Isaac Woodard just want­ed to get home and see his wife. He’d been in the Army more than three years, a long­shore­man for the Pacific fleet in the wan­ing days of World War II. Finally, on Feb. 12, 1946, he was on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnsboro. But he wouldn’t make it — or ever see his wife again.

Because he was black, Woodard wasn’t allowed to fight dur­ing the war, but the dec­o­rat­ed sol­dier would become one of the most infa­mous casu­al­ties of an ugly chap­ter in American history.

That night, Woodard asked the bus dri­ver for a bath­room break just out­side of Aiken. The dri­ver was rude to him, lat­er claim­ing the sol­dier was drunk and dis­turb­ing oth­er pas­sen­gers. Woodard took umbrage, but didn’t make a scene. When the bus stopped in Batesburg, how­ev­er, the dri­ver called the police. Woodard — still wear­ing his Army dress uni­form — protest­ed he’d done noth­ing wrong. But he was beat­en and arrested.

And just out­side the jail, the police chief took his black­jack and gouged out Woodard’s eyes.

The sto­ry shocked the coun­try, and ulti­mate­ly led President Truman to deseg­re­gate the mil­i­tary. But more than 70 years lat­er, almost no one in the town where it hap­pened knew about Woodard’s plight until researchers request­ed records per­tain­ing to the incident.

Such sto­ries aren’t proud­ly passed down from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. Unlike some small Southern towns, which often ignore the trou­ble­some ele­ments of their past, Batesburg-Leesville (the two towns merged in 1993) has embraced Woodard’s tragedy and tried to make amends.

In June, the town expunged the sergeant’s 73-year-old crim­i­nal record. “Our Town Attorney Chris Spradley, Police Chief W. Wallace Oswald and Town Judge Robert Cook got togeth­er, reopened the case and dis­missed the charges against Isaac Woodard,” Mayor Lancer Shull says. “Although Sgt. Woodard died in 1992 and has no direct descen­dants, we want­ed to do some­thing to make it right. As right as it can be.”

It is more jus­tice than Woodard ever got in life. After his beat­ing, Batesburg’s munic­i­pal court sen­tenced Woodard to 30 days in jail and fined him $50 before Police Chief Lynwood Shull (no rela­tion to the cur­rent may­or) hur­ried­ly deliv­ered him to a vet­er­ans hos­pi­tal in Columbia.

His fam­i­ly found him three weeks lat­er, blind and suf­fer­ing from par­tial amne­sia. Woodard’s wife left him, unwill­ing to face a life as care­giv­er. Woodard’s par­ents took him to New York.

Because South Carolina offi­cials refused to pros­e­cute the chief, Truman ordered the Justice Department to charge Shull with vio­lat­ing Woodard’s civ­il rights.

Charleston Judge Waties Waring presided over that case and, like Truman, was appalled by Shull’s inevitable acquit­tal. It drove the judge into civ­il rights advo­ca­cy, cul­mi­nat­ing in a plot that even­tu­al­ly forced the U.S. Supreme Court to deseg­re­gate pub­lic schools in Brown v. Board of Education.

Ted Luckadoo, town man­ag­er of Batesburg-Leesville, says the com­mu­ni­ty has been talk­ing about the sig­nif­i­cance of Woodard’s sto­ry to the his­to­ry of the civ­il rights move­ment, most peo­ple amazed to learn that such a hor­rif­ic inci­dent occurred on their streets. On Saturday, the town, which is 35 miles west of Columbia, will join with vet­er­ans groups to ded­i­cate a his­tor­i­cal mark­er to the “Blinding of Isaac Woodard” on the site of the old jail, which is now an emp­ty lot.

Don North, a for­mer Army major and mil­i­tary his­to­ri­an, led the charge to erect the mark­er along with help from U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, who’s just pub­lished a book about the Woodard case, “Unexampled Courage.” The state approved the word­ing of the mark­er, and the town signed on as a sponsor.

“We jumped at the chance to be a part of this,” Luckadoo says. “It’s time to right the wrong and com­mem­o­rate the progress that result­ed from this.”

The pres­i­dent of the Disabled American Veterans will attend the cer­e­mo­ny, and says oth­er vets from around the coun­try will take part. The town bought a plane tick­et for Woodard’s nephew, who cared for his uncle, to come from New York.

Judge Gergel, who often pre­sides from the same bench where Waring once held court, says he’s been amazed by the thought­ful and empa­thet­ic reac­tion of the town. “They just thought it was the right thing to do, and every­thing they’ve done has been exem­plary,” Gergel says. “You nev­er know how good peo­ple can be.”

No, but Batesburg-Leesville is set­ting an exam­ple for the rest of the country.

Michael Fesser said West Linn offi­cers unlaw­ful­ly sur­veilled him and then false­ly arrest­ed him after he com­plained to his boss about racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.
A black man from Oregon sued the city of West Linn alleg­ing that police offi­cers unlaw­ful­ly sur­veilled him at work and then false­ly arrest­ed him in retal­i­a­tion for hav­ing raised com­plaints with his employ­er about racial discrimination.

