It’s Christmas time, the time of year when Christians stop and embrace that warm feeling,..
The time we cel­e­brate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Many who nev­er set foot in a Church , syn­a­gogue, Cathedral, Mosque or any oth­er place of wor­ship still take time out to cel­e­brate the season.
Associated with the sea­son are protes­ta­tions of love and good­will to each oth­er. It’s a time when friends and fam­i­ly come togeth­er to fel­low­ship share and enjoy each oth­er’s company.
This Christmas like most is not with­out tri­als and tribu­la­tion. Of course as it was when Jesus was born tur­moil abounds.
Fast for­ward to this year and cir­cum­stances are not much dif­fer­ent. Families in New York and all across America are in mourn­ing for loved ones slain by police.
Police depart­ments are in mourn­ing for their com­rades killed by mem­bers of the public.
It was­n’t sup­posed to be this way.

As New York city gath­ers to mourn the two fall­en officers.
As peo­ple of all col­or and creed stopped to pay respects.
As peo­ple stop to place wreaths, light can­dles and lay bouquets.
As the Mayor falls all over him­self to ingra­ti­ate him­self with a Department long out of control.
As the Media falls all over itself with round-the-clock cov­er­age, just stand­ing in ran­dom places where noth­ing is occur­ring fil­ing reports which says noth­ing new.
I had this thought.

Why can’t all peo­ple share in the pain of others ?
Why do so many ridicule the pain and suf­fer­ing of oth­ers, even as they expect and demand that oth­ers share in the pain they feel for those they hold dear ?
Why not lis­ten to the con­cerns of oth­ers, as we ask that they lis­ten to our concerns ?
What gives us the right to believe we are some­how bet­ter than oth­ers, on the basis of skin col­or, finan­cial or soci­etal standing ?
As we mourn our own, those we revere and respect, what is it which keeps us for under­stand­ing the pain of those who lost their loved ones, those we deem beneath us ? Those we think unwor­thy of care, com­pas­sion, respect.
Whether it’s con­ve­nient, palat­able or not , whether we like the sound of it or not we reap what we sow.
The tragedy is that the evil sown by the wicked, does­n’t always come back to the sow­er, it some­times come back on the innocent. 
The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Tragedies are also oppor­tu­ni­ties for sec­ond chances. 
God is a God of sec­ond chances.
This Christmas as some pre­tend to hon­or God for his son Jesus the light of the world. 
As we meet and greet those we love and cherish.
As we enjoy our beau­ti­ful homes , friends and loved ones.
As we enjoy sump­tu­ous din­ing and fine wine.
Let us take a moment to reflect and remem­ber those less fortunate.
Let us not judge their human­i­ty based on their sta­tion in life.
Let us all be less hyp­o­crit­i­cal to Jesus’ birth and remem­ber the way he lived his life, in ser­vice to oth­ers, with respect and ded­i­ca­tion to those out­cast from society.
Each and every one of you have it inside of you.
Just stop for a minute and reflect on the less pompous you.
Rip . Eric Garner .
RIP . Michael brown.
Rip . Rafael Ramos.
RIP. Wenjian Liu.
Rest in peace all those who lost their lives, you are all God’s children.
One and all.

At a time when Rafael Ramos and Wenijian Liu should be prepar­ing to cel­e­brate the hol­i­day sea­son with their fam­i­lies and friends the two New York Police Department cops are dead at the hands of Ismaaiyl Brinsley who assas­si­nat­ed both offi­cers as they sat in their patrol cars in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn.
This is a tragedy both for the depart­ment they served and their fam­i­lies. One can only imag­ine the pain the fam­i­lies are feel­ing at this sud­den and trag­ic loss of their loved ones. I can relate to that pain both as a father who lost my 20-year-old son less than a year ago and as a for­mer police offi­cer who have lost many of my col­leagues at the hands of criminals.
This is a sober­ing moment for the New York Police Department, the city of New York and indeed the nation.
In the end we are peo­ple , we all bleed, we are all God’s children.When we give life-sav­ing blood all that mat­ters is the type of the blood not the col­or of the skin of the giver.

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for those who demand jus­tice for their loved ones killed at the hands of police and police to come togeth­er to forge a way for­ward. Listening to the same old dividers like Rudolph Giuliani, Howard Safir , the felon Bernard Kerik and oth­ers will not cre­ate the atmos­phere for that dia­logue to happen.
Talking down to sec­tions of the black com­mu­ni­ty like Giuliani and Safir did does noth­ing but cre­ate more resent­ment. For too long poli­cies employed by the divi­sive Giuliani imple­ment­ed by Bratton , Safir, Kerik, and Kelly have alien­at­ed huge chunks of new York City’s black and Hispanic com­mu­ni­ties, and result­ed in nee­dles deaths and mis­trust on both sides.

Blaming Mayor deBlasio who cam­paigned on police reform for the killing of the two offi­cers is disin­gen­u­ous, self-serv­ing, dis­hon­est and dan­ger­ous. The NYPD must change to the demands of the peo­ple it serves, the peo­ple have no oblig­a­tion to change to suit the Police which works for them. The dis­re­spect­ful approach of Giuliani which has been con­tin­ued by Michael Bloomberg dic­tates that it knows best whats good for the black com­mu­ni­ty must end. You can­not adopt a pos­ture that peo­ple you believe beneath you should shut up as you know what’s best for them. You can­not legit­i­mate­ly tell a com­mu­ni­ty who should

rep­re­sent them, or refuse to meet with that com­mu­ni­ty’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives because you have pet­ty jeal­ousies and dis­likes. That was the kind of New York Giuliani cre­at­ed. These events are the consequences.

