• 27Feb

  NAACP seeks records in Pasadena police shooting

  Police Brutality No Comments

  The police have given two versions of the incident.  First they said the man jumped out of the car, guns blazing.  Now they say he was killed during a struggle in the back seat of the car.  But LeRoy Barnes’ friend – who was there – said they the opened the car door, shot LeRoy twice and then dragged LeRoy into the street where they shot him some more.  What really happened?  Well the police won’t release any of the info…. hmmm…..  But the cops are quick to point out that LeRoy is a convicted felon who is also reputedly a member of a “gang.”

  We’ll leave it to LeRoy’s ex-girlfriend:  “…They want to say Leroy is from a gang, but the Pasadena police are acting like a gang. Leroy is not the first and he won’t be the last. This isn’t going to change. This is not a black thing, it is a people thing. They want us to remain calm, but they are steadily kicking us down when we are trying to get back up.”

  Damn, right on!  And what’s up with the NAACP?!  Here’s the leader of the Pasadena chapter (Joe Brown):  “I support the other activists in this community who are keeping peace and keeping calm in this town,” he said. “I hope they would continue to do just that and know that justice is going to prevail.”

  Keep the peace and tell them justice will prevail??!?!  I’m sorry but the community doesn’t need false promises of justice, and frankly they don’t need any type of peace that doesn’t have justice along with it.  NAACP always helps get the word out about these brutal acts, but then they hold a lid on an angry community that needs to take to the streets in an organized and militant manner.

  NAACP seeks records in Pasadena police shooting

   

  http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_11794237

  PASADENA – Local NAACP officials Thursday called on the Police Department to release crucial documents and video surrounding the death of a local man shot by officers during an altercation last week.

  The letter sent to the department and news outlets came as police refused to comment further on the events of Feb. 19, when Leroy Barnes, 38, was shot to death by police during a traffic stop.

  Police also placed a security hold on the autopsy results, preventing any information about how many times Barnes was shot and the location of his bullet wounds from being disclosed, Los Angeles County Department of Coroner spokesman Ed Winter said Thursday.

  Pasadena police spokeswoman Janet Pope Givens said the department would treat the NAACP’s request for information like any other public information request, meaning the department will decide within 10 days whether or not to honor the request.

  She also declined to answer for the Pasadena Star-News whether the two officers who shot Barnes were involved in either of two previous police shootings this year.

  “We are not talking any more about the case, we are not talking any more about the officers,” Pope Givens said in a voicemail message Wednesday night. “At this particular point we’re not looking at making any more statements for the next 30 days or so.”

  The decision not to make further comments about the case was “made out of respect to the family” of Barnes, whom Police Chief Bernard Melekian met with Wednesday, Pope Givens said.

  Barnes and a friend, Ameka Edwards, who was driving, were pulled over by police at about 4:20 p.m. Feb. 19 at Mentone Avenue and Washington Boulevard. Moments later, reports of shots fired came over police scanners.

  A few hours later, Pope Givens told reporters Barnes got out of the car and fired a gun at officers, who returned fire, killing him.

  The next day, however, Melekian said Barnes was shot in the back seat of the car.

  On Tuesday, Melekian said Barnes never fired a gun and was in fact shot during a struggle with an officer in the back seat of the vehicle. Officers fired 11 rounds at Barnes, the chief said.

  NAACP Pasadena Chapter President Joe Brown said his organization requested information pertaining to the shooting after receiving multiple requests from residents.

  His letter asks that the department release dispatch records, written and taped reports, coroner’s reports, recorded interviews regarding the shooting and copies of several department policies and procedures.

  A dearth of information has raised numerous questions about the shooting, Brown said in his letter.

  “At this point we have nothing,” he said in an interview.

  The NAACP chapter has retained two seasoned criminal attorneys, who volunteered to assist in the matter, he said.

  “We have two first-class attorneys who will be looking at documents on behalf of the NAACP regarding this case as soon as we are able to receive them,” he said.

  While the NAACP, ACLU and media organizations press for more information, local community activists have helped keep residents informed of what is happening, Brown said.

  “I support the other activists in this community who are keeping peace and keeping calm in this town,” he said. “I hope they would continue to do just that and know that justice is going to prevail.”

  Despite recent community anger over the city’s break down of a memorial to Barnes, and the sudden cancellation of the annual Black History festival on Feb. 21, the community is handling things in an organized way, Brown said.

  “Most people in this community are peaceful,” said local activist Tarik Ross. “Of course, a lot of people want answers. But at the same time, nobody is going to burn police cars or riot at the Black History Festival.”

  Local youth advocate Jon Brookhart agreed.

  “We’re equating this to a problem of, `how did this happen,’ `why did it happen’ and `should it have happened’,” Brookhart said. “(Authorities are) asserting that we’re going to do the wrong thing because they did the wrong thing.”

  During the public comment period at the regular meeting of the Northwest Commission, residents continued to speak out about the shooting.

  Clarence Nelson, 37, called for Melekian’s resignation, saying his reaction to the shooting has been “nonchalant.”

  “My brothers are dying on the street and we’re being treated with injustice,” he said.

  He also called for an independent investigation of the shooting, a request echoed by Michelle White, president of the ACLU’s Pasadena chapter.

