Tag Archives: race and ethnicity

Finally, Conservatives Begin To Back Away From the Confederate Flag

by UlrichLompdh Posted on June 19, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The death of nine innocent worshippers may achieve what decades of civil rights activism failed to do: Force South Carolina to remove the Confederate battle flag from grounds of its capitol building.

The Confederate battle flag flew over the capitol dome in Columbia, S.C., from 1962, when the legislature hoisted it as a symbol of defiance against integration, to 2000, when huge protests convinced state lawmakers to move it elsewhere. But it didn’t go far: The flag has flown over a Confederate soldiers’ memorial on the capitol grounds ever since.

The shooting in Charleston is leading to new calls to take down the Confederate flag for good, including one from the mayor of Columbia:

Now we’ve also seen some tentative hints that figures on the right may actually be willing to let that happen:

Nikki Haley

The South Carolina governor infamously called a non-issue during her re-election campaign last year because she “had not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag” during calls with business leaders. She also rejected at least one previous call by the NAACP to remove the flag.

But during an interview on Friday with Reuters, Haley seemed open to re-examining the deal that moved the Confederate flag to its current spot

“If they want to have this conversation again, they will,” Haley said of the state legislature. “They had it 15 years ago. They came to a consensus, that’s where it was. I think they’ll have another conversation, and we’ll bring people together.”

Lindsey Graham

Many people, including us, blasted the South Carolina senator and Republican presidential candidate when he told CNN on Friday morning that the flag is “part of who we are” in his state. But he also said he was open to changing the capitol’s awkward compromise on the flag.

“It’s time for people in South Carolina to revisit that decision,” he said. “It would be fine with me.”

During the 2012 GOP primaries, Graham called the use of the flag at the Confederate War Memorial a “bipartisan” solution and advised candidates to avoid the topic altogether. “Any candidate who brought that up wouldn’t be doing themselves any favors,” he said to The Hill.

The National Review

Writers at the conservative magazine—which firmly backed the South’s mantra of states’ rights during the civil rights era—debated the use of the flag on Thursday. Executive Editor Reihan Salam came out firmly against it:

It could be that the Confederate battle flag has come to mean something entirely different in 2015 than it did in the mid-1950s, when it was closely tied to resistance to federal desegregation efforts. But is its value such that we ought to continue giving it quasi-official status, even when doing so alienates the descendants of enslaved southerners, who have just as much claim to deciding which symbols ought to represent southern heritage as the descendants of Confederate veterans? I don’t believe so.

Others were more skeptical: Ian Tuttle argued that “objections to the flag are not raised in good faith” but rather for political gain. But even he then acknowledged that the flag can cause serious harm and offense.

One can recognize, understand, and sympathize with the revulsion symbols of the Confederacy occasion in some quarters, particularly among black Americans — and a compromise should be possible. If reducing the visibility of these symbols would offer relief to those genuinely hurt, and would remove an object of contention keeping persons of different races from cooperating to advance true racial justice, that is something supporters of Confederate symbols should be able to do.

Charlie Baker

The pro-choice, pro-marriage equality Massachusetts governor is hardly an arch-conservative, but his experience on Thursday shows how the shock of the shooting may be acting on politicians. Baker told Boston’s WGBH early on Thursday afternoon that while he was against the flag personally, it was a “tradition” of South Carolina. “My view on stuff like this is that South Carolinians can make their own call,” he said.

Within hours, Baker was backtracking hard. “What were you thinking?” was the message he received from friends, he told the Boston Globe that evening. “I just want to be clear: I abhor the symbolism and the history of that flag as much as anybody, and I am more than cognizant of the fact that literally millions of Americans died over what it represents in the Civil War,” he said. “I think they should take the flag down.”

View original article – 

Finally, Conservatives Begin To Back Away From the Confederate Flag

Posted in alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Finally, Conservatives Begin To Back Away From the Confederate Flag

Maps: The Poorest Areas in America Are Often the Most Polluted

by NateOrmiston Posted on June 13, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The environmental justice movement has been fighting the hazards and toxins disproportionately affecting poor communities of color for decades. Now it has a new tool.