The so-called bro­ken win­dows pol­i­cy insti­tut­ed by the NYPD has been a cause of con­cern for many in the black and lati­no com­mu­ni­ties who com­plain police tar­get them for stop and frisk which results in abuse of their per­sons and their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The Police depart­ment main­tains if they are able to main­tain stop and frisk poli­cies peo­ple who are like­ly to com­mit vio­lent crimes will think twice about tak­ing a gun onto the streets. No gun , no shooting.
Both sides are correct.
If the num­bers indi­cate that the peo­ple who large­ly com­mit vio­lent gun crimes in the city are Blacks and Hispanics then nat­u­ral­ly those are

the demo­graph­ics which will invari­ably bear the brunt of the stops. There are parts of any strat­e­gy which will invari­ably not be pop­u­lar with cer­tain inter­est groups. What the Police depart­ment can ill afford is to employ a top down approach that does not include the input and par­tic­i­pa­tion of all stake-holders. 
Whether it is a func­tion of dis­re­spect or a fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate may be open to who you talk to. What is clear is that large sec­tions of the city’s res­i­dents believe the police do not respect them, this is untenable.
In offer­ing his cri­tique of events for­mer Giuliani Commissioner Howard Safir claim he has spo­ken to many stake­hold­ers with­in the black com­mu­ni­ty and like every­one else these peo­ple want the same things every­one else wants. Well what do you know, I won­der how long it took Safir to fig­ure this out?
Safir’s com­ments ranked up there with right-wing talk­er Bill Reilly who was fas­ci­nat­ed when he went to the famous Sylvia’s restau­rant in Harlem and no one was behav­ing bad­ly or yelling and scream­ing curse words.
The police depart­ment failed dis­mal­ly to engage the com­mu­ni­ties who would be affect­ed most­ly by it’s stop and frisk pol­i­cy on the front end, but which may have ben­e­fit­ed also in the long run from reduced vio­lent crimes.
That is not the fault of the communities. 
That is not the fault of com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who march and demand jus­tice for res­i­dents who are abused by police.

That is not the fault of a Mayor who seek to repair those breaches.
That must be placed square­ly at the feet of the Police department .
Try engag­ing the com­mu­ni­ty in a respect­ful man­ner and explain the num­bers. Explain that young black and brown men are com­mit­ting the most vio­lent crimes in the city and as such they of course will be stopped and frisked more than oth­er groups.Try explain­ing that it is not racism why they are tar­get­ed, just what the crime stats show.
Try explain­ing to the peo­ple you stop that you are not being mali­cious just doing what you must to keep the city and them safe. Try being less abra­sive. Try being less abu­sive when you stop peo­ple who are offend­ed by being restrained from free move­ment by your stops. Try a less con­fronta­tion­al approach and see if many of the peo­ple who you actu­al­ly stop and frisk will not be far less hos­tile to being approached.
Stop and frisk as it was con­sti­tut­ed cre­at­ed a lot of ani­mus between com­mu­ni­ties and the police, this occurred because the police failed at it’s imple­men­ta­tion and it’s exe­cu­tion. Police offi­cers are not sup­posed to esca­late sit­u­a­tions so they may make arrests. The duty of cops is to main­tain peace and good order . Prevent crimes from being com­mit­ted and inves­ti­gate where crimes have been committed.

In new York City blacks arrest­ed for low lev­el drug offences like mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion are far more like­ly to be slapped with resist­ing arrest charges which is a class A mis­de­meanor and car­ries a stiffer penal­ty than the ini­tial offense. City-wide data shows that blacks are twice more like­ly to be charged with resist­ing arrest than their white coun­ter­parts for the same low lev­el drug offence. On Staten Island,blacks are almost two-and-a-half times more like­ly to be accused of resist­ing arrest.

Whats even more trou­bling is the fact that most of those charges can­not be sub­stan­ti­at­ed in a court of law and are even­tu­al­ly thrown out of court. Which sup­ports the the­o­ry they were unfair­ly trumped up for per­son­al reasons.

Looking for scape­goats to blame as many sup­port­ers and the depart­ment has, will not fix things. Turning their backs on the Chief exec­u­tive Officer as some of them has done, only solid­i­fy what many already know, that there are sys­tem­at­ic prob­lems of account­abil­i­ty and respect with­ing the department.
The NYPDPBA and the SBA through their respec­tive lead­ers Patrick Lynch and Ed Mullins have demon­stra­bly shown that rela­tions between the depart­ment and mem­bers of the pub­lic as well as that of the depart­ment and City Hall will not be fixed any time soon. 