  “We think that it’s a conflict of interest for the police department to investigate itself,” she said. “We need to have some kind of closure on this and I don’t think police can do this for us.”

  http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/no_easy_answers/6951/

   

  Tags: California, Police Brutality, Street Organizations

• 27Feb

  New Mexico Schools Adopt ‘Cheese Sandwich Policy’ for Children Without Lunch Money

  Economics, Education 1 Comment

  This is a real sad article.  In this shameful policy children who have parents who are delinquent on paying their lunch bills at school are openly degraded and singled out.  Surely this happens in many ways throughout our entire society; poor people are disrespected and shamed, but to do this to children like this is truly an abomination.  Now there are three other states who have followed suit, so this is bigger than just a school in New Mexico.  Can anyone think of a better way to make the pursuit of educaion more difficult than shaming a child for being poor in front of their classmates? 

  New Mexico Schools Adopt ‘Cheese Sandwich Policy’ for Children Without Lunch Money

  

  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,499909,00.html

  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —  A cold cheese sandwich, fruit and a milk carton might not seem like much of a meal — but that’s what’s on the menu for students in New Mexico’s largest school district without their lunch money.

  Faced with mounting unpaid lunch charges in the economic downturn, Albuquerque Public Schools last month instituted a “cheese sandwich policy,” serving the alternative meals to children whose parents fail to pick up their lunch tab.

  Such policies have become a necessity for schools seeking to keep budgets in the black while ensuring children don’t go hungry. School districts including those in Chula Vista, Calif., Hillsborough County, Fla., and Lynnwood, Wash., have also taken to serving cheese sandwiches to lunch debtors.

  Critics argue the cold meals are a form of punishment for children whose parents can’t afford to pay.

  “We’ve heard stories from moms coming in saying their child was pulled out of the lunch line and given a cheese sandwich,” said Nancy Pope, director of the New Mexico Collaborative to End Hunger. “One woman said her daughter never wants to go back to school.”

  Some Albuquerque parents have tearfully pleaded with school board members to stop singling out their children because they’re poor, while others have flooded talk radio shows thanking the district for imposing a policy that commands parental responsibility.

  Second-grader Danessa Vigil said she will never eat sliced cheese again. She had to eat cheese sandwiches because her mother couldn’t afford to give her lunch money while her application for free lunch was being processed.

  “Every time I eat it, it makes me feel like I want to throw up,” the 7-year-old said.

  Her mother, Darlene Vigil, said there are days she can’t spare lunch money for her two daughters.

  “Some parents don’t have even $1 sometimes,” the 27-year-old single mother said. “If they do, it’s for something else, like milk at home. There are some families that just don’t have it and that’s the reason they’re not paying.”

  The School Nutrition Association recently surveyed nutrition directors from 38 states and found more than half of school districts have seen an increase in the number of students charging meals, while 79 percent saw an increase in the number of free lunches served over the last year.

  In New Mexico, nearly 204,000 low-income students — about three-fifths of public school students — received free or reduced-price lunches at the beginning of the school year, according to the state Public Education Department.

  “What you are seeing is families struggling and having a really hard time, and school districts are struggling as well,” said Crystal FitzSimons of the national Food Research and Action Center.

  In Albuquerque, unpaid lunch charges hovered around $55,000 in 2006. That jumped to $130,000 at the end of the 2007-08 school year. It was $140,000 through the first five months of this school year.

  Charges were on pace to reach $300,000 by the end of the year. Mary Swift, director of Albuquerque’s food and nutrition services, said her department had no way to absorb that debt as it had in the past.

  “We can’t use any federal lunch program money to pay what they call bad debt. It has to come out of the general budget and of course that takes it from some other department,” Swift said.

  With the new policy, the school district has collected just over $50,000 from parents since the beginning of the year. It also identified 2,000 students eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, and more children in the lunch program means more federal dollars for the district.

  School officials said the policy was under consideration for some time and parents were notified last fall. Families with unpaid charges are reminded with an automated phone call each night and notes are sent home with children once a week.

  Swift added that the cheese sandwiches — about 80 of the 46,000 meals the district serves daily — can be considered a “courtesy meal,” rather than an alternate meal.

  Some districts, she noted, don’t allow children without money to eat anything.

  Albuquerque Public Schools “has historically gone above and beyond as far as treating children with dignity and respect and trying to do what’s best with for the child and I think this is just another example,” Swift said.

   

  Other States Look To Albuquerque’s Cheese Sandwich Policy

  http://www.koat.com/news/18790892/detail.html

  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Officials for Albuquerque Public Schools say their controversial cheese sandwich policy is paying off.

  Since starting the alternative lunch program, which serves a cold cheese sandwich to students whose parents fail to pay their lunch bill, APS has collected $91,000.

  Now other states are following the Duke City’s lead. In fact, school districts in three other states have begun serving cheese sandwiches to lunch debtors.

  Critics argue the policy is a form of punishment for children whose parents can’t afford to pay.

  APS officals hope the program would not only help pay off the $140,000 that had accumulated in lunch debts, but also encourage parents to apply for the free or reduced lunch program.

  Tags: Economics, Education, New Mexico

• 26Feb

  Hate groups are spreading racist propaganda

  Racism No Comments

  For the last 8 years – this article shows us – it has been the anti-immigrant hysteria that fueled the rise of hate groups.  Now, with a Black president  and the economy tanking, the hate groups are recruiting more than ever.  Its like a perfect trifecta for racist recruitment.  Click here for coverage of how a failing capitalist economy fuels racist extremism.  And to truly understand fascism we recommend this text, here. 

  This article is also very interesting because it shows how even marginalized racist groups affect our national discourse on issues, because the bourgeois media trumpets their claims on the privatized airwaves.  The bourgeoisie has a vested interest in sustaining scum like this, for if there is ever a crisis big enough to threaten the ruling class of this nation they will use whatever means necessary to preserve the capitalist social system. 