Michael Fesser of Portland claimed in the suit, an amend­ed ver­sion of which was filed last month in U.S. District Court in Portland, that the inci­dent left him suf­fer­ing from emo­tion­al dis­tress and result­ed in eco­nom­ic dam­ages. He sued the city and sev­er­al mem­bers of the West Linn Police Department for false arrest, mali­cious pros­e­cu­tion, defama­tion and inva­sion of privacy.

CLICK ON LINK TO WATCH VIDEO

https://​youtu​.be/​E​u​K​Q​n​l​t​Z​K_4

West Linn police began inves­ti­gat­ing Fesser in February 2017 after Fesser raised con­cerns to his boss, Eric Benson, own­er of A&B Towing, that he was being racial­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ed against at work.

According to sep­a­rate court doc­u­ments, Fesser said the dis­crim­i­na­tion includ­ed cowork­ers’ call­ing him racial slurs. After he raised his con­cerns, Benson con­tact­ed West Linn Police Chief Terry Timeus, his friend, and per­suad­ed to look into alle­ga­tions that Fesser had stolen from the com­pa­ny, accord­ing to the lawsuit.

The suit said the theft alle­ga­tions were false and unsubstantiated.

But with the approval of West Linn police Lt. Mike Stradley, Detectives Tony Reeves and Mike Boyd used audio and video equip­ment to watch Fesser while he was at work, accord­ing to the suit. The sur­veil­lance was “con­duct­ed with­out a war­rant or prob­a­ble cause” and did not result in any evi­dence that Fesser was steal­ing from his employ­er, the law­suit stated.

This is one of the white guys run­ning for the pres­i­den­cy in the Democratic Party. He is throw­ing large sums of cash at the cam­paign, hop­ing to buy his way in.
He not only sup­port­ed racist Rudolph Giuliani’s stop and frisk poli­cies, but he also enhanced and extend­ed them.
Even after the NYPD brass had opt­ed on their own to cease and desist from the prac­tice Bloomberg still sup­port­ed and defend­ed them.
Michael Bloomberg defend­ed the prac­tice even after leav­ing the New York City Mayoralty.
Bloomberg who is now run­ning for pres­i­dent has apol­o­gized, how con­ve­nient?
Not just that but he has­n’t seen a black church in which he will not pros­trate him­self look­ing for the ven­er­a­ble black support.

Studies after stud­ies have shown that black peo­ple are no more pre­dis­posed to com­mit­ting crimes than whites are.
Additionally, Blacks do not use drugs or alco­hol as much as whites do.
When it comes to vio­lent crimes, there may be evi­dence that one-on-one crimes are more preva­lent in depressed, under­served neigh­bor­hoods, but mass mur­ders which are anoth­er more vir­u­lent form of gun vio­lence are gen­er­al­ly car­ried out by white males.


If vast amounts of police, (many with racist agen­das), are thrown into minor­i­ty neigh­bor­hoods, guess who is going to get arrest­ed?
And con­verse­ly, if there are no police in white neigh­bor­hoods to see the crimes being com­mit­ted, guess who is not going to be arrest­ed for those crimes?
But for the equal­iz­ing effect of opi­oid addic­tions and death, the gen­er­al per­va­sive think­ing that white peo­ple do not do drugs to the extent that Blacks do would con­tin­ue to be a dom­i­nant lie.
Even with the dis­parate demons of racism, police vio­lence, lack of resources and insti­tu­tion­al­ized state-imposed racism that bur­dens the African-American com­mu­ni­ty, the atten­dant mal­adies of drug addic­tion, alco­hol addic­tion and crim­i­nal­i­ty are still low when com­pared to the white com­mu­ni­ty.
The African-American com­mu­ni­ty would be well advised to steer clear of this snake.

Kobe Bryant, 41, the leg­endary bas­ket­ball star who spent 20 years with the Lakers, was killed when the heli­copter he was trav­el­ing in crashed and burst into flames Sunday morn­ing amid fog­gy con­di­tions in the hills above Calabasas, sources told the Los Angeles Times. His daugh­ter Gianna, 13, was also on board, NBA author­i­ties con­firmed. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said nine peo­ple were on the copter — a pilot and eight pas­sen­gers. He would not con­firm who had died until all the next of kin have been noti­fied, he said.[LAT]

Mont Belvieu, TX — Deandre Arnold, a high school stu­dent from Texas, is report­ed­ly being dis­crim­i­nat­ed against because of his hair style of choice. His school, Barbers Hill High School in the city of Mont Belvieu, has sus­pend­ed him and banned him from par­tic­i­pat­ing in his own grad­u­a­tion unless he cuts his locks to a short­er length.