Ed Mullins dis­re­spect­ful­ly ref­er­eed to the Mayor as a “Nincompoop”. Lynch the loud-mouth rab­ble-rouser encour­aged rank and file cops to sign a peti­tion ban­ning the Mayor from their funer­als should they die in the line of duty. The NYPD may con­tin­ue to bury it’s head in the sand and lis­ten only to it’s chief boot-lick­ers, con­tin­u­ing the per­cep­tion it is a law-less agency or it may look to change and be respect­ed once again. Those are the choic­es which the depart­ment faces.
Mayor deBlasio is try­ing to undo two decades of testos­terone-based polic­ing which has caused the un-nec­es­sary loss of numer­ous lives, and hefty finan­cial payouts.
Bloomberg News report­ed that in 2011, Los Angeles paid out $54 mil­lion, while New York paid out a whop­ping $735 mil­lion, although those fig­ures include neg­li­gence and oth­er claims unre­lat­ed to police abuse. Oakland Police Beat report­ed in April that the city had paid out $74 mil­lion to set­tle 417 law­suits since 1990. That’s a lit­tle more than $3 mil­lion per year. The Denver Post report­ed in August that the Mile High City paid $13 mil­lion over 10 years. The Dallas Morning News report­ed in May that the city has forked over $6 mil­lion since 2011. And last month, Minneapolis Public Radio put that city’s pay­out at $21 mil­lion since 2003.
In many cas­es pay­out could have been much high­er were there not caps in place which pre­vent larg­er payouts.
Clearly the prob­lem of police abuse of cit­i­zens is not con­fined to New York City, Ferguson Missouri , or Cleveland Ohio. Citizens are made to pay for these pay­outs even as schools are starved of cash to edu­cate chil­dren. This cre­ates a dan­ger­ous cycle which requires more law-enforce­ment, more abuse alle­ga­tions and more payouts.
Cops them­selves are pre­clud­ed from hav­ing to pay when a judge­ment is made against them under the doc­trine qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty. States would much rather cap abuse pay­out than force­ful­ly deal with abuse by police of cit­i­zens. Some inter­est groups have sug­gest­ed mak­ing indi­vid­ual offi­cers who breach their oath to serve and pro­tect assume some of the pay­ments . In oth­er cas­es some even sug­gest­ed those pay­outs should come from police pen­sion funds as a deterrent.
Democratic and Republican Legislatures and Governors are too tight­ly woven into the hero wor­ship of law-enforce­ment to untan­gle this sor­did mess. In the mean­time the ani­mos­i­ty which killed Eric Garner. Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Rafael Ramos, Wenijian Liu and count­less oth­ers will con­tin­ue with no end in sight.

We have seen nothing but police bashing from some of the highest offices in the land.

So said Howard Safir for­mer Fire Commissioner and police com­mis­sion­er of the City of New York . Safir was appoint­ed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on January 1, 1994 and served in that posi­tion until he was appoint­ed 39^th Police Commissioner of the City of New York by Giuliani on April 15, 1996. He served as Police Commissioner until his res­ig­na­tion on August 18, 2000.

Safir did not stop there he went on to say ” Police lives mat­ter. Let’s demon­strate it nationally.
 Michael Brown and Eric Garner died resist­ing arrest. Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu died doing their job. It is a very impor­tant dis­tinc­tion. Michael Brown and Eric Garner were com­mit­ting crimes. Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were pro­tect­ing all the cit­i­zens of New York City.
Well there you have it a direct assault on the griev­ing fam­i­lies of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Safir did not both­er to include the lit­tle annoy­ing fact that Eric Garner was mur­dered for no rea­son! If you did not com­mit a crime why would you take kind­ly to being arrested?Safir did not both­er to men­tion 12 year-old Tamir Rice who was gunned down in Cleveland Ohio by cops who drove up and just shot him, albeit he was hold­ing a toy gun. There was no men­tion of any of the oth­er sense­less killings , like that of John Crawford gunned down in a Beaver Creek Ohio Walmart , because he picked up a toy gun he intend­ed to purchase.
Safir did not care about Kajeime Powell a black man of unsound mind who was lit­er­al­ly exe­cut­ed by St Louis Police just a stones throw from where Michael Brown was exe­cut­ed in Ferguson Missouri. 

Nothing about  Akai Gurley’s killed as he exit­ed his girl­friend’s apart­ment. Was he deserv­ing of death? Did he resist arrest or did his sense­less killing not fit Safir’s narrative?

How about Michael Bell who was killed as he left his bach­e­lor’s par­ty on the day he was to be mar­ried? How about Anthony Baez, or  Amadou Diallo?
Howard Safir could not both­er to care about the inno­cent loss of black lives, too many to men­tion but like all the oth­er ver­min he crawled out to demo­nize and crit­i­cize the Mayor Attorney General, Reverend Al Sharpton and President Obama. 
No one is sur­prised about Howard Safir’s intem­per­ate self-serv­ing out­burst, after all he was hired by Giuliani, the big­ot­ed lit­tle El Duce who ruled New York City for 8 years. Combined Safir, his for­mer boss and the thugs who assault and kill peo­ple under the guise of good polic­ing are lit­er­al­ly the same class­less , uncouth and in some cas­es racists thugs who caused this whole fiasco. 
Actions have con­se­quences, fix police abuse and this prob­lem goes away. Continue in stub­born tone deaf­ness and the anger and vio­lence is bound to con­tin­ue. The police sim­ply can­not con­tin­ue to kill and cit­i­zens have no recourse in the courts.
That is where Howard Safir, Rudolph and oth­ers who place the NYPD above law abid­ing cit­i­zens and the laws should focus their ener­gies. But Safir the Giuliani pro­tégé was­n’t done, he was just get­ting start­ed , blam­ing US Attorney General Eric Holder ‚the Reverend Al Sharpton and even President Obama for stir­ring up anti-police resentment.

No one is stir­ring up police resent­ment, except the police. When cops act out­side the laws cit­i­zens are not going to roll over and die. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that these peo­ple who held high office could demon­stra­bly be so stu­pid. Recent events which have gar­nered nation­al and world-wide atten­tion should be enough to force these char­la­tans to use what­ev­er influ­ence they have to get police to respect human rights and human dignity.
Instead they use it to fur­ther solid­i­fy and cement what the black com­mu­ni­ty has always felt, that they do not care about their com­mu­ni­ty or their lives. No one in the black com­mu­ni­ty expect­ed any­thing bet­ter from the likes of Rudolph Giuliani or Howard Safir.

Not to be out­done the entourage of Republican hypocrisy was not con­fined to Safir, Former Republican Governor George Pataki tweet­ed Sickened by these bar­bar­ic acts, which sad­ly are a pre­dictable out­come of divi­sive anti-cop rhetoric of #eri­chold­er & #may­orde­bla­sio. #NYPD.
No one heard a word of con­dem­na­tion for the killing of Eric Garner from twist­ed mouth George Pataki..
El Deuce Giuliani, who was nev­er at a loss as to how to fix the black com­mu­ni­ty, when he is not advo­cat­ing their killing said quote, ”  It is the right time to talk about [de Blasio’s] poli­cies. His poli­cies of allow­ing protests to get out of con­trol, and of his not empha­siz­ing enough the impor­tance of father­hood, the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion, the impor­tance of an alter­na­tive to a pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem that is fail­ing the black children”.

