Rochester, N.Y. Police Chief La’Ron Singletary has resigned after a week of sustained protests over the March extrajudicial killing of Daniel Prude.
Singletary, who is Black, had received calls for his resignation after Prude’s family released body camera footage of his death last week. Prude was detained by police on March 22 after his brother called for a wellness check for his sibling, who had mental health issues. Responding to the call, Rochester police placed a spit hood over the distressed and unarmed man, pinning him to the ground in a chain of events that caused Prude to lose consciousness. He died in a hospital a week after the encounter.
But Singletary doesn’t appear to be bowing to the will of protesters, who have accused the police department and city government of covering up Prude’s death (there have also been calls for Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren to step down). According to a resignation letter obtained by WHAM-TV, Singletary’s quitting the job appears to be a protest in and of its own: As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character. The events over the past week are an attempt to destroy my character and integrity. The members of the Rochester Police Department and the Greater Rochester Community know my reputation and know what I stand for. The mischaracterization and the politicization of the actions that I took after being informed of Mr. Prude’s death is not based on facts, and is not what I stand for.
According to reporters who were watching the press conference, including BuzzFeed’s Paul McLeod, Rochester’s entire command staff has also stepped down. The resignations also come just three days after New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced a grand jury would review Prude’s case, reports the New York Times. There has also been disagreement about how much was communicated between Singletary and Mayor Warren in the immediate aftermath of Prude’s killing.
According to WHAM, Warren said she didn’t know the full details of Prude’s death, and that she had been told he died of a drug overdose. During a news conference last week, Warren said it wasn’t until August 4 that she saw footage of police arresting Prude. Singletary said he called Warren on March 23 to alert her of the incident, and that a criminal and internal investigation was underway.
Since Prude’s death has come to light, Warren has ordered that video of any in-custody death be released within 24 hours. On Tuesday, Mayor Warren said the search has begun to find an interim police chief. It is unclear who will be in charge during tonight’s scheduled protests.[from the root]
Social media platforms like Facebook are now basically troll farms for right-wing lies and propaganda; their aim is obviously to (a) discredit the Black Lives Matter Movement, & (b) show that Black protesters are not exactly protesters, but violent extremists who want to destroy America. Of course, neither is true, but as we learn as we go along, there is nothing that white supremacists will not do, including committing murder and arson, to maintain and retain white supremacy. In many cases, the so-called Black anarchists covered up in black gear from head to toe, are not Black people at all, but far-right terrorist white supremacists. In particular, on Facebook, they are obvious; they use false accounts to create pro-police groups. Through their “back the blue campaign,” this creates a false, illusory effect that has fooled some cops into believing that they are real allies. That they are pro-police, when in fact they are dangerous domestic terrorists. The truth of the matter is that as police Departments continue to react with incredible violence toward genuine protesters, instead of fixing their departments, white, right-wing terrorists are allowed to commit crimes, sometimes in the presence of police, and walk away.
According to Ryan Devereux of the [Intercept], [a cache of law enforcement materials was recently hacked and posted online under the title “BlueLeaks,” providing an unprecedented look at the communications between state, local, and federal law enforcement in the face of the nationwide protests. In an analysis of nearly 300 documents that reference “Antifa,” The Intercept found repeated instances of Antifa and left-wing protesting activities cast in cartoonishly grim terms alongside more substantive reports of lethal right-wing violence and threats that have received scant mention from top Trump administration officials.] Even though American Law enforcement agencies knew that the portrayal of Black protesters in a light that depicts them as terrorists were false, those agencies remained silent, even as Donald Trump&William Barr painted a fake & fraudulent narrative. Law enforcement officers across the country were sharing detailed reports of far-right extremists seeking to attack the protesters and police during the country’s historic demonstrations, a trove of newly leaked documents reveals, according to the same reporting.
They flood Facebook posts that show police beating up genuine BLM protesters with pro-police propaganda; they use the most vitriolic and insidious comments to describe Black protesters and demand that police not only further abuse the protesters but kill them. On the ground, far-right gun-toting white militias supposedly supporting police, are allowed to roam the streets of cities all across the country. In contrast, the very same police brutalize genuine protesters against police violence. In case after case, police stand by and watch as heavily armed militia members assault and intimidate unarmed protesters. It has now become clear that demarcation lines, [to the extent that one existed], between Police and white supremacist groups, have all but disappeared. There is no pretense anymore. For those reasons, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old, could cross state lines from Illinois into Wisconsin, where he killed two people and seriously injured one other under the pretext that he was there to protect Wisconsin’s businesses. Kyle Rittenhouse was not old enough to have the weapon he had, but that did not matter to the police who greeted Rittenhouse and other Militia ‑members, as they handed out bottles of water to them and thanked him for being there. (Yup, backing the Blue).
The infamous Umbrella man, Branden Michael Wolfe, has been linked to white Supremacy, even though he pretended to be a member of Antifa, a group that is more myth than reality. According to Law enforcement, there is really no Organization know as Antifa; in fact, the group’s name is an acronym for the words Anti-Fascists. Therefore, it follows that Donald Trump and his lapdog minions like the Florida Drunk Matt Gaetz would demonize this group and label them domestic terrorists. One Pro-Police website describes Antifa this way. Antifa, short for anti-fascist or Anti-Fascism Action, is a radical far-left-leaning political movement, made up of mostly autonomous groups spread throughout the United States. The movement has ties to anarchism, other radical left groups like By Any Means Necessary, and is known for its militant presence at protests. Some of the better known, loosely organized Antifa groups include Torch Antifa, Antifa Sacramento, and NYC Antifa. Fas.org summed up Antifa this way.
The U.S. Antifa movement appears to be decentralized, consisting of independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals. It“s tenets can echo the principles of anarchism, socialism, and communism. Members do not necessarily adhere to just the tenets of these philosophies, however. Among many other things, they may also support environmentalism, indigenous populations’ rights, and gay rights.
Headline after headline blared out the facts police knew that the man breaking store windows and setting fire to stores was actually a white supremacist trying to stoke a race war, but that was not the narrative that Donald Trump and William Barr wanted into the public domain. According to the Star Tribune, a masked man who was seen in a viral video smashing the windows of a south Minneapolis auto parts store during the George Floyd protests, earning him the moniker “Umbrella Man,” is suspected of ties with a white supremacist group and sought to incite racial tension, police said. A Minneapolis police arson investigator said the act of vandalism at the AutoZone on E. Lake Street helped spark a chain reaction that led to days of looting and rioting. The store was among dozens of buildings across the city that burned to the ground in the days that followed. “This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city,” Sgt. Erika Christensen wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in court this week. “Until the actions of the person, your affiant has been calling ‘Umbrella Man,’ the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual’s sole aim was to incite violence.”
The foregone is only a couple of instances of that gaslighting that Trump, his personal Attorney/Attorney General William Barr, and other right-wing demagogues feed the public about these events. Given a completely free hand, Donald Trump and William Barr would have police across America hunt down and destroy innocent Black Americans who demonstrate justice and respectability while ignoring the real and present danger white Militias pose to the Republic. Remarkably the lies and disinformation seeps right into the minds of the throngs of uneducated, low information people who support Donald Trump and hate Black people. They argue continually that Black black crimes are a far greater threat to Black people than Police killing Black people. Unfortunately, some ignorant Blacks also fall victim to that narrative because they have been victims of Black on Black crime somehow.
So let us look at the facts, when Black people kill other Blacks, they go to prison. The Jails and prisons are filled with them; they do not get paid vacation. Blacks kill blacks 90% of the time, according to research data. Whites kill whites 82% of the time as well. What that shows is that people kill who they are around. When the consequences of slavery and the social construct of Jim crow and government institutionalized racism is considered, it is small wonder that Black people are not walking around stark raving mad. Yet, what the imbecilic Donald Trump and some of his minions like Rudolph Giuliani would have you believe, is that Black People Killing Black people is our real problem. Still, police murdering our children, our brothers and sisters are quite okay. People can abuse us and take advantage of us when we are ignorant of what is happening around us. For those reasons, during slavery, our enslaved forebearers were not allowed to read or be privy to any information. The Slavers understood that an informed person could not be a slave. Asked what the greatest threat to the American system was, the racist FBI director J Edgar Hoover who abused every power he was given, replied, ” a unified black race.”
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog mikebeckles.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast, all free to you, of course.
Well, there are no surprises here, the Jamaica Labor party has won the general elections. [Duh] Days ago I wrote explaining why the elections were the JLP’s to lose. I will not relitigate those points sufficing to say that it did not require a soothsayer to see that (a) the JLP had performed admirably in some areas and (b) that younger Jamaicans are far less cultish than older Jamaicans.
https://mikebeckles.com/jamaicas-political-dynasties-not-good-for-democracy/ I am particularly enthused by that regardless of who wins these days. Despite the many challenges that our country faces, I am still a firm believer in the young people who continue to show maturity on political issues, including not allowing anyone to use them to kill political opponents. I would like to commend former police officer Newton Amos who vowed to send Robert Pickersgill a long time PNPMP for the North West St Catherine constituency into retirement and have seemingly done just that. Amos, I believe may have been the first former police officer to enter representational politics since the former Assistant commissioner Owen Stephenson did for the JLP decades ago.
