1 Week After White "Human Resources" Held a Parade for Beaumont Police, a White Cop Used His Uncontrollable, Absolute Power Over Citizens to Slam A Handcuffed Latino Man's Head Into a Curb

TMZ reports that white Police in Texas slammed a Latino man's forehead into a curb during a bloody arrest ... and cops also had an elbow and knee pinned on his head.

The violent altercation with cops in Beaumont, Texas was caught on camera, with bystanders screaming in horror as multiple police officers flip the man off his stomach, causing his head to smash into the concrete curb in the middle of a parking lot.

The man, whose name is Omar, claims he suffered a gruesome injury during the arrest -- a bloody gash above his right eye from the violent impact, a cut that required at least six staples.

The head slamming into the curb is alarming, and so are the elbow and knee pinning his face to the ground. It's only been 3 months since George Floyd's neck met a knee that ended his life.

TMZ stated that it reached out to police in Beaumont ... so far, no word back.

Beaumont Police thank the [white Human Resource] community for the tremendous show of support on 8/14/20. WHAT IS AUTHORITY?

Suit says Union Pacific Knowingly Contaminated the Air, Water and Soil of Houston’s 5th Ward and Kashmere Gardens Communities Causing High Rates of Cancer Among its Mostly Black and Latino Residents

WHAT IS RACISM WHITE SUPREMACY?

 In a complaint filed in Harris County, Texas, Union Pacific Railroad Company is accused of knowingly contaminating residential neighborhoods in Houston’s Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens neighborhoods, causing plaintiffs to allegedly suffer cancer, death and property damage.

Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over 32,200 miles (51,800 km) routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. The Union Pacific Railroad system is the second largest in the United States after BNSF and is one of the world's largest transportation companies.[1] The Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of the Union Pacific Corporation, both headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. The president of Union Pacific since 2015 is Lance Fritz, racist suspect in photo. [MORE]

Kashmere Gardens is a historically African-American neighborhood in the northern 610 Loop area in Houston, Texas, United States. A group of single-family houses, many of which have large lots, Kashmere Gardens is between an industrial area and a rail corridor. [MORE] The Fifth Ward in Houston is 48% Black and 46% Hispanic. [MORE] Last year state officials have identified the areas as a “cancer cluster” due to contamination over many decades by railroad operations that treated wooden ties with the hazardous product creosote. [MORE]

The suit says as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals the residents Union Pacific knowingly caused cancer, death and property damage. The complaint states residents have high rates of esophagus, larynx, lung and bronchus cancers. [MORE]

Ohio Appeals Ct Says an "Overwhelming Odor of Raw Marijuana" was Sufficient Probable Cause to Search a Home but Dismissed the Case b/c Cops Unlawfully Broke-In to Obtain Info for the Search Warrant

From [HERE] The officers’ smell of raw marijuana at a house was probable cause. This is different than the case of burnt marijuana not justifying a search of the trunk of a car. In an IAC claim, defendant didn’t plead any evidence to show defense counsel should have requested a Franks hearing. State v. Dockum, 2020-Ohio-4163, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 3064 (6th Dist. Aug. 21, 2020).

The court explained the facts of the case as follows:

On January 21, 2018, city of Rossford patrol officers Brandon Lewis and Austin McDermott planned to meet for dinner around 7:00 p.m. at a diner on Superior Street, in Rossford, Ohio. Officer McDermott parked in front of an apartment building at 153 Superior, and as he exited his vehicle, he smelled raw marijuana. After Officer Lewis arrived, he joined McDermott and indicated that he, too, smelled raw marijuana. The officers initially suspected the odor was emanating from an open window in the apartment building. After the two walked up and down the street, investigating the source of the odor, and after speaking with an apparent tenant from the apartment building, they ultimately determined the smell was emanating from a nearby storefront at 155 Superior. The apartment resident informed Lewis and McDermott that he had noted a marijuana odor at 155 Superior over the past two to three weeks and suggested someone should investigate the matter.

{¶ 3} The officers checked out the building at 155 Superior. The storefront had a bolt on the front door, boards over the windows, and no signs, lights, or activity to suggest an active business. Fencing between 155 Superior and adjoining buildings prevented officers from viewing the rear of the building, so the officers walked around the apartment building at 153 Superior to access the alley that ran behind the two properties.

{¶ 4} As Lewis and McDermott walked along the alley and neared the rear of 155 Superior, the odor of raw marijuana intensified. The two repeatedly stepped away from 155 Superior and walked back to confirm the source of the odor as 155 Superior. They then entered the property through a closed gate, and noted a garage, fencing, and overgrown vegetation. The property also had a shed, but vegetation covered the structure, with vines blocking the doors. The officers also saw a truck on the property, and a grill and lawn chair in the backyard area. There were two rear doors on the building, as well as a sign indicating the address as 155 1⁄2. A security light, mounted on the building, illuminated the back of the structure.

{¶ 5} Officer Lewis discovered one of the doors on the back of the building was unlocked. Due to the condition of the structure, with rotting, swollen wood framing the door, Lewis could not easily open this door. There was also a bookshelf pushed up against the inside of the door, preventing the door from swinging open. Lewis was able to nudge the door open a few inches, and through that gap, he and McDermott viewed a washer and dryer, clothes, and other items suggesting someone lived in the structure. They also spotted tomato cages, often used in grow operations, and the odor of raw marijuana became much stronger. Lewis closed the door, and he and Officer McDermott exited the property to notify their shift supervisor and consult with a detective.

{¶ 6} As they stood in the alley, phoning the shift supervisor, Kayla Wallace pulled her vehicle into the alley and spoke with the officers. They informed her of the odor of raw marijuana and requested consent to search the home. Wallace declined, indicating she had to go to work. The officers subsequently observed her driving past the property several times, parking down the block, and running back and entering the property. The Officers later determined that Kayla Wallace and appellant resided at 155 1⁄2 Superior.

{¶ 7} Officer McDermott prepared an affidavit for a search warrant of the property, identifying the occupant as Kayla Wallace. He attested to the strong odor of raw marijuana emanating from the front and back of the structure at 155 Superior, and contact with a resident from the building next door, who informed officers that the odor of marijuana had been present for the past two or three weeks. The affidavit also contained facts gleaned from entering the rear of the property and pushing open a back door.

{¶ 8} The officers obtained the requested search warrant. Around 11:00 p.m., police searched the premises, and seized evidence of a grow operation from inside 155 1⁄2 Superior, including blowers, grow lights, hydroponic containers, chemicals, thermostats, containers holding unknown substances, marijuana plants and loose marijuana, and tomato cages. Based on the evidence seized, police filed charges against appellant and Kayla Wallace.

{¶ 9} On August 2, 2018, appellant was charged with Count 1: illegal cultivation of marijuana in violation of R.C. 2925.04(A) and (C)(5)(c), Count 2: illegal assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs in violation of R.C. 2925.041(A) and (C), Count 3: possession of marijuana in violation of R.C. 2925.11(A) and (C)(3)(c), and Count 4: possession of hashish in violation of R.C. 2925.11(A) and (C)(7)(d).

{¶ 10} Appellant entered a not guilty plea to the charges. Appellant and Kayla Wallace filed a joint motion to suppress evidence of the search, arguing the information gathered for the affidavit in support of the search warrant resulted from an unconstitutional search of the premises. They further argued the affidavit provided insufficient facts to establish probable cause. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court determined the search of the curtilage and entry into the home was unconstitutional, but the affidavit contained sufficient facts—not the product of an unconstitutional search—to establish probable cause to search the premises.

{¶ 11} On June 10, 2019, appellant withdrew his not guilty plea, and entered a plea of no contest to the indictment. The trial court accepted the plea, found appellant guilty, and referred the matter for a presentence investigation report. After hearing, the trial court sentenced appellant to 2 years of community control as to each count, with a reserved prison term of 12 months as to Count 1, 36 months as to Count 2, 12 months as to Count 3, and 36 months as to Count 4.

III. Assignments of Error
{¶ 12} Appellant now appeals the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress,

asserting the following assignments of error:
1. The Trial Court erred in denying Appellant’s Motion to Suppress because mere smell of raw marijuana does not provide sufficient probable cause to support the issuance of a search warrant.

2. There was not sufficient probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant, thus all evidence obtained as a result of the execution of the search warrant must be suppressed.