The most out­ra­geous of all though, are the com­ments of Federal Felon and recent­ly released pris­on­er Bernard Kerik . Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik tore into Mayor Bill de Blasio over his han­dling of the Eric Garner con­tro­ver­sy, claim­ing that he has sided with Rev. Al Sharpton against the police force and his own police com­mis­sion­er, Bill Bratton. Kerik, who – like Mr. Bratton – served as head of the NYPD under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, claimed that Mr. de Blasio has let Mr. Sharpton walk all over New York’s Finest fol­low­ing Mr. Garner’s fatal encounter with cops last month. “These men and women go out every day and put their lives on the line for the peo­ple of this city,” Mr. Kerik told lis­ten­ers of the Geraldo Rivera radio pro­gram. “They’re get­ting cru­ci­fied here and thrown under the bus by the de Blasio Administration for one instance.” Mr. Kerik, once her­ald­ed as “America’s Cop” after his ser­vice dur­ing the September 11 attacks, had a pre­cip­i­tous fall from grace. He was recent­ly released from prison after serv­ing three years for tax fraud and lying to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment when he was being con­sid­ered for the job of Director of Homeland Security.As report­ed by the new york observer.

Of all the nerve, this crim­i­nal has the nerve to open his mouth, as far as Giuliani, Safir and oth­ers who sup­port them are con­cerned, crim­i­nals like Kerik are of no liv­ing worth. They nev­er fail to trot out the record of peo­ple NYPD mur­der, as if hav­ing a record means that a per­son is prime can­di­date for sum­ma­ry police execution.
The sin­gle thread which ties Safir, Kerik, Pataki, and the destruc­tive, dis­re­spect­ful atti­tude of some with­in the NYPD like Lynch and oth­ers is Rudolph Giuliani, the race-baiter whose divi­sive poli­cies divid­ed the city along racial lines to fur­ther his polit­i­cal ambitions.

Members of the NYPD who turned their backs on may­or deBlasio did not do them­selves their fam­i­lies nor the city any jus­tice today . The Mayor has a job to do, and he is doing it. The NYPD’s tone deaf­ness to the con­cerns and the cries of cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties is indica­tive of their lack of respect for some cit­i­zens of the city of New York.”

Again they have show a total lack of class and respect by turn­ing their backs on the Chief Executive Officer of 8.5 mil­lion peo­ple. Members of the NYPD seem to believe that oth­ers should bow to them. By their own actions they con­tin­ue to do irrepara­ble harm to the depart­ment and to them­selves by their class-less thug­gish and gar­ish dis­play in both words and deeds.

Events like these which ought to elic­it empa­thy and sup­port from cit­i­zens are wast­ed as this Agency dis­plays ten­den­cies which have some cit­i­zens up in arms in the first place.Their actions fur­ther cements the views that the Agency is a Gang of crim­i­nals who believe they are above the laws or a law onto themselves .
Clearly there are sys­tem­at­ic prob­lems with­ing this police depart­ment that needs seri­ous solutions.
The Giuliani and Bloomberg years has cre­at­ed a Force which is alien to the needs of most New Yorkers.
Clearly being the biggest does not mean the best. 
This is a dis­gust­ing tasteless,disrespectful ‚dispi­ca­ble and taste­less act.

#THUGS

A NYPD tough-guy street cop wear­ing cam­ou­flage jack­et and base­ball cap with peak turned back­wards, is now cool­ing his heels on sus­pen­sion for rain­ing blows on an under­age boy who was ini­tial­ly accused of assault­ing someone.
The charges against the youth were report­ed­ly lat­er dropped.
John McDevitt , an anti-crime cop from the 7^th Precinct was iden­ti­fied as the accused cop who ran in and deliv­ered sev­er­al body-shots to the young man’s mid­sec­tion, while three oth­er cops had him pressed against a car and were in the process of plac­ing cuffs on him.

Interestingly there was a black female cop who stood around as the kid was pound­ed by the cop and did noth­ing. That takes care of the sug­ges­tions racial diver­si­ty with­ing police depart­ments are some sort of panacea for police abuse. From what we have seen in the Eric Garner case and oth­ers, cops of all races appear to be equal oppor­tu­ni­ty abusers.

In this case the black female cop seemed more con­cerned with a lady who iden­ti­fied her­self as a lawyer as she lament­ed that they would actu­al­ly be com­mit­ting the assault in light of recent occurrences.

This is yet anoth­er exam­ple of what black and brown New Yorkers have been com­plain­ing of for years. This is not about aggres­sive polic­ing which is clear­ly need­ed to make sure that crime stats trend down and remain down.

From Social media com­ments of some igno­rant observers, there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty of aggres­sive­ly going after crim­i­nals and respect­ing the rights of citizens.

Of course those opin­ions are not based on real­i­ty , but on utter igno­rance and racial hatred.
Police offi­cers can aggres­sive­ly go after crim­i­nals and at the same time refrain from tram­pling on the rights of cit­i­zens. There is a dif­fer­ence between aggres­sive­ly going after crim­i­nals and being undu­ly aggres­sive with citizens.
One thing this recent upsurge of police abuse, excess and unlaw­ful killings revealed, is the deep ugly under-bel­ly of racism in America. Be it Police or any oth­er mat­ter, the con­ver­sa­tion defaults to race. That is where the igno­rance and utter idio­cy of those who blind­ly sup­port cops or what­ev­er cause they cham­pi­on from the right comes out. No amount of con­vinc­ing will change the views of those who hold racist views, those who hate, into real­iz­ing racism is igno­rance per­son­i­fied. After all igno­rance is all they have to hold onto.
New York cops are not with­out sup­port­ers who believe it is per­fect­ly good prac­tice to abuse, injury and kill peo­ple of col­or. We can­not change the mind of the igno­rant who feel that way. New Yorkers can make cops under­stand we love them , we respect them but we will under no cir­cum­stances allow them to abuse and kill with­out consequence.

