­en­tious cir­cles, I have giv­en the ques­tion much con­sid­er­a­tion and researched why we con­tin­ue to see these instances of police vio­lence with­out any end to them.
In my search for answers, I have been led away from the easy sug­ges­tions of more and bet­ter police train­ing by those who exploit these issues for rat­ings and clicks on the one hand and those on the oth­er side in the Black com­mu­ni­ty who speak in infan­tile terms about this issue by rais­ing hous­ing, edu­ca­tion, employ­ment, and oth­er social issues, as if being prop­er­ly housed, edu­cat­ed, and employed, have stopped police from mur­der­ing inno­cent unarmed black men and women.
The myr­i­ad instances of unlaw­ful vio­lence against peo­ple of col­or by police for minor infrac­tions speak to a sense of impuni­ty, as it does to the sys­tem that makes it almost impos­si­ble for offi­cers to be held account­able for their crimes.
Even in the most extreme cas­es in which the sys­tem can­not twist itself any fur­ther to jus­ti­fy the atroc­i­ties they commit.

It is a com­plex web of deceit, lack of account­abil­i­ty, and racist atti­tudes cre­at­ed to keep African-Americans sub­ject­ed to a dif­fer­ent form of slav­ery that does not result in forced labor on cot­ton plan­ta­tions, one that is far less vis­i­ble in its sav­agery but is no less destruc­tive in its full execution.
In that com­plex web, leg­is­la­tors leg­is­late against seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion, oth­ers who sign them into law, courts that val­i­date them, and the police who enforce them.
In addi­tion to the cul­ture of racism on which the sys­tem was built, pro­pa­gan­da war­fare is waged by the media and Hollywood in their glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of cop-cul­ture, in films, and on tele­vi­sion. Anything is per­mis­si­ble as long as the good guys get the bad guys.
The pre­sump­tion of inno­cence nev­er makes it into the con­ver­sa­tion when the bad guy’s imagery, whether on tele­vi­sion or in films, con­tin­ues to be the Black guy. The resul­tant out­come is a pop­u­la­tion social­ized into accept­ing bru­tal­i­ty and death on peo­ple of a dark­er hue as a nec­es­sary part of ensur­ing their own safety.
There is no sep­a­ra­tion between either of those groups. The same vot­ers sup­port them all; their abil­i­ty to col­lude, par­tic­u­lar­ly in small towns and in back­woods munic­i­pal­i­ties, makes a mock­ery of the word jus­tice; it opens up to the world the hypocrisy of America’s posi­tion on human rights.
It is a sys­tem so despi­ca­bly tox­ic and com­plic­it that cops who mur­der inno­cent blacks are almost assured of get­ting their jobs back on the rare occa­sion they are fired. If not by the same depart­ment, a depart­ment that wants to show it agrees with the mur­der­ous tac­tics that cop displayed.
“Come over here; we will hire you, Sheriffs and local police depart­ments adver­tise we will stand with you.” In some cas­es, the mur­der­er cop gets pro­mot­ed by the same depart­ment that hired him/​her in the first place; the same depart­ment gets to decide his inno­cence, usu­al­ly with the local pros­e­cu­tor’s com­plic­i­ty and their pro-police grand juries.

At the top of this sys­tem that destroys black lives as a mat­ter of pol­i­cy sits the United States Supreme Court. The Court is the final arbiter of all legal issues. So it bears exam­in­ing how judi­cious the court has been in its delib­er­a­tions and inter­pre­ta­tions of the laws under the constitution.
As we begin that process of exam­i­na­tion, it bears men­tion­ing that the doc­trine of (qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty) that was just last week vot­ed down by the Maryland Legislature last Saturday was cre­at­ed by the Supreme Court, like a shield that allowed police nation­wide to get away with mur­der and oth­er vio­lent crimes com­mit­ted against the pub­lic and has giv­en them the impuni­ty that we see play­ing out in their racist and reck­less assault on the citizenry.

In April of 2015, Sean Rosenthal writ­ing for the Foundation For Education, wrote the fol­low­ing. What makes a Supreme Court deci­sion bad? And what are the worst prece­dents hand­ed down by our high­est court?

State author­i­ties in Virginia will inves­ti­gate an encounter cap­tured on body cam­era that appears to show a police offi­cer threat­en­ing to exe­cute a Black Army offi­cer dur­ing a traf­fic stop, offi­cials said Sunday.