  Hate groups are spreading racist propaganda

  

  http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090226/COLUMNIST0107/902260319/1008/OPINION01

  Awareness is the key, the man on the other end of the telephone conversation told me. “People need to understand how these groups are poisoning the political discourse in America.

  “A lot of our effort over the last few years has been less focused on destroying tiny Klan groups and more on confronting the propaganda that comes from these kind of groups.”

  Mark Potok was talking about hate groups in Tennessee and elsewhere throughout America.

  In 2007, the Intelligence Project, of which Potok is director and which monitors hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center, counted 888 hate groups around the nation.

  Today, when the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group, releases its annual count of hate groups active in the U.S. in 2008, that number will have grown to 926, a 4 percent increase over the previous year. The number of groups in Tennessee is 38, the same as in 2007.

  “It’s not a dramatic increase, but what’s important is that since 2000, we have had quite remarkable growth in these groups,” Potok told me from his Montgomery office. “In 2000, there were 602 of them; in 2008, 926 — almost a 54 percent rise.”

  And that’s in what most of us think is a very tolerant society.

  Basically, Potok said, for the past six or seven years, the growth of hate groups around the country was driven entirely by their exploitation of the immigration issue.

  “In other words, when you looked around at the Klan and neo-Nazi groups from 2000 to 2006 or 2007, they virtually were never — almost never — holding rallies about the ills of African-Americans, or gay people or the Jews. It was all about people with brown skin coming from the South. I think the truth is that these groups have very successfully exploited an issue that has broad resonance with the American public.”

  In the past year, however, Potok said, “it’s getting a little more complex because of several different factors.”

   

  One, he said, there’s continuing high levels of non-white immigration. Basically, brown-skinned people or Latinos.

  Two, the prediction by the U.S. Census Bureau that whites will lose their absolute majority in 2042. A third factor is the worsening economy and the certainty of worse unemployment.

  “The final insult to many people in this world is the idea of a black man in the White House,” Potok said. “Immigration has driven almost all the growth (of these hate groups) until very recently. In the last year or so, the ascent of a black man to presidential power has helped to fuel this movement.

  “The 2042 prediction is quite important, too. It’s all over the world. The idea that we are losing our country. This is it.”

  Potok told me that his organization is not predicting that active hate groups will continue to increase in America, because it doesn’t know for sure. He did say, however, that such groups have gone wild over the Obama presidency.

  “It seems pretty possible, but I wouldn’t say we are predicting this. And there is reason for concern.”

  Included among those reasons is the constant threat of violence from people associated with this movement. “As a realistic matter, this is not something that confronts very many Americans,” Potok said. “At the end of the day, we are talking between 100,000 to 200,000 people or less. That’s a tiny sliver of the nation’s population.

  “Secondly, the more worrying phenomenon is the way this movement produces racist propaganda that gets into the political mainstream. An example of that is that a tiny hate group put out word that Mexico is secretly planning to reconquer the American Southwest. This leaped to a larger group and, before you knew it, a cable news personality and radio hosts were talking about it, even politicians. That is a greater danger to our democracy.

  “Instead of having a rational national debate about immigration as we ought, we end up as a country discussing why Mexicans are planning to invade the Southwest, or why they are coming here to rape our daughters or destroy our culture. These things are false across the board.”

  Like Potok said, that is why awareness is key. “People need to be aware this is going on. It’s just defamatory racist propaganda. We’re not trying to frighten people by creating a straw man, but people need to know that these groups are having a significant effect on the American body politic, and that’s what we’re trying to confront.”

  I’m sure Tennesseans are not going to let the 38 hate groups in this state do that. No way, no way at all.

  In the past year, however, Potok said, “it’s getting a little more complex because of several different factors.”

  One, he said, there’s continuing high levels of non-white immigration. Basically, brown-skinned people or Latinos.

  Two, the prediction by the U.S. Census Bureau that whites will lose their absolute majority in 2042. A third factor is the worsening economy and the certainty of worse unemployment.

  “The final insult to many people in this world is the idea of a black man in the White House,” Potok said. “Immigration has driven almost all the growth (of these hate groups) until very recently. In the last year or so, the ascent of a black man to presidential power has helped to fuel this movement.

  “The 2042 prediction is quite important, too. It’s all over the world. The idea that we are losing our country. This is it.”

  Potok told me that his organization is not predicting that active hate groups will continue to increase in America, because it doesn’t know for sure. He did say, however, that such groups have gone wild over the Obama presidency.

  “It seems pretty possible, but I wouldn’t say we are predicting this. And there is reason for concern.”

  Included among those reasons is the constant threat of violence from people associated with this movement. “As a realistic matter, this is not something that confronts very many Americans,” Potok said. “At the end of the day, we are talking between 100,000 to 200,000 people or less. That’s a tiny sliver of the nation’s population.

  “Secondly, the more worrying phenomenon is the way this movement produces racist propaganda that gets into the political mainstream. An example of that is that a tiny hate group put out word that Mexico is secretly planning to reconquer the American Southwest. This leaped to a larger group and, before you knew it, a cable news personality and radio hosts were talking about it, even politicians. That is a greater danger to our democracy.

  “Instead of having a rational national debate about immigration as we ought, we end up as a country discussing why Mexicans are planning to invade the Southwest, or why they are coming here to rape our daughters or destroy our culture. These things are false across the board.”

  Like Potok said, that is why awareness is key. “People need to be aware this is going on. It’s just defamatory racist propaganda. We’re not trying to frighten people by creating a straw man, but people need to know that these groups are having a significant effect on the American body politic, and that’s what we’re trying to confront.”

  I’m sure Tennesseans are not going to let the 38 hate groups in this state do that. No way, no way at all.