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently made public an interactive map that allows people to see how their communities’ exposure to hazardous waste, air pollution, and other environmental risks stack up with the rest of the country. “EJSCREEN” combines demographic data and environmental factors to create an “environmental justice index.” Environmental data includes vulnerability to air toxins and high particulate levels, exposure to lead-based paint, and proximity to chemical and hazardous waste treatment centers.

We started to explore the map, focusing on a few major cities. Not surprisingly, notoriously impoverished neighborhoods like West Oakland, the Bronx, and East New Orleans have the worst environmental justice indexes in many cases:

Hazardous waste:

New York City:

EPA EJSCREEN

San Francisco Bay Area:

Air pollution:

New York City:

EPA EJSCREEN

San Francisco Bay Area:

EPA EJSCREEN

Water discharge facilities:

New York City:

EPA EJSCREEN

New Orleans:

EPA EJSCREEN

Lead-based paint exposure:

New York City:

EPA EJSCREEN

San Francisco Bay Area:

EPA EJSCREEN

EPA EJSCREEN

From: 

Maps: The Poorest Areas in America Are Often the Most Polluted

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, Free Press, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Prepara, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Maps: The Poorest Areas in America Are Often the Most Polluted

Jon Stewart Slams the “Asshole” Cop Who Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Black Teens at a Texas Pool Party

by Brandon72H Posted on June 9, 2015

Mother Jones

Jon Stewart is just as horrified as you over the shocking video footage that emerged over the weekend showing a white police officer pointing a gun at a group of black teenagers during a Texas pool party.

Dubbing the segment “Assault Swim,” Stewart took to the Daily Show on Monday to address the violent party, asking viewers, “How do you go from a pool party to this?”

The video from Friday’s pool party, which shows officer Eric Casebolt waving a gun at the teenagers and even throwing a 14-year-old girl to the ground while she cries for help, has provoked national outrage over what many say is another example of excessive, racially-motivated policing.

But Jessica Williams, dressed in full-body armor, appeared on Monday to point out rather depressingly, the incident is actually an improvement in terms of police-community relations.

“It’s progress Jon because a cop pulled a gun on a group of black kids and no one is dead.”

Credit: 

Jon Stewart Slams the “Asshole” Cop Who Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Black Teens at a Texas Pool Party

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Jon Stewart Slams the “Asshole” Cop Who Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Black Teens at a Texas Pool Party

This Is What the FBI Really Thought About LBJ’s Top Civil Rights Lawyer

by MarylouSoderlund Posted on June 4, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Few people in the federal government did as much for the civil rights movement as John Doar. As a lawyer in the Department of Justice, he rode through the South with the Freedom Riders in 1961, investigated the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, and at one point in Jackson, Mississippi, put himself between police and demonstrators to defuse a violent situation using only his reputation. As the New York Times recounted in his obituary last year:

“My name is John Doar—D-O-A-R,” he shouted to the crowd. “I’m from the Justice Department, and anybody here knows what I stand for is right.” That qualified as a full-length speech from the laconic Mr. Doar. At his continued urging, the crowd slowly melted away.

The FBI’s files on Doar, which was released to Mother Jones this week under the Freedom of Information Act, included a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of how J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI viewed this civil rights crusader. When he was promoted to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, for instance, agents noted that Doar had been “straightened out” after complaining about the bureau’s slow response to civil rights violations in the Deep South:

dc.embed.loadNote(‘//www.documentcloud.org/documents/2093383-johndoar/annotations/221665.js’);

View note

His file also contained an interview with a former colleague of Doar’s which revealed a persistent character flaw—he cared way too much about civil rights and prioritized such cases over other issues:

dc.embed.loadNote(‘//www.documentcloud.org/documents/2093383-johndoar/annotations/221671.js’);

View note

All was not forgiven, despite what the memo to Hoover suggested. In 1967, after Doar had resigned from the Civil Rights Division and taken a new job in Brooklyn, an agent proposed using the former adversary as a liaison in handling racial unrest in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Hoover and his deputy, Clyde Tolson, gave the proposal an emphatic rejection:

dc.embed.loadNote(‘//www.documentcloud.org/documents/2093383-johndoar/annotations/221668.js’);

View note

You can read the FBI’s full file on Doar here.

