Month: July 2014

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New Yorker who died after apparent chokehold during arrest is mourned

 

The mourners trickled slowly into the crowded church. Inside, a huge man lay in a white casket topped by white and yellow flowers — a man who in life was known to few outside his Staten Island neighborhood.

In death, though, Eric Garner has become a symbol of policing gone awry: He was videotaped as he was put into an apparent chokehold by police officers. His case has jolted a city that began the year with a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and a new police commissioner, William J. Bratton, vowing better lives for people such as Garner: black men living far from the glassy skyscrapers and shaded brownstones of the well-heeled.

 

 

Civil rights leaders and other New Yorkers say Garner’s death July 17 shows the need for faster change in the New York Police Department.

“People in all five boroughs are fired up. They’re fired up right now because we don’t like this,” said Isaac L. Mickens, a pastor, community activist and friend of Garner’s family. “We need action.”

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: www.latimes.com

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New Yorker who died after apparent chokehold during arrest is mourned

 

The mourners trickled slowly into the crowded church. Inside, a huge man lay in a white casket topped by white and yellow flowers — a man who in life was known to few outside his Staten Island neighborhood.

In death, though, Eric Garner has become a symbol of policing gone awry: He was videotaped as he was put into an apparent chokehold by police officers. His case has jolted a city that began the year with a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and a new police commissioner, William J. Bratton, vowing better lives for people such as Garner: black men living far from the glassy skyscrapers and shaded brownstones of the well-heeled.

 

 

Civil rights leaders and other New Yorkers say Garner’s death July 17 shows the need for faster change in the New York Police Department.

“People in all five boroughs are fired up. They’re fired up right now because we don’t like this,” said Isaac L. Mickens, a pastor, community activist and friend of Garner’s family. “We need action.”

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: www.latimes.com

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Inside the final minutes before 13 year old Andy Lopez’s murder

 

Moments before 13-year-old Andy Lopez was fatally shot by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who mistook his replica AK-47 pellet gun for a real rifle, a man in a truck drove by the boy and felt a surge of worry.

 

Click through for more.

 

Source: www.sfgate.com

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Police shoot teenage special-needs girl within 20 seconds of arriving to ‘help’

HALF MOON BAY, CA — Acommunity is outraged after a call for help turned into a hasty death sentence for a disgruntled teenage girl with special needs.

Source: www.policestateusa.com

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Trial Begins For Man Who Shot Unarmed Black Teenager On His Porch

  DETROIT — As a prosecutor showed a jury photos of Renisha McBride, her father rushed out of the court room. The photos of the 19-year-old — first smiling, and then lying lifeless on a porch — were shown in quick succession at the beginning of one of the most highly publicized and racially charged trials of the year. Opening statements began Wednesday in the trial of Theodore Wafer, the 55-year-old Dearborn Heights, Michigan, man charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of McBride. Wafer is accused of shooting her with a shotgun through his locked screen door around 4:40 a.m. on Nov. 2. His attorney seeks to show that he was in fear for his life and shot her in self-defense, while the prosecutor has maintained Wafer had no reason to be fearful, and killed an unarmed, impaired woman. “His actions that night were unnecessary, unjustified and unreasonable,” Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Danielle Hagaman-Clark said. Defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter said what happened to McBride was “horrible” but that the jury should set aside their feelings and focus on the law.   Click through for more.     Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Businessman Allegedly Raped Woman On Job Interview In His Home

 

Recently released police documents detail an alleged grotesque rape of a mother of four who wanted a housekeeping job in the home of a Memphis businessman.

The suspect is the businessman himself,Mark Giannini, the co-founder of IT company Service Assurance, according to WREG. He allegedly repeatedly raped a 26-year-old for several hours until she blacked out on June 19.

 

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Botched Execution In Arizona Drags On For More Than Hour

 

Lawyers filed emergency papers to stop the execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona on Wednesday, saying prison officials botched the lethal injection.

“He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour,” according to the motion filed in federal district court in Arizona. “He is still alive.”

 

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Torn Apart: Immigration and the American Family

 

We are a compassionate nation. We look back with sadness and horror at parents and children separated in centuries past, and then turn our heads when it happens in our day. The separation of parents and children is not confined to history.

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American history is replete with stories of parents and children forever separated. Slaves were sold as individuals and families were wrenched apart to suit their owner’s needs. The tide of 19th century European immigration brought children to America on their own or parents without their kids hoping that family members would one day follow.

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Immigration is surely a political issue, but it is also a parenting and family issue. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, approximately 17 million people live in families with an undocumented family member. About 4.5 million children who were born in the US have at least one undocumented parent.

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Academics from Harvard and NYU wrote in the New York Times, “The extraordinary acceleration in the dismantling of these families, part of the government’s efforts to meet an annual quota of about 400,000 deportations, has had devastating results. Having a parent ripped away permanently, without warning, is one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences in human development.”

 

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Powerful Cartoon Asks Americans To Consider The Potential Of The Children At The Border

Invoking well-known undocumented immigrant and Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas who came to the U.S. as a child, the cartoon wonders about what could be.

Source: www.buzzfeed.com

 

I will start asking people, “What kind of refugee was your family?”

 

  • War refugee
  • Economic refugee
  • Political refugee
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Eric Garner

 

Eric Garner (1971?-2014), an American street vendor, beloved husband and 43-year-old father of six, became yet another unarmed Black man killed by the New York City police (NYPD) on July 17th 2014. His crime: selling untaxed cigarettes.

 

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The police have taken officers Pantaleo and Justin Damico off the street. They took Pantaleo’s badge and gun. No charges, no arrests.


The hospital takes it a bit more seriously: the four ambulance workers are suspended without pay.


Mayor de Blasio finds the Garner case “very troubling” and promises a “thorough investigation”.

The coroner has yet to report the official cause of death.

There have been at least two protests so far.


Today is his funeral.

 

Click through to read.

 

Source: abagond.wordpress.com