Once again NYPD’s finest abuse cit­i­zens then gripe and com­plain about not get­ting respect.
You do not get respect when your demeanor is one of a hooli­gan and a com­mon thug.
Differentiate your­self from hooli­gans thugs and gang­sters and peo­ple will respect your authority.
Nowhere in his­to­ry has those who seek to use brute force over per­sua­sion ever work in the inter­est of the practitioner.
Force begets force , vio­lence begets vio­lence, use the author­i­ty of your badge and peo­ple will respect you.

She walked in this morn­ing and greet­ed me as she always did when she comes in to trans­act busi­ness. I real­ized some­thing was wrong as soon as I looked up to return her greet­ing. She told me her cousin was shot and killed in Jamaica last night. Killing is nor­mal now more-so in some places than oth­ers. In Jamaica it’s more-so.

My heart went out to her, she was very much there for me and my fam­i­ly in April when we lost our beloved son Kodi.
I felt a sense of empa­thy for her loss. I do so now even more than I did before. Death of a loved one does that to you.
Then she tells me her cousin was a police offi­cer and my heart dropped. Not because police offi­cers lives are worth more than that of any­one else, but because they stand between those who would do us harm and ourselves.

Jamaican Police say Constable Preddie who was off duty and unarmed was relax­ing with friends at a bar in the remote com­mu­ni­ty of Farm in the Asia police divi­sion of south­ern Manchester when sev­er­al men armed with guns entered the premis­es. The crim­i­nals pro­ceed­ed to rob patrons and in the process of going through their pock­ets dis­cov­ered Preddie’s police iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. One of the gun­men prompt­ly shot him in the head. He report­ed­ly died on the spot. Preddie was mar­ried with two chil­dren aged eight years and 18 months.

The death of this offi­cer sends a chill­ing mes­sage to law abid­ing cit­i­zens, “we will kill any­thing and any­one who stand in our way”. The fact that con­sta­ble Preddie was unarmed is some­what trou­bling. Why would a police offi­cer not have a ser­vice weapon in this day and age is beyond me?
Did Preddie have access to a weapon but naïve­ly allowed him­self to be lulled into a false sense of security?
Did the depart­ment take their weapon after they fin­ished using him dur­ing his tour of duty?
Those are per­ti­nent ques­tions which begs swift answers.
Jamaican author­i­ties and civ­il soci­ety, places extra­or­di­nary stock on the lives of crim­i­nals and con­vict­ed felons, not on the lives and inter­est of police offi­cers. My heart goes out to his fam­i­ly ‚to my friend Trish and more than any­one else, his wife and two lit­tle kids.
May God give you com­fort and peace.
To the scum who took his life, may you rest easy in the knowl­edge you do not have some­one like me on your trail for this killing .
Demonizing police offi­cers gives pow­er to garbage like these scum, that is the Jamaican way.
I ask that all offi­cers take this death per­son­al­ly, go get these pieces of garbage.Whether you bring them to jus­tice or you bring jus­tice to them is all the same to me.

“RACE RELATIONS HAVE GOTTEN BETTER, MORE PROGRESS NEEDED”. 

Those are the words of Barack Obama President of the United States. 
President Obama made those com­ments in an in depth inter­view with People Magazine.
In the inter­view the President detailed being mis­tak­en for a wait­er and Valet.’ The President’s wife, first lady Michelle Obama recalls that once they were at a black tie affair and some­one asked her hus­band to get coffee.
According to the cou­ple these events occurred just pri­or to mis­ter Obama’s ascen­dan­cy to the Presidency.
In actu­al­i­ty with­in this decade. 
Barack Obama has come under severe scruti­ny and endured much crit­i­cisms on his response to recent police killing of unarmed peo­ple, large­ly African American males.
By the way that cri­tique is com­ing from some of his staunchest sup­port­ers , includ­ing Professors Michael Eric Dyson, Cornell West and oth­ers. Supporters believe he vac­il­lates between speak­ing out stri­dent­ly against oppres­sion and pla­cat­ing white America. Mister Obama’s demeanor seem to be one that shies away from con­fronta­tion. In some quar­ters that may give the appear­ance of weak­ness. However Obama’s stance on the issue of race is not nec­es­sar­i­ly one of weak­ness per sey.

Obama spoke out when his friend Tenured Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates was wrong­ly pro­filed and arrest­ed on his own prop­er­ty by a Boston cop. The new President said then:
“I don’t know, not hav­ing been there and not see­ing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it’s fair to say, num­ber one, any of us would be pret­ty angry; num­ber two, that the Cambridge police act­ed stu­pid­ly in arrest­ing some­body when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, num­ber three, what I think we know sep­a­rate and apart from this inci­dent is that there’s a long his­to­ry in this coun­try of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforce­ment dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly. That’s just a fact.”

Obama also spoke out on the Travyon Martin Killing, stating :

“The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his fam­i­ly, or for any one com­mu­ni­ty, but for America. I know this case has elicit­ed strong pas­sions. And in the wake of the ver­dict, I know those pas­sions may be run­ning even high­er. “But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spo­ken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflec­tion from two par­ents who lost their young son. “And as we do, we should ask our­selves if we’re doing all we can to widen the cir­cle of com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing in our own com­mu­ni­ties. We should ask our­selves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun vio­lence that claims too many lives across this coun­try on a dai­ly basis. “We should ask our­selves, as indi­vid­u­als and as a soci­ety, how we can pre­vent future tragedies like this. As cit­i­zens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to hon­or Trayvon Martin.”