Excerpt from: 

This Is What the FBI Really Thought About LBJ’s Top Civil Rights Lawyer

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Is What the FBI Really Thought About LBJ’s Top Civil Rights Lawyer

Google’s New Diversity Stats Are Only Slightly Less Embarrassing Than They Were Last Year

by GilbertBrisbane Posted on June 2, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Around this time last year, Google shocked Silicon Valley by voluntarily releasing statistics on the diversity of its workforce. The move helped shame other large tech companies into doing the same, and the picture that emerged wasn’t pretty: In most cases, only 10 percent of the companies’ overall employees were black or Latino, compared to 27 percent in the US workforce as a whole. For its own part, Google admitted that “we’re miles from where we want to be,” and pledged to do more to cultivate minority and female tech talent.

Now Google has an update: Its 2015 diversity stats, released yesterday, show that it has moved inches, not miles, toward a workforce that reflects America. The representation of female techies ticked up by 1 percentage point (from 17 to 18 percent), Asians gained 1 point, and whites, though still the majority, slipped by 1 point. Otherwise, the numbers are unchanged:

Google

“With an organization our size, year-on-year growth and meaningful change is going to take time,” Nancy Lee, Google’s vice president of people operations, told the Guardian. Last year, Google spent $115 million on diversity initiatives and dispatched its own engineers to historically black colleges and universities to teach introductory computer science courses and help graduating students prepare for job searches. But unlike Intel, another big tech company that has prioritized diversity, Google has not set firm goals for diversifying its talent pool.

“While every company cannot match Intel’s ambitious plan, they can set concrete, measurable goals, targets, and timetables,” said a statement from the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who last year played a key role in convincing Google and other companies to disclose their diversity stats. “If they don’t measure it, they don’t mean it.”

Read this article:

Google’s New Diversity Stats Are Only Slightly Less Embarrassing Than They Were Last Year

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Google’s New Diversity Stats Are Only Slightly Less Embarrassing Than They Were Last Year

Here Are 13 Killings by Police Captured on Video in the Past Year

by AmberSuttor Posted on May 20, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Screenshot from police video of the shooting of Jason Harrison in Dallas on June 14, 2014. Harrison’s family obtained the footage in a civil rights lawsuit and chose to publicize it.

From Ferguson last summer to Baltimore this spring, police killings of unarmed black men under questionable circumstances have sparked outrage, civil unrest, and a heated national debate about policing in the United States. As Mother Jones and others have reported, there isn’t sufficient data available for determining how many people are shot to death or otherwise killed by police each year, or how the issue might be trending. But more such incidents appear to be getting captured on video than ever before, due in part to the ubiquity of cellphone cameras. The footage—not only from cellphones, but also surveillance cameras, dashboard cameras in police cars, and police-worn body cameras—has caused a tectonic shift in public awareness.

More MoJo coverage on police shootings:


Itâ&#128;&#153;s Been 6 Months Since Tamir Rice Died, and the Cop Who Killed Him Still Hasn’t Been Questioned


The Tamir Rice Killing: “I Feel So Disgusted With the City of Cleveland.”


Exactly How Often Do Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men?


2 Shootings Caught on Camera, 2 Young Black Victims, Zero Charges


The Cop Who Choked Eric Garner to Death Won’t Pay a Dime


Philly Cops Shoot and Kill People at 6 Times the Rate of the NYPD


Here’s What Happens to Police Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men

Below are 13 videos of fatal police encounters recorded between March 16, 2014, and April 4, 2015. Most of the suspects killed were black. A majority of the suspects were unarmed. In three cases, the suspects killed reportedly had serious mental-health problems—which may have been known to the police in at least two of those cases at the time of the shootings.