The announce­ment from the Virginia State Police came after Gov. Ralph Northam said he was “angered” by the inci­dent, which occurred on Dec. 5 on a road about 30 miles west of down­town Norfolk.

“Our com­mon­wealth has done impor­tant work on police reform, but we must keep work­ing to ensure that Virginians are safe dur­ing inter­ac­tions with police, the enforce­ment of laws is fair and equi­table, and peo­ple are held account­able,” he said.

Northam added that he would invite the U.S. Army offi­cer, Lt. Caron Nazario, for a meet­ing to dis­cuss police reform.

In a state­ment, a state police spokes­woman said the department’s super­in­ten­dent had been in touch with the gov­er­nor and Rodney Riddle, the police chief of Windsor, where the con­fronta­tion occurred.

“At Chief Riddle’s request and the Governor’s direc­tive, the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation is ini­ti­at­ing a thor­ough and objec­tive crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the Dec. 5, 2020 traf­fic stop con­duct­ed by the Windsor police offi­cers,” she said.

Windsor’s town man­ag­er said in a state­ment that an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion found that the offi­cers who pulled Nazario over — Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker — did not fol­low depart­men­tal pol­i­cy. They were dis­ci­plined and ordered to take addi­tion­al train­ing, said the man­ag­er, William Saunders.

Gutierrez was lat­er fired, Saunders said.

“The town of Windsor has remained trans­par­ent about this event since the ini­tial stop, and has open­ly pro­vid­ed doc­u­ments and relat­ed video to attor­neys for Lt. Nazario,” he said

The department’s super­in­ten­dent had been in touch with the gov­er­nor and Rodney Riddle, the police chief of Windsor, where the con­fronta­tion occurred.

“At Chief Riddle’s request and the Governor’s direc­tive, the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation is ini­ti­at­ing a thor­ough and objec­tive crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the Dec. 5, 2020 traf­fic stop con­duct­ed by the Windsor police offi­cers,” she said.

Windsor’s town man­ag­er said in a state­ment that an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion found that the offi­cers who pulled Nazario over — Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker — did not fol­low depart­men­tal pol­i­cy. They were dis­ci­plined and ordered to take addi­tion­al train­ing, said the man­ag­er, William Saunders.

Gutierrez was lat­er fired, Saunders said.

“The town of Windsor has remained trans­par­ent about this event since the ini­tial stop, and has open­ly pro­vid­ed doc­u­ments and relat­ed video to attor­neys for Lt. Nazario,” he said.

In a fed­er­al civ­il law­suit filed last week, Nazario said he was dri­ving in a new­ly pur­chased Chevrolet Tahoe when he encoun­tered police on U.S. Highway 460 in Windsor. He was in uni­form at the time of the stop.

Nazario, who is Black and Latino, con­ced­ed in his com­plaint that he did­n’t imme­di­ate­ly pull over. He instead put on his emer­gency lights and con­tin­ued for anoth­er 100 sec­onds, dri­ving under the speed lim­it, so he could safe­ly park in a well-lit gas sta­tion park­ing lot less than a mile down the road.

That’s when Windsor police Officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker pulled guns on Nazario, who was accused of dri­ving with­out license plates, accord­ing to the law­suit and body cam­era footage.

Nazario insist­ed he fol­lowed police com­mands to keep his hands out­side the win­dow, but offi­cers alleged­ly became agi­tat­ed when he asked what jus­ti­fied the esca­lat­ed pullover.

“What’s going on? You’re fix­in’ to ride the light­ing, son,” Gutierrez said, accord­ing to the law­suit and body cam­era video.

“This is a col­lo­qui­al expres­sion for an exe­cu­tion, orig­i­nat­ing from glib ref­er­ence to exe­cu­tion by the elec­tric chair,” Nazario’s attor­ney Jonathan Arthur wrote in the lawsuit.

Virginia recent­ly out­lawed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but put pris­on­ers to death via the elec­tric chair for more than a cen­tu­ry. The last pris­on­er to meet that gris­ly fate was Robert Charles Gleason Jr., 42, who plead­ed guilty to two prison mur­ders and threat­ened to con­tin­ue killing until he received the death penal­ty. He was elec­tro­cut­ed on Jan. 16, 2013.

