Baltimore prosecutor charges police with murder in death of Freddie Gray

May 1, 2015

Fox News:

DEVELOPING: Prosecutors charged six Baltimore police officers Friday with crimes ranging from murder to assault in the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man whose death last month of injuries apparently suffered in police custody touched off peaceful protests that degenerated into a night of rioting, looting and chaos Monday.

DEVELOPING: Prosecutors charged six Baltimore police officers Friday with crimes ranging State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, speaking at a Friday news conference, blasted the six police involved in Gray’s arrest on April 12, during which he suffered a broken neck that proved fatal a week later. Mosby said the police had no basis for arresting Gray, who police said avoided eye contact and was carrying a switchblade. One police officer, identified as Caesar Goodson, 45, was charged with second-degree murder, while others were charged with crimes including manslaughter and assault.

“No one is above the law,” declared Mosby, who said she comes from three generations of law enforcement and has been on the job for four months. Her husband is Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby, who has spoken out about the riots and anger in the city’s African-American community.

Gray suffered a broken neck, apparently while riding in the back of the Baltimore police van. Mosby said Friday the medical examiner had ruled the death a homicide. Police sources have said his injuries may have been caused by his head hitting a bolt inside the vehicle, according to local reports citing sources familiar with a police report now in the hands of state prosecutors.

Gray died a week later, on April 19. Until Friday’s news conference few details about the investigation had been publicly released and most of what was known came from local reports citing unnamed sources. An explosive report Wednesday night in the Washington Post cited a fellow passenger’s account in a police affidavit that said Gray was thrashing around in an effort to injure himself, although that witness went on the city’s CBS affiliate to say his words were taken out of context and that he now fears for his life after his statement was used to bolster the police version of events.

“When I was in the back of that van it did not stop or nothing,” Danta Allen, who had been arrested for allegedly stealing a cigarette, told WJZ. “All it did was go straight to the station, but I heard a little banging, like he was banging his head,” Allen said. ” I didn’t even know he was in the van until we got to the station.”

More at Fox News

Disclaimer: This article was not written by Lorra B.

Military Ops On U.S. Soil Raise Martial-Law Fears

(Snapshot credit, WND)

April 22, 2015

WND:

Jade Helm 15 is set to kick off in seven states this summer, sending Special Operations forces from all four main branches of the military onto civilian soil to conduct hostile take-over training – and civil-rights advocates are sounding the alarms.

This is how the military describes it:

“The nature of warfare is always changing and U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s mission is to make certain the Army’s various Special Operations Forces are trained, equipped and organized to successfully conduct worldwide special operations in support of our nation’s interests,” said command spokesman Army Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, in a statement to the Washington Post a few weeks ago. “Training exercise Jade Helm is going to assist our Special Operations Soldiers and leadership in refining the skills needed against an ever changing foreign threat.”

 

But plenty on social media aren’t calmed by the explanation, in part remembering the recent similar operation in Broward County, Florida, that saw Blackhawk helicopters flying above community streets while soldiers loaded citizen participants into white vans for transport to internment camps. It was all a staged exercise but for those watching, the scenes that unfolded were alarming.

“Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality” chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state, and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution. Order today!

The looming Jade Helm exercise, set for July 15 through Sept. 15, labels Texas and Utah as hostile areas. Global Research also reported the military says New Mexico “isn’t much friendlier.” Other states participating: California, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.

Some of the social media commentary so far: “The Pentagon’s ‘Operations Jade Helm 15′: The Floodgate towards Martial Law and World War III?”

And another: “Using Foreign Troops with Jade Helm Martial Law is TREASON.”

Yet one more poster pointed to recent reported Wal-Mart closures in Texas, California, Florida and Oklahoma with concern, saying the cited “plumbing problems” cited as the reason for the sudden shut-downs just don’t meet the smell test.

“Employees impacted by the Wal-Mart closures were given just a few hours notice about the six-month shutdown,” the blog Inquisitr wrote. “Approximately 2,200 employees will now be without a paycheck during the ‘extended repairs.’ … The abrupt Wal-Mart closures announcement has reportedly left employees confused and Americans pondering the existence of Wal-Mart underground tunnels and Operation Jade Helm conspiracy theories.”

More at WND

Disclaimer: This article was not written by Lorra B.

The DHS Isn’t Backing Down On Tracking Your License Plate

April 6, 2015

Rare: by Nick Morpus

A year ago, the Department of Homeland Security began a new initiative to track license plates nationwide. Luckily it was abandoned due to overwhelming opposition over privacy concerns.

Organizations such as the ACLU warned that license plate databases could be used to track the locations of all American drivers, criminal and non-criminal.

