A few weeks back, I posted about U.S. Attorney John D.R. Atchison, who was arrested in a sting in which he tried, via the internet, to solicit sex with a 5-year-old girl from a detective posing as a mother. Atchison was arrested in Detroit Metropolitan Airport after flying from Pensacola, FL to meet up with the girl.

Today, it is being reported that Atchison has committed suicide. He had been in federal custody since the bust where he tried, once before, to kill himself.

Eerily enough, Atchison was a married father of three who coached girls’ softball and basketball. Transcipts of his conversations with the undercover detective indicate that this would not have been his first sexual encounter with underaged girls.

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Yesterday, the trial began for seven former boot camp guards and a nurse in the killing of Martin Lee Anderson.

Anderson was killed in an incident with the guards to kicked him, beat him and forced him to inhale ammonia tablets in the thirty-minute encounter.

Initially, a local Florida medical examiner reported that Martin died from an “undiagnosed sickle cell trait”.  The family, doubting such claims, called for a second autopsy.  The findings of that autopsy concluded that Martin was suffocated when “guards suffocated Anderson with their hands over his mouth and nose and by making him breathe ammonia.”

Each of the defendents face charges of the manslaughter of a child and could each receive up to 30 years in prison, if convicted.

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At a school for the deaf in Washington, DC, a black student there was attacked in an apparent hate crime. At the dorms of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, the student was attacked by 7 other students — six white and one black — who held him against his will and scrawled ‘KKK’ and swastikas on his body with a marker.

The offenders, ranging in age from 15-19, have all been sent home. As yet, no charges have been filed. The victim is home with his family.

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Over the last several years, we have heard more and more about people (too many of them black) being released after decades in prison when it was discovered that they could not have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. Too often, this was do to crooked cops forcing confessions out of people in order to closes cases as opposed to actually solving crimes.

It appears that we should be seeing more overturned convictions in the near future after it has been revealed that Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be investigating claims of the torture of suspects by Chicago police in the 1980s.

A four-year study by two special prosecutors appointed by a Cook County judge, released in July 2006, found that Chicago police beat, kicked and shocked scores of black suspects in the 1970s and 1980s to get confessions. The report said it was impossible to file charges because the incidents were so old that the statute of limitations had long since run out.

On Wednesday, however, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the federal government was stepping into the torture case, saying it would seek evidence of “perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice by members of the Chicago police department.”

“It’s political, it’s cultural, it’s systemic,” said attorney G. Flint Taylor, who represents several former death row inmates now suing Burge and city officials.

Attorney Richard Sikes, who represents Burge in the five civil suits, said after Fitzgerald’s announcement that allegations against his client “have been fairly investigated by the special prosecutors who found that charges were not appropriate.”

All this is being announced in the midst of other investigation of the Chicago special operations officer Jerome Finnigan, who federal prosecutors say plotted to kill another member of this unit to keep him from testifying about about a shakedown scheme in which this unit was allegedly involved.

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Last month, 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings died after being shot in a confrontation with two off-duty D.C. police officers. Now, the results of his autopsy are raising some very serious questions about police actions in this incident.

According to the police account, Officer James Haskel solicited the help fellow officer and friend Anthony Clay to help him find a minibike Haskel believed had been stolen from his home. So the two off-duty officers, out of uniform, went riding around looking for it. They came up DeOnte, who was riding the minibike.

The officers claim DeOnte shot at them and Officer Haskel exited his vehicle, pursued DeOnte on foot and shot him.

However, the recent autopsy report is somewhat disconcerting. First, it clearly indicates that DeOnte was shot in the back of the head. Secondly, there was no gunshot residue on his hands or fingers, which could very well have been there if he had indeed fired a gun. Thirdly, DeOnte’s family says that there was no gun recovered at the scene. Finally, there were serious traumatic injuries to the side and back of his body. These could have come from the fall or they could have come from him being hit.

Currently, this case is being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s office, the FBI and DC police.

Personally, I believe something stinks here. Armed, off-duty police officers, out of uniform, tracking down stolen property and end up in an encounter killing a 14-year-old? Call me paranoid or conspiratorial but, I smell a cover-up.

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Despite holding out hope to the contrary, today police confirmed that a body found Thursday morning was indeed that of Nailah Franklin. She had been missing since September 19.

Her body was found unclothed and no cause of death has been determined. Until the forensic evidence has been processed, police are not ruling her death a homicide. Nailah was identified using dental records.