Nazario told police that he was “hon­est­ly afraid to get out” of his SUV, video of the inci­dent showed, before Officer Gutierrez replied, “Yeah, you should be!”

Footage also showed Nazario being pep­per-sprayed mul­ti­ple times, “caus­ing him sub­stan­tial and imme­di­ate pain,” the law­suit said. It also led to “sub­stan­tial prop­er­ty dam­age to Lt. Nazario’s vehi­cle and choked Lt. Nazario’s dog, who was sit­ting in the rear of Lt. Nazario’s vehi­cle, secured in a crate,” accord­ing to the suit.

“Gutierrez respond­ed with knee-strikes to Lt. Nazario’s legs to force an already com­pli­ant and blind­ed Lt. Nazario down on his face osten­si­bly to hand­cuff him

Arthur wrote. “Notwithstanding the fact that Nazario was on the ground and in tears, Gutierrez and Crocker con­tin­ued to strike Lt. Nazario.”

The offi­cers lat­er warned Nazario not to com­plain about their treat­ment of him, threat­en­ing to crim­i­nal­ly charge him, the law­suit said. If the lieu­tenant would “chill and let this go,” then no charges would be filed, accord­ing to Arthur.

Nazario was ulti­mate­ly not crim­i­nal­ly charged or cit­ed for any traf­fic vio­la­tion, his attor­ney said. A new vehi­cle tag was clear­ly vis­i­ble in Lt. Nazario’s rear win­dow, Arthur claimed.

The offi­cers could not be imme­di­ate­ly reached for com­ment through pub­licly list­ed phone numbers.

A town man­ag­er told the Virginian Pilot that the offi­cers still work for the police department.

I wish I had a dol­lar for every stu­pid com­ment I hear when police bru­tal­ize and kill inno­cent unarmed peo­ple. “Police need more train­ing.” “The police need bet­ter train­ing.” “The police need bias train­ing.” Yadda, yad­da, yadda.
Me, I have no such sil­ly mis­con­cep­tion about what real­ly is hap­pen­ing with American policing.
American polic­ing is white suprema­cy on steroids; it is that sim­ple. They do not care that there is a world­wide spot­light on them, begin­ning with the unlaw­ful slaugh­ter of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, up to the uncon­scionable pub­lic lynch­ing of George Floyd last year by a white sociopath wear­ing a cop uniform.
The Michael Brown killing was not where it began; nei­ther was the six­teen bul­lets in the back of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, and it cer­tain­ly has­n’t been the pub­lic lynch­ing of George Floyd. This is a cen­turies-old prob­lem that has result­ed in the loss of untold black lives at the hands of white police.
As I have repeat­ed­ly said, this abuse of Black peo­ple began with tak­ing our ances­tors from Africa by rapa­cious & vio­lent sociopaths, enslaved and bru­tal­ized, and con­tin­ued through slave patrols. It mor­phed into some­thing called polic­ing that was designed to pro­tect whites from the grow­ing Black population.
The very foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples of polic­ing were specif­i­cal­ly designed to be anti­thet­i­cal to African-Americans. For those rea­sons, I con­tin­ue to con­tend those prin­ci­ples [must] be decon­struct­ed if there is to be any sem­blance of jus­tice in America.
This process will not be accom­plished by expect­ing white men and women to help to decon­struct this igno­ble process that has giv­en them an unfair advan­tage for centuries.