3. Appellant’s trial attorney’s failure to request a hearing pursuant to Franks v. Delaware [438 U.S.154, 98 S.Ct.2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978)] as a result of the false statements and material omissions in the search warrant affidavit was ineffective assistance of counsel.

The legal analysis of the case continues [HERE]

Kenosha Police Don't Use Body Cameras So They Suppress Facts By Not Releasing Public Reports: Authorities Fail to Explain Why White Cops Shot Jacob Blake in the Back 7 Times in Front of His Children

From [HERE] When Annie Hurst stepped outside her house on Sunday night, she saw something that made her scream.

Across the street, a police officer was aiming his gun at Jacob Blake, her neighbor, as he tried to get into his car with three of his children in the back seat. The officer grabbed him by his shirt and fired several times, shooting him in the back.

Within hours, graphic video of the shooting was racing across social media, and Kenosha erupted into protest, looting and fires downtown.

The police offered little detail about what had happened in the shooting, saying only that an officer had shot Mr. Blake while responding to a domestic incident. Local and state officials declined on Monday to provide detailed information about the officers who responded.

Mr. Blake, 29, was in stable condition at a nearby hospital on Monday.

The investigation was immediately turned over by the Kenosha Police Department to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, and the three officers who were at the scene were placed on administrative leave. 

“What I saw in that video is disturbing,” said Anthony Kennedy, a Kenosha alderman who represents Mr. Blake’s district. “It is heartbreaking. And I don’t have an answer for what happened.”

While body cameras have become standard in many police departments around the country, they have been a matter of debate in Kenosha. Police officers in the city do not wear body cameras now, though the city plans to start using them in 2022, city officials said. Police cars are generally equipped with dashboard cameras.

Neighbors described an ordinary Sunday afternoon that suddenly and swiftly turned violent.

Shortly before the shooting, Mr. Blake, who worked as a security guard, stopped next door at the apartment of a friend, Donnell Lauderdale. Mr. Blake was carrying gifts for Mr. Lauderdale’s 8-year-old son.

“He had a bag full of presents,” Mr. Lauderdale said, standing outside his home. “He’s a family man. He takes good care of his kids.” Three of Mr. Blake’s six children — aged 8, 5 and 3 — are believed to have been in the back seat of the car when the shooting took place.

Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the family, said in an interview that he had been told that Mr. Blake was attempting to intervene in an argument between two women when the police arrived.

In a video taken from an apartment window across the street, several officers can be seen standing on a sidewalk next to a four-door S.U.V. The man identified as Mr. Blake, wearing a white tank top and black shorts, is seen walking along the passenger side of the vehicle, away from the officers, who are yelling. At least one of them points a gun at him.

Mr. Blake walks around the front of the vehicle and opens the driver’s side door. Several people can be heard yelling, and one officer is seen grabbing Mr. Blake’s shirt. As Mr. Blake opens the vehicle door, at least half a dozen shots are heard, while at least two officers can be seen with their guns pointed at him. The video, which is about 20 seconds long, ends shortly after the shooting.

“The police haven’t told us why they did what they did to him,” said Mr. Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has also represented the family of George Floyd. “Being a Black man in America, he was suspicious automatically.”

In Kenosha, which is about 11 percent Black, 17 percent Hispanic and 67 percent white, many residents told of longstanding tensions between Black residents and the police. The mayor, the police chief and the district attorney are white.

The Wisconsin attorney general, Josh Kaul, vowed to “vigorously and fully investigate the facts of this case,” but said he was not ready to comment on the details, including information about the officers on the scene.

“Our pursuit of justice is going to be unwavering,” he said Monday at an afternoon news conference.

Though Mr. Kaul, a Democrat, is leading an independent investigation, he said the decision to prosecute the case would be made by the local prosecutor. The Kenosha County district attorney, Michael D. Graveley, said his office would decide whether to press charges based on the evidence gathered by the outside investigators.

The shooting quickly set off a partisan showdown in a state where divided government — a Democratic governor and a Republican-held Legislature — has led to repeated clashes over policy. 

Governor Evers announced that he was calling state legislators to a special session next week to consider measures on police accountability and transparency. The measures were first put forth by Mr. Evers’s administration in June after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but were not taken up by the Legislature.

“This movement has touched every corner of Wisconsin, and frankly, I should not need to call a special session when people across our state — from the streets of my small hometown of Plymouth to the streets of Milwaukee — are demanding their elected leaders take action,” Mr. Evers said.

But Republican leaders accused the governor of playing partisan politics by quickly calling for a special session, and the fate of that session seemed uncertain.

“The governor is choosing to turn to politics again by dictating liberal policies that will only deepen the divisions in our state,” said State Representative Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the State Assembly. Mr. Vos on Monday called for a task force focused on racial disparities and police practices.

The governor’s proposal calls for measures including establishment of statewide standards for the use of force by law enforcement agencies, requirements for police departments to ban the use of chokeholds, and elimination of the use of “no knock” warrants, a type of warrant that allows officers to enter people’s homes without notice.

$6M Settlement Reached After a Las Cruces Cop Used His Uncontrollable, Absolute Power Over Citizens to Murder Antonio Valenzuela by Putting Him In a Chokehold that Crushed His Adam's Apple

From [HERE] The city has agreed to pay a family more than $6 million in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from the choking death of a Latino man in February. [MORE]

Las Cruces reached the agreement July 17 and promised to make the payment within 30 days to the family of Antonio Valenzuela, who died at the hands of a police officer, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported Wednesday.

Albuquerque attorney Sam Bregman said the monetary compensation his clients received was substantial, adding that it would be “cost-prohibitive” for the department to be involved in future wrongful death lawsuits.

The Las Cruces Police Department also agreed to ban all forms of neck restraints and chokeholds, host biannual training on de-escalation policies and provide racial bias training. Police also must adopt a warning system involving officers who use excessive force and require officers to undergo yearly mental health exams.

“The family knows nothing will bring Antonio back, but they appreciate the city making an effort to change its policies to provide better policing,” Bregman said.

The settlement also says that the family had claims against former police officer Christopher Smelser and others in the department but that the city payment waives each of those claims.

Valenzuela, 40, had a warrant out for his arrest because of a parole violation and fought with officers who tried to detain him after he fled from a traffic stop on Feb. 29, authorities said. Smelser, who is Hispanic, then placed him in a vascular neck restraint.

An autopsy report released the first week of June ruled Valenzuela’s death a homicide. His Adam’s apple was crushed, he had swelling in the brain, fractured ribs and damaged blood vessels in his eyes consistent with strangulation.

Smelser was later fired and faces a second-degree murder charge. Smelser’s attorney, Amy L. Orlando, previously said that Smelser had been trained to use the hold and that the murder charge was a political move meant to grab headlines amid a national outcry over racial injustice and police brutality.

Pasadena Cops Release Remixed Video to Benefit Themselves But Can't Re-Create a Lawful Basis to Detain Anthony McClain, Make a Gun Appear in His Hand or Justify Shooting Him in the Back as he Fled

UNDER ARREST FOR WHITE SUPREMACY. From [HERE] Police release an edited, narrated and remixed video Thursday of a shooting that left a Black man dead in California last week, prompting protests and community outrage.

Anthony McClain, a 32-year-old father of three, was shot by a white officer during a traffic stop on Aug. 15, the Pasadena Police Department said.

Around 7:52 p.m., officers stopped a four-door, dark-colored Infiniti without a front license plate.

The officers determined there were two men in the car — McClain being the passenger. 

When police asked the driver for his license, the driver said his license was suspended. The driver cooperated with police after being asked to get out of the car, the department said.

McClain, who was also asked to get out of the car, is seen on video getting out, then running away from the officers.

Police say he reached for an item in his waistband, which they believed to be a firearm.

“The natural swinging movement of the individual’s arms while running revealed what both officers immediately recognized as a firearm in his left hand,” according to the department.

With two officers chasing him, McClain can be seen turning and looking at the officers over his right shoulder. Police say they feared he was turning back to shoot at them, so the officer closest to McClain shot at him twice.

It wasn’t immediately clear that he had been shot, as he continued to run “for a considerable distance,” police said. He eventually fell.

McClain sustained at least one gunshot wound, and was given immediate medical attention, according to the department. Paramedics arrived and transported him to a hospital, where he died.

A loaded firearm that was not registered and was illegally assembled was recovered at the scene.

A witness told police they saw McClain throw a firearm. The witness did not talk to the media. No gun appears to be visible on the video.

But Caree Harper, the McClain family’s attorney, said what police saw in the video was a large metal belt buckle, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Neither McClain nor the second officer fired a weapon. 