School offi­cials claim their deci­sion is based on their long-stand­ing pol­i­cy where­in “no dress code pol­i­cy that pro­hibits any corn­row or any oth­er method of wear­ing of the hair, our pol­i­cy lim­its the length. It’s been that way for 30 years,” Superintendent Greg Poole told KHOU 11.

However, activists believe that it is yet again anoth­er case of racial discrimination.

“The dress code is designed by white peo­ple for white peo­ple and is dam­ag­ing to Black bod­ies,” Black Lives Matter activist Ashton Woods said.

“This is a Black and white issue, Deandre (and) his fam­i­ly should not have to go through this. But I expect it from a board that has zero diver­si­ty,” stat­ed Gary Monroe, with the United Urban Alumni Association.

A num­ber of activists sup­port­ed Deandre and his fam­i­ly in their dis­cus­sion with the Barbers Hill school board, hop­ing to come to a favor­able res­o­lu­tion. They thought that the issue was an insignif­i­cant obstruc­tion to the teen’s edu­ca­tion that might also be expe­ri­enced by others.

“We’re here for Deandre, but it’s about more than that, this is about all the oth­er Deandres that could come through Barbers Hill,” Sandy Arnold, Deandre’s moth­er said.

Moreover, Deandre’s fam­i­ly, togeth­er with their sup­port­ers, are plan­ning to take the case to fed­er­al court if the school wouldn’t come up with a res­o­lu­tion 48 hours after their meeting.

Today we cel­e­brate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. born Michael J.King Jr. on January 12^th, 1929.

Atlanta, GA — Six female Georgia law­mak­ers have tak­en his­toric action by fil­ing a bill that requires all state and local law enforce­ment depart­ments to cre­ate a ‘use of force’ data­base that is acces­si­ble by the pub­lic. The Use of Force Act (House Bill 636) was filed by State Representatives Renitta Shannon, Sandra Scott, Erica Thomas, Pam Stephenson, Park Cannon, and Bee Nguyen.

he Bill comes on the heels of a con­sid­er­ably large num­ber of high pro­filed offi­cer-involved shoot­ing cas­es in Georgia. The names of the vic­tims include Jimmy Atchison, Veltavious Griggs, JaMarion Robinson, Caine Rogers, DeAundre Phillips, Nicholas Thomas, Anthony Hill, Alexia Christian, Kevin Davis, and many oth­ers. The cas­es of Atchison and Griggs were both heav­i­ly fea­tured on BET’s Copwatch America docuseries.

After the show pre­miered, for­mer Atlanta police offi­cer Sung Kim was forced to resign for the shoot­ing of Jimmy Atchison. Witnesses say the father of two say was sur­ren­der­ing with his hands up when he was shot in the face. The FBI Task Force attempt­ed to arrest Atchison for his alleged involve­ment in an armed rob­bery. The APD police report stat­ed at the time of the Atchison’s mur­der that “a fol­low-up inter­view is need­ed with Brogan to check the dis­crep­an­cies in the two sto­ries.” A wit­ness to the alleged armed rob­bery told police that Atchison didn’t rob anyone.

The pro­posed Georgia law would require law enforce­ment to take sig­nif­i­cant action in offi­cer-involved inci­dents such as:

* Report every use of force inci­dent in writing,

* Ensure that the inci­dents are entered and main­tained in a data­base that can be accessed by the public,

* and detail any and all law enforce­ment offi­cers that have been dis­ci­plined as a result of the use of force.

If the leg­is­la­tion pass­es, law enforce­ment agen­cies will be required to update the data­base with the infor­ma­tion from the pre­vi­ous month.

News of the lawmaker’s his­toric ini­tia­tive went viral on social media, includ­ing retweets from Kathy Griffin and Shaun King. You can fol­low the dis­cus­sion below:

Driving account­abil­i­ty for exces­sive use of force by #police is some­thing I’ve con­sis­tent­ly fought for. This arti­cle talks about a bill I spon­sored in 2019, that is the first of a series of bills.
Help me con­tin­ue the fight

https://​secure​.act​blue​.com/​c​o​n​t​r​i​b​u​t​e​/​p​a​g​e​/​s​h​a​n​n​o​n​f​o​r​g​a​h​o​u​s​e84 …#BLM#JimmyAtchisonhttps://​twit​ter​.com/​A​t​t​o​r​n​e​y​G​r​i​g​g​s​/​s​t​a​t​u​s​/​1​2​1​4​5​8​1​7​8​4​6​0​1​6​6​1​441 …

The gov­er­nor said law enforce­ment had inter­cept­ed “extrem­ist rhetoric” sim­i­lar to the lead-up to Charlottesville days before pro-gun activists are hold­ing a rally.

In response to what he described as “cred­i­ble intel­li­gence” of threats of vio­lence at an upcom­ing gun rights ral­ly in Richmond, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has declared a state of emer­gency and will tem­porar­i­ly ban indi­vid­u­als from car­ry­ing firearms on Capitol grounds. 