Much like the wan­ton and sense­less mass shoot­ings that have become an accept­ed part of pop­u­lar cul­ture, police vio­lence against African-Americans has been as accept­able as apple pie.
They beat and kill black peo­ple for any and every­thing, walk­ing, talk­ing, run­ning, dri­ving, eat­ing, sleep­ing, sit­ting, breath­ing, and what­ev­er else comes naturally.
Of course, for those read­ing this from out­side the United States, all of these nat­ur­al things are like­ly to get African-Americans jus­ti­fi­ably mur­dered by police.
Or so says the white juries that find them not guilty on the rare occa­sion that they are charged crim­i­nal­ly with mur­der­ing some­one. Worse yet, the hand-picked white grand juries that are primed to return no true bill do so with effec­tive dis­patch. In case you are won­der­ing if bench tri­als are bet­ter for the aggriev­ed par­ties, the answer is no; they are worse; that’s why cops always opt for bench tri­als; the judges are the worst.
The move by Maryland’s Democrats in the state leg­is­la­ture to over­ride Gov. Larry Hogan’s ® veto of the police account­abil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion was the first in the nation.
Hogan, on Friday night, vetoed a slate of crim­i­nal jus­tice reform bills that the General Assembly had passed on Wednesday. But Democrats hold a veto-proof major­i­ty in each cham­ber of the state leg­is­la­ture and had said the vetoes would be scrapped after they vowed to imple­ment new law enforce­ment account­abil­i­ty mea­sures fol­low­ing a string of high-pro­file police killings of unarmed Black men, includ­ing George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.
The bills’ pas­sage does away with the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, which pro­vid­ed police pro­tec­tions, includ­ing remov­ing com­plaints after a cer­tain amount of time had passed and a five-day wait­ing peri­od for offi­cers accused of mis­con­duct to speak to inter­nal investigators.
Maryland Democratic Legislators should be com­mend­ed for hav­ing the grit to brush aside Hogan’s veto, and for send­ing a strong mes­sage with their over­ride.https://​www​.bal​ti​more​sun​.com/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​b​s​-​m​d​-​p​o​l​-​s​a​t​u​r​d​a​y​-​s​e​s​s​i​o​n​-​2​0​2​1​0​4​1​0​-​e​y​f​r​b​x​r​l​e​v​h​r​v​o​h​r​m​4​3​l​b​n​t​v​y​q​-​s​t​o​r​y​.​h​tml

As I said in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle, there is no such thing as a good Republican. Hogan sells him­self as a mod­er­ate, but he only does so to win in lib­er­al Maryland; when the chips are down, and they are required to stand against injus­tice, they revert to their white­ness and stead­fast­ly refuse to dis­man­tle the police state that sup­ports black oppression.

Rest assured that what Democrats did in Maryland will not become a trend in the oth­er 49 states, no mat­ter how lib­er­al they say they are. New York, the sup­posed lib­er­al icon, just decrim­i­nal­ized marijuana.
Across the coun­try, Republicans at all lev­els of the food chain have decid­ed that their hatred of Blacks tran­scends com­mon sense. They would rather drain the pool than share it.
Police in one hick town in Virginia decid­ed to pull over an SUV they claimed did not have tags. The Brand new Chevy Tahoe was being dri­ven by an Army sec­ond lieu­tenant in uni­form, who just hap­pened to be black.
Never mind that the new vehi­cle did have a tem­po­rary plate in place. The Military offi­cer, U.S. Army 2^nd Lt. Caron Nazario, slowed his vehi­cle and con­tin­ued for about two min­utes, after which he pulled up at a well-lit gas station.
The two imbe­ciles with guns drawn com­menced pep­per spray­ing and threat­en­ing Lieutenant Nazario.

I con­tin­ue to make a case for vot­ing in every elec­tion. There is a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing among far too many of our peo­ple about how the process works. Sure it is impor­tant to turn out to vote for the Presidential can­di­date of your choice, but you must vote in all elec­tions at the state and local lev­els. In the state leg­is­la­tures, the igno­ble race laws were enact­ed; in the state leg­is­la­tures, those laws [must] be repealed, as the Democratic leg­is­la­ture in Maryland did on Saturday.
Regardless of whom you elect President, if you do not uproot the racist Republicans at the state lev­el, the racist pro-police & vot­er sup­pres­sion laws will not only [not] be repealed, they will be rein­forced with even more des­per­ate Jim-crow laws as we have seen in Georgia after the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions, and in dozens of oth­er states across the nation.
African-Americans in the state of Maryland may have some­thing to say about the idea that their indi­vid­ual votes do not count, as far too many of our peo­ple are pre­dis­posed to believ­ing and saying.
It is through the process of vot­ing at the grass­roots lev­el, elect­ing can­di­dates who share your val­ues, that this mon­strous sys­tem will be uprooted.
It is because they under­stand the pow­er of your vote, as evi­denced in Maryland on Saturday, as evi­denced in the elec­tion of two Democratic US Senators in the heart of dix­ie Georgia why they are try­ing to stop you from voting.
It would help if you did­n’t fall vic­tim to the charm offen­sive of local Republicans. They come to your church­es, they show up at events that are impor­tant to you, they seem far less mean and hate­ful than the hate­ful nean­derthals in Washington DC, don’t they?

