This Walmart employee in Minnesota lost her job after this video surfaced on Facebook.
In the video, the Walmart employee refused to allow the Muslim woman a clean changing room. She tells a co-worker, “If she wants to go in, she can go into a dirty one.” She is also heard saying, “they think they own us. And I’m sick of this s—. They think they own the world.’
The Walmart employee then bends over to spy under the door as the Muslim woman tried on clothes in the changing room. CAIR-MN reports the woman no longer works at the Walmart store.
Here’s something I’m sure you’ve heard before. It’s a statement from Sacramento police after the shot and killed a 22-year-old unarmed black man while he was standing in his backyard.
“The officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them. Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their duty weapons striking the suspect multiple times.”
The man’s name was Stephon Clark. He was standing in the backyard of his home when police showed up looking for someone reported as breaking windows. Clark, standing in his backyard, was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time. With phone in hand, police thought Clark was holding a weapon and opened fire killing him instantly.
Police Brutality has not stopped, although it’s not front and center in the news these days.
The Sacramento Police Department on Tuesday announced a formal investigation into the actions of one of their officers who was seen slamming a black man to the ground and beating him — all sparked by an alleged case of jaywalking, NBCNews reports.
The video, released Monday, has sparked national outrage. It shows the officer confronting the man, identified as Nandi Cain Jr., as he crossed an intersection and attempting to talk to Cain but the situation quickly escalates.
After some words are exchanged while Cain is standing in the street, the officer then violently throws Cain to the ground and begins to punch him in the head.
The events leading up to the incident were not captured by the camera, and it is not possible to hear the conversation between Cain and the officer before the incident occurred.
The question was a simple one, but it caused a reaction on the Charlotte officer that caused the photo below to go viral. What was the question? Was the job worth more than the Black lives killed?
So much for transparency. After yet another police shooting of yet another black man, this time in Charlotte North Carolina, the chief of police decided to keep the video showing the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott a secret.
Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer why he chose not to release the video, Chief Kerr Putney said that releasing the video was “not the transparency” he’s speaking of. Then he had the nerve to compare Lamont’s killing to “domestic violence and sexual assault.”
Well, um, what I am doing is allowing the family to view it… they’ve asked, and I have that authority. I’m not going to release it because ultimately I think I have to do what I can to protect the integrity of the investigation.
Also, I don’t want to set a bad precedent that I am releasing lots of video. And I think you can be destroying some of the trust of some of our most vulnerable victims, especially those of domestic violence and sexual assault!
You got that? It is apparently Chief Putney’s conclusion that showing the people what really happened to Keith Lamont Scott will stop victims of domestic violence and sexual assault from coming forward, because these victims would think the chief would release their video too?
One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other. But when it comes to protecting a fellow officer from facing possible criminal charges, this police chief is willing to allow his community to burn instead of doing what the people wants and showing the video. To hell with transparency. Protect a possible criminal cop at all costs!
Elliott Williams, a 37 year old veteran who suffered with mental illness, was taken into custody in Tulsa County Oklahoma. He somehow suffered a broken neck while in custody and spent the last five days of his life in torment as his captors relentlessly taunted him and accused him of faking his injuries before he died.
At one point, jailers dumped Williams’s limp body into a shower and left him there for an hour. The dying inmate “would not stand up but we did give him a shower anyway,” a captain later testified, according to a sheriff’s office internal report.
Another officer saw Williams face down in the shower, screaming, “Help me!” according to the internal report.
In the days that followed, Williams’s father tried in vain to contact his son. He was denied visitation “because of Elliott’s condition.”
“He’s acting like he’s paralyzed, but we know he’s not,” a mental health worker told Williams’s dad, court papers allege.
Detention officers, nurses, and even a jail psychiatrist accused Williams of “faking” an illness. His family says they declined to administer medical care or transport Williams to a hospital—until it was too late.
Cops arrested the Army vet, who had a history of mental illness, at a Marriott hotel on Oct. 21, 2011. Hotel staff called the cops after Williams, who was with his parents, appeared to have a mental breakdown in the lobby. At the time, his only alleged crime was misdemeanor obstruction.
But he paid with his life.
“This guy went almost six days and never got taken to the hospital with a broken neck,” Daniel Smolen, an attorney for Williams’s family, told The Daily Beast. “They’re throwing food at him and making fun of him in the cell while he’s going through a horrific death. You wouldn’t do that to an animal or any living thing.”
Most of the horrors Williams endured in the jail were captured on the facility’s surveillance footage. The shocking video was released in 2013, two years after the Williams family filed a federal lawsuit against then-Sheriff Stanley Glanz.
The complaint also targeted employees of the private healthcare company contracted to operate the jail’s medical services. The firm, Correctional Healthcare Management, settled out of court two years ago, but the county didn’t. Smolen expects the Williams case to go to trial.