I will not gloat about this monumental thrashing that the PNP was given on Thursday, September 3rd, much of what I believed would be the undoing of the People’s National Party(PNP) I have already said in previous articles. Sufficing to say, though the governing (JLP) Jamaica Labor Party is far from perfect and there are some destructively arrogant members in that party who should not be there, the Prime Minister and some of his ministers had performed credibly well enough get a second term. Delroy Chuch should have lost his seat, he does not belong in the party of Bustamante, he is a Socialist who wants to turn criminals back onto the streets as soon as they are arrested. It was good to see that despite the landslide win, Kent Phillip Gammon was not elected to Gordon House. He is an extremely arrogant person that should never be allowed in parliament.
PNPSTILL DOESN’T GETIT
Now I would offer a brief synopsis of a post mortem that I believe the People’s National Party would be well advised to follow. If I understand my Jamaican people correctly, especially some of those who got indoctrinated at the intellectual ghetto, they will simply double down on stupid. So be it. (1) You can say what you want about the younger generation but I have always had much respect and love for the younger generation, they are far from perfect but at least they learned that killing their neighbors over politics is inherently stupid. Okay, so they kill their neighbor over another thing so what the hell are you talking about Mike? Well, we simply have to get to the root of the other reasons and address them and they will stop killing for those reasons, but for now, we are talking about political killings.
You can say Jumeka a PNP country all you want. This map begs to differ. (Map may not adequately depict the true outcome of the 2020 elections.
(2) The PNP believes it’s own nonsensical press: *Jumeka a PNP kuntry* The above map begs to differ. Jamaicans do not want to go back to the 1970s. I wrote months ago that I found it startling after their loss in 2016, the PNP still clung to the old appendages of the 1970s, Beret-wearing,clenched-fists, referring to each other as *comrades*, and worse exhuming Michael Manley’s ghost to talk about the 1970s. In a tragic case of Déjà vu, the PNP harkened back to its so-called glory days, and the electorate handed them an identical ass-whopping as the one they gave to them in 1980.
Michael Manley
(3) What nonsense, I wrote, Michael Manley’s completed a raft of social initiatives, as a nation we are forever indebted to him for his vision and foresight in his fight and contribution to the cause of social justice in our country. But by and large Micahel Manley’s eight-year tenure between 1972 & 1980 was a disaster for our country’s economy and the Jamaican people made it clear they were having no more of it. Michael Manley was booted from office in a 51 to 9 seat drubbing in the then 60 seat legislature by the JLP, under the leadership of Edward Seaga. In a weird way, the social media strategy seemed to be centered on Manley’s past populism, of course, Peter Phillips the party’s leader has the charm and charisma of a rock, so I kinda understood the need to generate some excitement. But Michael Manley has been dead since 1997.
Voters are smarter today in what they expect to see happen by their elected officials. You can not send Damion Crawford out days before election day to promise free college tuition. You can’t declare days before the elections that you are going to pay people’s electricity bills and expect to be taken seriously. The Jamaican voters know that all of those things must be paid for. A government cannot give freebies away to citizens and we still maintain a country. No longer will the deception and the lies fool voters anymore. Finally, Jamaicans are free-spirited people. We do not want ideology, we do not like ideology. As long as the PNP continues to act as an outdated Latin-American Marxist-Communist Party, it will be outside looking into Jamaica-house like the rest of us.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog mikebeckles.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
In the year 2,000, with all of the nonsense that was floating around that all computers would crash, airplanes would drop from the sky, and for all intents and purposes, an end to the world as we knew it, there were national elections between Al Gore representing the Democratic party and George W Bush of the Republican party. Al Gore was the former Vice President who has just served eight years in the Bill Clinton administration, he was hoping to be elected president as a consequence of all of the great things that occurred on their watch. The internet came on stream for many Americans, Silicone valley had created tens of millions of jobs, with that came more millionaires than at any other time in the nation’s history.
Additionally, the country was not entangled in any major wars overseas. In a sense, the Clinton Presidency, (though many will disagree on certain specifics), was a period of peace and prosperity for the country. If of course, you are able to set aside the disgusting chapter of Republican presidential harassment that continued unabated for the eight years of Bill Clinton’s Presidency. That is not to say that Clinton did nothing wrong insofar as Monica Lewinsky was concerned, but all of that pales in comparison to what is happening in the white house today.
George Bush
George W Bush was a Texas Governor, the son of former Republican one-term president, & Ronald Reagan’s Vice President Herbert Walker Bush. It was an election tailor-made for Al Gore to easily win, the country was experiencing a period of prosperity and there were no major overseas wars. Sure, Republicans in the congress under Newt Gingrich’s leadership had made life hell for Bill Clinton, but none of that could have rubbed off on Al Gore who had conducted himself with precision-like decorum and statesmanship. So why did it come down to Florida on election night of 2,000? Al Gore had done more than enough to distance himself from Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal, he had even gone so far as to proclaim,*“I am my own man”*, in an effort to establish himself as an independent entity, free from whatever negative that could be attached to Bill Clinton his former boss.
At the time, I personally thought Gore’s strategy was the exact opposite of what he needed to do. I believed he needed to hug Bill Clinton as tightly as possible and talk about the great things they had accomplished together for the country. I also thought that Gore should have gone after the Republicans with a scorched earth attack for their use of Kenneth Star, in what was an unprecedented abuse of the *independent counsel *process. The new Democratic party never seem to be able to use the gifts that Republicans give to them to win elections. So in 2,000, it came down to Florida, a state which had a Republican Governor, Jeb Bush who was the younger brother of George Bush, the man he was up against for the presidency of the United States.
Al Gore
Al Gore went the other direction, in the process, creating as much space as he thought was needed to put distance between himself, and the still wildly popular Democratic President Bill Clinton.….…..until it became clear that his strategy was not working. By the time Al Gore began embracing Bill Clinton and Clinton was asked to appear at campaign events, the horse was already through the gate. According to Gallup Clinton’s approval ratings soared to 76% after the Senate rejected articles of impeachment against the president. By the time Clinton left office, he was still at an admirable 62% approval rating and was the first president to demit office with such high approval since Harry Truman.
The Atlantic’s Ena Alvarado-Esteller, David A. Graham, and Amy Weiss-Meyer wrote: By the end of the night, Gore held a lead over Bush in the national popular vote, which he would never lose, but the contest in the Electoral College was tight, and it all came down to Florida. The election, both campaigns understood, was far from over. Leading up to the election, polls had indicated that the race between Bush and Gore would be close, with an especially slim margin in several key states. Potentially affecting the outcome were two other candidates: Ralph Nader, of the left-wing Green Party, and Pat Buchanan, of the right-wing Reform Party On Election Day, a number of counties in Florida reported problems. A confusing ballot — the so-called butterfly ballot — in Palm Beach County prompted thousands of voters to cast their ballot unwittingly for Buchanan. Ballots in Duval County also caused confusion; some 22,000 votes there were disqualified because voters chose more than one candidate. The punch-card apparatus used elsewhere in the state sometimes failed to punch out a hole completely, meaning that the machine would not record a ballot choice. (The Atlantic)
Hillary Clinton
David Boies (Gore lawyer): I was in a sports bar across the street from the Governor’s Inn, in Tallahassee. I had been in the office and had spoken to Vice President Gore. We were all very happy. The votes were being counted. He was steadily gaining on Governor Bush. My work was essentially done, and I was going home. They had all these television screens, and a crawler came across that said the Supreme Court had issued an order stopping the vote count. My initial reaction was that this had to be a mistake. There had not been an opportunity to brief or argue the case. There were substantial issues as to whether there was really a federal question involved. The Supreme Court had never intervened in a presidential election to affect the counting of the votes in a state. (The Atlantic). Oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court took place on Monday, December 11. The hastily written opinions, which added up to a 5 – 4 reversal of the Florida court, were made public at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, December 12. Even supporters of the outcome acknowledged that the decision did not reflect the Court at its best. In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens famously wrote: “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.” On Wednesday, December 13, Al Gore conceded defeat. Oh, how prophetic have John Paul Steven’s words turned out to be since then, in the many jaw-dropping decision the supreme court has made since them, including Citizens United & Shelby County Alabama vs Holder.