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​o​n​-​e​v​e​r​y​-​i​s​s​u​e​-​w​h​e​n​-​b​l​a​c​k​s​-​a​r​e​-​t​o​-​b​e​n​e​f​i​t​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​s​a​y​-​h​e​l​l​-​no/

But are they any dif­fer­ent? It is how they man­age to get elect­ed; the charm offen­sive, cou­pled with you opt­ing out of non-pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, gets them elect­ed, even in deep-blue states.
The longer that you allow them to get elect­ed, the longer you will con­tin­ue to see this sup­port for police vio­lence against our people.
Even on the sim­plest of issues like right­ing bla­tant wrongs, on issues where there is evi­dence that laws and poli­cies have brought untold harm to African-Americans, local Republicans, like their nation­al coun­ter­parts, vote against restora­tive jus­tice. On sim­ple issues like right­ing the wrongs of mar­i­jua­na arrests in states like New York, where police for decades destroyed the lives of count­less young men of col­or through fraud­u­lent, dis­pro­por­tion­ate, and racist arrests and incarcerations.
When the (Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act) came up to right some of those wrongs, every Republican in the state­house vot­ed against it.
Let me sim­pli­fy this. Despite the wrongs that police did and con­tin­ued to do to black peo­ple using the mar­i­jua­na laws when a bill came up to end the crim­i­nal­iz­ing of mar­i­jua­na use, every sin­gle Republican vot­ed to keep the law in place.…. every one of them.
How then do you stom­ach them show­ing their faces among you, smil­ing like they are your friends, know­ing that they con­tin­ue to leg­is­late against you at every turn?

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

THERE IS NO PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE HERE; WE WATCHED MURDER IN REALTIME.

Derek Chauvin’s pub­lic lynch­ing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a gut-wrench­ing & bru­tal con­tra­dic­tion for many of us who grew up lis­ten­ing to the upbeat mes­sages of faith, hope, and grace from Televangelist Billy Graham, and the beau­ti­ful singing of George Beverly Shea, out of the Twin-cities.
Separate and apart from the glis­ten­ing lights and tall majes­tic build­ings, the lure of America was shaped by our belief in the good of America shaped by those sermons.
Unfortunately, the mes­sages of faith, hope, and grace and the beau­ti­ful songs of praise papered over a sor­did and ugly exis­tence of hatred that the world is just now get­ting to see through the mar­vel of mod­ern technology.
As I watched in hor­ror in real-time the cal­lous & care­free mur­der of mis­ter Floyd, I was shocked beyond words at the sys­tem that made it pos­si­ble for any per­son, much less a cop, to believe for a sin­gle sec­ond that he has that kind of authority.
But it was not only a shock that I felt; it was hor­ror, sad­ness, but most of all, a sense of anger that made me scared of myself, and for myself…

Any sys­tem that would give any per­son the slight­est belief that it is okay to treat anoth­er human being in that man­ner is not a sys­tem; it is a shit­stem that must be over­turned and recre­at­ed from the ground up. It is not cliché to con­clude that the entire sys­tem is on tri­al. Neither will a con­vic­tion of the mon­sters who killed George Floyd mean there’s equal jus­tice in America for peo­ple of col­or; in fact, regard­less of the out­come, it will demon­strate that there is no jus­tice, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Black Americans.
The idea that a so-called jus­tice sys­tem would allow a defense of drug use as a [cau­sa­tion] for Mister Floyd’s death after we clear­ly saw Derek Chauvin mur­der him in cold blood is a trav­es­ty that should be record­ed for posterity.
We can talk about this tri­al as remov­ing the white sheet that hides America’s dis­gust­ing hatred and geno­cide of Black peo­ple, but does this demon­ic wicked­ness res­onate in a world in which wicked­ness is an admirable virtue?