  Tags: Economics, Immigration, Obama, Racism, Tennessee

• 26Feb

  DMX Facing Assault Charges Against Prison Guard Over Bad Food, Jail Staff Says; Probation Status Now in Doubt

  Prison State No Comments

  “The officer was covered in slop,” says Allen, referring to the food normally served to inmates.

  -

  I would have thrown that shit at him too…  We’re not mad at DMX, this food isn’t fit for dogs let alone humans!

  -

   

  DMX Facing Assault Charges Against Prison Guard Over Bad Food, Jail Staff Says; Probation Status Now in Doubt

   

   

   

   

  A sampling of Nutraloaf from the cafeteria of Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, Vt. More on Nutraloaf here

   

  http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2009/02/dmx_assaults_prison_guard_over.php

   

  Rapper DMX, who’s serving 90 days in jail for animal abuse and theft, faces an assault charge following a tiff with a jail guard — a legal problem that could send him to prison.

   

  DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was first put in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City jail after his January sentencing. Staff recently moved him to “lockdown” at the Towers jail in downtown Phoenix because he wouldn’t stop swearing at guards, says Lisa Allen, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.

   

  In lockdown, inmates don’t get the normal, disgusting gruel served to everyone else — they get “Nutra-loaf,” a gross slab of mystery food. 

   

  “I’m sure he was really hungry,” says Allen. “When the detention officers went to pass out the evening meal on Sunday, he grabbed a meal that wasn’t his.”

  When the officer told him to hand back the tray of regular food, DMX reportedly responded by throwing the tray and yelling, “Fuck you!”

   

  “The officer was covered in slop,” says Allen, referring to the food normally served to inmates.

   

  Although the officer wasn’t actually struck by DMX, the rapper’s move against his jailers meets the definition of an assault, Allen says.

   

  The question for DMX now is whether the new legal problem will mess with his probationary status. A probation violation could put DMX in prison for more than 10 years.

   

  Michael Scerbo, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney’s office, tells New Times he will check to see whether DMX’s supervised probation has already begun and how a new criminal charge might affect the rapper.

  Tags: DMX, Joe Arpaio, Prison State

• 26Feb

  Jail Sentences for Cops Who Planted Pot on 92-Year Old They Killed in Botched Drug Raid

  Police Brutality No Comments

  So the cops got sentenced to prison for murdering an innocent woman…  What are the sentences?  Between 5-10 years for each of them!?!?!?!  That sounds like the same sentences we would get for simple possession of crack cocaine!  These cops murdered an innocent woman in cold blood and then tried to cover it up by planting drugs on her!  With good behavior they’ll be out in a year or two, not to mention that while inside they’ll be living in “snitch city,” segregated from the horrors of regular prison life.  To call these sentences “justice” is too much of a stretch for us here at Malcolm-Che.

  But this case is deep, for everything it shows us about how the officers operated.  Planting drugs on mulitple people, obtaining warrants by illegal methods, covering up murder;  all just part of the life of being a U.S. narcotics police officer.  Our deepest sympathy and respect goes out to this woman, who in the tradition of Malcolm tried to defend herself from these murderers.  Sadly, she was not successful, but her example stands to us all. 

  Jail Sentences for Cops Who Planted Pot on 92-Year Old They Killed in Botched Drug Raid

  

  92 year-old Kathryn Johnston, killed by police

  http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/128917/jail_sentences_for_cops_who_planted_pot_on_92-year_old_they_killed_in_botched_drug_raid/

  Three former Atlanta police officers were sentenced to prison time this week for the shooting death of a 92 year-old grandmother after breaking down her door during a botched drug raid.

  Jason Smith, Gregg Junnier and Arthur Tesler received sentences ranging from five to 10 years on charges of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death.

  In November 2006, the officers — all members of Atlanta’s narcotics squad — gunned down Kathryn Johnston inside her home. The police claimed to be acting on information they received from a confidential informant that drugs were being sold from the house. That allegation turned out to be false.

  From the beginning evidence showed the officers manipulated a highly suspect system to justify an assault on Johnston’s home.

  As AlterNet first reported in April 2007 first reported in April 2007, the cops began by planting evidence on a known drug dealer to solicit information about narcotics being sold out of Johnston’s home; they then used fabricated testimony from a separate confidential informant to obtain a search warrant.

  A terrified Johnston fired a single shot from a gun she kept when the police entered her home on a “no-knock” warrant; she hit no one. The cops responded with nearly 40 shots, killing her instantly.

  The Johnston tragedy shined a spotlight on the cavalier use of informant information to obtain arrest and search warrants. The Justice Department launched a federal probe and, nine months after the shooting the House Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on law enforcement’s use of confidential informants.

  “We’ve got a serious problem here that goes beyond coughing up cases where snitches were helpful,” said committee chair Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) at the hearing. “The whole criminal justice system is being intimidated by the way this thing is being run, and, in many cases, especially at the local level, mishandled.  A lot of people have died because of misinformation.”

  Back in July 2008, I reported for In These Times on a epidemic of innocent people being sent to death row based on the information of paid or otherwise compensated snitches.

  What I discovered is a disturbing trend in which police are increasingly abandoning traditional investigative work in favor of insider cooperation — what experts call a “dumbing down” of police work.

  “The drug war has eroded law enforcement practices,” said investigative reporter Ethan Brown, whose book, Snitch: Informants, Cooperators and the Corruption of Justice, traces the genesis of the informant culture and its effect on communities.