Remixed videos are [HERE]

There appears to be no lawful basis for the cops to detain the Black man because he was the passenger in the vehicle. While a passenger may be ordered out of a vehicle for officer safety the Supreme Court has explained that unless the officer has a reasonable articulable suspicion, he may not further detain a passenger. Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997). Cops have not articulated any reason they wanted to detain McLain. The driver may have been under arrest for driving without a permit but that did not provide the police any justification for detaining or arresting McClain.

At the time of the incident, McClain was being supervised by the Los Angeles County Probation Department under the Post-Release community supervision program and had previously been convicted of a felony.

A rally was held Thursday, calling for the officer who shot McClain to be fired and for the unedited video footage to be released.

“If you did something wrong, if you have an illegal firearm, let’s deal with that through the court system,” Pastor Kerwin Manning said at the rally. “But our Black men and woman are not even getting an opportunity to make it to court and we’re tired of it.”

Next week, the Pasadena City Council will consider implementing a police oversight commission to investigate the shooting, according to the L.A. Times, but advocates for McClain are demanding an independent police audit. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the City of Pasadena are also expected to conduct an independent third party review of the incident, according to the department.

“Any type of officer involved shooting is horrific for our community and we have to be held accountable as a police department,”  Chief John Perez said.

Amended Charges Say White KC Cops “Knowingly" Injured Breonna Hill 'by Slamming Her Face Against the Sidewalk, Kneeing her in the Face, Torso and Ribs and Forcing her Arms Over Her Head While Cuffed'

From [HERE] Two Kansas City police officers pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges Tuesday in a case that alleges the pair used excessive force during the arrest of Breona Hill, according to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.

Matthew G. Brummett and Charles Prichard each entered not guilty pleas during an arraignment hearing, said Michael Mansur, a spokesman for the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.

A grand jury handed an indictment in May, initially charging Brummett and Prichard each with a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree assault. However, after those charges were were filed, two new witnesses came forward. And based on the new testimony, a grand jury amended the charges last month. Both men now face a charge of felony third-degree assault for allegedly pinning Hill to the ground and slamming her head into the pavement outside a beauty store in May 2019 during an arrest.

The new charges alleged that the officers “knowingly” caused injury to Hill during the arrest “by slamming her face against the concrete sidewalk, kneeing her in the face, torso and ribs and forcing her arms over her head while cuffed.”

The case gained national attention after the arrest was caught on video.

After the man who recorded the arrest was cited by police for failing to obey officers’ orders, the City Council in June voted to pass legislation they hope would protect witnesses.

The man, Roderick Reed, 52, was convicted in Municipal Court and sentenced to 30 days in jail and a year of probation.

Police maintained he was cited for failing to move his car from the middle of the street — not for recording the arrest. Recording police officers in public is legal.

In June, Mayor Quinton Lucas said he would pardon Reed.

Holding Themselves Unaccountable: Orange County Police Release All Bodycam Except Video from the White Cop Who Shot Salaythis Melvin in the Back. Footage Too Far Away to Show if Black Man Held a Gun

law Professor Laurent Sacharoff explains “Vendors and police configure the access to body camera videos in a manner designed to build a case against a suspect, and to prosecute that suspect in court, rather than to keep police accountable. For example, in some instances police alone have direct access to the videos. This configuration runs entirely counter to accountability: the very party that the program aims to check currently has full control over its contents.”

From [HERE] Attorneys representing the parents of Salaythis Melvin, a 22-year-old man fatally shot in the back by a white Orange County deputy in plain clothes, are demanding Sheriff John Mina make immediate policy changes to the department’s use of force policy.

Lawyers Bradley Laurent and Carlus Haynes spoke to reporters Wednesday the morning after Mina won the primary election for a chance to serve a second term as sheriff and the body camera video of Melvin’s shooting was released.

The attorneys said they plan to file a civil lawsuit against the sheriff and the department for wrongful death.

Orange County Sheriff’s Office Agent James Montiel opened fire on Salaythis Melvin on Aug. 7 outside the Florida Mall as the 22-year-old was running away, video shows.

The sheriff said the incident began shortly after noon when deputies tried to approach a group of four individuals outside Dick’s Sporting Goods because one of the men had an active warrant for his arrest and was also a person of interest in a triple shooting that occurred on Powers Ridge Court in Pine Hills last month. That warrant was not for Melvin and deputies did not know who he was, even asking his name in the body camera video.

When deputies approached, the 22-year-old ran away and toward Montiel, according to the deputy’s account, who got out of his unmarked vehicle and claimed that he saw Melvin holding a Glock handgun.

Melvin died of a single gunshot wound to the back, according to the Sheriff’s Office. He was running away from the deputy when he was shot, the video shows.

Six videos of the shooting were released from six different deputies who were on scene.

However, none of the videos released were from Montiel, the agent who shot Melvin. Apparently, he was not wearing a body camera or it was not on at the time of the shooting or it was destroyed and or the police are lying. The attorneys said they have not been given any reason why Montiel’s body camera was not activated or on at the time.

“We haven’t been given a reason why there isn’t any camera footage from the shooter’s perspective or vantage point,” Laurent said.

The attorneys are asking Mina to change the policy that allows deputies involved in shooting to review body camera video before providing their statements. They’re also calling on any deputy involved in a shooting to be suspended without pay.

The video released is too far away to show if Melvin has a weapon in his hands.[how convenient].

Other meaningless videos of yurugu cops are [HERE]

The attorneys are demanding Mina make a policy change that bans shooting a fleeing suspect and makes officers “think twice” before pulling the trigger.

“First, he’s got to make it a policy that anybody that’s fleeing, you cannot shoot them in the back,” Haynes said, adding “It’s not ... deer season. We’re not shooting people in the back, period.”

The video shows deputies involved in the operation were driving unmarked vehicles and in plain clothes. Montiel was not wearing anything that would identify him as a law enforcement officer until after the shooting, the attorneys said the video shows.

The videos do not show the full interaction and it’s hard to tell if Montiel had on anything identifying him as a Sheriff’s Office employee. In the video he is in a black t-shirt and tan shorts.

“Sheriff Mina, is this a good policy to have unmarked vehicles and unmarked officers, serving arrest warrants?” Haynes asked.

Both attorneys questioned the timing of when the body camera video was released.

A spokesperson for the sheriff’s Office said they were notified Tuesday the FDLE completed its last initial interview. Laurent said the Sheriff’s Office told them around 3 p.m. they were releasing the video, however, they did not receive the video until about 6 p.m., about an hour before polls closed on Florida’s primary election night, two weeks after the shooting.

“To release it at that time it seems pretty obvious it was a strategic decision,” Laurent said.

The Sheriff’s Office denies the timing was intentional.

“In regards to the speculation of the timing of such release related to Sheriff Mina’s election is completely inaccurate and speculative,” a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office said.

News 6 asked the sheriff’s office to explain the process it took to release the videos and we’re waiting for a response.

A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the video was released after the state agency finished initial interviews Tuesday around noon.

“We completed the initial interviews (Tuesday). While our investigation is active, we are unable to provide additional information. Our role is to conduct a complete and thorough investigation as it relates to the law enforcement officer’s use of force,” FDLE said in an email. “Once our investigation is complete, we provide that information to the state attorney who makes the charging decisions. Our investigation is considered ‘active’ until the State Attorney’s Office renders their findings.”

During an election news conference on Tuesday, Mina said the Sheriff’s Office is waiting for the FDLE investigation to be complete before making any decisions about the deputy involved.

Laurent and Haynes said the deputy who shot Melvin should have been suspended without pay or fired until the investigation is complete.

“I would have liked to hear him come out and say, ‘This was a bad shooting. This deputy has been fired,’ but yet he wants to tell everybody in Orlando that he’s doing the right thing and he’s being fully transparent,” Haynes said. “Well, we do know that there’s a lot of video and audio that we’re missing ... how transparent is that?”

Melvin’s parents, Michelin McKee and Ryan Findley, released a statement the day after the video was released. While their attorneys have described what they saw, the parents said they have not been able to bring themselves to watch the video of their son’s last moments.

They thanked the sheriff for releasing the video but asked that Melvin’s death not be in vain.

“Promise us, and the citizens of Orange County that no one -- be they black or white, young or old, Baptist or Catholic -- be gunned down in the manner our son was,” McKee and Findley said in a statement.

