Back in July, I stated that something stunk about the case against seven Miami, Florida men the government claimed was plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. The issue that I saw was that these men had neither the talent or the means to carry out this plot. In fact, their so-called weapons training involved going paintball shooting. They had so little money that the FBI agent who “infiltrated” them had to buy them boots. The agent says that the swore allegience to al Quaeda but the only “contact” they had with anyone in al Quaeda was the agent himself, who claimed to be tied to al Quaeda.

So, today, the Bush administration got egg on its face. They and a lot of right-wing talking heads spoke about breaking up this plot justified all the Bush administrations actions in its so-called war on terror. Today, a jury acquitted one of the men involved and had a hung jury on the other six:

The mistrial means prosecutors will have to decide whether to retry the six men.

The outcome was a setback for the Bush administration, which had seized on the case to illustrate the dangers of homegrown terrorism and trumpet the government’s post-Sept. 11 success in infiltrating and smashing terror plots in their earliest stages.

Lyglenson Lemorin, who was not the alleged ringleader, was acquitted.

The jury gave up on the other defendants after nine days of deliberations on four terrorism-related conspiracy charges that carry a combined maximum of 70 years in prison. The jury of six men and six women twice sent notes to the presiding judge indicating they could not reach verdicts but were told to keep trying. The mistrial came after their third note.

To this, I quote what I wrote in July:

“…hyping up cases like this makes me question if we are serious about battling terrorism or if it’s more like our war on drugs — just occasionally bust a few people to make it seem like something is really being done and keep your political office for another term.”

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Four Chicago men will receive a settlement of nearly $20 million for the alleged torture at the hands of Chicago Police. In July 2006, a report revealed that at least 5 Chicago police officers used torture to get confessions out of suspects. These officers utilized tactics as extreme as electric shock and Russian roulette to force confessions. As a result, the men — Leroy Orange, Stanley Howard, Madison Hobley and Aaron Patterson — ended up on death row.

These men were released after each spending more than a decade on death row while the ringleader for this torture, police commander Jon Burge finished out his career and retired in Florida.

These were not the first or the last instances of such tactics by police. However, with settlements such as this, let’s hope that more cities give a long, hard look at how their officers are behaving.

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I’ve been meaning to speak on this for a little while now but, I am just now getting around to it.

You might remember me posting about ColorOfChange.org. Color of Change is a group that brings black activism to the web. One of its campaigns has been to raise money for the legal defense of the Jena 6.

However, despite their best efforts, this did not stop them from being the subject of attack by radio talk-show host Michael Baisden. Baisden had Marcus Jones on his show. Jones is the father of one of the Jena 6, Mychal Bell. On this show, Jones claimed that ColorOfChange.org was collecting money against the wishes of the Jena 6 families. Bell and Baisden went on to claim that Color Of Change had been pocketing the money for themselves, even saying that a $10,000 donation made by David Bowie was kept by Color Of Change.

Unfortunately, this was untrue and this dishonesty was spread across the airwaves.

Where do I begin? First, Bowie never made a $10,000 donation for the Jena 6 defense to Color of Change. That donation was made to the NAACP (see the press release from the NAACP).

To date, Color of Change has raised over $230,000 for the legal fees of the the Jena 6 and their attorneys have acknowledged receipt of the funds.

Now, honestly, I would have cut Baisden some slack, had I not been informed of the background. You see, Baisden’s interview with Jones was on November 5th. But, Baisden’s staffers had contacted Color Of Change in October for information regarding these allegations and Color Of Change provided them with information supporting the fact that they were operating above-board:

James Rucker (Director for Color Of Change) has talked with Baisden directly, and at his direction, with Pamela Exum, his business manager, and Yvonne Gilliam, his publicist. From the start, we have explained our procedures to Baisden and his staff; we had them verify payments were received by lawyers; we had them verify our process with the lawyers and families–it was in response to an inquiry they started, driven by Marcus Jones’ accusations almost two months ago.

In fact, Yvonne Gilliam faxed us Marcus’ Jones authorization to release funds. It makes it clear that Baisden’s staff knew that Marcus knew ColorOfChange.org and that he had asked us to direct funds to his attorney.

In mid-October, Yvonne Gilliam, who works for Baisden indicated by phone that every lawyer she’d contacted had received their checks.

But, despite knowing the truth, they went on ahead with the show.

However, it gets even better.
Read More… »

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This is one of those, “why’d it have to by a black man?” moments. But, apparently, the “party of family values” attracts freaks of all hues.

In this episode, we go to the story of Ozwald Balfour. Balfour is somewhat of an anomaly — he’s a black Republican…in Utah. Now, you know that’s a short line. He owns a media relations company and founded the Utah Republican Black Assembly.

However, Balfour is also something else…a pure freak.

The freakiness that has him in the news these days actually stems from incidents culminating in his arrest in February 2005. The married (still married, believe it or not) Balfour was charged with “three second-degree felony counts of forcible sexual abuse and one count of attempted forcible sexual abuse, a third-degree felony.”

What did he do, you might ask. Read the following:

One woman testified Balfour came to her home in 2003 after she answered an ad about learning Web design. She said Balfour dropped his pants, began rubbing against her and tried to put his hands up her skirt.

Three other alleged victims claimed they were assaulted on Jan. 21, 2005, at Balfour’s studio, International Media Services, at 340 W. Whitney Ave. (1410 South), during purported interviews for acting jobs.