Mother Jones has contacted law enforcement officials about the status of these 13 cases: Investigations are ongoing in eight of them. In one case, now six months old, the two officers involved still haven’t been questioned by investigators. Officers in the five other cases have been absolved of wrongdoing via local or state proceedings. (One of those five cases is currently under review by the US Department of Justice.) Three of the 24 officers total who were involved in the 13 cases are currently facing criminal charges.

WARNING: The videos below contain graphic footage that some viewers may find disturbing.

Suspect killed: James Boyd
Race: White
When: March 16, 2014
Where: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Footage from: Police-worn body camera

What happened: James Boyd, a homeless man who reportedly suffered from mental illnesses for years, was shot by Albuquerque police officers Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez after a standoff over Boyd’s hillside encampment in March 2014. Randi McGinn, the special prosecutor appointed to take over the case in April 2015, told Mother Jones that she is likely to pursue homicide charges, originally brought by the district attorney, and will make a determination in the next few weeks.

Suspect killed: Richard Ramirez
Race: White/Hispanic
When: April 14, 2014
Where: Billings, Montana
Footage from: Police dashboard camera

What happened: Richard Ramirez was in the back of a car that was pulled over by officer Grant Morrison. Morrison later testified that, after he ordered the passengers to put up their hands, Ramirez repeatedly dropped his left hand. Morrison stated that he thought Ramirez—who’d been identified as a suspect in an armed robbery the prior night—was reaching for a gun, so he shot him three times. Ramirez was unarmed. (In February 2013, Morrison shot and killed another man while on duty, and was cleared of any wrongdoing.) In January 2015, a coroner’s jury ruled the action a justifiable homicide.

Suspect killed: Jason Harrison
Race: Black
When: June 14, 2014
Where: Dallas
Footage from: Police-worn body camera

What happened: Harrison’s mother called police saying that her son was off his medication and acting out, and requested help to get him to a hospital. When Dallas police officers John Rogers and Andrew Hutchins arrived at the front door, Harrison’s mother stepped out, letting the officers know that her son was bipolar and schizophrenic. When Harrison came to the door, the officers told him to drop a screwdriver he was holding, and shot him when he failed to comply. According to the Dallas Morning News, the officers’ attorney said that they feared for their lives, because killing someone using a screwdriver would be “pretty easy. It’ll only take one blow.” In April 2015, a grand jury decided not to indict the officers.

Suspect killed: Eric Garner
Race: Black
When: July 17, 2014
Where: Staten Island, New York
Footage from: Bystander’s cellphone

What happened: In July 2014, police approached Eric Garner on a Staten Island street after Garner had broken up a fight, and then started questioning him about selling loose cigarettes. NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck from behind in a takedown maneuver and held Garner on the ground as Garner repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.” Garner was later pronounced dead at the hospital. In December 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo.

Suspect killed: John Crawford III
Race: Black
Where: August 5, 2014
Where: Beavercreek, Ohio
Footage from: Walmart surveillance camera

What happened: Crawford, 22, was walking around in a Walmart holding a BB gun that had been for sale on the store’s shelves. Responding to a 911 call about a man waving a gun, Beavercreek officer Sean Williams and Sergeant David Darkow arrived at the Walmart. The officers later told investigators that Williams opened fire after Crawford failed to comply with their orders to drop the gun. A grand jury decided in September 2014 not to indict the officers. The US Department of Justice launched a review of the case last September, which is ongoing, a DOJ spokesperson confirmed to Mother Jones.

Suspect killed: Dillon Taylor
Race: White
When: August 11, 2014
Where: Salt Lake City
Footage from: Police-worn body camera

What happened: Dillon Taylor, his brother, and his cousin were outside a convenience store and allegedly matched the description from a 911 call about three men, including one brandishing a gun. Officer Bron Cruz confronted the trio and began following Taylor, who initially walked away with his back toward Cruz. Taylor then turned around and kept walking backward, and had both hands in his waistband, according to Cruz. Cruz said he thought Taylor had a gun, and he repeatedly yelled at Taylor to get his hands out, before firing two shots. Taylor was unarmed. In September 2014, the Salt Lake City District Attorney determined the shooting was justified.