The gov­er­nor said at a press con­fer­ence Wednesday that author­i­ties believe “armed mili­tia groups plan to storm the Capitol” dur­ing the January 20 rally.

He also said that law enforce­ment had inter­cept­ed threats and “extrem­ist rhetoric” sim­i­lar to what was observed pri­or to the vio­lent Unite the Right ral­ly in Charlottesville in August 2017. “We will not allow that may­hem and vio­lence to hap­pen here,” he said. 

The deci­sion to ban all weapons, includ­ing firearms, won’t sit well with the thou­sands of gun lovers who are expect­ed to descend on Richmond to par­tic­i­pate in what was billed as an open-car­ry affair and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to flex Second Amendment rights. 

“No weapons will be allowed on Capitol grounds,” said Northam, a Democrat. “Everything from sticks and bats to chains and pro­jec­tiles…. The list also includes firearms. It makes no sense to ban every oth­er weapon but allow firearms when intel­li­gence shows that armed mili­tia groups plan to storm the Capitol.”

On the Facebook page for the ral­ly, sev­er­al atten­dees are already say­ing they won’t com­ply and leave their weapons at home — even though Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney has vowed a hard line on rule-break­ers. “Violations of the law will not be tol­er­at­ed,” Stoney said. 

The January 20 event, dubbed “Lobby Day,” was orga­nized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a pro-Second Amendment non­prof­it, in response to new gun con­trol leg­is­la­tion intro­duced by the Democrat state Legislature. Northam acknowl­edged that the orga­niz­ers had been plan­ning the ral­ly for some time. “I believe them when they say this is a peace­ful event — that’s what democ­ra­cy is,” said Northam. “Unfortunately, they have unleashed some­thing much larg­er, some­thing they may not be able to control.”

Upwards of 5,000 peo­ple said on the Facebook page that they plan to attend. Event orga­niz­ers have warned the state that as many as 100,000 could show up. 

A web­site for the ral­ly shows that at least 60 bus­es are sched­uled to trans­port atten­dees into Richmond on Monday. And there’s word that car­pools are being orga­nized. What’s more, armed mili­tia groups are also plan­ning to attend, and some have even described the event as a “booga­loo” — a term that the far right uses to describe a sec­ond civ­il war. 

In addi­tion to ban­ning weapons on Capitol grounds, Northam also said he’d estab­lished a uni­fied com­mand between state police, Capitol police, the Richmond police depart­ment, and the city’s first respon­der teams. This is a crit­i­cal move — one that’s like­ly borne out of the lessons learned from the mas­sive law enforce­ment fail­ures dur­ing Unite the Right, which left one dead and dozens injured. Months after that ral­ly, an inde­pen­dent review team released a sear­ing 220-page report ana­lyz­ing how law enforcement’s dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion and fail­ure to coör­di­nate across agen­cies allowed the vio­lent, ugly scenes that unfold­ed that day.

Northam says that the state of emer­gency will be lift­ed on Tuesday. (The sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed from onvice​.com)

Denton, TX — Ryan Matthews from Texas was just 17-years old when he was accused of a crime he didn’t com­mit. He lat­er spent 5 years on death row, but was lat­er exon­er­at­ed and released. Now at 39-years old, he is cel­e­brat­ing being a col­lege graduate.

In April 1997, Matthews was believed to be the cul­prit in fatal­ly shoot­ing a 43-year old busi­ness­man, who is white.

Throughout the tri­al, he main­tained his inno­cence and there was real­ly no evi­dence link­ing him to the crime. But he was still found guilty by 11 white jurors and 1 black juror. He was sen­tenced to death at the age of 19.

Activists and his fam­i­ly fought for his free­dom. DNA evi­dence even­tu­al­ly proved his inno­cence and the real killer final­ly con­fessed. After 5 years on death row, he was exon­er­at­ed and released in 2004.

“All these years ago when I first came home, a reporter asked me what I want­ed to do, and I told them I want­ed to go to school,” Matthews told WFAA.

And he did just that. He enrolled at TWU in Denton, Texas where he has recent­ly grad­u­at­ed with a bachelor’s degree in applied arts and science.

Inspired by his sto­ry, his sis­ter and 71-year old moth­er fol­lowed suit and also con­tin­ued studying.

“So I decid­ed to go back and pur­sue my Ph.D. because hope­ful­ly, I’ll be able to do some leg­isla­tive work and get some of that wrong­ful con­vic­tion and rein­te­gra­tion leg­is­la­tion changed,” said Monique Coleman, Matthews’ sister.

Pauline Matthews, their moth­er, is proud of what they’ve accomplished.

Moreover, Ryan plans to pur­sue grad­u­ate school to focus on busi­ness. But he admit­ted he still feels bit­ter about his past sometimes.