One woman testified Balfour tried to get his hands under her shirt after taking her to a dark room adjoining his office. Another woman said Balfour told her, “Show me how a love scene goes,” then kissed her neck and grabbed her breast. A third alleged victim said he unzipped her jacket and tried to lift her shirt.

Read More… »

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Ever since the story of the Jena 6 hit the national spotlight, America has had to deal with the significance of racist symbols, particularly that of the noose. Since that time, we have seen story after story about nooses popping up in workplaces in apparent attempts to intimidate black people.

In the previous incarnation of this site, I posted many stories referencing articles about nooses turning up in workplaces. For the most part, because the stories involved working-class people, they didn’t gain much traction in the mainstream press. But, as I said previously, the happenings in Jena, Louisiana changed all that.

Now, in another part of Louisiana — New Orleans, to be exact — a supervisor has been suspended and the FBI has been called in to investigate yet another noose incident at a sewage station of the that city’s department of public works.

This came to light after an employee there, Terrence Lee, blew the whistle after his superiors did nothing about the racist symbols on display in the office of Lee’s supervisor, Bill Hartline. After being ignored, Lee went public with photos he took of the inside of his boss’s office. These photos show that, inside his office, Hartline had hung two nooses. Also, Hartline proudly displayed a bullwhip he owned, with the word’s “Bill’s Whipping Post” and, worse yet, a dartboard with a black man standing in the center and his groin as the bull’s eye.

This case has been referred to the department of Justice’s civil right division, which, sadly, is now no friend of black folks (please reference my previous posts about how Bush has gutted the civil right division). Therefore, I don’t expect too much to happen in this case…if we don’t say something.

Therefore, we need to raise enough hell that incidents like this can’t be ignored. Some say the noose is back. I say it never left but, we need to make it do so.

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In a 4-3 decision, the Georgia’s Supreme Court has ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson from the jail at which he was serving a 10-year-sentence for aggravated child molestation.

In what I, and others, called a gross miscarriage of justice, Genarlow Wilson was convicted for have consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old schoolmate when he, at the time, was 17 years old. Ironically, had Wilson had vaginal sex with the girl instead, he would have been facing misdemeanor charges.

Critics, myself included, have long pondered if his sentence was related to the fact that he was a young black boy who had wild, drunken sex with a young white girl. I believe that had they both been of the same ethnicity, the original conviction would have never happened.

Regardless of how they arrived at their ruling, a majority of Georgia’s Supreme Court concluded that his sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The year after Genarlow Wilson was convicted, the law was changed so that young people in similar situations would face, at most, a misdemeanor charge and not have to be registered as sex offenders.

At any rate, Genarlow Wilson is out of jail. I just hope that he will be allowed to get on with his life.

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For most Americans, her case shocked and horrified the nation — for about a week until the next news story came along. However, we need to realize that these are real people who are affected by this long after the cameras have turned their attentions elsewhere.

FinalCall.com sat down with Megan and her mother, Carmen, to get their side of the story. I encourage you to read the interview. In addition to hearing a story that will break your heart and anger you at once, I found something Megan said startling.

When no hate crime charges were filed, we were told that it was because Megan and one of the defendents, Bobby Brewster, had a prior relationship, implying they had be romantically involved. According to Megan, they were just friends, nothing more.

I also have to give her a lot of admiration for saying the following when asked what should happen to her attackers:

“I just hope they get what they deserve. I hope they get life. I don’t wish nobody dead, because that’s not my belief, but they should be in prison for the rest of their lives.”

Again, I encourage you to read this interview.

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It took an all-white jury just ninety minutes to wipe away all hopes for justice in the death of Martin Lee Anderson.

Anderson died on January 6, 2006, after being taken off life support. The previous day, he was in an altercation with guards a Florida youth boot camp. Over the course of 30 minutes, seven guards piled on him, beat him and forced him to inhale ammonia capsules in what they say were attempts to revive him. A nurse on staff stood by and watched it all occur. An autopsy performed by a local coroner claimed that he died from a undiagnosed (and, normally, not lethal) sickle cell trait. A second autopsy concluded that he died from being suffocated when guards where covering his mouth while making him inhale ammonia tablets.

Today, a jury acquitted all eight on charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child. Reading this article, I couldn’t help but think of Emmit Till’s death, in the respect that it took the jury virtually no time to acquit the accused. It’s hard to believe that any real deliberation went on at all.

But, most telling, was the part about the first coroner’s (the one who attributed his death to sickle cell) reaction to the verdict:

An initial autopsy by Dr. Charles Siebert, the medical examiner for Bay County, found Anderson died of natural causes from sickle cell trait. A second autopsy was ordered and another doctor concluded that the guards suffocated Anderson through their repeated use of ammonia capsules and by covering his mouth.

“I am feeling a little vindicated. People got to see a lot more than what’s been publicized in the media,” said Siebert, who was widely criticized for his autopsy. He said he was going to celebrate with some of the guards. (emphasis mine)

I guess people either lost sight or just didn’t care that a person was killed. However, I want to say that it mattered to me and I hope that we don’t forget that not all is well with race in America and that we have a lot of work to do.

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Whether he likes it or not, the mayor of Jena, Louisiana needs to recognize that his town has become a symbol of racial injustice.

So, he can be mad about John Mellencamp’s video, “Jena”, but, what he really needs to do is to address is the racial inequities in his community. But, obviously, he recognizes that something has to change:

“At McMillin’s request, the Jena Town Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to create an interracial committee to study racial relations and suggest solutions to any problems.”

For those interested, here’s the video:

 

 Jena: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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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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