“It’s a slow, torturous death,” Smolen said, adding that Williams’s case is the worst civil rights violation he’s seen captured on film. “You’re cognizant of it the whole time. It’s like a nightmare.”
The Tulsa County sheriff’s office told The Daily Beast it would not comment on cases that are pending litigation and about to go to trial. But in one court filing for the Williams case, Sheriff Glanz’s attorney Corbin Brewster claimed, “Williams was surrounded by people in the jail who thought they were taking care of him.
“Despite medical staff’s incorrect diagnoses of Mr. Williams before his death, the undisputed evidence is that the medical professionals who examined and treated Mr. Williams sincerely believed he was faking paralysis,” Brewster wrote.
I think I’ve found a new, potent source of energy; Martin Luther King, Jr. spinning in his grave over the state of race relations in the country and on the presidential election trail. All we need to do is tap into it and we can power our devices for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, it won’t do much for our national soul.
In the 48 years since his untimely and tragic death, King’s legacy has been begged, borrowed and stolen by those who believe they knew his intentions and by those who wanted them buried along with him. From the start, politicians – mostly on the right, including President Reagan and Senator Jesse Helms – opposed even making King’s birthday a national holiday. Arizona had to be threatened with the ultimate penalty of no Super Bowls, before they would accept the day. It’s also become a favorite day for the NBA to schedule afternoon games, but that seems to be the upper limit on MLK Day commercialization, and that’s a good thing. Those of us who are old enough might remember that January was traditionally the month when retailers would run sales on textiles that they labeled “White Sales.”
Can you imagine?
Over the past few years we’ve witnessed terrible incidents where African-American men, women and children were unjustly killed by the police, unnecessarily fined to the brink of bankruptcy by corrupt public officials, and stopped by the police for reasons that white Americans don’t experience. And what is considered good news for African-Americans, that their rates of narcotics deaths is lower, is tragically caused by racism, as this article recounts:
There is a reason that blacks appear to have been spared the worst of the narcotic epidemic, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert. Studies have found that doctors are much more reluctant to prescribe painkillers to minority patients, worrying that they might sell them or become addicted.
“The answer is that racial stereotypes are protecting these patients from the addiction epidemic,” said Dr. Kolodny, a senior scientist at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and chief medical officer for Phoenix House Foundation, a national drug and alcohol treatment company.
On the campaign trail, the Republicans continue to express their outrage that minorities are not working because white tax money is easily available to them in the form of public assistance and unemployment benefits. Their fealty to Donald Trump’s immigration scheme will doom them with a majority of Hispanic voters and they can’t win the White House with only White Votes. Their opposition to a fair minimum wage, infrastructure projects, labor collective bargaining rights and public schools really doesn’t allow for any middle class group to support them, much less those who have traditionally been marginalized in American society.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders is making his move in Iowa and New Hampshire and is now trying to appeal more to African-Americans, a group that Hillary Clinton has always done well with. Both of them have had problems with Black Lives Matter and their relative success could come down to the minority vote in southern states and northern cities. The Democrats cannot take the African-American vote for granted because the party has controlled many cities over the years, yet the schools have not improved, housing has not become more affordable, the minimum wage hasn’t helped and many jobs have fled the country.
Barack Obama’s election will have a lasting effect on this country, even as he is the victim of both overt and subtle racism on the part of many of his opponents. That he has served this country with distinction, morality, forthrightness and a stubborn streak that has forced his opposition to argue against fair treatment of all people, makes him a worthy representative of King’s legacy.
And this is why we need to have a holiday for Martin Luther King. It’s here to remind us that we will never live up to the true meaning of our founding documents as long as we treat people differently under the law, in the workplace and schools, and, most importantly, in our heads and hearts. I would urge you to add to your resolutions to lose weight and make more money, one that includes an action, an attitude change, or a commitment to act in King’s spirit and honor his words.
Well, he had to be tackled! Apparently, he does not have the right to use an ATM machine!
On Monday, D.C. Metropolitan Police converged on 18-year-old Jason Goolsby as he stood outside of a bank on Pennsylvania Ave. Goolsby, who was with two friends, ran as the cop cars approached him.
Several blocks away, police detained him. Footage of the event — shot by one of Goolsby’s friends — shows officers two officers pressing the teen into the ground while wrangling his arms behind his back. As Goolsby screams, officers tell him to “stop resisting.” Goolsby’s friend repeatedly tells officers that the teen had done nothing wrong. Officials later detained the videographer for interfering with a police investigation. No charges were filed against either teen.
Her husband was getting arrested, so like anyone else with a cellphone, she turned on her camera and began recording the arrest when the two white officers in Jacksonville Florida, suddenly became afraid for their lives and decided to attack her and her cellphone to save their lives.
“I was beaten, and then falsely arrested, my phone was stolen, my car was taken. It was a traumatic experience,” Kelli Wilson said of her unintended encounter with the cops. “It was definitely an experience you never think you would be going through,” said Wilson.