Both attorneys echoed that sentiment and said they will continue to seek more transparency from the sheriff and asked the community do the same.

“If you want to bring any value to this man’s life after his death, do not let Sheriff Mina off the hook,” Haynes said.

Forced Release of Video Proves White Atlanta Cop Lied About the Murder of Caine Rogers: Black Man Posed No Threat as He Slowly Drove Away from Cop. 4 Years Later No Trial Date Set in Lax Prosecution

From [HERE] The family of Caine Rogers, a 22-year-old Black man shot and killed by a white Atlanta Police officer in 2016, has released new video from the night of the fatal shooting and are renewing their calls for action from the city.

Rogers' parents and their attorneys made the video public during a Tuesday morning news conference on Zoom - which they said they fought hard to obtain and share. 

Rogers was shot and killed by former Atlanta Police officer James Burns the night of June 22, 2016. Burns was responding as backup to a call of a suspicious person possibly breaking into cars at an apartment complex off Monroe Drive. 

When Burns arrived at the scene Rogers' vehicle was slowly pulling off. He flips on his lights and siren, but the car continues forward. Burns jumps out of his patrol car and orders the car to stop, but it keeps going. It is clear in the video that the Black man’s video posed no threat to the white officer. The officer’s car was pulled up and parked on the left side of the street (illegally) and the Rogers drove on the right side of the road - as any driver would.

Burns then fires a fatal shot through the front passenger window, hitting Rogers in the head.

Burns' dashcam video, which had been withheld from the public as part of the ongoing investigation, shows the aftermath.

Burns' dashcam video, which had been withheld from the public as part of the ongoing investigation, shows the aftermath.

"Burns was indicted two months after the incident in 2016. He was reindicted in 2018 to fix a procedural matter," according to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office. Four year’s later the case though is still working its way through the court system with a trial date yet to be set - a real aggressive prosecution no doubt - surely as rigorous and vigorous as when a white cop is murdered by a Black man.

During the Tuesday Zoom call, Rogers parents, who sued the City of Atlanta soon after the fatal shooting, said the delays have dragged on for too long and the inaction has grown to become "disrespectful." 

"Rogers parents, Melva Rogers and Deravis Thomas, are appreciative that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms and the city of Atlanta have highlighted the death of Rayshard Brooks and the tasing of two HBCU students, but they wonder why the mayor or city has done nothing regarding their son's killing at the hands of APD officer James Burns," family attorneys with the Cochran Firm noted in a statement.

They said that the city - neither under the leadership of Mayor Kasim Reed nor Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms - has not contacted them to formally apologize for what happened. They said the city has also failed to take responsibility for the actions of the former officer.

"The city has yet to acknowledge us in any capacity," Deravis added. "No one has ever reached out to us to even apologize to us on behalf of this officer that they hired."

They're now asking to sit down with the mayor and have the lawsuit against the city - which is on hold because of the delays with the criminal case, and, now, COVID-19 - settled. They are also asking for the mayor to establish what they're calling a reconciliation commission to address past and unresolved cases of injustice involving APD officers. 

Meanwhile, they're hoping that the incoming Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, will continue the work current DA Paul Howard has done on the case and help push it forward to a resolution.

11Alive contacted both Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms' office and Burns' attorney for comment.

Bottoms released the following statement:

"The fact that this incident occurred in 2016, before I was Mayor, yet remains unresolved four years later, only highlights the need for urgent action and reform.  My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Caine Rogers and every other family awaiting justice.” 

lol. Black rolebot’s administration inherited this case and her administration continued to withhold the “public video” and slow roll a criminal prosecution of one of its own. Mayor is a joke - what is the difference between a Black strawboss/puppetician and racist puppetician? They are essential to the refinement of racism white supremacy and the system of physical coercion.

White Wisconsin Cops Shoot Black Man 7 Times in the Back as He Got Into His Car-His Children Were Inside. He is in Intensive Care. Cops Keeping Details Secret, Provide No Counter-Narrative

From [HERE] The video starts as Jacob Blake rounds the front of a silver SUV on Sunday, with two Kenosha, Wis., police officers following close behind, their guns drawn. When Blake opens the door and steps inside, the officers suddenly fire repeatedly toward his back — at least seven times.

Blake is now in serious condition, the officers have been placed on leave, and the city of Kenosha declared an emergency curfew after destructive protests rocked the city into early Monday morning. It’s the latest case of police violence caught on camera in a summer overwhelmed by escalating rounds of protests following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

The shooting happened after 5 p.m., when officers responded to a domestic incident, police said. Witnesses told the Kenosha News that Blake was trying to break up a fight and that police first attempted to taser him.

The video shows neighbors congregated outside as two police officers with their guns drawn followed Blake as he approached the car. As Blake opened the driver’s side door, on officer can be seen tugging at Blake’s white tank top before multiple shots ring out from the police.

Kenosha News reported that Blake was shot in front of his children. Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney, posted on Twitter that Blake’s three sons were inside the car.

Police have not commented on what led to the shooting. Blake was taken by helicopter to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, police said. Early Monday morning, TMJ4 reported that Blake’s brother said he is out of surgery and in intensive care.

The department spokesman, Lt. Joseph Nosalik, said in a statement that the shooting would be investigated by the Division of Criminal Investigation at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The police announced on Twitter late Sunday night that they had put into effect a citywide curfew until 7 a.m.

The NYT reported that A phone message left for Lieutenant Nosalik seeking further information about the shooting was not immediately returned. [MORE]

The Wisconsin Department of Justice will investigate the shooting, police said.

As footage of Blake’s shooting spread on social media, a crowd gathered at the intersection where he was shot. Tensions quickly rose as more police officers arrived wearing riot gear and several police cars were damaged. A video shows one police officer being hit with a brick and collapsing to the ground.

White Lafayette Cops Murder Black Man at Gas Station Door, Shooting Him 10X as He Walked Away Holding a Knife. Police Claim He Was a Potential Threat to Unknown Persons Not in Sight or Actual Danger

From [HERE] and [MORE] Outrage is building, and Louisiana State Police are investigating, after a 31-year-old Black man was fatally shot by police in the city of Lafayette on Friday.

According to video footage and eyewitness reports, Lafayette police officers fired at least 10 shots at Trayford Pellerin as he walked away from them and towards an occupied convenience store. Legal organizations and community members are decrying the shooting as an excessive use of force, and demanding transparency and justice for Pellerin.

The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile police killings of Black people, including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, that sparked nationwide protests against racism and police violence earlier this summer. The Acadiana Advocate reports the incident is the third officer-involved shooting by the Lafayette Police Department in roughly five weeks.

The Louisiana State Police said in a statement that around 8 p.m. on Friday, Lafayette Police responded to a "disturbance involving a person armed with a knife at a convenience store." 

State Police said the officers encountered Pellerin in the parking lot and attempted to apprehend him there, but ended up pursuing him for roughly half a mile on foot as he left the scene. Officers deployed Tasers in pursuit "but they were ineffective," according to the statement.

The statement said officers started shooting when Pellerin, reportedly still armed with a knife, attempted to enter a different convenience store along NW Evangeline Throughway. Following the flurry of gunfire, he was transported to an area hospital and later pronounced dead. 

The LPD requested that the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigations look into the shooting; the state police said that investigation is "active and ongoing." 

Interim Lafayette Police Chief Scott Morgan said the officers involved have been placed on administrative leave with pay while the investigation is underway.

Rickasha Montgomery, a witness who captured a video of the shooting, told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser that she saw Pellerin holding what appeared to be a knife, walking down Evangeline Thruway away from police as they Tased him. She said she saw about six officers with their guns drawn yell for Pellerin to get on the ground, and that they shot him when he reached the door of a Shell gas station. 

"I feel kind of scared about it," Montgomery told the newspaper. "I'm traumatized. You're so used to hearing about this, but I never thought I would experience it."

Graphic bystander video of the shooting has since circulated on social media. (NPR has not independently verified video of the incident). 

Michelle Pellerin, the victim's mother, told The Acadiana Advocate on Saturday she was in disbelief.

"I'm still trying to understand what happened," she said. "Why did it have to go this far? Why him? Everybody talks about the video, but I haven't seen it and I don't want to see it. I can't."

She described her oldest son as "kind, intelligent, quiet and shy." She said he loved to cook, was close with his extended family and worked odd jobs but was thinking about returning to school and possibly studying law.