  Today, falsified informant testimony accounts for nearly half of all wrongful convictions in capital cases nationwide, according to data from Northwestern University Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions. Since 1973, 129 innocent people were released from death row — more than 50 of whom were sentenced to death based partly or wholly on false informant testimony.

  “The government’s use of criminal informants is largely secretive, unregulated and unaccountable,” explained Alexandra Natapoff, an associate professor of law at Loyola University and one of the country’s foremost authorities on the problems with confidential informants. “This lack of oversight and quality control leads to wrongful convictions, more crime, disrespect for the law and sometimes even official corruption.”

  Since the 2007 House Judiciary Committee hearing, little headway has been made in reforming the practice of using incentivized informants to send people to jail — and, worse, execution.

  According to the American Bar Association (ABA), 18 states now require corroboration of an accomplice’s statements. Those that require corroboration for other forms of incentivized witnesses, however, are few and far between.

  According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office, in addition to the federal civil rights conspiracy charge in the Johnston case, in 2007 officers Junnier and Smith pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and related state charges in Fulton County (Georgia) Superior Court. Pursuant to their plea agreements, they are scheduled to be sentenced in state court on March 5 to the same sentence imposed in federal court, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

  Tesler initially declined to plead guilty and was indicted in state court on charges of violation of oath of office by a public officer, false imprisonment and false statements. He pleaded guilty to the federal charge on October 30, 2008. Each defendant was also sentenced to serve 3 years on supervised release following his prison term, and collectively to pay $8,180 in restitution for the costs of Ms. Johnston’s funeral and burial.

  Tags: Georgia, Police Brutality, police murders

• 26Feb

  FBI, Justice asked to investigate slaying of Homer man by officer

  Police Brutality No Comments

  Here we have a story for you out of Homer, LA which is not too far from Shreveport, LA (the site of the brutal murder of Marquis Haspeeth by police – shot 36 times).  In this case the police have shot an elderly black man and claimed that he had a gun, which is contradicted by what witnesses saw.  In this story we also see the intermediary role played by community leaders such as the NAACP; in one sense advocating for justice but in another putting a lid on the anger felt within the community. 

  FBI, Justice asked to investigate slaying of Homer man by officer

  

  Approximately 300 people filled New Hope Missionary Baptist Church on Wednesday night for a community meeting in response to Friday night’s shooting death of Homer resident Bernard Monroe, 73

  http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090226/NEWS03/902260344/1062

  HOMER — The FBI and U.S. Justice Department are being asked to add oversight to an ongoing investigation into the fatal shooting Friday night of an elderly Homer man by a Homer police officer.

  The Claiborne branch of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People and area clergymen also have asked Homer Mayor David Newell and the Homer Board of Selectmen to ask Claiborne District Attorney Jonathan Stewart to convene a grand jury to review “existing evidence that already supports charges against the officers involved,” said the Rev. Willie Young, branch president.

  The comments Wednesday night were met with a standing ovation, cheers and applause from about 300 people who crammed into New Hope Missionary Baptist Church to show their support for the family of Bernard Monroe.

  Monroe, a 73-year-old Homer resident, died Friday after being shot multiple times by Homer police officer Tim Cox. The exact number of shots has not been released.

  Circumstances that led up to the shooting are what brought the throng of people to the church. Many in the crowd applauded when Young said information police initially relayed to the public was incorrect.

  “The right thing to do is to investigate both sides,” said Young, likening it to counseling a husband and wife. “Mama used to tell me there are two sides to every story.”

  He called for peace in the community and said he wants to give investigating agencies an opportunity to do their jobs.

  What has been upsetting to some is the suggestion of drug activity being involved in Monroe’s death. Information initially released by Homer police through state police was that two officers were pursuing a man as part of a suspected street drug deal.

  The pursuit took the officers through Monroe’s house and into his front yard. Officers ultimately shocked Monroe’s son Sean, the man they were pursuing, with a Taser in Bernard Monroe’s front yard. Bernard Monroe was in his front yard at the time and was shot as he stepped onto his porch.

  Police said Bernard Monroe had a gun and pointed it. A loaded pistol was found “in his possession,” according to the initial police report. Authorities provided no further information about the type of gun or its exact location.

  Eyewitnesses offer different views and maintain that Bernard Monroe did not have a gun.

  “In this particular case, there were no drugs, no warrants, no arrest made,” Young said. “And it’s unacceptable to allow such behavior to continue.”

  No one in the audience was allowed to speak during Wednesday’s meeting. Afterward, David Aubrey — an NAACP member and adviser to Young — said anyone with specific complaints about the Homer Police Department could submit them in writing.

  Wednesday’s meeting, Aubrey and others emphasized, was to show support for Bernard Monroe’s family, many of whom stood to be recognized. Also introduced were two teenage males whom Aubrey identified as being witnesses to the shooting of Bernard Monroe.

  The two teens and Bernard Monroe’s family made no comments.

  Attorney Chris Bowman, in a separate interview with The Times, said he is representing the Monroe family, particularly Sean Monroe.

  Sean Monroe has not been charged with any crime and is willing to give statements to authorities, Bowman said Wednesday morning. However, Bowman had advised Sean Monroe not to give comments to the media.

  Bowman is conducting his own investigation into Bernard Monroe’s death. He said he hopes to have some information available next week.

  On Monday, the NAACP will formally ask Homer’s mayor and selectmen to seek the grand jury review and ask that the FBI and Justice Department step in.

  Young made a point of noting that the mayor plans to be out of town Monday and wants to cancel the board meeting. Young said there is no reason to delay.

  “We are sitting on a bomb and you want to postpone a council meeting?” Young asked rhetorically. Newell was not at Wednesday’s gathering.