These were pret­ty defin­i­tive state­ments com­ing from the President, the prob­lems is not that he does­n’t speak out , it’s what he does after white peo­ple push back, he seem to pull back. In the Gates saga he capit­u­lat­ed by invit­ing the cop to the white house for a beer. A def­i­nite no no if you ask me. That was a sign of weak­ness in my estimation.
Since then Obama seem to be at pains not to get involved in the thorny issue of race in America. Now many say “well he is the pres­i­dent of all America he can­not take one side over another!
Perfectly true and he shouldn’t.
But no one is ask­ing him to. 
The President is the high­est elect­ed Official in the coun­try, he can­not run for anoth­er office after his sec­ond term is over. If Obama can­not stand firm­ly and deci­sive­ly against racial hatred in America now, when will he?
Strongly con­demn­ing entrenched racist atti­tudes in some sec­tors of white America is not tak­ing sides. It is the right thing to do.
Who cares about the howls of con­dem­na­tion which are sure to fol­low? To hell with those who scream, if you chose neu­tral­i­ty you actu­al­ly chose the side of the oppressor. 

Those who scream about the pres­i­dent should not take sides, are those who ben­e­fit the most from over 400 years of White suprema­cy and racial enti­tle­ments in this country.
Racism can go away today if white America chose to end it.
They start­ed it,they per­pet­u­ate it, they can end it.
This is the rea­son I strong­ly dis­agree with the pres­i­dent that race rela­tions are get­ting bet­ter. The fact that Barack Obama was elect­ed pres­i­dent is a net pos­i­tive for him. It’s a net pos­i­tive for the coun­try and to some extent in the long run black America. At the moment how­ev­er, there is a seri­ous white-lash against his pres­i­den­cy which is hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for oth­ers less pow­er­ful than he.
No race has author­i­ty over another. 
No race is supe­ri­or to the other.
No race is more enti­tled to this plan­et than others.
On that basis alone black Americans should wait not one minute more to be treat­ed equal­ly and fair­ly in this land their fore-par­ents vis­it­ed first. They should wait not one minute more in this land their fore-par­ents slaved and died for, got raped and muti­lat­ed for.
Many whites speak about America with a sense of own­er­ship, as if every­one else are mere intruders,or vis­i­tors at best. Intruders and vis­i­tors there to be treat­ed based on their per­son­al feel­ings and bias­es. Blacks must seize the moment, but most impor­tant­ly they must assume own­er­ship of their coun­try, and be pre­pared to die for it. They must be pre­pared to die so that their chil­dren may live out the promise this land has for their chil­dren, all chil­dren. Once and for this refugee in their own land sta­tus must come to an end.
“We have …come to this hal­lowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the lux­u­ry of cool­ing off or to take the tran­quil­iz­ing drug of grad­u­al­ism. Now is the time to make real the promis­es of democ­ra­cy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and des­o­late val­ley of seg­re­ga­tion to the sun­lit path of … jus­tice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick­sands of … injus­tice to the sol­id rock of broth­er­hood. Now is the time to make jus­tice a real­i­ty for all of God’s children.” 
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

President Obama can­not be con­sumed by polls which indi­cate falling num­bers on his han­dling of race. There will be howls of dis­con­tent and anger. Those howls will come from those who are sat­is­fied ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the sta­tus quo. That is unten­able, that is unacceptable.
There comes a time when doing what is right trumps what is pop­u­lar, now is the time.

Two NYPD cops attached to the depart­ments legal affairs bureau were alleged­ly assault­ed on the Brooklyn Bridge , sup­pos­ed­ly dur­ing a peace­ful march over the week­end. The two, Patrick Sullivan and Phillip Chan are both Lieutenants. The pair were sup­pos­ed­ly wear­ing NYPD jack­ets with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and were there to ensure pro­test­ers rights were pro­tect­ed , as report­ed by CBS​.com and the Associated Press. 
Which brings us to ask why are spe­cial cops there to ensure cit­i­zens fun­da­men­tal right to protest against their gov­ern­ment? Aren’t all cops sup­posed to be par­tic­u­lar­ly alert­ed and informed on that fact? What hap­pens when legal affairs is not there?

I believe we all know what hap­pens when they are not.
The NYPD has since arrest­ed Eric Linkser a 29-year-old Baruch College Professor who teach­es Composition. Notice how quick­ly they arrest­ed some­one who alleged­ly attacked one of their own? The Commissioner William Bratton said quote: “We do not take attacks on our police offi­cers light­ly, we nev­er have and nev­er will,”. I bet New Yorkers of col­or would like that sense of res­olute­ness when it comes to police vio­lence on them. 
The Department says there are oth­ers involved in the alleged attack , which they say occurred when the two cops inter­vened when Linkser alleged­ly tried to toss a 50-pound garbage can from the ele­vat­ed walk­way at offi­cers on the road­way below. They are sup­pos­ed­ly putting togeth­er a twelve thou­sand dol­lar ($12,000.00 reward to fer­ret out oth­ers involved in the assault. 
The young man who video­taped NYPD cops killing Eric Garner was arrest­ed on weapons charges, rather con­ve­nient­ly after the video became pub­lic. Pantaleo the cop who killed Garner and the oth­er mur­der­ers who aid­ed and abet­ted him have so far faced no crim­i­nal sanctions.