She said he suffered from anxiety related to social situations and being in groups of people, something he sought professional help for earlier this year. Pellerin told the newspaper she believes her son may have been particularly frightened by the group of officers coming at him. 

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, one of the lawyers retained by the family, told the newspaper that the family believes Pellerin may have been experiencing a mental health crisis at the time of his death. 

Crump, who also represents the families of Floyd and Taylor, said in a statement that he and co-counsel Ronald Haley "refuse to let this case resolve like so many others: quietly and without answers and justice." 

Haley told The Advocate that even if a knife was present, eyewitness video shows there was no one in Pellerin's vicinity and if he was a danger to anyone, he was only a danger to himself. Crump said officers should have been able to find alternatives to lethal force. The attorneys say a civil lawsuit is planned. 

"The family, and the people of Lafayette, deserve honesty and accountability from those who are sworn to protect them — the Lafayette Police," Crump wrote. "The officers involved should be fired immediately for their abhorrent and fatal actions."

The ACLU of Louisiana and the Southern Poverty Law Center also condemned the shooting. Both said accounts show police shooting Pellerin as he walked away from them, and called for investigations into what they called the officers' "excessive use of force."

They also noted that the shooting comes amidst an ongoing reckoning over "the epidemic of police violence," particularly against Black people, with demonstrators across the country already calling for police reform. 

"None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees," said Alanah Odoms Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. 

Racist suspect Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory defended the officers' "numerous efforts to de-escalate the situation" in a statement issued Saturday.

“An armed individual was shot and killed by Lafayette police officers after an extended pursuit, numerous efforts to de-escalate the situation, and multiple tries to subdue the knife-wielding suspect through the use of tasers.

The officers opened fire when it became apparent the armed individual was attempting to enter a convenience store, threatening the lives of the customers and workers inside. While the incident has drawn significant media attention and protests, our personnel won’t be distracted – they remain focused on ensuring the health and safety of our people.

Also, as twin tropical storms close in on our community, our frontline professionals in law enforcement, healthcare and emergency response remain focused on keeping our city and parish safe.

Our thoughts and prayers are with our community tonight, and with the men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.“[MORE]

Racist Suspect Tenn AG Going Out of His Way to Murder Black Man: Govt Backs Out of Its Agreement to Take Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman Off Death Row After It Withheld Evidence and Removed Blacks from the Jury

From [HERE] Declaring that “[r]acism still exists and has no place in society,” the Tennessee Supreme Court on June 25, 2020 directed its Access to Justice Commission (AJC) to create “a new initiative to identify and eliminate barriers to racial and ethnic fairness and justice.” The court’s pronouncement, at the height of the racial justice protests that swept the nation following the murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer, was meant to signal its concern about racial bias in the legal system.

For these words to be more than symbolic, commentators have responded, they must be backed up by action. And, they say, redressing the racial discrimination that sent Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman to Tennessee’s death row a good place to begin.

In a July 22 commentary in Tennessee Lookout, Dr. Sekou Franklin (pictured), a professor of political science and international relations at Middle Tennessee State Univesity, detailed what he called “a troubling pattern of prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias” that infected Abdur’Rahman’s trial. One week later, in a guest column in The Tennessean, veteran defense lawyer Jim Thomas assailed the continuing “extraordinary efforts” being made by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery to undo a court-approved plea deal that would remove Abdur’Rahman from death row because of prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defense representation, and the unconstitutional race-based use of jury strikes to exclude Black jurors from serving on the case. 

Today, eight of the jurors who sentenced Mr. Abdur’Rahman to death say they would not have done so if they heard all the facts. [more]

The goal of those efforts, Thomas wrote, is simply “to kill a Black man whose trial was indisputably tainted by racial discrimination in the jury selection process.” Writes Franklin, “If the AJC is committed to addressing racial justice, it can start with capital punishment and the ongoing legal dispute over Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman’s … death penalty conviction.”

Abdur’Rahman was convicted and sentenced to death in Nashville in 1987 for a bloody double stabbing in which one person was killed. The state and federal courts initially upheld his conviction, but in September 2019, after his death warrant had been signed, Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk and defense lawyers reached a settlement in which Abdur’Rahman would receive a life sentence in exchange for not seeking a new trial. Funk told Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins at the time that “[t]he pursuit of justice is incompatible with deception” and conceded that Abdur’Rahman’s trial had been infected by “overt racial bias.” 

The trial court approved the settlement, but Slater then sought to intervene, claiming that the District Attorney and the court had no authority to disturb Abdur’Rahman’s conviction and death sentence. In oral argument in the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on June 9, Slatery’s office never addressed the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias in the case. Instead, it argued that Abdur’Rahman’s death sentence should be reinstated in the interests of “finality.” 

Franklin’s commentary says that “[t]he court’s AJC’s new racial justice initiative has promise, but only if the group has the courage to address systemic racism. Racialized policing, prosecutorial misconduct, tainted jury pools, wrongful convictions, harsh sentencing laws and racially conservative attitudes produce a consortium of injustice that determines who lives and dies.” Pointing to evidence of injustice in the case, he says, “[a]s a good-faith measure, the AJC must support the consent order that cancels Abdur’Rahman’s death sentence.”

Franklin notes that, in a bloody pair of stabbings, a forensic analysis by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) found that Abdur’Rahman had no blood stains on his clothes. Prosecutor John Zimmerman, however, withheld that TBI report from the defense and offered Abdur’Rahman’s co-defendant a six-year sentence in exchange for testifying that Abdur’Rahman wielded the knife. Zimmerman also “falsely accused Abdur’Rahman of wanting to take over the Nashville drug trade,” Franklin says, and in “a dog-whistling tactic probably intended to provoke negative views about Black criminality among the White jurors,” Zimmerman told the jury Abdur’Rahman had been wearing a “dark ‘gangster coat’” at the time of the murder.

Franklin also noted that Zimmerman, who had during one training session he taught advocated the race-based use of jury strikes, struck African Americans from the jury in Abdur’Rahman’s case, questioning “their ‘intelligence’ and academic qualifications.” 

In his column, Thomas said that what he found “most striking” in Slatery’s efforts to execute Abdur’Rahman “was the extraordinary level of cynicism” in actively intervening in a case to carry out a racially tainted death sentence. “[W]hatever the outcome of the attorney general’s misbegotten appeal,” Thomas wrote, “the state’s gamesmanship in its efforts to achieve finality for Abdur’Rahman, despite the racial animus that pervaded his trial, is a discredit to the fair and impartial administration of justice.”

NY State and Corrections Cops Claim They Have a Super Power to Use Chokeholds on Citizens in NYC that the Mayor (and the people) Can't Infringe Upon. PBA Seeks to Enjoin the New Strangulation Law

NYC JULY 14, 2018. LEGAL SYSTEM BASED ON VIOLENCE AND PHYSICAL COERCION.

From [HERE] Following a similar suit by police unions, labor reps for state troopers and correctional officers sued Wednesday to overturn New York City’s ban on chokeholds. They say the ban criminalizes the maneuver even if no injury occurs, and that it encroaches on the authority of the state police superintendent. [more] In other words the NY PBA and NY Corrections officers believe they should have the power to use chokeholds on citizens so long as they don’t harm anyone and don’t have any criminal intent when are doing their strangulations.

The suit explains,

Section 10-181 criminalizes the use of any restraint that restricts the flow of air or blood "'by compressing the windpipe or the carotid arteries on each side of the neck, or sitting, kneeling, or standing on the chest or back in a manner that compresses the diaphragm, in the course of effecting or attempting to effect an arrest. " Section 10-181 is a strict liability penal statute which lacks any intent or other mental state requirement. In the same vein, criminal liability under the law attaches regardless of whether the prohibited conduct actually causes any injury. Criminal liability further attaches during the apprehension of an offender in New York City even if the criminal act occurred elsewhere in the State of New York.

Any violation of the statute's terms, even absent intent or resulting injury exposes Plaintiffs to prosecution as a misdemeanor which can result in imprisonment of up to a year.

Section 10-181 also threatens the plaintiffs with fines for doing their jobs in good faith with no intent to harm a suspect irrespective of whether a suspect even suffers injury. Section 10-181 thus goes far beyond a law governing police misconduct.”

It also states;

“Of equal importance is the fact that Section 10-181 directly impacts and conflicts with the ability of the Superintendent of State Police to make rules and regulations, subject to approval by the governor, for the discipline and control of the New York State Police. See N.Y. Exec. L. §215(3) Thus, state troopers operating trader the rules and regulations of the Superintendent, approved by the governor, are now subjected to different standards of policing and conduct than those promulgated by the Superintendent. Accordingly, preemption is warranted.”