  The NAACP and clergy and community members are on record, Young said, in openly expressing displeasure with Police Chief Russell Mills. “Enough is enough.”

  Mills, who also was not at the meeting Wednesday, has not commented publicly about the shooting since Friday night.

  Young said he already has the assurance of the FBI office in New Orleans and an agent with the Shreveport office that the agency will look into the investigation. The national NAACP also stands ready to assist, he said. A letter has been drafted to the Justice Department requesting a review of all aspects of the state’s investigation. The NAACP, Young said, believes Monroe’s civil rights were violated. Homer’s elected officials also will be asked Monday to call on Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to review the qualifications of all Homer police officers.

  “Yes, we can,” Young said in encouraging audience members to continue supporting Bernard Monroe’s family and the NAACP’s calls for change.

  Tags: Louisiana, Police Brutality, police murders

• 25Feb

  Cop who shot wife keeps job

  Africa, Police Brutality, Sexism No Comments

  Cop who shot wife keeps job

  http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20090225110154301C877595

  A Durban Metro Police officer who got drunk and shot his wife in a “premeditated” attack two years ago is back on the job and carrying a firearm after appealing against his discharge from the service.

  Opposition parties and anti-abuse organisations have called for a high level investigation into the re-employment of Thandolwenkosi Mvuyana, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder in March 2008.

  According to documents leaked to the Daily News, Mvuyana had more than 10 years’ service under his belt when he shot his wife in the leg during a drunken domestic fracas in February 2007. Arrested not long after, Mvuyana continued to serve on the Metro Police force for more than 20 months as he waited for the case to come to court.

  He was sentenced to five years imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years, but was not declared unfit to possess a firearm. He was also ordered to pay his wife R5 000 in compensation. The municipality fired him not long after.

  But Mvuyana is now back on the job, again carrying a service pistol after a controversial appeal hearing during which he was reinstated to his previous position within Metro Police, after serving a 10-day suspension without pay. The Metro Police firearm board is now expected to rule on whether Mvuyana is allowed to take his pistol home after shifts.

  In deciding to reinstate Mvuyana, appeal officer VB Ngubane said that although the case involving the firearm was a “very serious” one, Mvuyana had showed remorse and had undergone voluntary treatment and counselling. Mvuyana was a victim of procedural irregularities because he had not enjoyed a speedy trial, Ngubane added.

  “Since the incident took place while the member was off duty and no decision was made with regard to unfitness to possess firearms… the employer did not see the seriousness of the case which would have warranted the suspension from work,” Ngubane said.

  The DA and IFP have now called for an executive committee investigation into Mvuyana, saying they were concerned with the way in which the matter was handled.

  City management has also stepped in to challenge Mvuyana’s employment in the Metro Police.

  “We are obtaining legal opinion on alternative charges to be laid against this employee,” said city manager Michael Sutcliffe.

  Mvuyana’s lawyer this morning said he would consult with his client before issuing a statement to the media.

  DA caucus leader John Steenhuisen is now poised to initiate separate legal or disciplinary action, if the firearm board allows Mvuyana to take his firearm home.

  “The shooting of a woman with a firearm owned by someone in the service of the municipality is an extremely serious offence.

  “I am not comfortable knowing a man who was under the influence when he shot an innocent person is back on duty and has access to firearms,” Steenhuisen said.

  An angry IFP caucus leader, Theresa Thembi Nzuza, said she was concerned about the state of Metro Police.

  “A criminal is a criminal. We do not need people like this in Metro Police. And as a woman activist, I feel for his wife,” she said.

  Levels of domestic abuse and incidents of violence were higher in police homes, and a suspended sentence and 10-day suspension were a slap on the wrist, said Selvie Pillay of the Advice Desk for the Abused.

  “In all fairness, people can be remorseful or regret what they have done, but cases like this are often not treated seriously enough. We know that police operate under stressful environments, but that is still no excuse for abuse,” she said.

  Tags: Police Brutality, Sexism, South Africa

• 25Feb

  Parents of teen shot dead by police sue

  Police Brutality No Comments

  This suit alleges that the Oakland PD killed this young man and then planted a gun on him to make the homicide seem justifiable (while also cleaning up certain parts of the crime scene before technicians arrived).  We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again:  this is the only type of justice we can expect within the capitalist system. 

  Parents of teen shot dead by police sue

  

   Youths at a recent protest see the common thread between the murders of Oscar Grant & Jose Luis Buenrostro…  both murdered by Oakland cops.

  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/25/BA45164K9T.DTL

  The parents of a 15-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Oakland police last year have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, accusing officers of shooting him without cause and then planting a gun on him to justify their actions.

  Jose Luis Buenrostro was shot and killed about noon March 19 at the corner of 79th Avenue and Rudsdale Street in East Oakland.

  Oakland police have said that several members of the department’s gang unit had no choice but to defend themselves when Buenrostro pulled a sawed-off rifle from his sweatpants and pointed it at them. The teenager had ties to a street gang, said police, who took the unusual step shortly after the incident of showing a picture of the rifle they said the boy had been carrying.

  But in a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Jose and Maria Buenrostro said a group of undercover officers drove up to their son in an unmarked car, suddenly stopped and shot and killed him, even though he was unarmed.

  Witnesses said one of the officers then “planted a weapon on decedent’s body to make it look like he was armed,” the suit said.

  Officers picked up spent shell casings from the ground and cleaned up blood from the sidewalk before crime-scene technicians arrived, said the complaint filed by Oakland attorney John Burris.

  “This kid did not have a gun,” Burris said Tuesday. “It didn’t make any sense, given what the witnesses told us. This is a troubling case for us.”