U.S. President Obama
This essence of this article nevertheless is not to highlight the damage that the supreme court continue to do to American democracy. Though George Bush was elevated to the presidency under the darkest cloud of suspicion, by 2004 after the events of September 11th, 2001 all of the anger was gone. George Bush had gained the presidency under questionable circumstances, aided by Republican operatives in the Florida machinery and Republican tools on the nation’s highest court. Despite that and Bush’s ensuing incompetence at the job, the events of September 11th were enough for George Bush to be re-elected as a wartime president. By the time Bush left office in 2,000, he had the dubious distinction of being one of the worst presidents ever. He had the nation engaged in two major wars. An arguable legal incursion into Afghanistan, where the American military is still stuck today almost twenty years later and an illegal war waged in Iraq, that should subject the American Government to war crimes in the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Of course, the United States is not subject to the jurisdiction of the International world court it was instrumental in creating and using to justifying the trial and incarceration of supposed German war criminals. The United States set itself up above International laws. Today the US Secretary of state Mike Pompeo wants to use his powers to level sanctions against officials of the world court, for supposedly trying to bring America under the jurisdiction of the international tribunal. It is a disgraceful case of hypocrisy and abuse of power by the United States under Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Fast forward to 2016 and Donald Trump was the Republican standard-bearer having vanquished all of his party’s other candidates. Hillary Clinton won that election by over three million votes(3,000,000.00+), yet because of the convoluted process known as the Electoral College, and arguable, significant help from the Russian Government, as confirmed by the United States Intelligence Agencies, Donald Trump, a colossally ignorant showman, was given the presidency. From day one of the announcement that Trump would be the 45th president of the United States there were protests and demonstrations against it. People had legitimate reasons to conclude that Trump was a Putin stooge. We are in 2020, and there is a presidential election due come November.
Donald Trump’s failings and disregard for American laws are far too many to mention. Yet Joe Biden is merely a few percentage points ahead of Trump in the so-called battleground states. What does it say about the voting public’s intellect, or does party trump country? If this was an electorate with Christian values as they proclaim to be, there is no way that a tax-cheat, who failed at every business, who divorced his first wife because she wasn’t young anymore, who had unprotected sex with a hooker after his present wife had just given birth to their son. This is a man who ran a false charity that bilked people so that he could purchase overpriced portraits of himself. A man who dismisses women as thrash and talks about *grabbing them by the pussy*[sic]. His list of failings is compounded by the damage done to America’s alliances abroad, and his trampling on the nation’s laws. In addition to that, he sat by and declared that COVID-19 would simply disappear. Today we are close to 200, 000 Americans-dead from the pandemic, and almost five million testings positive.
A man who denounces Muslim as evil but declares murderous white supremacists,*fine people*. Because of the high rate of infection and the continuing spread of COVID-19, Donald Trump has done everything in his power to slow down testing for the virus. Children of people seeking refuge are still warehoused in mammoth Federal facilities where they are locked in cages, away from their parents. He has all but destroyed the burning hot economy President Barack Obama gave to him in January of 2017. This seems to fit the recurring theme for Republicans. Their policies of giving tax cuts to their rich contributors, while burdening the poor with paying for it, has basically destroyed the American middle-class and created an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. Democrats get voted in to fix the mess, then the voters turn right around and put the destructive Republicans back into office. What does this say about the electorate?
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog mikebeckles.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
It should come as no surprise to anyone, that Prosecutors would do all in their power to smear a Black person murdered by police, that is par for the course. And as a consequence, no person of any moral certitude is surprised by the revelation of Jamarcus Glover’s attorney that prosecutors offered a plea deal to Breonna Taylor’s ex-boyfriend mister Glover which required him to implicate the deceased Ms. Taylor as a part of his drug-dealing even after police had murdered her in her own home. When we talk about the level of lies and deceit, the complex web of collusion within the American so-called criminal justice system, no matter how much we reveal, it does not begin to scratch the surface of the insidious racism of these people.
Jamarcus Glover turned the plea-deal down. Nevertheless, Glover was arrested the same night Taylor was killed, in a separate raid on an alleged drug house about 10 miles away. Police say they “recovered approximately 119.032 grams (4.2 ounces) of cocaine and over 10 dosage units of opiates,” according to court records. Glover’s attorney, Scott Barton, told NPR that as part of a lengthy plea negotiation, the Jefferson Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office offered Glover a deal that included naming Taylor as a member of his “organized crime syndicate.” Barton said that he no longer has a copy of the initial plea offer but that his client “immediately rejected anything with her name in it.” “He felt terrible about the whole thing. That’s not a secret. And, you know, any type of plea that had her involved in any way was not going to be acceptable to him,” Barton said (NPR reported).
WDRB-TV in Louisville reported that the July 13 plea offer listed Taylor as a “co-defendant” of Glover’s, even though she had been dead four months. The deal required Glover to acknowledge that he, Taylor, and others engaged in organized crime by trafficking large amounts of drugs “into the Louisville community.” Had Glover accepted the deal, the station reported, Glover could have seen his 10-year prison sentence drop to only probation. Such is the level of duplicity & lies that prosecutors are prepared to engage in to cover the asses of police who murder Black people. Even with the technological advancements today that allows the eyes of the world to be trained on these mostly white counties across America, and despite all that is happening in major cities as well, Prosecutors continue to engage in criminality and unethical lying and other crimes to cover for police, despite drawing a salary from the public.
Legal experts say the officers involved in Taylor’s shooting – Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly and officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove – certainly can be arrested. Prosecutors wield tremendous discretion in their decisions to bring charges, and “probable cause,” the legal standard of proof needed for an arrest is “an exceedingly low bar”, said Colin Miller, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law researching the Kentucky criminal code on behalf of lawyers representing Taylor’s family. “If you have a shooting death, it’s going to be pretty difficult to argue you can’t at least charge some type of crime in that case, whether it be endangerment manslaughter or murder.”
This is the kind of reprehensible corruption that African-Americans have suffered under from public officials who have a duty to be fair and just. Instead, these irredeemably corrupt white officials continue on, despite the cries against inherent racism and police violence. The sad irony in this latest despicable iteration of America’s racist justice system, is that even if Breonna Taylor was involved in drug dealing, would the monsters who broke her door down be justified in putting eight bullets (8) in her body, and dozens more into her apartment? The answer is no! The calls to defund the police seem rather radical to white people, even among those who are supposedly less racist, (As if there is such a thing). Unfortunately, the calls to defund the police do not go nearly far enough. The entire criminal justice system is a farce that preys on Black citizens and protects whites. I am ashamed to admit that in utter ignorance, I once admired this monstrous ignobility.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Jamaicans go to the polls on Thursday morning to choose the political party that will lead the country for the next five years. Jamaica’s parliamentary system is closely similar to its old colonial master’s system, voters in designated constituencies chose a member of parliament from the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), the People’s National Party (PNP), or from the other peripheral disorganized parties that say they are in the runnings, none of which has been able to secure a seat in the nation’s 63 seat legislature. Depending on the party that wins the most seats in the legislature, that party is asked by the (Governor-General) the Queen’s representative, to form the next Government. Don’t look at me, I have nothing to do with Jamaica’s decision to continue maintaining a costly Governor-General, or worse, having the Queen of England, as a titular head of our Government. Stockholm syndrome? Your guess is as good as mine.
On the ballot, tomorrow is a range of issues that plague Jamaica, as they plague other larger more powerful nations. Crime and violence. Poverty. COVID-19, and a host of social problems that will always be a part of the political and social landscape. I believe that objectively, the present Administration of the JLP led by the Young Andrew Holness has done a somewhat admirable job. At the same time, I want to quickly juxtapose the Prime Minister and his Government’s performance with a slew of failings that should never have occurred. For example the slew of corruption scandals than came to define the party that members of his cabinet and others within the party engaged in. None of this should have happened, and it is not good enough to say, “the PNP did it too’. Either you are better and a credible alternative, or you are not.
I still believe this is an election for the JLP to lose. The nation’s COVID response under the Prime Minister and Health Minister Christopher Tufton has been one of the most forward-leaning anywhere in the world. That the infection rate is on the rise in the country, cannot credibly be laid at the feet of the Government, it belongs squarely in the column of the lawlessness that has characterized far too many of the Jamaican people. This administration, like past PNP administrations, has not done a credible job of getting to the root of the gangs, and by extension, the gang-violence that emanates from that failure. This ultimately drives the murder rate and other violent and brazen crimes in our country. If the JLP loses this election tomorrow night, [which I doubt it will] its post mortem examination will not reflect that it is because Peter Phillips and the PNP promised Jamaicans to pay everyone’s light bill, at a time when his party can hardly keep the lights on at party headquarters. Nor will it be from the litany of lies they have told in order to be once again given the reins of power, neither will it be that they promised all things free to all people. It most assuredly is the Government’s marginalizing of the police. The corruption that plagued the administration and the increasing levels of murders that continue to go unsolved.
This election is critical for the two parties, if the JLP loses the election it will solidify the narrative that some of the more radical elements on the PNP’s far left has used for a couple of decades now. That narrative says that the JLP is a filler party that is voted in, only when the people are tired of the PNP and needs a break. The general idea is that the Jamaican people do not trust to give the JLP more than one term in office. This narrative started after the JLP’s Edward Seaga called a snap election in 1983, a mere three years after taking office in 1980. In the 1980 elections, Seaga & the JLP swept into power on a 51 – 9 seat majority. At the time the legislature had a total of (60) seats as opposed to the sixty-three (63) that exists today. The PNP did not contest the snap elections of 1983, it chose not to, because it knew it would be humiliated once again at the polls. Instead, it chose to label the JLP a bogus Government. Slander, and hyperbole over fidelity to duty.