ACLU Study says Despite Protest, Stay in Place Orders and COVID, Blacks are Still Shot By Cops At the Same Rate [b/c Racists Believe the Murder of Black Males is Necessary for their Genetic Survival]

From [HERE] Despite stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus pandemic and months of protests against police brutality, Americans were still shot by police at the same rate in 2020 as in previous years, according to a new American Civil Liberties Union report. 

The report, published by the ACLU on Wednesday, shows that from 2015 to 2019, an average of 19.4 fatal police shootings occurred per week in the country over the first half of the year. 

Despite the pandemic and months of anti-racism protests, the U.S. had the exact same average number of police shootings per week for the first half of 2020. 

As of June 30, police officers had fatally shot 511 people, more than the 484 shot during the same period in 2019. 

For the past five years, police have shot nearly 1,000 people per year, totaling at least 5,442 deaths from January 1, 2015, to June 30, 2020. 

Demographic breakdowns of the fatalities show police shootings disproportionately impact Black Americans.

Of those shot by police, 24% are Black, though Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population, and 46% are white, though white people account for 60% of the U.S. population. The report explains

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020 was horrific, but it was not unusual. People rose up in protest in streets across America not because such brutality was unprecedented, but because police violence — inflicted disproportionately on people of color — is and always has been woven into the daily fabric of American life. Police in the United States kill an obscene number of people every year. The actual number is not known because the data is not tracked, reported, collected, or analyzed in a systematic fashion. At minimum, we know that police kill more than 1,000 people annually.1 Even this conservative figure far exceeds the number of people killed by police in other wealthy countries.2 For perspective, police in America kill people at least three times the rate of their law enforcement counterparts in Canada, a wealthy country with the next highest rate of killing, and at least 16 times the rates of Germany and England.3

The epidemic of police violence has been directly and disproportionately targeted at Black people. Indeed, police have played a primary role in anti-Black violence since their inception as an institution. For example, a sociological study in 1933 of 100 lynchings found that white police officers had participated in at least half of all lynchings, and that in 90 percent of others, law enforcement stood by, complicit in their inaction, as mobs murdered Black people.4 Just as police are more likely to stop, frisk, arrest, and jail Black people than white people,5 they are more likely to shoot and kill Black people. One study found that young unarmed male victims of deadly force by police are 13 times more likely to be Black than white.6 At current levels of risk, Black men face about a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the course of their lives. Stunningly, for young men of color, police use of force is now among the leading causes of death.7 Mirroring the lack of media attention often given to women and nonbinary people of color killed by the police,8 there is a dearth of research examining racial disparities in police killings among nonmale populations. However, some data indicates that although women are less likely than men to be killed by police overall, Black women and Native American/ Indigenous women are more likely to be killed by police than white women.9, 10 Furthermore, while police killings are higher in high-poverty areas than low-poverty areas for all racial groups, Black people who live in more affluent areas are almost as likely to be killed by police as white people who live in the poorest areas.11

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic, during which state governments have issued stay-at-home orders and imposed social distancing requirements, and many police departments have sought to minimize police-initiated contact with the public (by, among other measures, reducing the number of traffic and pedestrian stops),12 would suggest a reduction in police killings. This report examines whether unprecedented societal isolation combined with police departments relaxing routine enforcement corresponds to a decrease in the frequency with which the police fatally shoot people, and whether such force continues to be used disproportionately against Black, Brown, and Native American/ Indigenous people. As detailed in the following results section, we found that despite COVID-19, the rate of fatal police shootings has remained the same nationally. In some states, the rate has even increased. [MORE]

DR FRANCES CRESS WELSING EXPLAINED, “Within the historic framework of Western civilization and culture (the civilization and culture organized to prevent white genetic annihilation), all white peoples have the spoken or unspoken mandate to participate actively in their collective struggle for global white genetic survival. This specifically means, of necessity, the murder and slaughter of Black and other non-white males whenever it is felt within the white collective to be necessary and, therefore, justified.

Because Black males, of all non-white males, have the greatest potential to genetically annihilate the white collective, Black males will experience the greatest ferocity of white supremacy's attack through justifiable homicide. Because Black and other non-white males have the potential to produce white genetic annihilation through the use of their genitalia and because genetic annihilation is the most fundamental fear of the global white collective, this collective (consciously or unconsciously) evolved a "counter" weapon or system of weapons, that theoretically could achieve non-white genetic annihilation.“ [MORE]

Gallup Poll Finds Only 19% of Black Adults Have Confidence in the Police and Only 11% Have Confidence in the Criminal Justice System [but Belief in Authority (the right to rule) has Increased]

BLACK CONFIDENCE IN THE COPS MAY BE DOWN BUT BELIEF IN AUTHORITY, WHICH IS THE RIGHT TO RULE OVER OTHERS APPEARS TO HAVE INCREASED ACCORDING TO THE EDELMAN TRUST SPRING UPDATE (see below). Authority is the idea that some people have the moral right to forcibly control others, and that, consequently, those others have the moral obligation to obey.’ [MORE] all statists believe in giving police officers absolute power over us within certain limits that they can interpret for themselves on the street. SUCH POWER IS “absolute” BECAUSE COPS HAVE THE POWER TO TAKE YOUR LIFE. STATISTS NAIVELY BELIEVE THAT THEY CAN FIND THE RIGHT PERSONS TO WIELD THIS GREAT POWER OVER US. IF PEOPLE HAVE NO RIGHT TO INITIATE UNPROVOKED ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE THEN HOW COULD THE PEOPLE DELEGATE THIS POWER TO THE POLICE? ALL government POWER COMES FROM THE PEOPLE RIGHT? THE ANSWER IS THAT AUTHORITY IS AN IRRATIONAL FARCE used to enslave. [MORE]

From [HERE] and [HERE] Public confidence in those wearing brown or blue and sworn “to protect and serve” is pretty low right now.

A Gallup poll released on Wednesday showed that, nationwide, confidence in police has fallen to 48%, which the lowest recorded level since the legacy of George Gallup began tracking public opinion on this matter. This compares to 64% confidence in 2004.

The 2020 results are based on a June 8-July 24 poll of 1,226 U.S. adults, which included an oversample of Black Americans. Gallup's Confidence in Institutions sequence has been asked since 1973, including annual measures since 1993. This year's survey was conducted after George Floyd was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis in late May.

Fifty-six percent of White adults and 19% of Black adults say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the police. This 37-percentage-point racial gap is the largest found for any of 16 major U.S. institutions rated in Gallup's annual Confidence in Institutions poll.

Only 11% of Black adults say they have confidence in the criminal justice system.

Black and White respondents' ratings of the presidency display nearly as large a gap: 47% of White Americans versus 13% of Black Americans express confidence in the institution with Republican President Donald Trump in office. [MORE]

Nevertheless, since the pandemic belief or confidence in the need for government has risen in the US and globally. As reported previously, according to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer Spring Update: “Trust and the Covid-19 Pandemic reveals a remarkable shift in the landscape of trust since January. The Spring Update shows that amid the Covid-19 pandemic, government trust surged 11 points to an all-time high of 65 percent, making it the most trusted institution for the first time in our 20 years of study.” The study explains,

“Since 2011, government had languished in distrust globally, as gridlock in the EU over Greek debt and several corruption scandals in developing nations eroded trust. The Spring Update shows a striking comeback for government: at 65 percent trust (+11 points since January), the public is relying on government to protect them in a manner not seen since World War II. Trust in government is not only up by double digits in six of 11 markets surveyed, it is the only institution trusted by the mass population (62 percent).

During an unprecedented time when government response at all levels could mean the difference between life and death, the public is placing its faith in government to lead the fight against the virus. In fact, respondents want government out front in all areas of the pandemic response: to provide economic relief (86 percent), to get the country back to normal (79 percent), to contain Covid-19 (73 percent), and to inform the public (72 percent).“

Michigan Reaches Preliminary $600M Settlement in Civil Case: Racist Suspect Authorities Knowingly Poisoned the Water of Mostly Black Residents in Flint. Criminal Case Still Pending

From [HERE] and [HERE] Michigan Governor Gretchen Witmer announced Thursday that the state has reached a preliminary settlement agreement with victims of the Flint water crisis that exposed thousands of residents to unsafe levels of lead in their drinking water. Nevertheless, the criminal case is still pending.