The ACLU even released a report—“You Are Being Tracked”—which detailed the issues with several localities that allow license plate readers. Authorities can keep tabs on people’s movements with little regard for privacy. (I highly recommend reading the report and viewing the slideshow on the ACLU’s website concerning the use of this technology.)

image: https://coxrare.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/aclu-1.png?w=616&h=329

Now the Washington Post reports that DHS has renewed its interest in adopting such a nationwide program and is seeking bids from private companies to implement it. However, according to DHS, they are taking precautionary measures to ensure that privacy rights and civil liberties will not be violated:

“These restrictions will provide essential privacy and civil liberty protections, while enhancing our agents’ and officers’ ability to locate and apprehend suspects who could pose a threat to national security and public safety,” DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron said in a statement. The solicitation was posted publicly Thursday.

A year ago, the ACLU warned that last year’s “victory” in stopping the bids was not so much a victory as a minor delay in implementation. The group said the database DHS wants already exists:

There was never a plan to “build” a plate database. A database almost exactly like the one DHS describes is a current fact. It is operated by a private corporation called Vigilant Solutions, contains nearly two billion records of our movements, and grows by nearly 100 million records per month. As I explain in greater detail here, DHS likely just wanted broader access to tap it.

Privacy advocates are skeptical of DHS’ “reassurances” over privacy, according to the Washington Post:

“If this goes forward, DHS will have warrantless access to location information going back at least five years about virtually every adult driver in the U.S., and sometimes to their image as well,” said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology.

image: https://coxrare.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/aclu-2.png?w=616&h=350

Can we blame them after all the times we were “reassured” by the NSA that massive data collection of our Internet activities and phone calls was not happening? There is also the constitutionality of such programs to consider.
More at Rare

Disclaimer: This was not written by Lorra B.

Can Everyone Please Stop Debating N-Word? Or, is Anyone Profiting/Benefiting From The Debate?

As much work as the people behind the Washington Post’s interactive project on “The N-Word” likely put in, its biggest and only beneficiaries are those who profited from the traffic it generated. Sure, the publication tried to argue the purpose of its package. When you venture on to the site, you are greeted with this message: “After the National Football League made the controversial decision to ban it on the field this year, a team of Washington Post journalists explored the history of the word, its evolution, and its place in American vernacular today.”

This, despite the reality that such exploration has been done for what feels like a million times already. I’m probably really close to the exact number.

SEE ALSO: Miss. Black Caucus Chair Defends Former Gov. Haley Barbour’s Obama’s ‘Tar Babies’ Statement

It may be serious in its presentation, but no serious person could expect any real evolution from long-established points: the word isn’t going anywhere; some Black people will continue to use “nigga,” and they are well within their rights to take a slur and morph it into a colloquialism they feel comfortable with; some Black people will never feel comfortable about “nigga” and they are well within their rights to hold that opinion; and most will reach an accord that a White person who uses “nigga” should immediately lose their lips and tongue.

Another basic albeit inconvenient truth is that it’s easier to have a conversation about “the n-word” than racism.

It’s not even a symptom of systematic racism so much as it is a response to that. A response that’s relatively small when you consider everything else going on right now.

The Washington Post makes note of this point of view, but where is the big interactive project on that?

A project that examines just how detrimental institutionalized racism is and how strongly it presses on. Just check the Washington Post masthead — particularly the very top of it.

Even if Black people took part in the project, this is another instance of White people holding a magnifying glass to Black people when they ought to be standing tall in the mirror, wondering just when are they going to give Black people a fighting chance in this country. Instead, we go for repetition and the superficial. And not surprisingly, we are met with the same results.

Enter television personality and unapologetic troll Piers Morgan (pictured), who wrote the essay “If Black Americans Want the N-word To die, They Will Have To Kill It Themselves,” where he attempts to tell Black people about themselves when it comes to the vernacular remix of “n*gger.”

Like other White men who have no realistic concept of racism because it has never been a factor in their lives, Morgan offers a naïve assessment of how racism works.

Black people are victims of racism. We cope with the conditions we’ve been given. It is not our responsibility to solve the problem we did not create.

It’s hilarious that a British White man wants to tell Black Americans about the state of race when he’s from a country long criticized for not even acknowledging Black people and culture.

In any event, Morgan got the attention he wanted from John Legend and writers like Ta-Nehisi Coatesand Rebecca Carroll. And now me. He’s been smug in all of his responses to the aforementioned and basically told Black Twitter to shut up given he covered Trayvon Martin.

You know, despite it being those very members of Black Twitter who helped up the volume on the journalists and activists who worked to have the story of Trayvon’s tragedy told.

Problem is, the aforementioned Morgan critics do their part to raise the state of conversations about race, but they are drowned out by institutions like the Washington Post and high-profile media personalities like Piers Morgan no matter how reductive the narrative or simplistic their argument is.

We deserve better.

Yet to answer my own question, “Can everyone please stop debating ‘The N-Word?’” No. Because the structure is set up to keep the conversation about race on the superficial and spectacle than the substantive. I wish I had an answer to this, but much like my choice to make “nigga” my own, I can only deal with the conditions I’m provided with. As best I can.

By Michael Arceneaux, News One:

 

SEE ALSO: Missouri Governor Outlines Ferguson Preparations

Michael Arceneaux hails from Houston, lives in Harlem, and praises Beyoncé’s name wherever he goes. Follow him @youngsinick.