Nevertheless, by 1988 the very same Michael Manley who was swept out of office on a tsunami of dissent, was back in office when all of the votes were counted.….… or more like when the ballot box stuffing was over in the plethora of PNP garrisons across the country, in which there are generally tens of thousands more votes cast for the PNP, than there were people living in the constituencies. Such is Jamaican politics, both parties have systematically engaged in these practices, the PNP has always been much better at it. Michael Manley stayed on as Prime Minister until he was forced to demit office before his term ended due to ill-health. His then Deputy Percival James Patterson took over and the demise and destruction of our country were complete. Despite Patterson, Portia Simpson Miller, and the PNP’s ineptitude, gross corruption, and incomprehensible incompetence and graft, the JLP was only returned to office in 2007. The JLP’s Bruce Golding formed the new JLP administration but Golding was forced to himself demit office over the Christopher Duddus scandal known more as the Mannat Phelps and Phillips scandal.
A young Andrew Holness took over as Prime Minister after Golding left, and he sought to get his own mandate but it was not to be.….. at least not yet. The people soured on Golding’s handling of the Mannat Phelps and Phillips scandal, and so they turned to the disjointed, out of ideas PNP, and an even more hopeless Portia Simpson Miller, whose claim to fame is populism and longevity in her party and nothing more. On the 5th of January 2012, Portia Simpson Miller was sworn in as Prime Minister of Jamaica defeating Andrew Holness, who was forced to start over and cultivate and create his own bona fides. Simpson miller herself had taken over as Prime Minister from P J Patterson on the 30th of March 2005, she was defeated at the polls by the Bruce Golding led JLP. Nevertheless, by March 3rd of 2016, Andrew Michael Holness was once again the Prime Minister of Jamaica. Not since Edward Seaga led the JLP to a resounding victory at the polls in 1980, have the JLP been elected to two consecutive terms in office. If Andrew Holness can pull off a win tomorrow that monkey will forever be off the back of the JLP. If he loses, it will be because of the scandals that occurred on his watch and that’s it. If on the other hand, the PNP’s Peter Phillips fails to lead his party to a victory, he will be the only leader of the PNP in its history not to have been elected Prime Minister, assuming that he realizes that it is his time to go and allow younger leaders to develop.
This article has been updated to more accurately speak to Dr. Phillip’s role as party leader.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer,he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog mikebeckles.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
A 31-year-old Black man was killed by Louisiana police on Friday night while attempting to walk away from officers following an altercation at a convenience store.
Trayford Pellerin was pronounced dead at a local hospital after being struck by officer gunfire. Investigators said Lafayette police had been called to the scene following a disturbance at a convenience store along Evangeline Thruway and encountered Pellerin, who was carrying a knife
Pellerin was unaffected when police used tasers on him, the Louisiana State Police, which is investigating the shooting, said in a statement.
Footage of part of the incident, which circulated on social media, shows Pellerin walking away from at least four officers on foot, with their guns drawn, while other officers trailed in vehicles.
After a pursuit on foot, in which Pellerin has his back to officers, he approaches the doors of a second convenience store. The officers, who are only feet away, then shoot — firing at least 10 shots as heard on video — and kill him.
A state police spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the investigation is ongoing and did not provide further details.
“Once again, video footage has captured a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally killed in front of our eyes,” said Alanah Odoms Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. “While we need to know much more about what occurred last night, we know that it began with a routine ‘disturbance’ call and cell phone video from the scene clearly shows Mr. Pellerin moving away — not towards — police officers, only to be tased and then brutally shot dead.”
The Acadiana Advocate in Lafayette reported that this is the third time a Lafayette Police Department officer shot someone in the past five weeks. LPD interim police chief Scott Morgan told the outlet that the officers involved would be placed on paid leave, pending an investigation. His department has also turned over the investigation to state police.
Pellerin’s death comes amid a national reckoning over the use of police violence against Black people. Since the May killing of George Floyd, millions have taken to the streets in protest of racial injustice and the uneven use of police force against Black people and other minorities.
Local organizers have organized a protest over Pellerin’s death on Saturday in Lafayette.
“Trayford Pellerin should be alive today,” Odoms Herbert said. “Instead, a family is mourning and a community is grieving.”
Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum died in Kenosha Wisconsin at the hands of a deranged white supremacist who was only 17 years old. Huber, 26, and Rosenbaum, 36, died on Tuesday night after they were fatally shot while protesting in Kenosha, according to friends and family. Video from the scene that has since gone viral shows several protestors, including one carrying a skateboard, attempting to take down an armed man. According to Huber’s girlfriend Hannah Gittings, the man with the skateboard in the video was her boyfriend. “He was one of the most amazing people,” she said during a vigil on Wednesday night, The Chicago Sun-Times reported. “He had so much love in his heart for this city … he took down an armed gunman with nothing but his f — — - skateboard, and he took that f — — - bullet.”
Rosenbaum’s sister also spoke at the vigil, saying that her brother was originally from Waco, Texas, but stayed in Wisconsin to be close to his 2‑year-old daughter, The Chicago-Sun-Times reported. “He loved his daughter very much,” she said. A GoFundMe was also created in Rosenbaum’s name, though his sister discouraged donors from contributing because family members “have expenses covered” and “don’t need a GoFundMe page.”(people.com, reported)
These two young white men gave their lives for a cause to which they did not need to. They were both white and male, two critical factors when it comes to the toxic white supremacist culture that pervades America. Nevertheless, they braved being beaten by police, shot with rubber bullets, suffocated with gas, and in the end, they were killed by people the police gave water to and thanked for being there.
This is what is happening in America in 2020. This is what the world needs to see. these two heroes gave their lives for a cause greater than themselves. A cause greater than America itself, the cause of justice and equality. This publication honors their sacrifice.
These are representatives of the Gestapo who are enforcing laws in America.
If you ever wondered why a police officer Rusten Sheskey, would feel at liberty to put seven bullets into the back of Jacob Blake in Kenosha County Wisconsin at point-blank range, please watch this video of the County Sheriff [David Beth] less than two years ago, in response to an incident including 5 African-Americans teens who were charged with stealing from the Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets and leading deputies on a chase that ended with a crash. It is important to reconcile as you view the video, that no one was killed, in fact, no one was physically hurt from the teen’s escapade, though there should be no excuse for what they did. (As we know white teens do not commit crimes). “They just need to disappear.” Said[David Beth]. Beth wanted the teens to simply disappear, whatever that means, I guess it is up to officers in Kenosha county to decide if errant teens disappear in each individual case.(I suppose if they are black we all know what happens to them).So when they encounter black teens who have committed the unforgivable sin of theft and fleeing they should all disappear. He then tried to clean up his piehole-full of racist gibberish, by suggesting that they should be warehoused for the remainder of their lives. David Beth later apologized for his statements, but there is nothing more revealing of a person’s character, or lack thereof, and their true feelings that their spoken words.
What makes this imbecile David Beth, even more reprehensible, if that is at all possible, is that after Kyle Rittenhouse the 17-year-old white vigilante, murdered two people and shot another in the arm almost ripping it clear off. The very same piece of garbage Sheriff David Beth, blamed the victims: “If they did not break the curfew none of this would have happened”. David Beth also made excuses for the cops who allowed the 17-year-old white terrorist to simply walk right past them after he strolled up to their vehicles arms raised with the rifle he had just murdered two people with slung across his chest. The murderous punk was all chummy with police. This is a trend across America, heavily armed white supremacists and police are almost indistinguishable. Not just in the way they are dressed, but in the way they are chummy together.
Kyle Rittenhouse walks with another vigilante in Kenosha before murdering two people. (Getty Image)
The domestic terrorists are allowed to attack innocent demonstrators, while their colleagues in blue do nothing. Even when they assault demonstrators their colleagues in blue arrest and further brutalize the victims of their assault. Kyle Rittenhouse was given bottled water by his colleagues in what looked somewhat like an MRAP vehicle, a cop on the vehicle thanked the would-be murderer profusely for being there, moments before he snuffed out two lives, and permanently altered several others.
Kyle Rittenhouse walks towards police vehicles arms raised after killing two people, police did not tackle him to the ground, they did not fire a single bullet at the murderer, he simply was allowed to walk past them and leave the state. Not a single shot was fired.
He was allowed to pass and go home to the state of Illinois from which he had traveled to commit murder, even though people at the scene repeatedly told police he had just killed two people. Kyle Rittenhouse walked towards police vehicles, arms raised after killing two people. Police did not tackle him to the ground, they dd not fire a single bullet at the murderer, he simply was allowed to walk past them and leave the state. Not a single shot was fired, even though protesters on the scene yelled at police, telling them that Rittenhouse had just murdered two people and seriously wounded another.