Wilson said that when the officers demanded she put away her phone, she asked “why?” And that is when the police decided to escalate the situation with the citizen.
“He asked for it, he demanded it again, and I gave him the same, ‘Why do you want my phone? What do you need my phone for?’ He told me he would punch me in my face. I eventually got punched and beaten and the sergeant that was on the scene joined in the beating.”
Wilson said the police still have her phone. Her beating for recording an arrest was captured by a nearby surveillance camera. On the police report, the officers claimed they arrested Wilson because she was interfering with an arrest.
No award is going to bring back Freddie Gray, but $6.4 million is a step in the right direction.
The deal, announced Tuesday, appeared to be among the largest settlements in police death cases in recent years and happened just days before a judge is set to decide whether to move a trial for six officers charged in Gray’s death.
Gray’s spine was injured April 12 in the back of a prisoner transport van after he was arrested. Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died at the hospital a week later. In the aftermath, Gray became a symbol of the contentious relationship between the police and the public in Baltimore, as well as the treatment of black men by police in America.
The settlement still needs the approval of a board that oversees city spending. That board will meet Wednesday morning.
“The proposed settlement agreement going before the Board of Estimates should not be interpreted as a judgment on the guilt or innocence of the officers facing trial,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a news release. “This settlement is being proposed solely because it is in the best interest of the city, and avoids costly and protracted litigation that would only make it more difficult for our city to heal and potentially cost taxpayers many millions more in damages.”
Those were the good old days when it was possible to accuse the president of playing the race card (as if racism was ever a gentlemanly card game), when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 still had some teeth, and when accusing the policeman of “acting stupidly” made Obama the butt of jokes and the target of righteous anger because he didn’t support law enforcement. The best thing we can say about that epsiode?
At least nobody was shot dead.
Little did the country know that the innocuous “Beer Summit” would be the last time that civility entered the conversation. Conservatives, and even a few liberals, thought that Obama had breached the wall of silence too quickly in his term. That he had to tread lightly and be careful because as the nation’s first African-American president, he had to stay above the fray and not remind polite society that we have a bit of a complicated history when it comes to race. And guns. And law enforcement behavior. Seems quaint, yes?
I believe that police officers, perhaps more than any other public service job, have the most difficult environment in which to work. The police have to be correct almost 100% of the time. I support effective, proactive, respectful, sometimes forceful police work. Recent events have shown, however, that many police officers, and the criminal justice systems in towns and cities across this country, have not been held accountable for their actions or have lied about what’s actually happened at traffic stops and crime scenes. This must stop.
I’m hoping that the Republican candidates in this week’s debates will address the issue and that we’ll hear more from the Democrats as well. But this needs to be done rather quickly because the real issue is trust. Right now, that level is dangerously low.
Racial politics is sometimes like the weather. Everybody complains about it or has an opinion about it, but there’s precious little that we can seemingly do about it. Here we are again, having the same conversation about the same issue and the politicians are crafting their statements and the sociologists are telling us about how the Internet is the problem and the gun enthusiasts are telling us that it’s a mental health issue and there’s a debate about whether this is only a hate crime or is it home-grown terrorism. And then there’s that darned Confederate flag flying over Charleston. Which seems to be causing a bit of angst in the Republican Party.
The race is on and race is now a major part of it. This time, though, it feels different.
Nine African-Americans were killed in their church simply because they were African-Americans. Yes, I know that many people say that Walter Scott and Eric Garner and Michael Brown were killed because they were African-American, but they were also involved in activities that brought them attention from the law. The victims in Charleston were doing no such thing. They were being good citizens, were praying, were welcoming a stranger into their world as many other Americans would. Such a terrible tragedy.
What we know for sure is that the shooter did not like black people, and he said so explicitly. He grew up in a country that’s supposed to be post-racial with a more enlightened group of young people who did not experience the Civil Rights movement or institutional segregation. They’re supposed to be more welcoming, more open, more accepting. We now know about one of the exceptions to that interpretation.
But we are also at the beginning of a presidential election cycle and we need to measure the candidates and potential candidates against their words and actions. The initial reactions were sober and immediate, with quick condemnations and expressions of horror and disbelief. That sentiment soon turned to the issue of why Dylann Roof perpetrated this crime. Many on the right called it an attack on religion.Some said worse things. President Obama looked anguished and sad when he addressed the news media the day after the killings, and his inclusion of the gun issue showed that he truly regrets not being able to get any kind of meaningful background check legislation through the Congress.
I want to know specifically what the candidates plans are in reaction to this event. They all say that we need to bring the country together, but how will they do this? I understand that I might have to wait a good long time, but now is the moment when we need to push anyone who wants to occupy the Oval Office in 2017 for answers. Specific answers.
Right now we’re asking questions from our homes and places of worship. Next time, we’ll be in the streets.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