In respond­ing to the inci­dent New York City’s Mayor Bill deBlasio called the inci­dent an “alleged assault” That char­ac­ter­i­za­tion drew the ire of the sergeants benev­o­lent asso­ci­a­tion. Union pres­i­dent Ed Mullins labeled the Mayor a “nin­com­poop”. The PBA pres­i­dent Patrick Lynch who encour­aged mem­bers to sign a peti­tion demand­ing that the Mayor and city Council pres­i­dent not attend their funer­al in the event they are killed in the line of duty, said “It is very clear to me that the may­or has no idea of just how angry New York City police offi­cers are at him for his lack of sup­port and for lay­ing decades of soci­ety’s prob­lems unde­served­ly at their feet.”

Does any­one recall when Rudolph Giuliani led a rag-tag throng of drunk­en cops in 1992 onto the steps of City Hall in protest against Mayor David Dinkins? Yup, they called Dinkins a N****r, they called him a wash-room atten­dant. Do you detect the same kind of dis­re­spect to this Mayor who is mar­ried to a black woman ?
In 2007 the New York dai­ly news Mike Mcalary wrote ” This city has two police forces: one small and hor­ri­ble, and one great and noble. People see the uni­form and fig­ure all cops are part of the hor­ror. That’s not true. In the 1820s, the city had two police forces, and they fought on the steps of City Hall. That police riot occurred when one force tried to arrest the may­or. The clos­est we’ve come to that was when Giuliani encour­aged a police mob to rat­tle then-Mayor David Dinkins in 1992”.

The depart­ment is active­ly seek­ing oth­ers involved in the mele. Bratton said the video of the assaults has been enhanced to help find the sus­pects. Isn’t it incred­i­ble how quick­ly they will enhance a shaky video to prove some­one attacked one of their own but will not acknowl­edge they mur­dered an inno­cent man on a video which need­ed no enhancement ?
I don’t know whether or not there are two police forces in new york city., Many peo­ple of col­or have nev­er seen the noble depart­ment Mike Mcalarry spoke of sev­en years ago, even though they are decent law abid­ing citizens.
What they see dai­ly is the “hor­ri­ble” the one above the law, the thug­gish one which demands respect even as it heaps scorn, deri­sion ‚con­tempt and dis­re­spect on oth­ers, even those set above them.
Every grouse, every gripe of the PBA and oth­er unions seem to be about respect. The unions would do them­selves and their mem­bers a tremen­dous ser­vice by being respect­ful to the Mayor, City Council President and peo­ple of col­or in the city, maybe then they will see a turn around in the way peo­ple respond to them.
As a very famous Pastor say from time to time,“If you want some­thing from God, give that thing to some­one else”. Give respect, you get respect. You do not demand respect , you com­mand respect. Stop whin­ing and com­plain­ing about just how dan­ger­ous your job is . No one forced you to join the police depart­ment, you did so of your own free will, and you are paid well to do it.
People have a right to demand that they be treat­ed fair­ly and just­ly, the laws does not only apply when the police say they apply.
If utter­ances and behav­ior are any­thing to go by, this police depart­ment is expo­nen­tial­ly worse than most peo­ple know. People in under served com­mu­ni­ties will tell you they do not call cops. Cops to them are no dif­fer­ent from reg­u­lar gang­sters. Many rob, beat, rape, steal, plant drugs, fal­si­fy reports and kill peo­ple with­out consequence.
These res­i­dents of the city have nev­er seen the “great and noble”.
Too many in the NYPD see them­selves above the laws and the peo­ple who hire and pay them. The media Houses are active cheer-lead­ers in this process, mak­ing them feel above being held account­able. It is time the back of this men­tal­i­ty is bro­ken once and for all.

Thousands , maybe mil­lions col­lec­tive­ly, march hand in hand dai­ly across America. They march in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the unarmed, killed by Agents of the states. The bod­ies are many, the ages diverse. Their col­or the only thing which binds them together.
I want to talk a lit­tle about the role states play in these deaths, but before I do I want to take a sec­ond to address a com­mon dis­claimer I hear from many who speak on this issue. Some black, some white , some cop, some not.

THEY ARGUE BLACKS DO NOT MAKE A BIG DEAL ABOUT BLACK-ON-BLACK VIOLENCE

Civil Rights groups, church­es, NGO’s and a pletho­ra of oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties have done much work in com­bat­ing vio­lence in the black com­mu­ni­ty. Communities and indi­vid­u­als have done heavy lift­ing toward remov­ing the scourge of drug-deal­ing, drug-addic­tion, and oth­er vices which lead to vio­lence. Activists and Organizations like the Urban league , National Action Network, NAACP, and oth­ers are heav­i­ly invest­ed in com­bat­ing crime in urban centers.
Much more is required in deal­ing with the prob­lem of teenage preg­nan­cy , mass-incar­cer­a­tion of black male, gang affil­i­a­tion and violence.
With that said, black peo­ple com­mit­ted to chang­ing police aggres­sion toward them do not need a lec­ture from any­one, black, white or

pur­ple, cop, or not on black on black vio­lence. Blacks have a duty to fig­ure out their prob­lems, what­ev­er they are. What our com­mu­ni­ty does not need is to pay police Officers to kill our children.
Police offi­cers are employed and paid to inves­ti­gate crimes. When black crim­i­nals com­mit crimes they are arrest­ed and incar­cer­at­ed. In more instances than I care to dis­cuss, blacks are incar­cer­at­ed and exe­cut­ed even when they are inno­cent of the crimes they are accused of com­mit­ting. America’s pris­ons are brim­ming with black and brown men , over 65% of those locked up in America’s pris­ons are black and brown. Despite on a per-capi­ta whites com­mit more crimes than they do.