“I am because of what hap­pened, but I can’t because it would stop me from mov­ing for­ward… I’m try­ing to be the best I can be,” he said.

Parchman, MS — Terrandance Dobbins, Walter Gates, Gregory Emary, Roosevelt Holliman, and Denorris Howell – who were all Black men – have been killed in pris­ons across the Mississippi state. Activists say the sus­pi­cious deaths are caused by neg­li­gence and mal­prac­tices in the state’s prison system.

In the past week, sev­er­al videos and pic­tures of deplorable con­di­tions and scenes includ­ing fires and vio­lence inside the pris­ons alleged­ly record­ed by dif­fer­ent inmates have sur­faced on the Internet.

Until Freedom, an orga­ni­za­tion that advo­cates for prison reform, and Yandy Smith, a busi­ness­woman, and real­i­ty TV star, shared the videos on their social media and has since gar­nered thou­sands of views and comments.

The Mississipi Department of Correction addressed the inci­dents in a state­ment last Friday.

“Four inmates have died and sev­er­al have been injured at two state pris­ons and one region­al dur­ing major dis­tur­bances since Sunday,” the state­ment read. “One death occurred at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, (SMCI) in Leakesville, two at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP) at Parchman, and one at the Chickasaw County Regional Correctional Facility (CCRF) in Houston, Miss. MDOC inves­ti­ga­tors have deter­mined a fifth death and a minor fire, both at MSP, are unre­lat­ed to the major disturbances.”

State offi­cials and author­i­ties claim that an alleged drug war has caused the chaos and the death of some prisoners.

However, the pris­on­ers and activists claim that the prison guards did not real­ly pro­tect them from the vio­lence and that the con­di­tions inside the pris­ons are unac­cept­able even before.

In fact, an inspec­tion con­duct­ed by the Mississippi State Department of Health last year found that the MSP is still in a haz­ardous con­di­tion that repeat­ed­ly caused deaths to a num­ber of inmates in the prison, despite numer­ous com­plaints and law­suits over the years.

Moreover, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said that the inmates are the rea­son for the vio­lence and the poor con­di­tion of the prison.

“The inmates are the ones that take each other’s lives, the inmates are the ones that fash­ion weapons out of met­al. The inmates are the ones that do the dam­age to the very rooms they are liv­ing in,” Bryant told reporters in a video shared on Instagram by Until Freedom.

Manatee County, FL — Barbara Pinkney, a 70-year old grand­moth­er from Florida, was repeat­ed­ly tased dur­ing a vio­lent arrest by police who were search­ing for her grand­son who vio­lat­ed pro­ba­tion. Police say Pinkney refused to let them into her home.

On December 26, police came to Pinkney’s home to serve an arrest war­rant to her grand­son, Tevin Turner, on vio­la­tion of pro­ba­tion for car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon.

“We heard a knock at the door. Actually, there wasn’t a knock. I think they kicked the door. Bam! Bam! At the door,” Pinkney told WFLA.

In a video shot by his grandson’s wife, Elizabeth Francisco, Pinkney can be heard ask­ing to speak to a sergeant. When the police refused, she tried to close the door, but an offi­cer then grabbed her wrist before tas­ing her and tak­ing her to the ground.

“I was just hol­ler­ing. I was scared. I didn’t know what else to do. I was just hol­ler­ing,” said Pinkney, who suf­fered injuries after she was hit three times with a stun gun in her left arm, back, and upper back.

Pinkney was arrest­ed for obstruc­tion and resist­ing an officer.

Now, Pinkney, who has nev­er had trou­ble with the police before said she can’t even sleep at night because of the trau­ma it caused her. She said, “I don’t know. Whenever I see the police I just try to not look at them.”

Meanwhile, his grand­son has not been caught. She claimed that “when he was on pro­ba­tion he gave this as his address, but he wasn’t liv­ing here.”

Moreover, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said they are inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent. Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells said, “We’re try­ing to prove whether or not any pol­i­cy vio­la­tions or any law was bro­ken. That seems to be the indi­ca­tion of many in the com­mu­ni­ty, a bad arrest.”

Janelle Griffith

Michael J. Reynolds was in Tennessee for a bach­e­lor par­ty when he broke into a home near his group’s Airbnb. He can be heard on video utter­ing threats and using racial slurs.

A white offi­cer with the New York City Police Department who broke into a black wom­an’s home in Tennessee and threat­ened her and her sons with a racist slur has resigned from the force.

Michael J. Reynolds, who was on mod­i­fied-duty sta­tus sub­ject to an inves­ti­ga­tion of the inci­dent, was informed Monday that he was to report to police head­quar­ters so the NYPD could begin its dis­ci­pli­nary case against him Thursday, the agency said in a statement.

Instead, the NYPD said, Reynolds quit, effec­tive immediately.

“He will receive no pen­sion or health ben­e­fits, nor will he be allowed to car­ry a firearm,” the NYPD state­ment said.