Suspect killed: Kajieme Powell
Race: Black
When: August 19, 2014
Where: St. Louis
Footage from: Bystander’s cellphone

What happened: A bystander’s cellphone video shows Powell, 25, walking around outside a corner grocery store after allegedly stealing energy drinks and pastries. As he paced back and forth, a police car pulled onto the sidewalk just up the street and two police officers got out. Powell, who was brandishing a knife, began to approach the officers (whose names have not been released), telling them to shoot him. After a pause, he took another step toward the officers and they opened fire. St. Louis Metro police chief Sam Dotson later stated that Powell “came at the officers” while gripping the knife. In February, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not request charges when it handed off its investigation to the circuit attorney’s office, whose probe is ongoing, a spokesperson confirmed.

Suspect killed: Tamir Rice
Race: Black
When: November 22, 2014
Where: Cleveland
Footage from: Surveillance camera

What happened: Rice, 12, was playing in a local park when someone called 911 and reported that a person, “probably a juvenile,” was waving a gun around that was “probably fake.” Police officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback pulled up to Rice in their patrol car and Loehmann got out and shot Rice almost instantly. No charges have been filed in the case. As Mother Jones first reported last week, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department, which took control of the case in January, has yet to interview the two officers in its ongoing investigation.

Suspect killed: Jerame Reid
Race: Black
When: December 30, 2014
Where: Bridgeton, New Jersey
Footage from: Dashboard camera

What happened: Reid was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for allegedly running a stop sign. Officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley approached the car, and despite verbal warnings from the officers, Reid opened his door and reportedly got out of the car with his hands up, after saying “I ain’t doing nothing. I’m not reaching for nothing, bro,” according to the Associated Press. Both Days and Worley shot him. The officers were placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation, and Reid’s family has filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court against the city of Bridgeton. (Days is also facing a separate lawsuit for alleged rape.)

Suspect killed: Antonio Zambrano-Montes
Race: Hispanic
When: February 10, 2015
Where: Pasco, Washington
Footage from: Bystander’s cellphone

What happened: After responding to a call of a man throwing rocks in a grocery store parking lot, three Pasco police officers tried to arrest Zambrano. They pursued him on foot, shooting at him as he ran, and they fired at close range as he turned around to face them. In the video, his hands appear to have been empty. Officers Ryan Flanagan, Adam Wright, and Adrian Alaniz were placed on paid leave, and an investigation is ongoing.

Suspect killed: Charly Keunang
Race: Black
When: March 1, 2015
Where: Los Angeles
Footage from: Bystander’s cellphone

What happened: Six police officers were responding to a 911 call about an alleged robbery and assault on LA’s Skid Row, in which Keunang was reportedly a suspect. During a struggle with police, Keunang, who reportedly suffered from mental health problems, allegedly reached for an officer’s gun, prompting several officers to open fire. The three officers who fired their guns—Sergeant Chand Syed, and Officers Francisco Martinez and Daniel Torres—have been reassigned to administrative duty and an internal police department investigation is ongoing, the LAPD confirmed to Mother Jones. Keunang’s family has filed a $20 million civil claim against the city.

Suspect killed: Phillip White
Race: Black
When: March 31, 2015
Where: Vineland, New Jersey
Footage from: Bystander’s cellphone

What happened: Responding to a call of a man acting erratically, police handcuffed and restrained the 32-year-old White. According to investigators, White became unresponsive and received CPR in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, where he eventually died. Police called it an “in-custody non-shooting death,” but witnesses on the scene said the officers beat White and that a police dog bit him in the face. An investigation by the Cumberland County prosecutor’s office is ongoing. The officers in the case, Louis Platania and Rich Janasiak, are both on administrative leave, according to news reports.

Suspect killed: Walter Scott
Race: Black
When: April 4, 2015
Where: North Charleston, South Carolina
Footage from: Police dashboard camera and bystander’s cellphone

What happened: Dashboard camera footage showed Scott running away from his vehicle after North Charleston police officer Michael Slager pulled Scott over for a broken brake light. In the following minutes, recorded on a bystander’s cellphone, Slager caught up to Scott in an open field, and after a short struggle, Scott, who was unarmed, broke free and began to run away. Slager then shot Scott multiple times from behind. Slager was fired from his job and faces a felony murder charge.