Just in case you ever wondered where the blatant impunity to use force including deadly force on African-Americans comes from, might I remind you it comes from the very top. The moron in chief supports white supremacy, the right-wing supreme court support white supremacy, lower court judges and prosecutors as well. It is a deeply entrenched culture. Immediately after the cop pumped seven bullets into the back of Jacob Blake the Wisconsin attorney general took to the microphones to say that Jacob Blake was near a knife when the shooting took place, but would not say if Blake was carrying the knife when he was shot.
Josh Kaul Wisconsin AG
He would never have made that statement about an incident involving someone white. But what the (State Attorney)Josh Kaul, did was to remove himself as the people’s lawyer and make himself the spokesperson for Rusten Sheskey, the cop who put seven holes into the back of Jacob Blake. Without skipping a beat, Josh Kaul did two things,(a) he made himself the spokesperson for Rusten Sheskey by his words, and (b) he gave the defense a talking point in the event that Rusten Shenskey is to be held accountable for his crimes.
(George Barnhill) “We are livid that he even attempted to taint this case with his rancid opinion about why this is justifiable,” Lee Merritt the Arbery family Attorney said.
The statements coming from the mouths of Josh Kaul are in line with the narrative coming from law enforcement, prosecutors, and even members of the judiciary. We mention these particular groups outside of the general racism that exists on the political right. These groups have the ability to seriously impact and even take life. Prosecutors in Georgia around the area that Ahmaud Arbery was slaughtered did all they could to bury the crimes of the father and son team who took it upon themselves to murder him. One Prosecutor George Barnhill wrote to a Police Captain Tom Jump, with potential arrest jurisdiction detailing why Travis and Greg McMichael should not face criminal charges“. Breonna Taylor was murdered in her own home by cops who had no right to ever have entered her home. She was shot eight times and still, not a single cop has been held accountable for her murder. Investigators and prosecutors are simply waiting for the protest to die down and everyone forgets to announce that they investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing. Welcome to America, where a police department is investigated by another police department in the same county or state and we are told that the results are fair and impartial.
And just in case you are wondering, this is an alleged image of him, circled in white.
It appears Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and William Bryan were following in “hot pursuit of a burglary suspect with solid first-hand probable cause,” Barnhill wrote. “Arbery initiated the fight. … At that point, Arbery grabbed the shotgun (that Travis McMichael was holding). Under Georgia law, McMichael was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself.” Another instance of a white prosecutor paid by the people, including the black community’s tax dollars, inserting himself into an investigation and asserting a defense to the criminal assailants benefit against a Black victim. The whole system is rotten to the core, at all levels of the American Criminal Justice system Racism is a cancerous cyst that daily eats away at the nation’s Black community. Well after a decade after the FBI warned that white supremacists and other neo-nazi groups were infiltrating police departments, (as if they weren’t already nearly all full-fledged neo-nazi organizations, we are now better able to understand why nothing has been done about it. Why no one does anything about the heavily armed neo-nazi militias across the country. The police are now fully-fledged a part of these militias, even in blue states. The entire justice system is a white supremacist defense firm.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
A Black man in San Antonio was stopped and detained by police Tuesday while he was jogging, witnesses said, as officers searched for a suspect in a nearby domestic violence call. Video of the incident posted to social media shows officers forcefully shoving the man into a police vehicle as he screams. The arrested man, identified in a police report as Mathias Ometu, 33, was seen walking out of an apartment complex as officers arrived in response to a call about a domestic violence assault, according to a police report from the incident. Officers stopped Ometu and told him they had “reasonable suspicion to believe” he “matched the description of an alleged strangulation family violence incident,” the report said.
The police report said Ometu refused to give his name and date of birth after several requests and his “demeanor became aggressive.” Ometu refused to get in the patrol vehicle and was then “placed in the patrol vehicle” after a “long struggle,” the report said, “using only open hand techniques.”
During the incident, Ometu allegedly kicked two officers, striking one in the face, the police report said.
The victim of the family violence incident met officers and said Ometu was not the suspect, but Ometu still would not give officers his information, the report said.
He was arrested and charged with two counts of assault on a peace officer, a statement from the San Antonio Police Department said.
Jenny Rodriguez and Victor Maas, who witnessed the arrest and filmed the interaction between Ometu and police, told CNN by phone Friday that Ometu did not seem aggressive or confrontational toward the officers.
Their videos show Ometu handcuffed standing next to a police vehicle calmly for what appears to be about six minutes before two officers start to push Ometu into the vehicle. One witness noted in a video that at least one of the officers was also Black.
The video shows officers struggling with Ometu to push him into the back of a police vehicle and he is heard yelling, “You’re choking me!” several times as the struggle continues for over a minute.
As the officers shut the doors of the vehicle with Ometu inside, at least three more police vehicles arrive, the video shows.
Rodriguez said she was walking her dog when she saw the man jogging around 2 p.m. Tuesday.
All of a sudden, police arrived and began to go towards the man and started speaking with him, she said. About 10 – 15 minutes after the conversation started, Rodriguez said, they started to put him in handcuffs.
She said she knocked on the office window of her boyfriend and coworker to grab the phone to start filming. Her boyfriend, Victor Maas, also began filming.
In their videos, police officers are seen attempting to put the man into the vehicle. He appears to resist the police officers.
Maas said officers used Tasers on the man, although it is not seen during the video.
The entire incident lasted roughly an hour, according to Maas and Rodriguez, but only about 20 minutes of the interaction was included in the videos.
Police are still investigating
Ometu has posted bond on the charges and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office is waiting for law enforcement to complete their investigation, Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said in a statement emailed to CNN on Friday.
Once the investigation is complete, the district attorney’s office will “review all evidence and decide how to proceed with any potential criminal case,” Gonzales said.
Tess House, an attorney who has been in contact with Ometu’s family but is not yet formally representing him, was unable to comment on his behalf when reached by CNN over the phone Friday. However, she told CNN that Ometu has been released from jail but his phone is still in the possession of police.
CNN has not been able to reach Ometu or family members for comment.
Mayor and police department respond
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a tweet Thursday that he is “seeking a full account of this incident, which is currently under investigation.” He has not responded to a request from CNN for further comment.
“We have to approach this situation seriously because every single resident deserves fair and equitable treatment from their city,” Nirenberg said in the tweet.
The San Antonio Police Department, in a statement emailed to CNN on Friday, said officers were called to investigate a “family violence incident.”
“The suspect fled before police arrived, but the victim provided officers with the suspect’s information and officers also obtained information that the suspect was also wanted for a felony robbery warrant,” the statement read.
“The individual contacted was in close proximity to the call and he matched the physical and clothing description provided by the victim. That was the only reason he was stopped and questioned as the officers legitimately believed he was the wanted suspect.”
The statement also said the department is aware of “several videos of the incident that have been posted online” and that the incident “will be reviewed administratively to ensure all policies were followed.”
YETAGAIN, POLICEISCALLEDTO A BLACKHOMEANDTHEFAMILYENDUPWITH A DEADLOVEDONE
Protesters in San Antonio were planning to demonstrate again on Friday evening after former combat veteran Damian Lamar Daniels, 31, was fatally shot by deputies during a mental health call on Tuesday. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Thursday that Daniels and his family made four separate calls in the lead up to the shooting, reporting that Daniels was suicidal and suffering paranoid episodes. In the final callout, Salazar said deputies could see a “bulge” at Daniels’ hip that they assumed was a handgun. As they tried to detain Daniels, a struggle broke out and Daniels’ tried to grab a deputy’s stun gun and then reached for his own gun, Salazar said. Deputies were “pleading” with Daniels to let go of his gun and “it was very clear they were in a fight for their lives,” he added.
Salazar’s office released photos of the encounter “in the interest of transparency and timeliness.” “Quite frankly, I’m still really quite in awe of the restraint, the level of restraint, shown by our deputies,” he said. One photo, taken from a body camera, shows the bulge inside Daniels’ shirt. S. Lee Merritt, a family attorney, said Daniels had a legal gun on his hip “that he never removed” and his family had asked the Red Cross to get Daniels to the VA. The incident prompted protesters to gather outside the Sheriff’s office and Bexar County Jail. One organizer told San Antonio Express-News that they don’t think officers are equipped to handle mental health calls.
Donald Trump expects to win the white house in 2020 using the playbook Richard the crook Nixon used in 1968. That playbook is centered on two pillars. (1) The continued belief in a strong base of support that has remained loyal, virtually cultlike since he assumed the presidency. (Nixon called his the silent majority in 68), and (2) Law & Order. The year 1969 was a disaster, much like what is happening this year it was marked by the assassinations of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. & Sen. Robert Kennedy, race riots, and college antiwar demonstrations. this year is marked by the COVID-19 pandemic millions infected and well over one hundred and eighty thousand Americans confirmed dead from the disease. Additionally, there are protests across the country in major cities. There are violent police responses to the protests over police violence and entire city blocks are going up in flames.