Reynolds was in Tennessee with two oth­er police offi­cers, who have not been iden­ti­fied, in July 2018 for a bach­e­lor party.

He forced his way into a home — doors away from the Airbnb that he and sev­er­al oth­er men, includ­ing the two oth­er offi­cers, had rent­ed — where Conese Halliburton lived with her chil­dren, accord­ing to court documents.

Video sur­veil­lance tak­en from a neigh­bor’s secu­ri­ty cam­era cap­tured Reynolds threat­en­ing the fam­i­ly and using racial slurs. “I’ll break every f — ing bone in your f — ing neck,” Reynolds said in a rant, accord­ing to inves­ti­ga­tors. He can also be heard call­ing the vic­tims “f — ing n — — .” Reynolds left only after Halliburton said police were near­by, accord­ing to court documents.

Last month, Reynolds was sen­tenced to 15 days in jail and three years’ pro­ba­tion after plead­ing no con­test to one count of aggra­vat­ed crim­i­nal tres­pass­ing and three counts of assault, court records show.

Halliburton had called on the NYPD to fire Reynolds.

“Michael Reynolds is a vio­lent and dan­ger­ous racist who has no busi­ness car­ry­ing either a badge or a gun,” her attor­ney, Daniel Horwitz, said in an email to NBC News on Wednesday. “Ms. Halliburton wants the NYPD to fire him imme­di­ate­ly so that he can’t hurt any­one else, and we are all frankly dumb­found­ed that that has not hap­pened already.”

More than 12,000 peo­ple signed a peti­tion advo­cat­ing that he be fired and on Wednesday, a group of pro­test­ers and activists gath­ered in New York to demand account­abil­i­ty from the city’s police department.

Halliburton, through her attor­ney, said Wednesday she deeply appre­ci­at­ed “the out­pour­ing of sup­port that she has received from peo­ple across the coun­try who agree that Michael Reynolds needs to be fired and should no longer be able to work as a police officer.”

Escambia County, AL — Willie Simmons, a 62-year old Black man from Alabama, has been behind bars for the last 38 years for steal­ing $9. He was con­vict­ed of 1^st-degree rob­bery and was sen­tenced to life with­out parole in 1982 due to Alabama’s Habitual Offender law. He already had 3 pri­or convictions.

Beth Shelburne, a reporter from WBRC, shared Simmons’ ordeals in a thread on Twitter after hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with him.

Shelburne said Simmons, an Army vet­er­an who became addict­ed to drugs while assigned over­seas, was 25-years old when the state “said he should die in prison.” Since 2005, he hasn’t had a vis­i­tor after his sis­ter passed away.

Now at the age of 62, he has been incar­cer­at­ed in Holman Correctional Facility in Escambia County, Alabama which is con­sid­ered one of the “most vio­lent pris­ons in the coun­try.” Despite that, he is study­ing for his GED, try­ing to “stay away from the wild bunch.”

Simmons is not deny­ing the crime he com­mit­ted that land­ed him in prison for life. He admit­ted he was “high on drugs” when he wres­tled a man to the ground and stole his wal­let that con­tained $9, as he said he was “try­ing to get a quick fix.”

Simmons recalled his tri­al which last­ed about 25 min­utes. He said his appoint­ed attor­ney didn’t call on any wit­ness and the pros­e­cu­tors didn’t offer a plea deal although his pri­or offens­es were non-vio­lent. “They kept say­ing we’ll do our best to keep you off the streets for good,” he said.

Over the years, he has filed for sev­er­al appeals even with­out an attor­ney and those were all denied. He said, “In a place like this, it can feel like you’re stand­ing all alone. I ain’t got nobody on the out­side to call and talk to. Sometimes I feel like I’m lost in out­er space.”

Lawmakers in 2014 have since removed the last avenue of appeal for those serv­ing life with­out parole under the habit­u­al offend­er law like Simmons. However, Simmons is hop­ing his cru­el sen­tence could be recon­sid­ered. “Yes, I’ve been hop­ing and pray­ing on it,” he said. “I ain’t giv­ing up.”

Moreover, Simmons still dreams some­day he will be free and live a nor­mal life. “My hope is to get out of here, set­tle down with a woman and do God’s will,” he said. “I’d like to tell peo­ple about how bad drugs are.

Oakland, CA — Kenya Wheeler, an African American man from California, says he was racial­ly pro­filed by three secu­ri­ty guards who con­front­ed him — one even drew a weapon at him — because he was tak­ing pho­tos while walk­ing home. Kenya believes he was treat­ed that way because of his race. 

Kenya post­ed what hap­pened on Facebook, along with a video he took of the inci­dent. In the video, the secu­ri­ty guards can be heard ask­ing “Why do you [take] pic­tures the car?”

“I took pic­tures of the bike racks,” Wheeler answered.