More:

Here Are 13 Killings by Police Captured on Video in the Past Year

Posted in FF, GE, Jason, LAI, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here Are 13 Killings by Police Captured on Video in the Past Year

Investigators About to Break Silence on Police Killing of 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice

by COEMonikaof Posted on May 11, 2015

Mother Jones

On Tuesday, nearly half a year since 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed at a community center park by a Cleveland police officer, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department will make its first public statement about the progress of its criminal investigation. Sheriff Clifford Pinkney will review the timeline of the investigation from the day Rice was shot until present, and what remains to be done, according to a county official familiar with the case. Citing the ongoing investigation, Pinkney’s office says he plans to take no questions from the media following the statement.

The Sheriff’s department has remained quiet about the investigation ever since taking it over from the Cleveland Police Department in January, despite mounting questions about how long the process has taken in light of explicit video footage of the killing and the troubling police record of Timothy Loehmann, the officer who fired the fatal shots. The few details about the investigation that have come to light so far have been via court filings issued as part of the Rice family’s wrongful death suit against the city of Cleveland. Last week, Loehmann and fellow officer Frank Garmback filed a motion in that case seeking to invoke their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department declined to comment on the record about the two officers’ role in the ongoing criminal investigation.

More MoJo coverage on police shootings:


Exactly How Often Do Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men?


The Cop Who Choked Eric Garner to Death Won’t Have to Pay a Dime in Damages


Philadelphia Cops Shoot and Kill People at 6 Times the Rate of the NYPD


Here’s What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men


Congress Is Finally Going to Make Local Law Enforcement Report How Many People They Kill


Hereâ&#128;&#153;s the Data That Shows Cops Kill Black People at a Higher Rate Than White People

Political infighting may have been a factor in the prolonged process: After Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson asked the county to take over the investigation in early January, the sheriff’s department requested help from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, against Jackson’s wishes. DeWine had previously said that a 2012 police shooting involving another officer, Michael Brelo, revealed a “systemic failure” at the Cleveland PD. Brelo currently faces voluntary manslaughter charges for shooting and killing two unarmed black suspects during a car chase, and a verdict is expected this month. (Thirteen officers were involved that case, but Brelo was the only one charged.) The handover of the Rice case also coincided with the start of a new Cuyahoga County executive’s term.

Still, particularly against the backdrop of ongoing national news about officer-involved killings, the pace of the Rice investigation has been troubling, says Ayesha Bell Hardaway, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and a former Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor. “The lapse of time from Tamir’s death until now has been too great,” she says, adding that “the public’s confidence in the police department and the city of Cleveland is hanging in the balance.”

Read More:

Investigators About to Break Silence on Police Killing of 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Investigators About to Break Silence on Police Killing of 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice

7 Charts Explaining Baltimore’s Economic and Racial Struggles

by SoniaAlarcon Posted on May 6, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In the wake of Baltimore’s upheaval, President Obama, among others, reminded the country that the city’s longstanding economic inequality was beneath the response to Freddie Gray’s death. “This is not new,” Obama said. “This has been going on for decades.”

In a new study published this week, a group of Harvard economists quantified Baltimore’s problem with economic mobility. Of the 100 largest counties in the country, they found, Baltimore was where children in low-income households faced the worst odds in terms of upward mobility, followed by Mencklenburg, North Carolina; Hillsborough, Florida; Orange, Florida; and Cook, Illinois.

Check out The Upshot‘s interactive map of the Harvard study findings.

That’s just one of many sobering measures of life for some in Baltimore, as the Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, and others have pointed out in recent days. Here are a few examples:

Life expectancy in 15 Baltimore neighborhoods, including the one where Freddie Gray lived, is shorter than in North Korea, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. In eight Baltimore neighborhoods, the life expectancy rate is worse than in Syria.