Julia Azari, a Marquette University professor of political science, said in 2018, “Law-and-order rhetoric has a long history in U.S. politics”.“often a way to talk about race without talking about race. But its 1960s meaning also meant all people who were challenging the social order. As we’ve moved away from the era when politicians were making obvious racial appeals, the appeals have become more coded. The question becomes whose order, for whom does the law work. You saw a lot of that same rhetoric with ‘silent majority’ — though Nixon wanted to separate himself from Wallace’s populism, it was a backlash against the status quo, especially the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson.” “Tactics of fear or appeals to restore the old social order — those are usually successful”.
Donald Trump may be playing from Nixon’s playbook, but the strategy may have even deeper connections and guidance, maybe even from outside handlers. What better way to stoke racial tensions by inciting the police to be harsh on the people they arrest, then give unqualified support to the police when they commit murder, knowing full well that this will set alight the tinder kegs that large American cities have become, as a result of the systemic violence from the very same police? Donald Trump Told police on New Yok’s Long Island, quote:“When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody. Don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”
In the same breath, the New York Times reports that intelligence reports indicate that Russian intelligence is heavily invested in stirring up racial tensions in the United States as part of its efforts to get Donald Trump reelected. NBC News reported that Russians who were linked to interference in the 2016 U.S. elections discussed ambitious plans to stoke unrest and even violence inside the U.S. as recently as 2018, according to documents reviewed by that news organization. The United States Senate select intelligence committee concluded in its report that In 2016, Russian operatives associated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) used social media to conduct an information warfare campaign designed to spread disinformation and societal division in the United States. That has not stopped.
In March 2018 the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a report titled (Report on Russian Active Measures). It began with this paragraph: In 2015, Russia began engaging in a covert influence campaign aimed at the U.S. presidential election. The Russian government, at the direction of President Vladimir Putin, sought to sow discord in American society and undermine our faith In the democratic process. Now, more than a year after the election, the American people rightfully want to know what the Russians did; how they did it; with whose suppo1t, if anyone’s; and what can be done to counter any election tampering by foreign adversaries in the future.
In 1968 Richard Nixon gave his campaign chief of staff H.R. Haldeman strict orders, “Find ways to sabotage Johnson’s plans to stage productive peace talks, so that a frustrated American electorate would turn to the Republicans as their only hope to end the war”. At the time President LyndonJohnson was feverishly trying to find ways to end the Vietnam war. It was a gambit of pure treachery known as the Chennault Affair, named after Anna Chennault, the Republican fundraiser who became Nixon’s back channel to the South Vietnamese government.
Richard Nixon won the 1968 Presidential election despite conspiring with a foreign power to thwart the efforts of the United States Government. It is extremely difficult to prove that a candidate elicited help from a foreign power in order to be elected president without being accused of spying on that candidate’s campaign. Lyndon Johnson was extremely mindful of that in 68′. Barack Obama was also so constrained in 2016 even though he knew that the Trump campaign was making multiple contacts with Russian operatives. Trump is a Fascist who understands the power of media in spreading propaganda. He has demonized the media even before he was handed the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. At the same time, he has masterfully used the media to spread lies and disinformation about his predecessor spying on his campaign, a tact he adopted to deflect attention away from the fact that he collaborated with a foreign adversary in order to gain power. Even after losing the popular vote by over three million votes.
Richard Nixon won the 1968 election, and led America into a massive carnage in Vietnam, costing tens of thousands more lives and incalculable damage and harm to the Vietnamese people. In a convoluted twist, Richard Nixon was rewarded for his crimes, before he was eventually forced to leave office in disgrace for his involvement in even more crimes. Donald Trump was rewarded with the presidency, despite the vast majority of voters repudiating him. He was rewarded with the presidency despite evidence that he conspired with a foreign adversary to gain power. As Donald Trump decides to run on law & order, while ignoring the mayhem he has caused, one fact is [clear as day], this is all happening under Donald Trump’s ill-gotten failed presidency.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
As we struggle to understand the deep levels of indifference, antipathy & hatred many white Americans harbor towards African-Americans, a look at the past may offer up a window of what occurred during slavery-(the what). The past may not fully explain [why,] because after over two hundred years of free labor, abject servitude, being raped, mutilated, sodomized, beaten, and have every imaginable evil visited upon them, they ought to be the ones who are owed an apology. They are the ones who are owed something. They are the ones who have the goddamn right to be angry, hateful, bitter, and vengeful. And so though the past will not explain the “why” it offers up an opportunity that may help to explain whether anything will change, based on the actions taken so far by African-Americans. From slavery to the civil war, from the Black codes which essentially re-enslaved the recently freed enslaved Black people after the civil war, to the efforts of Federal, State and Local Authorities to reestablish a system of enslavement of the Black population that was just released as a result of the Emancipation Declaration.
As it was during slavery- slave catchers used dogs to brutalize blacks.
Marching and singing will never change a damn thing, one cannot legislate a change of heart, but one can ensure that there is legislation that changes people’s actions. We may never be able to stamp out evil, ignorance out of the hearts of those so predisposed, but we sure can make it so that when they act out of those predispositions the consequences are so severe that others will think twice about following suit. That is how you change behaviors. The hunting and killing of Black people by white southern slaveholders as white liberals in the north stood passively and with the full backing and acquiescence of the Government and Supreme Court has been a staple in America. Those policies have never been flushed out of the body politic, the demons have never been exorcised. Slavery and the horrors visited on African enslaved people by slaveowners and the silence of white so-called liberals is America’s forever shame. But it is far worse than just America’s shame. If not dealt with with the correct level of mea culpa, truth& reconciliation and the appropriate levels of compensation, it may very well be America’s unraveling.
The History Channel is a good place to start for Blacks, and also for Whites & others, who would like to understand the historical underpinnings of the hatred, violence, rapes, mutilation, and death, upon which the United States was founded, instead of the propaganda of lies about its genesis based on a contrived narrative of honor and religion. In the link above, I have included a documentary for those of you who would like to set aside social media for a few minutes, set aside taking selfies of yourselves, resist posting them in order to get likes from people you do not know. I know that my statements are a bit incendiary and some may find it to be an affront to their sensibilities. That is exactly the emotion I want to provoke in you. I want you to become angry enough that you [will] do what I suggest, learn a little bit about what occurred in the past to our ancestors, in order to understand why the things that are happening to you and I, are happening today.
It continued through the sixties(60’s) to the present day.
If you do read and understand, or even watch some of the documentaries that accurately depict some of the horrors of the ignobility of slavery, you [may] start to better understand that you cannot start a project on murder and exploitation and end up with the proverbial shining city on a hill. You will understand the vicious cruelty of Presidents like Franklin Pierce who imported what he called (nigger dogs) from Cuba to hunt runaway enslaved people. The Dogs were exceptionally vicious and would literally rip the skin from the bones of the people they intercept. Pierce is from the State of New Hampshire, where there is a private University named after him today. He is viewed as one of the worst presidents ever. He was the 14th president of the United States, he was popular and outgoing, but his family life was a grim affair, with his wife Jane suffering from illness and depression for much of her life.[1]All of their children died young, their last son being gruesomely killed in a train accident while the family was traveling shortly before Pierce’s inauguration. He was a heavy drinker for much of his life, and he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1869. Historians and scholars generally rank Pierce as one of the worst and least memorable U.S. Presidents.[w]
Modern-day slave catchers operating with the full authority of the state. Note: This man is in handcuffs, yet they allow the dog to maul him while they kneel with smirks on their faces.Qualified immunity and the impunity it breeds.
Today Franklin Pierce is long gone, he is a distant footnote in history, counted only because he has to be counted among the group. In the White House is another White Supremacist, no different than the other white supremacists who occupied that office even in recent times. In fact, apart from Barack Obama, one would have to search really hard to find a president who, even if not a white supremacist, hasn’t used racist tropes and stereotypes, at least to get into the office of the presidency. America is not about to become anything but what it is. The idea that the white majority is good and decent, is a falsehood perpetuated by the likes of Barack Obama, it was merely a figment of his imagination, or a line he needed to use to ingratiate himself to them, in order to get them to vote for him. The silent acquiescence of the white majority in the face of egregious acts of savagery against Blacks, makes them all equally as guilty as the ones who commit the acts themselves.