The secu­ri­ty guards did not believe Wheeler and accused him of “cas­ing vehi­cles” instead. Wheeler was then forced to wait for the police while detained. He said he was shocked when he saw one of the guards threat­ened him with a firearm even though he was unarmed and he only had his smart­phone and umbrel­la with him.

Given that the guard had pulled a weapon, Wheeler said he “did not feel safe in exer­cis­ing my rights to leave and stayed even though I felt it was false deten­tion as these were not peace offi­cers and I had com­mit­ted no crime.”

Wheeler, who is the head of Oakland Bicyclist and Pedestrian Commission, said he was walk­ing home from a yoga class when he noticed the bike racks that were adorned with col­or­ful yarn. He stopped to take some pho­tos of it to share with his col­leagues at the com­mis­sion, but then he was sud­den­ly stopped by the secu­ri­ty guards.

After being held for 20 min­utes, he was free to go home after the police came and resolved the inci­dent “pro­fes­sion­al­ly.” Still, he was dis­ap­point­ed with the inci­dent which he believed hap­pened because of his race.

“This is racial pro­fil­ing, and this is a racial act,” he told local sta­tion ABC 7. “The only rea­son that I’m being treat­ed this way is that I’m Black.”

Meanwhile, Peter Jakel, a spokesper­son from the PR firm that rep­re­sents the build­ing where the secu­ri­ty guards worked, said they were also upset about the inci­dent and they have since changed their secu­ri­ty providers.

“We share the con­cerns Mr. Wheeler expressed as he was on a pub­lic side­walk and should not have been con­front­ed at all,” said Jakel.

Moreover, Wheeler said the build­ing man­ag­er apol­o­gized to him and said that there have been recent break-ins in the area which may be the rea­son the guards stepped up their secu­ri­ty. He hopes his expe­ri­ence could serve as a les­son about the impor­tance of inclu­sion and diversity.

“What I do know is that all of us as a com­mu­ni­ty need to come togeth­er to ensure what hap­pened to me does not hap­pen to oth­ers in Oakland or else­where in our region,” he said. (Bnews)

The hypocrisy in the peo­ple who vot­ed to remove Michael Vick would be nau­se­at­ing on its own even with­out their sense of enti­tle­ment and deter­mi­na­tion to play unfor­giv­ing venge­ful lit­tle Gods.
There is no need to lay out what Michael Vick was arrest­ed, charged, pros­e­cut­ed and did his time for. 

The arti­cle below does that very well, suf­fic­ing to say that Micahel Vick paid a ter­ri­ble price for some­thing which has been done in the geog­ra­phy in which he grew up with­out any con­se­quence for gen­er­a­tions. People have always engaged in the sport of dog and cock-fighting.

Simply put Micahel Vick was pros­e­cut­ed for a crime that was as cul­tur­al as mak­ing moon­shine. That is not to say that the ghast­ly prac­tice is not rep­re­hen­si­ble and should be stamped out.
At the same time, the rear­ing and fight­ing of oth­er ani­mals and birds for the sole pur­pose of human plea­sure per­sists to this today.
What both­ers me is the sense of enti­tle­ment cer­tain peo­ple seem to have over the lives of God’s crea­tures and even over the lives of oth­er human beings.
They feel priv­i­leged and enti­tled to do as they please, to kill any amount of ani­mals for sport, or for what­ev­er rea­son they dream up, but any­one else who does any­thing remote­ly close to what they do, has to be severe­ly pun­ished, and for­ev­er wear a scar­let let­ter for their transgression.

There are pun­ish­ments for com­mit­ting crimes, pun­ish­ment is the con­se­quence of actions.
After an offend­er suf­fers the con­se­quence for offend­ing there is absolute­ly no good rea­son to keep pil­ing on pun­ish­ment which was not a part of the legal­ly con­sti­tut­ed court order.
If the lit­tle earth Gods were to have their way in the con­tin­ued pun­ish­ment of Michael Vick there would be no need for courts, kan­ga­roo courts of racist ide­o­logues would sim­ply mete out pun­ish­ment to those they do not like into perpetuity. 

While they wor­ry about a man who paid his debt count­less more egre­gious acts are being com­mit­ted to which they close their eyes.
I no longer watch the NFL after it allowed a racist mega­lo­ma­ni­ac and a nar­cis­sist to dic­tate how it should treat its employ­ees. Nevertheless, Commissioner Roger Goodell is cor­rect. No change!

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..

By Blue Telusma

Former NFL quar­ter­back Michael Vick will remain an hon­orary cap­tain at the NFL Pro Bowl next month, despite a very con­cen­trat­ed effort to keep that from happening.

According to CNN, last week, NFL com­mis­sion­er Roger Goodell con­firmed the deci­sion despite the over half a mil­lion sig­na­tures col­lect­ed by a Change​.org peti­tion signed by more than 500,000 to bar him from serv­ing as a cap­tain, an hon­or that would allow him to men­tor play­ers and coach from the sidelines.