THERE IS NO PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE HERE

There is no pre­sump­tion of inno­cence in actu­al terms here. This case was not inves­ti­gat­ed, and we are work­ing toward deter­min­ing guilt or innocence.
We saw the dis­gust­ing mon­sters snuff out the life of a liv­ing, breath­ing, talk­ing, beg­ging, plead­ing, dis­traught, dying, hand­cuffed human being.
We wit­nessed oth­er con­cerned human beings ask, beg, cajole, demand that they allow him up so that he could breathe.…..
Not one of the degen­er­ates in uni­form did a sin­gle thing to stop the sav­age assault on mis­ter Floyd’s humanity.
They cal­lous­ly con­tin­ued their das­tard­ly act of mur­der until the life was drained from him, and even when there was no more move­ment from him, they kept up the assault, com­plete­ly unper­turbed about his well-being or any ensu­ing consequence.
Yet the very same shit­stem grant­ed them bail. It allows Derek Chauvin to wear a suit to this fraud­u­lent tri­al. Allowing that two-bit mur­der­er to wear a suit human­izes him, there should be no def­er­ence giv­en that socio­path­ic despot; how many cas­es have we wit­nessed with black defen­dants wear­ing prison clothes?
Who wor­ries about the way juries will per­ceive black defen­dants? How do racist white juries per­ceive black defen­dants, are they grant­ed human­i­ty much less deference?
He deserves no such deference.

The white man decid­ed that he dis­cov­ered the land he hap­pened upon, nev­er mind those peo­ple liv­ing there for thou­sands of years before he got up off all fours.
Once he real­ized that he would not fall off the edge of the world, his way of think­ing was that his­to­ry began when he start­ed to real­ize what oth­er races had known for thou­sands of years.
His atti­tude to land was that it was for him to take and secure as his. His atti­tude to the peo­ple he encoun­tered liv­ing on & off the land in the Americas and Africa has been that they are intel­lec­tu­al­ly infe­ri­or to him because they lacked the rapa­cious­ness and demon­ic mur­der­ous traits that he possesses.
And so he chopped off as many heads as he could, mur­dered and muti­lat­ed every­one that did not look like him, and took what­ev­er he wanted.
The doc­trine of dis­cov­ery was born.
Gun pow­der, a Chinese inven­tion, would be used to sub­ju­gate the oth­er peo­ples of the world, the world from then on was sub­ject­ed to a reign of ter­ror since the ear­ly four­teen hun­dreds. That reign of ter­ror for peo­ple of col­or per­sists today.

The sys­tem built on the geno­cide of Native Americans & African-Americans and the hun­dreds of years of the most grotesque form of human enslave­ment in human his­to­ry is the one that enabled the pub­lic slaugh­ter of George Floyd.
Derek Chauvin et al. com­mit­ted the actu­al killing, but it was the sys­tem that autho­rized and val­i­dat­ed it.
The same sys­tem gives hope to Chauvin and the mil­lions of despi­ca­ble mon­sters who sup­port him. It is a sys­tem built on the most socio­path­ic arro­gance, a self-appoint­ed supe­ri­or race the­o­ry that has to come from a deeply dark sense of inferiority.
And why not? Long before he knew that he should prob­a­bly cook his meat or bathe, the rest of the world was already long steeped in phi­los­o­phy, med­i­cine, astron­o­my, sci­ence, edu­ca­tion, and travel.
So, the last race to come into the light appoints itself the mas­ter race, mas­ter over what was cre­at­ed long before he got up off all fours.
But a leop­ard can­not hide its spots.….the detached indif­fer­ence with which Derek Cauvin squeezed the life from the already hand­cuffed George Floyd should come as no sur­prise to the world now.
What the world got a glimpse of on May 25, 2020, was only one small iter­a­tion of the unimag­in­able ter­ror that African-Americans have been exposed to by the American state from the begin­ning of its exis­tence and even before.

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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. 

You ever noticed that the peo­ple ask­ing the ques­tion, is get­ting a col­lege degree worth the price are the peo­ple who have mul­ti­ple col­lege degrees sit­ting in beau­ti­ful tele­vi­sion studios?
Some even try to sell the idea that it is elit­ist to get a col­lege edu­ca­tion. The strat­e­gy is to dis­suade mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties from get­ting an under­grad­u­ate degree, much less a grad­u­ate degree.
The cost of a four-year col­lege edu­ca­tion is already through the roof. If you lis­ten to politi­cians talk about this issue, you would think that the gov­ern­ment is pow­er­less about doing some­thing about it, at least at state colleges.
If you make the fees too much for the aver­age fam­i­ly strug­gling to get by, the kid may not be able to get into col­lege unless he can nav­i­gate the web of oth­er ways avail­able to low-income families.