Carlos Balli was ducking away from Arizona state officers in Glendale when Detective Brad Martin released a dog on him. The canine, Storm, chewed Balli’s nose flesh off. Storm also ripped a sizable chunk of skin off Balli’s face, leaving him scars that will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Dr. Martin Luther King Junior spoke to this before they murdered him fifty-two years ago. King bemoaned the white people who were appalled by Bull O’Connor’s dogs tearing at the flesh of young African-Americans, including children, but when it came time for African ‑Americans to be granted full citizenship thereby placing all Americans on an even keel, they all backed away. In his book titled (crimes without punishment: white neighbors resistance to black entry), Dr.Stephen Meyer chronicled the history of white resistance to housing integration during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. From the author’s perspective, the book is about housing discrimination and segregation‑a conflict over residential space that is contested along racial lines between Blacks and whites. It is a story of Blacks seeking to gain access to, and occupy, housing in neighborhoods whites considered to be theirs, and whites’ efforts to thwart, prevent, and deter those efforts and to exclude and expel Blacks from those neighborhoods. Not only have they consistently objected to Blacks in neighborhoods they consider theirs, but they have also systematically destroyed thriving black towns and slaughtered thousands of African-Americans to boot. Dr. Martin Luther King asked the question, how can you demand that a man pull himself by his bootstraps when he has no boots? I take it a step further, how can he pull himself up by his bootstraps when you chopped off his damn feet & hands?
Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from his home in Illinois to kill protesters in Kenosha Wisconsin. Cops in Kenosha gave him and other Militia-members bottles of water and thanked them for being there.
Fifty-two years after Doctor King was murdered, the 45th occupant of the nation’s highest executive office, joyfully extolls to his supporters, his efforts at keeping Black people out of what he calls suburban neighborhoods. We can talk about the Rodney King beating on March 3, 1991, that set Los Angeles ablaze. We can skip over the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people who have had dogs rip their flesh from their bones, their only crime, the pursuit of freedom. We can look at what happened to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Akhai Gurley, Philando Castille, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Alton Sterling, Jacob Blake, and the long stream of our people and our ancestors who have been murdered by this evil race of people. [mankind: kind of man]. We can look at the past ‘yes’.….now you tell me what has changed?
Joseph Malott is arrested after the police sicced their canines on him. The dogs mauled Mallot leaving him bleeding. Thankfully the DA refused to pursue criminal charges against Mallot who clearly was a victim of the system of state-sanctioned racism executed through oppressive racist police.
Do you really believe that getting down on your knees and praying for this to stop will cause it to stop? Do you believe that you can appeal to any kind of better Angels within a race of people who have exercised nothing but hatred and murder towards us? If you believe that somehow all this will go away with time, please explain 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse whom some reports had his mother driving him to Kenosha Wisconsin where he committed murder? If you believe that somehow the younger generation is any less corrosive and insidious take a peek at their social media profile.….. follow their conversations as you follow their older, less educated, more incredibly ignorant parents on chat threads. Growing up I was taught never to revel in the death of anyone, even an enemy. Never in my life have I seen people laugh and revel in the death of their innocent fellow human beings. That level of hatred will not go away. Blacks better wake up.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
The white cop who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times at point-blank range on August 23, 2020, has been identified as Rusten Sheskey, on some social media platforms. Blake was lucky to survive, but is now paralyzed and according to his attorney Ben Crump.- Crump says that it will take a miracle for Blake to ever walk again.
The youtube link above opens a window into the soul of the iconic Martin Luther King, a man who Republicans and Democrats now pay lip service to when they want to attach themselves to moral authority. Martin Luther King was assassinated by white nationalists on April 4th, 1968. So too have literally every Black leader to grace America after the ignobility of slavery been murdered. A full 52 years after King was murdered, marches continue, riots continue, and the conditions that lead to them continue in America. Police killings and blatant brutality are what the world sees, but the inherent racism that emboldens police violence is not always visible but it is encouraged by the Republicans and tolerated by the Democrats.
America’s continued shameful response to its citizen’s discontent over its racist policies and their execution. (Image after the assassination of Dr. King)
A RIOTISTHELANGUAGEOFTHEUNHEARD(Martin Luther King Jr)
In Minneapolis, in Kenosha, in Portland, in Seattle, in New York City, in Los Angeles and cities all across America, violence continue to flare, and yet the political response to it is the same as it was 52 ‑years ago. White America continues to relish in the safety and serenity of white privilege that leads to prosperity and comfortable living, one free from police oppression. Yet they continue to be ambivalent and hostile to the systemic violence against Black Americans. At the root of that ambivalence, is the age-old question, “what is behind white America’s hatred of Blacks? It is one that requires a lot of thought, for hundreds of years white Americans have benefited from the free labor of Blacks, yet when finally Blacks were afforded a small modicum of freedom after the emancipation declaration they immediately set about creating a rigid system of hatred that to this day continue to entangle blacks in its tentacles of destruction.
(King spent his life in defense of civil rights)
Today white people pontificate about law and order in sheer arrogance, their arrogance is usually a function of their misguided and ignorant beliefs in ancient tropes and stereotypes. Even as younger whites begin to come to the reality that there can be no peace if there is no justice. And even as they begin to join the righteous campaign to end the insidious malignancy of racism before it destroys America, older less-educated whites still cling to old ways, further endangering the peace and tranquility of the nation. Their outrage predictably is triggered by broken glass and smoldering ruins, not by bullet-riddled bodies and blood-drenched sidewalks. Fifty-two years (52) after they assassinated Martin King the message has still not gotten through to the nation’s leaders. Instead of correcting the maladies that leads to the conflagration. They spend their time trying to suppress the flareups of dissent. America’s problems are American created. It is a problem that should not exist. It is a problem with simple answers, stop racism, and begin the process of redemption. Instead, there is a segment of the white population that is so deeply dug in, so heavily invested in the continuation of the status quo, that it seems America will march headfirst into a final collision in which injustice and inequality will come face to face with the forces of justice & morality on the battlefield of conclusion.
(In the years since Dr. King’s assassination, the uniforms have changed, so too has the weapons troops and police used, to suppress the Black minority changed, but certainly, not the policies and tactics of the American Government, not much else has.)
In just over two months there will be another presidential election. In fact, the Republicans are only halfway through their convention, or more like a cavalcade of fealty to the dear leader. Without equivocation, the Republicans have made it clear that they have zero regard for the concerns of the still oppressed Black population. From that party’s highest leaders to the lowest subjects, they have called for more inequality, more oppression, more death to be visited on the Black minority population in the United States. The death of Black citizens at the hands of their racist police evokes laughter and derision from them. Criminal records with disorderly conduct & jaywalking, are pulled and used to justify summary execution by police. The Democrats with 90% Black support, its most loyal base of support, still panders to white voters- voters that have shown hostility and aggression to black causes. As cities burn, they resort to the same old tactics, more police, more national guard, more state-sponsored violence in response to the consequences of,— state-sponsored violence. No nation can survive while being at war with itself. As poverty, hunger, homelessness, lack of healthcare, education, and police violence fuels the smoldering embers of disaffection, the nation’s leaders either stoke the embers that will inevitably ignite the flames resulting in a roaring inferno, or they turn away and pretend that there is no clear and present danger. If they continue to act as they do the flames will engulf us all.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
In July of 1999, 10% of the African-American population in Tulia, Texas, a small town of 5,000 in the Texas Panhandle, was arrested on drug charges solely on the testimony of a single undercover officer. The arrests of 46 people, 39 of them black, resulted in 38 convictions for various drug charges with sentences of up to 90 years in prison. In early April 2003, a Dallas judge threw out all 38 drug convictions from Tulia because they were based on questionable testimony from a single undercover agent accused of racial prejudice. On June 16, 12 of the defendants remaining in the case (most of the others accepted plea-bargains in order to avoid lengthy prison sentences), were freed after Texas Gov. Perry signed a bill authorizing their release.
The officer responsible for the racially motivated arrests is Tom Coleman, a Texas cop with a checkered past and a self-declared fondness for racial epithets. At the time, Coleman was working for the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force, one of an estimated 1,000 drug task forces operating across America with very little oversight or accountability. According to Randy Credico of the William Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, which was instrumental in bringing Tulia to the public’s attention, “The Panhandle task force was the beneficiary of Coleman’s lies. The more busts he made and the more convictions he helped win, the more federal grant money the task force received.”
Perversely, in this ““bucks-for-busts”” world, Coleman was named Texas’ outstanding narcotics officer in 2000. This is surprising since Coleman kept no written records, not a single photograph was taken, no video was shot, and no one observed his buys. Every ensuing conviction relied only on his word. The Texas judge who freed the defendants in June called Coleman “the most devious, non-responsive law enforcement witness this Court has witnessed in 25 years on the bench in Texas.” According to the Court’s findings, Coleman submitted false reports, misrepresented his investigative work, and misidentified various defendants during his investigation.
Subsequent to the April ruling, Coleman was indicted on three counts of perjury in an unrelated case. Although he faces up to 10 years in prison, his misdeeds in the Tulia case have yet to be formally recognized. Furthermore, the ““Tulia 12”” have not been completely exonerated. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must approve the ruling for their convictions, and those of the 26 others ensnared in the bogus drug sting, to be thrown out. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles should also do its part by pardoning the defendants or granting clemency or commutation in the cases.