The settlement agreement provides for $600 million in damages to be paid by the state to residents of Flint who were exposed to lead in their drinking water as the result of the municipal water authority switching intakes to the Flint River in 2014. Nearly 80 percent of the settlement is set aside for children, with the majority earmarked for children who were first exposed when they were younger than age 6. The remaining funds are allocated for businesses and individuals who claimed that the lead exposure caused property damage or loss of business. Lead is a potent neurotoxin that causes developmental issues in younger children in addition to numerous other health conditions in adults. The settlement is second that the state has agreed to, following an $87 million agreement in 2017 to replace lead pipelines in Flint.

In a statement announcing the settlement, Witmer said that “what happened in Flint should have never happened, and financial compensation with this settlement is just one of the many ways we can continue to show our support for the city of Flint and its families.” Witmer committed to additional funding for line replacement, nutrition programs, and creating new oversight and advocacy offices to monitor environmental justice issues in the state. Michigan Attorney General Danna Nessel echoed Witmer’s comments, saying that “by reaching this agreement, I hope we can begin the process of closing one of the most difficult chapters in our State’s history and writing a new one that starts with a government that works on behalf of all of its people.”

African Americans Worst Hit as New Jobless Claims Surge Past 1 Million. The Number of Black Owned Businesses Decreased by 41% (17% for whites)

BLITHERING IDIOT AND PAPER BOAT CAPTAIN TRUMP BELIEVES HE DID SOMETHING FOR BLACKS BECAUSE HE DID A TAX CUT FOR ELITE WHITES AND FOLLOWED KIM KARDASHIAN SUGGESTION TO RELEASE A FEW BLACK PEOPLE FROM JAIL - he calls that policy. HE IS LIVING PROOF OF THE MYTH OF WHITE SUPREMACY. if he has a heart attack PRAYERFULLY A SLOW ambulance with no spare will get 4 flat tires on the way to the hospital that catches fire at a time when the fire hydrants ARE frozen. FUNKTIONARY EXPLAINS:

AFRICAN AMERICAN - A NON-IMMIGRANT AFRIKAN (MENTALLY CAPTURED AND ECONOMICALLY INDENTURED) IN AMERICA. 2) THE HYPHENATED HYBRID---IMPLICATED, MARGINALIZED, DEMONIZED, PROFILED, TARGETED, XEROXED, INCARCERATED AFRIKAN MISPLACED IN AMERICA. “AFRICAN-AMERICAN" IS A DASH SURROUNDED BY A PARADOX MASKED AS CONTRADICTION; AN EXISTENTIAL APOSIOPETIC PAUSE---A STUTTER STEP FOR THE PROVERBIAL CAUSE---A TENUOUS GRAFT THAT LEFT US FADED, JADED, DEGRADED, AND UNWHOLE, AND IN FACT, ACCORDING TO HIS-STORY, LESS THAN A HALF---ONE THIRD HUMAN TO BE EXACT. IT IS THE FOOL WHO SAYS "I HAVE LOST NOTHING IN AFRICA OR I HAVE NOT GAINED ANYTHING IN AMERICA." (SEE: DOCTRINE OF EXCLUSION, RACISM WHITE SUPREMACY, MELANIN & GENIUS)

From [HERE] The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless benefits returned to 1.1 million last week, though insured unemployment has dropped by two-tenths of a point overall, the Labor Department reported Thursday. 

Between the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation and traditional unemployment, 28 million Americans received jobless benefits as of Aug. 1. This number is about 200,000 less people than the previous week, bringing the unemployment rate this week to 10.2%.

Though the federal government typically adjusts raw data to reflect seasonal, predictable changes in the job market, the new applications for unemployment insurance actually reported by states came in at 891,510 for an unadjusted national insured unemployment rate of 9.8%.

On average, 46,392 Americans tested positive for Covid-19 every day over the last week. Since March, 5.54 million Americans have tested positive for the disease, and 173,000 have died.

Alongside the slight drop in insured unemployment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracked a 1% decline in joblessness throughout July. The country that provides all citizens “equal protection of the laws” is not providing equal protection in the labor market, however. As the pandemic recession stretches into fall, existing racial disparities in the workforce are only getting worse.

In July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 9.4% of whites are unemployed while the jobless rate remains 14.6% for Black Americans and 12.9% for Hispanics.

From February to April, the New York Federal Reserve found the number of active business owners in the U.S. fell by nearly 22%, but the number of Black-owned businesses decreased by 41%. The number of white-owned businesses dropped by 17% during the same period.

Devon Warren is one of 11.2 million self-employed Americans floating himself on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Based in Montclair, New Jersey, the photographer closed shop in March and subleased out his studio space when Wells Fargo refused to help him apply for a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program.

“They told me they weren’t offering any business loans. They told me to go through the government website,” Warren said.

While Wells Fargo is one of several banks being sued for prioritizing large customers over helping small businesses during the pandemic, financial institutions have a long history of turning away Black business owners in America.

In August, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York traced stark inequities throughout the Paycheck Protection Program’s distribution of $349 billion in forgivable loans.

The report found “weaker cash positions, weaker bank relationships, and preexisting funding gaps left black firms with little cushion entering the crisis.” 

Federal aid only went to 7% of businesses in the Bronx where 35% of people are Black and 48% are Hispanic. In Cook County, Illinois, where 20% of businesses are owned by Black Americans, aid went to only 15% of the county’s total 549,686 firms.

Rather than by economic need or impact of the health crisis, the Federal Reserve found more aid simply went to businesses with better banking relationships and access to credit. 

Warren eventually got a Paycheck Protection Program loan to cover expenses for two months. Entering the sixth month of the pandemic, Warren said he is trying to figure out “how to turn the minor setback into a major comeback — pivot is my favorite word of 2020.” 

More financial aid would help. “I’m not asking that they give Black-owned businesses more money, just give us the same money,” he said. “I just want what everybody else was getting — I don’t need any more; I don’t need any easier; I just want to have a fair share of the pot.”

At this time last year, 78% of Black Americans polled by the Black Economic Alliance considered the challenges of accessing capital and small business loans among their top concerns. This year, U.S. Black Chambers President Ron Busby told the U.S. Congress 70% of his members were denied federal aid under the Paycheck Protection Program.

“Decades before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, historical discrimination has consistently distorted the advancement of Black America,” Busby told Congress on July 23. “The coronavirus-related labor losses have been especially devastating for Black America due to historical struggles from higher unemployment rates, lower wages, lower incomes, lack of savings, and significantly higher poverty rates.”

Others are skeptical that the financial aid from the federal government alone will have long lasting impacts.

Over Playing Their Master’s Hand: MoTeaSuh Tribe Dems Make Believe that “Blackness" Simply Means “Non-Republicanness" and the False Choice b/tw Biden and a Racist Corpse is a Real, Voluntary Election

Once racist suspect Joe Biden announced that he would only select a female for his VP running mate, the main criteria sought by the vocal Black votary and applied by Biden was a Blackface. The winner of this Black pageant was Kamala Harris, who like the others under consideration basically functions as an assimilated “honorary white person.” She is not known for her Black advocacy or articulating any “Black agenda.” Here, “Blackness” to the duped Black votary means ‘not Republican.’ In general, so long as the Black official is not Republican ‘the dependent media and its black media imitators and black parrot TV pundits lionize BLACK OFFICIALS without critical examination of their records and expressly support them essentially on the basis of such non-Republicanness .’ With regard to Black people, for all non-cosmetic purposes there is little difference between the politics of Kamala Harris, Pete Butigieg and Amy Klobachar. But none of that matters when you’re lathered up in statist foreplay towards the election countdown climax!

More Tea Massah? Many different plantations existed during slavery days. Slave masters varied - some plantations offered slaves more privileges, responsibilities and allowances- others were more punitive and maintained by mean cracker slave masters. Obviously, slaves preferred to be on the less punitive master’s planation. Efforts for better relations on the planation only strengthen belief in the authority of the masters. Obviously, so long as they remained masters, they would never serve their slaves or make themselves equal with their slaves.

To be clear, the Democrat and republican parties both function as plantations run by racist elites. That is, powerful, vested interests who have different strategies for maintaining the master-servant relationship between whites and Blacks. Endependent persons understand that in a worldwide system of government control, all prisons or plantations are not equal and it is a denial of reality to theoretically pretend they are interchangeable. Between the two “choices” presented to Black voters the democratic party offers polite masters and a plantation with less restrictions, more “respect”, privileges and responsibilities as opposed to the GOP’s cruel, moronic masters who offer an overt genocidal menu of violence and hate on their punishing plantation.