We live in a cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem; I say ignore the cost and get the edu­ca­tion, wor­ry about the cost after you get the degree.
A ris­ing tide rais­es all boats, the elites who run the gov­ern­ment wants things to remain as they are. They Love to talk about; “our way of life.”
The unfor­tu­nate real­i­ty is that their way of life means us on the ground, their knees on our necks; we will not have that anymore.
They know they can­not keep Blacks out of col­leges any­more, but they darn sure can try to dis­cour­age us through high­er col­lege tuition costs and their cam­paign to dis­suade us.…you ever hear them try­ing to tell us that home­own­er­ship is not all it’s propped up to be?

Anyway, back to the edu­ca­tion thing, here is where I am going with this; most of us saw the video of Georgia State Police act­ing like the Nazi Gestapo they tru­ly are when they arrest­ed Rep. Park Cannon on March 25 after she knocked on the door to Gov. Brian Kemp’s office while he was speak­ing about the vot­er sup­pres­sion bill the Nazi Republican clowns in that leg­is­la­ture passed.
Rep. Park Cannon, a Democrat from Atlanta, was arrest­ed March 25 after she knocked on the door to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s office while he was on live tele­vi­sion speak­ing about the vot­ing bill he had just signed into law. Police charged her with obstruc­tion of law enforce­ment and dis­rup­tion of the General Assembly. She was released from jail lat­er that evening.

Representative Cannon polite­ly knocked on a door.

What the Gestapo nev­er both­ered to think about as they were arrest­ing Rep. Cannon and think­ing of pil­ing on bogus felony charges as they are wont to do, is that the per­son mak­ing the pros­e­cut­ing deci­sion would be anoth­er edu­cat­ed black woman.
“After review­ing all of the evi­dence, I have decid­ed to close this mat­ter,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in an emailed state­ment. “It will not be pre­sent­ed to a grand jury for con­sid­er­a­tion of indict­ment, and it is now closed.”
Before we go any fur­ther, let me show you the edu­cat­ed black queen who got to make that deci­sion; here is District Attorney Fanni Willis.

↓ ↓ ↓

Education is pow­er; your ene­mies are count­ing on your con­tin­ued fail­ure to take advan­tage of the pow­er with­in you. They hope you will con­tin­ue to think that District Attorney Fanni Willis’s pow­er posi­tions are only for whites.
Rest assured, if a white male occu­pied ms. Willis’ office, Representative Cannon, would be defend­ing her­self from the trumped-up bogus charges the dis­gust­ing lying Gestapo concocted.
Now that you can see the direct ben­e­fits of get­ting an edu­ca­tion, I hope for the love of God that you will con­tin­ue to stay alert and pay atten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing in your life in [your] country.
Yes, it is as much yours as it is theirs, if not more so.
Own it.

These dis­gust­ing trai­tors attacked their own coun­try on behalf of a wannabe dictator.

Much of what they have been doing in the dark is now out in the light; the pris­ons are filled with Blacks, many of whom com­mit­ted crimes that war­rant­ed their incar­cer­a­tion. Many are there inno­cent­ly as we have seen the Gestapo arrest­ed a polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tive for knock­ing on a door, then attach­ing trumped-up felony charges to her.
Ask your­selves, how many inno­cent peo­ple do they put in jail dai­ly, using bogus charges like the ones attached to Rep. Cannon?
It is for those rea­sons that I, for one, say DEFUND THE POLICE. There are Democrats out there talk­ing about not using the term ‘defund the police’ because it stirs up conservatives.
Who gives a rat’s ass about stir­ring up those despi­ca­ble deplorable[sic] whose oxy­gen is hatred?
Why would I care about the feel­ings of such hate-filled people?
Was that love they showed to the police on January 6^th, 2021? I don’t think so. Their faux sup­port for police is based sole­ly on the fact that police con­tin­ue to abuse the peo­ple they hate.
So please spare me the cau­tion and care­ful­ness about their feel­ings, huge chunks of each of the over 18,000 police depart­men­t’s bud­get should be cut away, and those funds used to build up mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing col­lege edu­ca­tion for the poor.
Close the for-prof­it pris­ons; when peo­ple are edu­cat­ed and have some­thing to live for, they are far less like­ly to engage in criminality.
DEFUND THE POLICE NOW.

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

South Carolina Democrats shot back after a Republican House mem­ber post­ed online that he planned to vote against a hate crimes bill because he believes that white peo­ple have been “vil­i­fied by the left.”