  The suit names the city, Police Chief Wayne Tucker, whose last day is Saturday, Sgt. Randy Brandwood and Officers Timothy De La Vega, Eric Milina and Robert Roche. Roche has been involved in at least two previous fatal shootings.

  Officer Jeff Thomason, department spokesman, said Tuesday that officials could not comment on pending litigation.

  Tags: Police Brutality, police murders

• 24Feb

  Talks deadlocked in Guadeloupe wage strike

  Class Struggle 2 Comments

  Talks deadlocked in Guadeloupe wage strike

  

   

  http://www.southernledger.com/ap/236755/Talks_deadlocked_in_Guadeloupe_wage_strike

  Protesters rebuilt roadblocks Monday as talks showed little progress in ending a 35-day-old general strike over wages or helping this French island’s inhabitants cope with economic crisis.

  Representatives of the French government left the negotiating table Monday night, saying they were not prepared to meet the strikers’ demand for a euro200 ($250) monthly raise for those making euro900 ($1,130) a month.

  “The state doesn’t believe that it should finance or reimburse wage increases for private employers,” Nicolas Desforges, the island’s top Paris-appointed official, told reporters. He said the representatives were awaiting new instructions from Paris before they would return.

  Leaders of the strike-leading Collective Against Exploitation said they had reached a tentative agreement with small business groups to meet half the requested raise but that the rest would have to come from the government.

  Meanwhile, protesters prepared to take the dispute back to streets where riots raged last week, pushing burnt-out cars back into intersections and erecting new roadblocks on major highways.

  “If they don’t want to talk, we will put the popular pressure on the streets and make them share their fortune with the people of Guadeloupe,” Patrice Tacita, a Collective Against Exploitation official, told hundreds of supporters in front of the seaside port authority building where negotiations are taking place.

  Last week, rioters smashed windows, burned cars and threw rocks at police, who fired tear gas. Union leader Jacques Bino was shot and killed, apparently by rioting youths, in an incident still being investigated.

  The workers have been striking since Jan. 20, tapping widespread resentment over the control that descendants of slave holders hold over much of the island’s economy. Strikes also have taken place on the nearby French island of Martinique.

  The labor collective has a list of nearly 140 demands including the wage increase, covering issues from lowering the cost of imported goods to environmental and judicial reform.

  French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week announced a euro580 million ($730 million) financial package to help development in France’s overseas regions.

  But Sarkozy remains unpopular in Guadeloupe, where his response to the global financial crisis, including bank bailouts, was seen as management-friendly.

  “They give plenty of money to the banks to face the crisis, they must make an effort for the consumers too,” collective negotiator Harry Durimel said.

  Shops in the principal city of Pointe-a-Pitre opened briefly on Monday for the first time in more than a month, but metal storefront gates came crashing down as the marchers approached waving red flags and pumping their fists.

  Tags: general strike, guadeloupe

• 23Feb

  Pennsylvania rocked by ‘jailing kids for cash’ scandal

  Prison State No Comments

  In this scandal we see that judges profited from jailing children, in a truly shameful display of American “justice.”  But the only reason this is getting attention is the direct links between the judges who sentenced the kids and them getting money.  What about when it’s a little more indirect, but the same principle happening?  What about all the people who profit off of get-tough-on-crime policies and the prison-industrial complex?  Where is the outrage directed at them? 

  Pennsylvania rocked by ‘jailing kids for cash’ scandal

  

  13 year-old Shane Bly was one of the victims of this scandal 

  http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/23/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges/index.html

  (CNN) — At a friend’s sleepover more than a year ago, 14-year-old Phillip Swartley pocketed change from unlocked vehicles in the neighborhood to buy chips and soft drinks. The cops caught him.

  There was no need for an attorney, said Phillip’s mother, Amy Swartley, who thought at most, the judge would slap her son with a fine or community service.

  But she was shocked to find her eighth-grader handcuffed and shackled in the courtroom and sentenced to a youth detention center. Then, he was shipped to a boarding school for troubled teens for nine months.

  “Yes, my son made a mistake, but I didn’t think he was going to be taken away from me,” said Swartley, a 41-year-old single mother raising two boys in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

  CNN does not usually identify minors accused of crimes. But Swartley and others agreed to be named to bring public attention to the issue.

  As scandals from Wall Street to Washington roil the public trust, the justice system in Luzerne County, in the heart of Pennsylvania’s struggling coal country, has also fallen prey to corruption. The county has been rocked by a kickback scandal involving two elected judges who essentially jailed kids for cash. Many of the children had appeared before judges without a lawyer.

  The nonprofit Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia said Phillip is one of at least 5,000 children over the past five years who appeared before former Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella.

  Ciavarella pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal criminal charges of fraud and other tax charges, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Former Luzerne County Senior Judge Michael Conahan also pleaded guilty to the same charges. The two secretly received more than $2.6 million, prosecutors said.

  The judges have been disbarred and have resigned from their elected positions. They agreed to serve 87 months in prison under their plea deals. Ciavarella and Conahan did not return calls, and their attorneys told CNN that they have no comment.

  Ciavarella, 58, along with Conahan, 56, corruptly and fraudulently “created the potential for an increased number of juvenile offenders to be sent to juvenile detention facilities,” federal court documents alleged. Children would be placed in private detention centers, under contract with the court, to increase the head count. In exchange, the two judges would receive kickbacks.