Christopher Ingraham/Wonkblog

Baltimore teens between 15 and 19 years old face poorer health conditions and a bleaker economic outlook than those in economically distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China, and South Africa, according to recent research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Teens in Baltimore, along with Johannesburg, saw the highest prevalence of sexual violence, substance abuse, depression, and PTSD. They were also most likely to report witnessing community violence.

Vocativ

In 2014, Baltimore—a city where the unemployment rate (8.1 percent) is nearly one and a half times than the national rate (5.5 percent)—had one of the largest gaps between the rich and poor in the country, according to the Brookings Institution. The typical Baltimore resident in the bottom fifth of earners made $13,588 in 2013, whereas those in top 5 percent made an average of $166,924 that year.

In 2010, Baltimore had Maryland’s highest rate of arrests for marijuana possession, and Maryland had one of the highest such arrest rates in the country, according to a 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

American Civil Liberties Union, 2010

Baltimore incarcerates a greater portion of its population than New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles County, according to the Justice Policy Institute. It also has one of the highest inmate populations in the country, according to the latest available Bureau of Justice Statistics data.

Justice Policy Institute

When it comes to income inequality between blacks and whites, Baltimore is not alone. As FiveThirtyEight reported, this racial disparity is common in cities where at least 10 percent of the population is black.

Ben Casselman/FiveThirtyEight

Continue reading – 

7 Charts Explaining Baltimore’s Economic and Racial Struggles

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, Holmes, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 7 Charts Explaining Baltimore’s Economic and Racial Struggles

If Black People Lived As Long As White People, Election Results Would Be Very Different

by DaniellSpringer Posted on May 1, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

With the mortality rate for black Americans about 18 percent higher than it is for white Americans, premature black deaths have affected the results of US elections, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Oxford.

The study, published in Social Science & Medicine and highlighted on Friday by the UK-based New Scientist, shows how the outcomes of elections between 1970 and 2004—including the presidential race between John Kerry and George W. Bush—might have been affected if there hadn’t been such a disparity in the death rate. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8.5 million black people died during that 35-year period. But if the mortality rates had been comparable, an additional 2.7 million black people would have been alive, and of those, an estimated 1 million would have cast votes in the 2004 election. Bush likely still would have won that race. But some state-level races might have turned out differently: The results would have been reversed in an estimated seven US Senate elections and 11 gubernatorial elections during the 35-year period, the researchers found, assuming that the hypothetical additional voters had cast their ballots in line with actual black voters, who tend to overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates.

And that’s before even getting to incarceration. Additional elections potentially would have turned out differently if voting-age black Americans who were previously convicted of felonies had been able to cast a ballot. As New Scientist explains:

Accounting for people disenfranchised by felony convictions would have likely reversed three other senate seats. In at least one state, Missouri, accounting for just excess deaths or felony disenfranchisement would not have been sufficient to reverse the senate election – but both sources of lost votes taken together would have.

While everyone’s attention right now is on racial injustice in the context of policing, one of the study’s authors, Arline Geronimus, noted that most premature black deaths were linked to chronic health conditions that afflict black people more than white people. “If you’re losing a voting population, you’re losing the support for the policies that would help that population,” she told New Scientist. “As long as there’s this huge inequality in health and mortality, there’s a diminished voice to speak out against the problem.”

See more here: 

If Black People Lived As Long As White People, Election Results Would Be Very Different

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on If Black People Lived As Long As White People, Election Results Would Be Very Different

Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn’t Start the Way You Think

by QXEAlishafy Posted on April 28, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation.

The funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody this month, had ended hours earlier at a nearby church. According to the Baltimore Sun, a call to “purge”—a reference to the 2013 dystopian film in which all crime is made legal for one night—circulated on social media among school-aged Baltimoreans that morning. The rumored plan—which was not traced to any specific person or group—was to assemble at the Mondawmin Mall at 3:00 p.m. and proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward downtown Baltimore. The Baltimore police department, which was aware of the “purge” call, prepared for the worst. Shortly before noon, the department issued a statement saying it had “received credible information that members of various gangs…have entered into a partnership to ‘take-out’ law enforcement officers.”