S.C. Rep. Victor Dabney, a fresh­man law­mak­er from Kershaw County, post­ed about his plan to vote on Facebook Wednesday morn­ing, hours before the House met to con­sid­er a num­ber of bills includ­ing a hate crimes bill.

The bill, which passed the House Wednesday, would specif­i­cal­ly allow pros­e­cu­tors to seek addi­tion­al penal­ties for crimes com­mit­ted on the basis of hate because of a person’s actu­al or per­ceived race, col­or, reli­gion, sex, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der, nation­al ori­gin or phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­i­ty. Under the bill, for vio­lent crimes like mur­der, assault, armed rob­bery or crim­i­nal sex­u­al mis­con­duct, the penal­ties could be increased by up to five years impris­on­ment and an addi­tion­al fine up to $10,000.

Currently, South Carolina does not have its own hate crimes law. If a crime is com­mit­ted on the basis of hate, state pros­e­cu­tors can only pros­e­cute the crime itself. However, fed­er­al offi­cials could choose to step in and charge the offend­er under the fed­er­al hate crimes law.

Lawmakers ulti­mate­ly vot­ed 79 – 29 to pass the bill, with Dabney vot­ing against it.

Hello Patriots. As you read this post, please remem­ber that I was elect­ed by you to stand up for you, not to bow down to…
In his post, Dabney said he would not “bow down to the ‘Left,’ ” and vote in favor of the bill.

“I am 63 years old and have spent my entire life watch­ing our soci­ety give in to the lib­er­als, and it’s nev­er enough,” Dabney post­ed. “Our entire way of life has been vil­i­fied by the left; it’s our white­ness and our ‘straight­ness’ that keeps get­ting in the way.”

Dabney said he thinks white peo­ple are “con­stant­ly remind­ed that we are the prob­lem because of our skin color.”

“We are the rea­son that blacks can’t seem to suc­ceed in our soci­ety,” Dabney wrote. “We are the rea­son that black crime rates are ten times that of oth­ers. We are the rea­son that the black fam­i­ly unit has been destroyed and most young black chil­dren don’t have a father fig­ure in the home. It’s all because of the light col­or of our skin, at least that is what I am told on a reg­u­lar basis.”

Dabney’s words sparked back­lash from Democrats across the state, with some call­ing his words racist.

S.C. Democratic Party Chairman called for Dabney to be removed from his com­mit­tee assign­ments at the State House.

“This is the face and future of the Republican Party,” Robertson tweeted.

Sen. Mia McLeod, D‑Richland, said only those in places of priv­i­lege accuse oth­ers of “reverse racism.”

“Rep. Dabney hasn’t been tar­get­ed (because) of his race,” McLeod tweet­ed. “My sons & I have. My con­stituents have. Tragically, Sen. Pinckney & 8 of his parish­ioners have,” she said, refer­ring to the nine African Americans who were killed at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church by a white suprema­cist gun­man. The vic­tims includ­ed a state senator.

“Race-based hate is real,” McLeod added.

McLeod and Robertson’s tweets received dozens of retweets.

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, who ran for the U.S. Senate against Sen. Lindsey Graham, called out Dabney on Twitter in a tweet that received more than 500 retweets and near­ly 2,000 likes.

“This is a Republican mem­ber of the SC leg­is­la­ture. Read his words & feel his hate,” Harrison tweet­ed. “It is these type of folks draft­ing laws about vot­ing & hate crimes.”

Dabney called the accu­sa­tions of racism “ridicu­lous.”

“They don’t know me,” Dabney told The State in an interview.

Dabney said he made his post to point out that dis­cus­sions of race often come up on the House floor. He said that House Democrats bring up race “with­in min­utes,” when dis­cussing con­tro­ver­sial issues.

“It comes up near­ly every day on the floor,” Dabney said. “It seems like that’s their go-to.”

“It should be some­thing that you keep pri­vate and I keep pri­vate,” Dabney said.

Associated Press

Are you watch­ing the Derek Chauvin mur­der trial?
No? .….….….…Me neither!
I have tak­en the posi­tion that there is no need to watch this tri­al because we all know what the out­come must be right?
I mean we all wit­nessed a man mur­dered in real-time; so the tri­al should be a for­mal­i­ty before the guilty ver­dict is ren­dered right?
Right!!!

MY SHORT & TO THE POINT VIEWS ON THIS CASE BELOW