  The Juvenile Law Center said it plans to file a class-action lawsuit this week representing what they say are victims of corruption. Juvenile Law Center attorneys cite a few examples of harsh penalties Judge Ciavarella meted out for relatively petty offenses:

   

• Ciavarvella sent 15-year-old Hillary Transue to a wilderness camp for mocking an assistant principal on a MySpace page.  
• He whisked 13-year-old Shane Bly, who was accused of trespassing in a vacant building, from his parents and confined him in a boot camp for two weekends.  
• He sentenced Kurt Kruger, 17, to detention and five months of boot camp for helping a friend steal DVDs from Wal-Mart. Several other lawsuits on behalf of the juveniles who have appeared in Ciavarella’s courtroom have emerged.

The private juvenile detention centers, owned by Mid Atlantic Youth Services Corp., are still operating and are not a target of the federal investigation, according court documents. The company cooperated in the investigation, the documents said.

A spokesman from the company denied that its current owner, Gregory Zappala, knew about the kickbacks.

Ciavarella assured the community that he could provide justice. Elected to the bench in 1996, he once ran for judge on the promise that he would punish “people who break the law,” according to local reports.

The corruption began in 2002, when Conahan shut down the state juvenile detention center and used money from the Luzerne County budget to fund a multimillion-dollar lease for the private facilities. Despite some raised eyebrows from the community, county commissioners approved the deal.

The federal government began investigating in 2006.

“It’s been a dark cloud hanging over the county for a very, very long time,” said Luzerne County Commissioner Maryanne C. Petrilla, whose office approved the judges’ budgets during the corruption. “I’m looking forward to the ship turning around now and us moving in the right direction.”

The kickback scandal highlights a major problem in the juvenile justice system in Luzerne County and across the country, attorneys say. They say hundreds of children who appeared before Ciavarella didn’t have lawyers.

“Kids think very much in the present, and they have limited abilities to understand long-term consequences,” said Robin Dahlberg, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York who specializes in juvenile issues.

Dahlberg’s recent study in Ohio revealed that some of the counties had as many as 90 percent of children going through the court system without a lawyer.

“This Pennsylvania case is a sad reminder of why kids need an attorney,” she said.

A 1967 Supreme Court ruling says children have a right to counsel. However, many states allow children and their parents to appear without an attorney by completing a waiver.

Pennsylvania is among about half of the states in the country that allow waivers to be signed for juveniles to appear before a judge without an attorney, legal experts say.

In Luzerne County, teens who waived counsel were at greater risk of being sent to placement center than those with representation.

About 50 percent of the children who waived counsel before Ciavarella were sent to some kind of placement, the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center reports. In comparison, the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission in Pennsylvania found that 8.4 percent of juveniles across the state wind up in placement.

“When you have this many kids waiving counsel, then that’s way out of line,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney at the Juvenile Law Center. “There was no record [Ciavarella] was assuring the child and parent about the consequences of not having representation.”

Minors charged with nonviolent crimes were often given harsher sentences than what probation officers recommended, court documents say. Other investigators say the trials lasted a few minutes at most.

All four of the teens cited in this story say they appeared before Ciavarella without lawyers.

“I was sort of shocked and taken aback,” Hillary Transue, the MySpace offender who is now 17, said of her experience in Ciavarella’s courtroom in April 2007. “I didn’t really understand what was going on.”

The Juvenile Law Center says it first red-flagged Ciavarella in 1999 after discovering that a 13-year-old boy was detained without being read his rights and had appeared in court without a lawyer. When the case became public, Ciavarella promised the public that every minor in his courtroom would have a lawyer.

Judges must verbally explain the consequences of appearing in court without counsel to minors and parents, lawyers say. Juvenile Law Center officials say Ciavarella neglected to do so in many cases.

Yet in the past five years, attorneys, law enforcement officials and other judges did not report Ciavarella’s behavior to the Judicial Conduct Board of Pennsylvania, says Joseph A. Massa Jr., chief counsel at the board.

Privatizing detention facilities is a growing in popularity among governments because the companies say they offer lower rates than the state.

Pennsylvania has the second highest number of private facilities after Florida, accounting for about 11 percent of the private facilities in the United States, according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Critics say private prisons lack transparency because they don’t go through the same inspections and audits as a state facility, and this may have allowed payoffs to go so long without being noticed.

“Once somebody is going to make more money by holding more kids, there is a pretty good predictable profit motive,” said criminal justice consultant Judith Greene, who heads a nonprofit group called Justice Strategies. “It’s predictable that companies are going to tolerate certain behaviors they shouldn’t.”

An audit draft obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer showed that Luzerne County was spending more than $1.2 million in expenses that weren’t allowed under state regulations. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, the agency overseeing the audits, says the audit drafts are not final.

The audits also allege that two people paid the judges. Attorneys for former Mid-Atlantic owner Robert Powell say that their client is one of those people but that he was pressured by the judges to make payments. The attorneys say Powell never offered to pay the judges, never sought to influence any juvenile case and is now cooperating with the investigation. Zappala and Powell were partners until Zappala bought out Powell in 2008.

Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim of Berks County is reviewing the cases for minors who appeared before Ciavarella. Court officials say some children may have their records expunged or be granted new hearings.

The Philadelphia Bar Association has expressed outrage, assuring the public that the rest of the judges on the state’s bench are “composed of highly qualified, honorable and honest people, who take their responsibilities to the public very seriously.”

But some of the children — many who, like Phillip Swartley, are now young adults — have become jaded and believe that their cases were tainted in Ciavarella’s courtroom.

After being sent to boarding school, Phillip, now 15, became withdrawn and depressed, his mother says.

“What do these kids see of the legal system and of authority figures?” Amy Swartley asked. “These kids see people who abuse their power. Now, we have a whole county and generation of children who have lost trust in the system.”

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