Yesterday, I held out some hope that she was alive after police admonished that reports of the body being hers were premature. Sadly, today, that flicker of hope was extinguished. As I stated yesterday, let us pray for peace and justice for Nailah Franklin’s family.

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There is a bit of good news in the ongoing saga of the Jena 6. First, it was announced that prosecutor Reed Walters would not appeal the decision to not to try Mychal Bell as an adult and move his case to juvenile court. Second came the news that, after having his bail reduced to $45,000, it was posted and Mychal Bell was able to leave jail after nearly 10 months behind bars.

Rev. Al Sharpton made a statement which sums up this current development quite succinctly:

“Tonight, Mychal can go home, but Mychal is not out of the juvenile process. He goes home because a lot of people left their home and stood up for him.

Let America know — we are not fighting for the right to fight in school. We’re not fighting for the right for kids to beat each other. We’re fighting to say that there must be one level of justice for everybody. And you cannot have adult attempted murder for some, and a fine for others, and call that equal protection under the law. Two wrongs don’t make one civil right.”

So, today, we are seeing a sorting of leveling of justice. However, we still must realize that it took a lot of folks mobilizing to make that happen. Let’s not forget the lessons that are being re-taught in Jena, Louisiana.

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UPDATE: Authorities are now saying that the reports of Nailah’s body being found are premature. According to police, the body found is so badly decomposed that the identification of race is not possible. Also, according to police, no family members have seen the body. I will follow up with more details as they emerge.

Original Post (originally titled “Sad developments in Nailah Franklin saga”): Though authorities have not confirmed this, a family member of Nailah Franklin, a 28-year-old pharmaceutical sale rep missing for a week, is saying that a body found near a nature preserve is indeed hers.

The body was found this morning not far from where her abandoned car was found a few days ago. Her uncle, Jon Merrill, is saying that the body found is Nailah’s.

As stated previously, no suspects have been named but, police are looking at a man she dated briefly. Nailah had filed a complaint against him for threatening phone calls he made to her.

My prayers go out to the family of Nailah Franklin. May they find peace and justice.

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In Chicago, the search for Nailah Franklin intensifies as the feds have been brought in to assist in the search for the 28-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep.

Franklin has been missing since September 16, when she was last seen attending a wedding. She was officially reported missing on September 19.

Police have recovered her car in nearby Hammond, IL and a search of her apartment indicates that both her home and her work laptop are missing.

Though no suspects have been named, police are looking into a man she dated briefly who had made threatening phone calls to her. Franklin filed a police report against him. He also has a protection order against him by another woman and authorities also say he has a criminal background.

The family is offering a $10,000 reward for information about her whereabouts.

Let’s pray for her safe return.

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Over the weekend, a Florida International University student was attacked in what authorities are labeling a hate crime. Stephen Barrett was one of the attendees at a keg party on an island near Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway. As the party was wrapping up, some attendees were trying to catch a ride back to shore. On the way back, the boat’s driver noticed that the boat was overloaded and made his way back to shore.

This is where the problems started.

After making it back to shore, one of the suspects told Barrett, “Get of the boat, n***er.” Heated words were exchanged but, Barrett and two friends got off the boat and waited for another to come along.

By the time Barrett and his friends made it back to shore, the suspect lay in wait for them with baseball bats and they were attacked before they could react.

Here are more details:

Barrett was knocked into the Intracoastal, and several teens tried holding his head under water, according to police reports.

A man fishing nearby called police. Another partygoer ran off and flagged down Bal Harbour Officer Steve Goldberg, who was writing a traffic ticket on Collins Avenue.

”Upon my arrival, I observed approximately 10-15 subjects trying to leave the area in a hurry,” Goldberg wrote in his report. “There were three victims who were hit with bats and one victim was almost drowned . . . while also being beaten.”

Miami-Dade, Surfside, Sunny Isles Beach and Bay Harbor Islands officers also went to the scene.

A bloody baseball bat was taken as evidence. The arrests were made by detectives from Miami-Dade’s Intracoastal station.

The suspects and charges are as follows:

• Miguel Aranda (pictured above), 18, and Gilberto Maakaroun, 17, were both charged with a hate crime, battery and attempted felony murder
• Nicholas Checa, 15, and Marino Biondini, 17, were charged with a hate crime and battery
• Jose Osorio, 21, was charged with aggravated battery and attempted felony murder.

Both Aranda and Osorio remain in jail.

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