When school let out that afternoon, police were in the area equipped with full riot gear. According to eyewitnesses in the Mondawmin neighborhood, the police were stopping busses and forcing riders, including many students who were trying to get home, to disembark. Cops shut down the local subway stop. They also blockaded roads near the Mondawmin Mall and Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall, and essentially corralled young people in the area. That is, they did not allow the after-school crowd to disperse.

Meghann Harris, a teacher at a nearby school, described on Facebook what happened:

Police were forcing busses to stop and unload all their passengers. Then, Frederick Douglass High School students, in huge herds, were trying to leave on various busses but couldn’t catch any because they were all shut down. No kids were yet around except about 20, who looked like they were waiting for police to do something. The cops, on the other hand, were in full riot gear, marching toward any small social clique of students…It looked as if there were hundreds of cops.

The kids were “standing around in groups of 3-4,” Harris said in a Facebook message to Mother Jones. “They weren’t doing anything. No rock throwing, nothing…The cops started marching toward groups of kids who were just milling about.”

A teacher at Douglass High School, who asked not to be identified, tells a similar story: “When school was winding down, many students were leaving early with their parents or of their own accord.” Those who didn’t depart early, she says, were stranded. Many of the students still at school at that point, she notes, wanted to get out of the area and avoid any Purge-like violence. Some were requesting rides home from teachers. But by now, it was difficult to leave the neighborhood. “I rode with another teacher home,” this teacher recalls, “and we had to route our travel around the police in riot gear blocking the road… The majority of my students thought what was going to happen was stupid or were frightened at the idea. Very few seemed to want to participate in ‘the purge.'”

A parent who picked up his children from a nearby elementary school, says via Twitter, “The kids stood across from the police and looked like they were asking them ‘why can’t we get on the buses’ but the police were just gazing…Majority of those kids aren’t from around that neighborhood. They NEED those buses and trains in order to get home.” He continued: “If they would’ve let them children go home, yesterday wouldn’t have even turned out like that.”

Meg Gibson, another Baltimore teacher, described a similar scene to Gawker: “The riot police were already at the bus stop on the other side of the mall, turning buses that transport the students away, not allowing students to board. They were waiting for the kids.…Those kids were set up, they were treated like criminals before the first brick was thrown.” With police unloading busses, and with the nearby metro station shut down, there were few ways for students to clear out.

Several eyewitnesses in the area that afternoon say that police seemed to arrive at Mondawmin anticipating mobs and violence—prior to any looting. At 3:01 p.m., the Baltimore Police Department posted on its Facebook page: “There is a group of juveniles in the area of Mondawmin Mall. Expect traffic delays in the area.” But many of the kids, according to eyewitnesses, were stuck there because of police actions.

The Baltimore Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Around 3:30, the police reported that juveniles had begun to throw bottles and bricks. Fifteen minutes later, the police department noted that one of its officers had been injured. After that the violence escalated, and rioters started looting the Mondawmin Mall, and Baltimore was in for a long night of trouble and violence. But as the event is reviewed and investigated, an important question warrants attention: What might have happened had the police not prevented students from leaving the area? Did the department’s own actions increase the chances of conflict?

As Meghann Harris put it, “if I were a Douglas student that just got trapped in the middle of a minefield BY cops without any way to get home and completely in harm’s way, I’d be ready to pop off, too.”

On social media, eyewitnesses chronicled the dramatic police presence before the rioting began:

#LIVE #SATELLITE #MondawminMall …”Cops in Body Armor for H.S. STUDENT”

A photo posted by Antonio Butcher (@magava_da_9) on Apr 27, 2015 at 12:26pm PDT

#praying4Baltimore #mondawminmall

A video posted by BE-Z Clothing Comp (@mrbez4ever) on Apr 27, 2015 at 12:10pm PDT

On Twitter, Baltimore residents vented their frustration with the situation.

More: 

Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn’t Start the Way You Think

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn’t Start the Way You Think