If a Black individual is coerced into participating in this illusion there is obviously no choice but to make the best of a bad situation by voting for the candidate who is not an overt racist psychopath/neuropean corpse. Thus, a Black vote is an effort to avoid being on the crazy master’s plantation. As explained by A. John Simmons, “you thereby express a preference, approve of that candidate (over the others), but consent to the authority of no one.” A Black voter might “choose” to do so “if you like freedom of movement with your slavery.” Recognizing such realities and voting only when necessary to prevent the election of repressive Yurugu state managers, one is not under any illusion that he/she is participating in a democracy where none exists.

Undeceiver Larken Rose explains, “There is a big difference between striving for a new, wiser, nobler master, and striving for a world of equals, where there are no masters and no slaves. Likewise, there is a big difference between a slave who believes in the principle of freedom, and a slave whose ultimate goal is to become the new master. And this is true, even if that slave truly intends to be a kind and generous master . . . As long as the people believe in the myth of “authority,” every downfall of one tyrant will be followed by the creation and growth of a new tyrant.“ [MORE]

According to FUNKTIONARY

Black Ward - a subvassal (straw boss), who held ward of the king’s vassal (a species of slave who owes servitude and is in a state of dependency on a superior lord). The vassal himself might be overseer o some other vassals. Black ward is the English equivalent to the Boule’ in Greek. (See: Sigma Pi Phi, Informant and Straw Boss).

The Moteasuh Tribe - the miseducated coin-operated buck dancing, sole-shuffling, politically dis-appointed kneegrows who pander to Massah's agenda - Mo' Tea Sir? This tribe of sorry ass kneegrows follow the dictates and even orchestrates the marching bandits of racism white supremacy as spewed forth from the mouthpieces of political power within the borders of the Witches Castle. It's the Condi-Clarence-Powell complex - that is, those who do Massah's bidding as if you weren't kidding yourself that you were doing otherwise. Keep your eyes on the lies, the liars, and the disguise. (see McNegro). 

SHOWCASE BLACKS , like Trevor Noah, HAVE PRICELESS VALUE TO RACISTS IN THE SYSTEM OF RACISM/WHITE SUPREMACY. BEAR IN MIND THAT WHITE SUPREMACISTS/RACISTS CONTROL THE SHOW. SHOWCASE BLACKS ARE NOT SHOWCASING THEMSELVES, THEY ARE BEING SHOWCASED BY WHITE SUPREMACISTS TO PROMOTE SOME ASPECT OF RSW. A FUNCTION OF SHOWCASE BLACKS IS TO CONTROL THE SPECTRUM OF IDEAS DISCUSSED BY BLACKS, CONTROL THE PARAMETERS OF DISSENT AND DEFINE WHAT KINDS OF IDEAS ARE "RESPECTABLE" AND "REASONABLE." [MORE]

The Spectacle - a constructed reality; the concrete inversion of life; via the autonomous movement of the apparently non-living. 2) the mirrorization of the noumenon into the phenomenal universe without understanding or overstanding it as such an objectivization in duality. The Spectacle is not a collection of images but a social relation among people mediated by images. The Spectacle is a theoretical construct—a tool for explaining many things about society; how people live vicariously through the dominant images of production, consumption and power relations. It is the thoughtfofms in which people create, contemplate and consume mediated by images of what-life-is, so that they will forget how to live radically for themselves. It is the totality of images and illusions that alienate people from living, its the primary production of modern societies. It is ideology materialized. It is the social relations that are mediated by the mass media; it is what makes people apathetic and reduces them to inactivity. It is what prevents people from realizing what their collective problems are and dissolving them. It is what perpetually absorbs people into activities that prolong their misery. It is the mediated stream of unreality that channels desire-energy against itself, producing a separate world, a pseudo-world apart form one's self-history—from all those powerful institutions of Self-actualization. It is what motivates people to live a pseudo-life in submission to products and machines, basking passively in the acceptance of oppression, to blindly do what is manifestly against their own self-interest, to pollute the land they love and the air they breathe—it is a fundamental sickness of modern societies superimposed over and aided by the "Rolebots" (clones and drones) of Corporate State. It is the mass media and the propaganda from the pure war machine and the military prison industrial police state complex. It is Doggy, the double-bind of not knowing real from unreal, (hypereal) or what you say from what you want. It is the mass objectivization and unholy marriage (union) of the Beasthood with the Syndrome, leaving people fragmented, separated, isolated, alienated, fascinated, pixelated, dilated, intimidated, exasperated, mediated, concatenated, weak, docile, dependent, submissive and uncritical.

voting - a pacification (sucker) process which allows the votary to make choices provided to her/him, not decisions. 2) a "privilege" of U.S. citizens to do it behind a curtain—as long as they do it alone. 3) political masturbation exercises for those who can't cop real power. 4) a habitually accepted imposition that gives the votary-vassal-suckers an illusion of inclusion or participation. 5) an act of self-abuse. People mistake their voting for their voice—as the voice of the people is seldom, if ever, their own. While some died fighting for the privilege (not right) to vote or not to vote, they were restricted and therefore had no choice in the matter. If voting was a right, no one would ever have had to lose his or her life in a struggle to exercise that right. The Voting Rights Act of 1964 demonstrates that voting is a civic privilege (franchise) bestowed upon a people instead of the act of voting being an inherent right where exercise of the option to vote is one's own decision without an attached obligation (compulsion) or expectation (compunction).

We need to establish and assert our economic rights and declare our "endependence" by designing, collectively owning, controlling and administering our own systems of monetary and economic exchange (that funktion in the interests of its creators and participants) so as to take ownership of our bodies, labor, and fruits of our mental assets in the form of substantive rights receipts (circulating "money" in electronic form or circulating cash). Whoever creates the symbol that acts as a claim on your labor or wealth (in the absence of any other competing system of exchange) is the true owner of same—and you remain a slave to their system of unjust enrichment for exploitative gain. When we learn to vote with our own "money" and control the systems wherein economic power is wielded, political voting will be seen for the wholesale fraud and sham that it really is so that you may one day respect yourself the morning after voting.

Voting without having economic rights and control of substantive rights is voting fraud—you get what you got laid for—a royal screwing (Phillips or Flathead) and it's your own undoing. When we learn to finally wean ourselves off of the official Corporate State imaginary debt-based "dollar" it will one day (like Marvin used to say) make'em wanna' holler! Governance is for mature, clear-thinking, evolving, creative, humane, compassionate, non-coercive, responsible, unselfish and non-authoritarian people who overstand the difference between mutually voluntary acts (overruling self-government) and veiled commands (rule of compelled performance). The Pathocracy grooms and pre-selects those paraded in front of you whom you imagine your votes are counted towards resulting in the "elect." The Elect (the Elite—the aristocratic Dominant Minority families), openly hidden among us transcending generations, plot the scripts through their think tanks, foundations, parallel governments and other high occultic orders that are carried out by the lower level controllers (the puppets). Why would anyone knowingly give away power of attorney over their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to a bunch of psychopaths, I mean politicians—i.e., Congress collectively? Why would a significant portion of the population give up their birthright (inalienable rights) to become a fictitious entity (citizen of the United States created by Congress in 1866) just for the "benefit" to vote in the very system that is destroying them?

Voting only provides evidence of our complicity as imagined participants in an already-decided outcome. Our existence as economic units (producer-consumers) simply serving a greater overruling elite and their Agenda. To those who believe in democracy—overstand that the act of voting itself is the source of your own pain. Those who look to the political process or political system to end or undo the madness ruling planet earth are simply wasting their precious time. But the choice, as always, is yours—even if it has already been selected for you. You get the democracy you deserve. We are still holding onto the twin illusions: that democracy is an ideal of freedom; and that democracy prevails in the Western world. Voting, like the old shell game, is a racket you can't win. Whichever you choose, you're sure as hell to lose. Happy Voting! (See: Voting Booth, Citizen of the United States, Democracy, Agenda 21, Elections, Politicians, Quirkers, Council on Foreign Relations, Politics, Inalienable Rights, Pathocracy, SLAP-House, Voting Hoax, Economatrix, Funkonomics, Ritual, Politician, The Guardians, Think Tanks, Congress, Substantive Rights, Holodeck Court & Ho Reps) [MORE] and [MORE]