The ACLU of Texas has urged state lawmakers to vote for a bill that requires corroboration of undercover law enforcement officers’ testimony before a defendant is convicted. However, racially motivated arrests and violations of civil liberties like the Tulia case, continue to run amock in our judicial system. (Provided by the ACLU)
One Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven-bullets in the Back.
The killings have become so commonplace nowadays that there is hardly a point in detailing them one by one, even though each story needs to be told. Do you recall when the American Government would feign interest in human rights? You remember that, oh, so you do read and, you do pay attention. Yup, they started a war in Iraq under the guise of bringing Democracy and human rights to an old country. One that has survived and thrived for thousands of years, long before there was any thought of something called American Democracy, but I digress. Okay, so I went too far back, so let us leap forward a couple of thousand years.…… For those of you who served in law-enforcement in Jamaica, some of you read. You will recall when the Americans used their state department to castigate and penalize tiny Jamaica about alleged law-enforcement abuse?
Ok then, if you are able to recall those events, you will also recall that even as they demonized the JCF for what they characterized as [extrajudicial killings], their over 18’000 police departments pretty much investigated themselves and still do to this day, they operate outside of any independent’s agencies ability to investigate their operations, and the Government itself placed itself above all international bodies that would monitor the use of force by law enforcement agencies around the world. That blatant and arrogant stance by America in placing itself above international laws is not confined to police use of force, it also applies to the International court of justice that they have been instrumental in setting up in the Hauge after the second world war. After the court ruled that the United States’ covert war against Nicaragua was in violation of international law (Nicaragua v. the United States), the United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 to accept the court’s jurisdiction only on a discretionary basis.[9] Chapter XIV of the United Nations Charter authorizes the UN Security Council to enforce Court rulings. However, such enforcement is subject to the veto power of the five permanent members of the Council, which the United States used in the Nicaragua case. In other words, the United States by its actions, placed itself and the powerful veto-wielding members of the council, above international laws.
No American politician, or other leaders from any western white-run nation that may have violated international law have ever been arrested and charged, much less brought before the Hauge Tribunal. Are we to believe that the only Politicians who break international laws are black and brown ones from Africa and the Middle East? I can think of a few that aren’t black or brown who has been accused of committing breaches against international laws and they are moving around freely with nary a care in the world. Not a single one has found themselves before the International court since the Germans did after the second world war. Instead, only Black and brown leaders have been dragged before the court, literally rendering it devoid of legitimacy. As a consequence, some African Nations have removed their countries from the authority of the court. The biased & arrogant nature of the American’sactions has jeopardized populations around the world, making them vulnerable to abuse by despotic leaders. If their leaders are not subject to international laws who will hold them accountable? Oh, I forgot, the Americans will bomb them into obeying American dictates. But this is not about America’s arrogance on the international scene, at least not in this article, it is about American police who operate nationally, yet outside any accountability from inside the United States or the outside world.
Over a decade and a half ago the FBI warned about KKK and other white supremacist elements infiltrating law enforcement. This is in addition to the fact that American police departments have always been agencies of death and oppression to the black community. The American Government to date has done nothing worthwhile, outside of what the Obama Administration did in getting a few departments to enter into consent-decrees with the US justice department with a view to implementing some measured reforms. In other words, the head, which is the Government (the Dog), cannot get police, (the tail), to comply with the laws, much less best practices. So in this dystopian Orwellian existence, the tail wags the dog. There are a couple of elements at play here, (a) Qualified immunity: This is a doctrine literally created by the United States Supreme court, that protects government employees from exposure to civil actions when they are acting on behalf of the state.
Qualified immunity doctrine gives government officials broad — if not entirely limitless — protection against federal lawsuits. The Supreme Court held in Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), “government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” In practice, however, qualified immunity can protect truly egregious conduct by police. As the Supreme Court put it in Malley v. Briggs (1986), qualified immunity “provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”[vox] The convoluted standard that would make one such employee liable to civil action by an aggrieved party is that he/she would have to have known that his/her actions were so egregious and that there was established precedent in a case already decided similar to the one being brought.
Simply put, if there is no similar case already decided by the courts that match the one a defendant wishes to pursue, there is a greater chance of a snowball surviving in hell, than that case prevailing. In other words, the Court gave police carte blanche to do whatever they want without consequence. (b) Police Unions are so powerful that Mayors Governors and legislators are petrified to cross them, so the country is virtually locked in a mafioso vice-grip in which it’s citizens are being murdered by the state but the politicians are powerless to do anything about it. Politicians are beholden to the police Unions because they accept money from them during their campaigns. In fairness to them, it is a difficult problem, if they refuse their support they have to face an electorate that idolizes the police with the criticism that they are anti-law ‑enforcement.
(d) Additionally, the white nationalist in the white house encourages law enforcement not to be kind and gentle to people they arrest. He did so as he addresses law enforcement gatherings across the nation. A couple of law enforcement agencies pushed back against his advice, but the vast majority of them yucked it up, as he made those statements. Who do you think were the people he was telling those state-sanctioned abusers to be brutal to? Do Do you think they were white people? To date, nothing has been done about the FBI’s warning. Police will continue to kill Black men, it is okay by the white house, it is okay by the supreme court, it is okay by the Republicans in the US House & Senate, it is okay by Republican Governors, Mayors, and Legislators, It is okay by prosecutors and it is okay by a whole bunch of white people. (e) All across America, there is a plurality of white people who have no problem with police killing Black people, their parents and grandparents attended lynchings and gleefully enjoyed them.
Months ago it was George Floyd in Minneapolis, Derrick Chauvin knelt on his neck until he was dead. Yesterday it was Jacob Blake in Kenosha Wisconsin, seven bullets to his back. They do not even pretend that the person they shoot had a weapon anymore. It is okay according to white juries and courts to shoot Black people, what the hell do they care if they are shot in the back? What do they care about how many times they are shot, or where the bullets land? The cop who shot Jacob Blake decided when he pulled the trigger seven times, that it was okay to shoot him in the back. That is textbook policing.….… his union will come out saying that he had a warrant or that he was reaching for a weapon so the coward who fired the seven bullets is justified under the law. They will trot out the criminal record they made sure he had from he was in school and that will be justification for what happened to him on Sunday, August 23rd.
Mike Beckles is a former police Detective corporal, businessman, freelance writer, he is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
It is as if they have learned nothing or they are demonstrating that they do not care. Either way, this cannot be allowed to go on. Either way what has been happening in the streets since the murder of Minneapolis native George Floyd by members of that city’s police department has not been working and it is clear that a more caustic approach must be adopted to put an end to this level of state-sanctioned impunity.
.….…..KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Officers deployed tear gas early Monday to disperse hundreds of people who took to the streets following a police shooting in Kenosha that also drew a harsh rebuke from the governor after a video posted on social media appeared to show officers shoot at a Black man’s back seven times as he leaned into a vehicle.
A person was hospitalized in serious condition following a shooting by officers about 5 p.m. Sunday as officers were responding to a “domestic incident,” the Kenosha Police Department said in a news release. Police in the city, which is in the southeastern corner of Wisconsin about 40 miles south of Milwaukee and 50 miles north of Chicago, did not provide details about what led to the shooting, but said the person was transported to a hospital in Milwaukee for treatment.
By late Sunday, multiple vehicles were set ablaze and windows were smashed along city thoroughfares as crowds faced off with law enforcement. Officers in riot gear stood in lines and SWAT vehicles remained on the streets to move people away from city buildings despite the declaration of an overnight curfew. Tear gas was used to disperse groups of people, according to reporters at the scene.
In a video posted on social media that appeared to show the shooting from across a street, three officers could be seen shouting and pointing their weapons at the man as he walked around the front of a parked SUV. As the man opened the driver’s side door and leaned inside, one officer grabbed his shirt from behind and then fired into the vehicle. Seven shots could be heard on the video, though it was unclear if more than one officer fired.
Gov. Tony Evers on Sunday night condemned the shooting of the man, whom he identified as Jacob Blake, saying in a statement that “while we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first Black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country.”
The Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is investigating the shooting, did not release any details about the officers who were involved except to say they had been placed on administrative leave.
Following the shooting, social media posts showed neighbors gathering in the surrounding streets and shouting at police. Some could be heard chanting “no justice, no peace” while others appeared to throw objects at officers and damaged police vehicles.
Later Sunday, in a scene that mirrored the widespread protests over the police shootings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people, marchers headed to the Kenosha County Public Safety Building, which houses the police and county sheriff’s departments. Authorities mostly blocked off the building, and some officers were positioned on the roof as protesters marched beside lines of honking cars as they made their way to the building.
Outside the station, protesters clashed with officers dressed in riot gear, including plastic face masks, who occasionally used their shields and batons to push people back.
Meanwhile, Evers indicated that he intends to take further action over the shooting“I have said all along that although we must offer our empathy, equally important is our action,” he said. “In the coming days, we will demand just that of elected officials in our state who have failed to recognize the racism in our state and our country for far too long.”(contributed).
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