In 2007 the Vick, who was then quar­ter­back for the Atlanta Falcons, was hit with felony charges for run­ning a dog­fight­ing ring, sub­se­quent­ly spend­ing 18 months in fed­er­al prison and being sus­pend­ed from the NFL. He was sus­pend­ed from the league indef­i­nite­ly until he was picked up by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2009, becom­ing start­ing quar­ter­back with a six-year $100 mil­lion con­tract. He retired in 2017 after mov­ing to the New York Jets and final­ly the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But Goodell not­ed that Vick has turned his life around in the decade since his con­vic­tion and deserves a sec­ond chance.

“Over the last, what is it, nine years or so, we have sup­port­ed Michael in his recog­ni­tion of the mis­take he made,” he said at a press con­fer­ence. “He’s paid a heavy price for that. He’s been account­able for it.”

The com­mis­sion­er also point­ed out how the play­er turned Fox Sports ana­lyst has become an ani­mal rights advo­cate since his release from prison and in 2015, even met with Pennsylvania law­mak­ers to cham­pi­on a bill that gives police offi­cers the right to break into cars to free dogs and cats.

The Washington Post also reports that a year pri­or, he also sup­port­ed a bill lat­er signed into law that made it ille­gal to attend an orga­nized ani­mal fight.

“I know there are peo­ple out there who will nev­er for­give him,” Goodell con­ced­ed. “He knows that. But I think this is a young man who’s real­ly tak­en his life in a pos­i­tive direc­tion, and we sup­port that, so I don’t antic­i­pate any change, no.”

A year ago, Headley was at a social ser­vices office in Brooklyn to inquire about her child care ben­e­fits. She was seat­ed on the floor with her baby in her arms as there were no more avail­able seats. The cops then demand­ed her to leave. When she told the cops that she want­ed to see a super­vi­sor, a strug­gle ensued and things esca­lat­ed quick­ly. The inci­dent was cap­tured by a bystander on video that even­tu­al­ly went viral on social media.

In the video, she can be seen on the floor on her back as offi­cers wres­tled her and took her baby from her. She can also be heard say­ing, “They’re hurt­ing my son! They’re hurt­ing my son!” Headley was then slapped with sev­er­al charges, but those were all even­tu­al­ly dropped.
Days after the inci­dent, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio apol­o­gized to her publicly.

In August, Headley sued the City of New York, claim­ing she was “humil­i­at­ed, assault­ed, phys­i­cal­ly injured, threat­ened with a taser, bru­tal­ly sep­a­rat­ed from her son, hand­cuffed, arrest­ed, and jailed — all by employ­ees of the City of New York.” She is now set to receive $650,000 settlement.

Peters shared the video of the inci­dent on his Instagram account. The woman, who has yet been iden­ti­fied, can be seen approach­ing Peters who was deliv­er­ing sev­er­al postal items at that time.

“I’m going to need someone’s infor­ma­tion to check up on you, because I don’t under­stand why you’re walk­ing around this neigh­bor­hood with a bunch a pack­ages,” the woman said at the start of the video.

When Peters told the woman that she is both­er­ing him, she claimed that the man’s pres­ence made her ner­vous. She said, “I’m not both­er­ing you. I want to com­plain to UPS that you look very sus­pi­cious and mak­ing me nervous.”

The woman then con­tin­ued jus­ti­fy­ing her actions, cit­ing pre­vi­ous break-ins that recent­ly hap­pened in the area.

“No, let me tell you why. My car’s already been bro­ken into twice. And guess what? It’s a real­ly big thing in this neigh­bor­hood for peo­ple to walk down the street for van­dal­ism,” the woman said.

When the woman demand­ed Peters to tell her his name, he refused. The woman went on to tell him that she would fol­low him wher­ev­er he would go through­out his route.

“Like I said you look very sus­pi­cious and I’m try­ing to tell you, you need to at least be able to tell peo­ple who you work for,” the woman con­tin­ued pressing.

Upon hear­ing that, Peters turned the cam­era around to show what seems to be a com­pa­ny-issued jack­et with the offi­cial logo of UPS. He also showed his work dol­ly with sev­er­al pack­ages for delivery.

The woman then returned to her home but came back to Peters to take pic­tures of him.

A sec­ond video showed the woman say­ing she has called the police while anoth­er UPS work­er came to talk to her. It has yet been known what hap­pened after the video ended.

Since the video was post­ed, it has been viewed over 4.2 mil­lion times and shared across social media sites. Several peo­ple expressed their dis­ap­point­ment with the incident.

“This man deserves a raise for keep­ing his cool. Nobody should be harassed for doing their job while black,” one wrote.

“If a man was mak­ing me ner­vous I sure­ly wouldn’t con­front him alone, insult him and then tell him where I live,” anoth­er said, empha­siz­ing that the woman, despite say­ing she was ner­vous, still approached Peters.