It is this dis­par­i­ty that has peo­ple of con­science up in arms about the con­tin­ued injus­tice in America. A spe­cial word of advise to the igno­rant blacks who par­rot the talk­ing points of igno­rant racist whites on this issue, go read a book, do some research before you open your stu­pid mouths or make moron­ic Youtube videos. You are stu­pid and you look stupid.
Go research what 400 years of Slavery, Chain-Gang, Jim-Crow,separate but equal, and exist­ing insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism has done to peo­ple of African ancestry. 

In a Bee colony the Queen lays eggs , mil­lions of them, this ensures that the specie con­tin­ue to exist.
Worker Bees gath­er pollen into the pollen bas­kets on their back legs, to car­ry back to the hive where it is used as food for the devel­op­ing brood. Pollen car­ried on their bod­ies may be car­ried to anoth­er flower where a small por­tion can rub off onto thepis­til, result­ing in cross pol­li­na­tion. Almost all of civ­i­liza­tion’s food sup­ply (maize is a note­wor­thy excep­tion) depends great­ly on crop pol­li­na­tion by hon­ey bees, whether direct­ly eat­en or used as for­age crops for ani­mals that pro­duce milk and meat. Nectar is sucked up through the pro­boscis, mixed with enzymes in the stom­ach, and car­ried back to the hive, where it is stored in wax cells and evap­o­rat­ed into hon­ey.
Drones, fig­u­ra­tive sense of ‘idler’ or ‘lazy work­er’, as male bees make no hon­ey, which is some­times giv­en as a folk ety­mol­o­gy of the word ‘drone’ itself.[Wikipedia]
In the great scheme of things there are those who do and there are those who don’t, at least the drones have the good sense to mate with the Queen. For you blacks who have no con­tri­bu­tion to make, even as you ben­e­fit from the strug­gles and sac­ri­fice of oth­ers, do every­one a favor and shut your stu­pid mouths.

Cops abuse and kill because States and munic­i­pal­i­ties want them to. Police are peo­ple, good peo­ple in many cas­es. Give the best guy/​girl a gun, badge , and unfet­tered pow­er and no need to account and you got a real prob­lem on your hands, their atti­tudes change, all of a sud­den the very peo­ple they are sworn to serve and pro­tect becomes their ene­my. Unworthy of respect, they become the big man, Gods even.
It’s not about the need for sup­port and some lee­way to do what we ask them to do . As we have seen over and over again states make extra effort to ensure when they kill they are not held accountable.
They kill as Agents of the state. They kill on behalf of the states. Eric Garner was mur­dered for what must have been the most infin­i­tes­i­mal white col­lar crime. Even if he was sell­ing un-taxed cig­a­rettes ‚(not proven) who was the vic­tim? Who was hurt?
I’ll tell you who, the State of New York was hurt. They are so des­per­ate for the few un-recov­ered pen­nies, it took sev­er­al well paid Thugs to kill Garner over those pennies.

States Legislators, Governors and oth­er offi­cials are heav­i­ly behold­en to Police Departments . Never mind what they say in pub­lic, cops know whose side they are on. Governors, Legislators and Mayors are large­ly white Caucasian male., The women they are more testos­terone laden than their male coun­ter­parts. Police abuse is going nowhere fast.
Anthony Baez was choked to death by Francis Livoti a tough-guy cop with mul­ti­ple com­plaints against him. Baez’s crime was a non-crime. His foot­ball struck a NYPD patrol car.
In sen­tenc­ing Livoti Judge Scheindlin issued a broad attack on the depart­men­t’s han­dling of Mr. Livoti’s case, and said that she had refrained from impos­ing an even greater sen­tence because the depart­ment shared some respon­si­bil­i­ty in Mr. Baez’s death. ”The Police

Department did Mr. Livoti and the peo­ple of this city a grave injus­tice when it per­mit­ted Mr. Livoti to remain on active patrol know­ing of his propen­si­ty toward vio­lence,” Judge Scheindlin said. ”There is no doubt in my mind that the depart­ment knew, or should have known, that Mr. Livoti was dan­ger­ous.” She said that nine ear­li­er police bru­tal­i­ty com­plaints against Mr. Livoti should have been enough ”to alert those in charge to the fact that Mr. Livoti should be off the streets, if not off the force.”
Francis Livoti was a pro­tégée and one of the poster child of Rudolph Giuliani’s dis­dain and dis­re­spect for black and brown res­i­dents of New York City. Anthony Baez and many oth­ers paid with their lives.

”The Police Department let him remain on the streets, know­ing that one day a real tragedy would occur,” she said.

State pro­ce­dures make it dif­fi­cult for cops to face a court of law. If police offi­cers do not have to face courts of law to account for their actions they become the law. They act that way, they say they are the law. Not enforcers of the law.
As black America and oth­ers take to the streets to protest , it is impor­tant to note that even as racism and dis­re­spect dri­ves many deci­sions police make to pull the trig­ger or oth­er­wise abuse blacks, they also do the same to whites.
It is impor­tant that whites rec­og­nize that even though police may be some­what less quick on the trig­ger on poor whites than they do peo­ple of col­or now. It is becom­ing more and more obvi­ous that pret­ty soon drunk with unmit­i­gat­ed pow­er they too will be killed with equal alacrity.
The peo­ple who draft leg­is­la­tion and those who sign them into laws are mere cor­po­rate tools. They are picked and placed by cor­po­rate oli­garchs to car­ry out their dictates.
Those dic­tates do not line up with that of the 99%..
Prisons have to be filled, cor­po­rate pup­peteers who run them are suing states because they are sup­pos­ed­ly los­ing mon­ey from too many emp­ty jail cells. Look around you , yes you , in your state they will be build­ing more pris­ons, while they close schools.
We are all in this togeth­er, black, white, yel­low brown, the soon­er we rec­og­nize this the better.