Is This the Lesson Young Children Should Be Learning?

It used to be, children were taught that the man in the blue uniform was our friend; if you were ever in trouble, he was the one you should go to. You should always do what he said, and you should never lie or even hold back in the information you give him. Wow....

Now, if we teach children anything where the cops are concerned it's probably lessons in how to avoid ever getting stopped in the first place, and how to position the dash cam  to catch everything!

Is this the lesson all children are  being taught though? I don't think so , unfortunately I think some children are learning a lesson that will cause more separatism and elitism than anything else. Once again, it's not a racial divide for the most part, although it can be seen as a color divide. The colors aren't the expected black vs white though, the colors are blue vs all the colors of the rainbow.  In my opinion,  the belief and fear of being hurt or killed when you're doing anything 'while being black' is unfortunately a valid one. Blacks are just the most visible target, that 'thin blue line' stands against every other race when you come down to it.

What lesson are children getting from all this? I think the children of police officers are getting a  lesson which may, through no fault of their own, get them hurt or  even killed. They're going to grow up believing that they are superior to everyone else because their parent is in law enforcement. They will also feel invincible, that whatever they do is okay because they won't be punished. (Look at what's happened in the Freddie Gray case!)

Even worse, what about the lessons they will learn about what happens to the people who try to put a chink in that wall? The ones who seek justice for the injured and dead? The 'whistle-blowers'?  A couple hundred years ago , people were afraid to tell on others because they knew what would happen to them. (lynchings, burnings,  assaults) It will become that way again, if we continue down the path we're on. Here's a story I"ve been following:

Man Who Filmed Eric Garner’s Death Sues NYC for $10,000,000

Ramsey Orta, the New York City man who filmed Eric Garner’s death, recently accepted a plea deal on weapons and drug charges and is likely to spend the next four years in prison.

Now, the New York Post reports, Orta is suing the city for $10 million. He says that he was arrested on trumped-up charges in retaliation for recording the controversial arrest that sparked protests. 

“Despite the murder of Eric Garner by the NYPD, Ramsey Orta, who filmed the incident, is the only person present at the incident who is going to prison because the NYPD engaged in smear tactics, in cooperation with the news media, and prepared a tactical plan to set him up for retaliatory arrests,” the lawsuit reads.

Earlier this month, Orta pleaded guilty to charges of peddling heroin in 2015 and hiding a firearm in a woman’s pants in 2014. He is expected to be sentenced to four years in prison in October, the Post notes.

The spokesperson for the city’s Law Department told the Post that it will review all the accusations.

And This Is the Way They "Protect and Serve"....

Here's how they "protect and serve" those they want to retaliate against for exposing the truth to the world,  for showing what  some police officers are really like behind that uniform/mask they wear.

Man Who Videotaped Alton Sterling’s Death Not Allowed Back to Work

Chris LeDay

Christopher DeLay {sic} was arrested on his job less than 24 hours after he posted the distressing video of Sterling’s death online, and was told he could not return to his work site after being jailed.

The man who videotaped the chilling death of Alton Sterling has effectively been given the ax, and, according to his lawyer, it’s because he posted Alton Sterling’s death on social media.

According to WSB-TV, Christopher LeDay was arrested less than 24 hours after he posted video of Alton Sterling being shot and killed by Baton Rouge police officers. Police came to his job at Dobbins Air Force Base in and put the cuffs on him for alleged assault and battery.

LeDay’s lawyer says that he was taken in on false charges.

“He never had a warrant for an assault,” lawyer Tiffany Simmons told the station. “My client has never had any criminal history.”

She adds, “They never showed a warrant for an assault to my client, in fact my client was held in DeKalb County Jail for at least 26 hours and they never produced a warrant.”

Simons told WSB that when police could not produce a warrant, she was then told her client was being held for unresolved traffic tickets.

After paying those tickets and trying to return to work, LeDay’s lawyer says he was turned away at the gate of the base for “security clearance issues.”

Yet, LeDay, who was just hired about six weeks ago, said his supervisor knew about the traffic tickets when he was hired.

“He should not be penalized or possibly retaliated against, he should not be embarrassed at his place of employment for doing what is right,” Simmons said.

Originally posted by:  Angela Bonner Helm on July 24, 2016

And Now From Austin, Texas...

We learn about the "violent tendencies" elementary school teachers have.

Video Shows Texas Police Throwing Black Schoolteacher to the Ground Twice

Orig.posted by:  BREANNA EDWARDS
                            July 22, 2016

Officers in Austin, Texas, are facing an investigation after the violent arrest last year of Breaion King, a black elementary school teacher, during which one cop can be heard saying that blacks have “violent tendencies.”  (This is only the video which shows the arrest. Evidently there were two videos, she was not having a conversation with anyone during this one.)

Video footage shows schoolteacher Breaion King as she is 

apprehended by Austin, Texas, police during a traffic stop June 15, 2015.

ficials in Austin, Texas, are investigating the violent arrest last year of a black elementary school teacher who was slammed to the ground twice during a traffic stop,the Austin American-Statesman reports.

Also under investigation are comments apparently made by an officer who can be heard on video telling the teacher, Breaion King, that black people have “violent tendencies.”

The incident unfolded in June 2015. Video obtained by the American-Statesman shows how quickly the traffic stop escalated.

A police cruiser pulled up next to King’s car as she was exiting the vehicle. A police officer, Bryan Richter, can be heard ordering the 26-year-old to get back in her car and close her car door.

Richter accused King of only having stopped her car to park because she realized that he was after her.

“You were about to go inside without a wallet, so I know you were only coming over here because you knew I was going to pull you over,” Richter says. “I can absolutely stop you if you’ve already parked, yes.”

Richter asks King to put her feet back in the car so he can close the door. When King asks the officer to hurry up, that’s when things seem to go awry.

Richter can be seen struggling with King in her car, attempting to drag her out of the vehicle.

“No, why are you touching me?” King can be heard screaming. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

“Stop resisting!” Richter yells. “Get out of the car!”

Richter is seen dragging King out of the car and tossing her to the pavement once, screaming at her to put her hands behind her back. As he then wrestles her hands behind her back, he can be heard saying that he was “about to Tase” King.

King struggles to her feet, but Richter is seen on the video kicking her legs out from under her, before picking her up and slamming her to the ground again. He had finished handcuffing her as another officer arrives on the scene.

Richter wrote in a report of the incident that he acted because King demonstrated an “uncooperative attitude” and was “reaching for the front passenger side of the vehicle.” He said that he did not know if she had a weapon and that King resisted by pulling away from him and wrapping her arms around the steering wheel.

King originally was charged with resisting arrest, but prosecutors dismissed the case after seeing the footage, the American-Statesman notes.

Separate footage details a conversation between King and another white officer, Patrick Spradlin, who says that blacks have “violent tendencies.”

“Why are so many people afraid of black people?” Spradlin asks King.

“That’s what I want to figure out because I’m not a bad black person,” King says.

“I can give you a really good idea why it might be that way: violent tendencies,” Spradlin says.

When King asks him if he thinks racism still exists, Spradlin responds, “Let me ask you this. Do you believe it goes both ways?”

“Ninety-nine percent of the time when you hear about stuff like that, it is the black community that is being violent,” Spradlin continues. “That’s why a lot of the white people are afraid, and I don’t blame them. There are some guys I look at, and I know it is my job to deal with them, and I know it might go ugly, but that’s the way it goes. But yeah, some of them, because of their appearance and whatnot, some of them are very intimidating.”

According to the American-Statesman, the Police Department disciplined Richter—with counseling and additional training—after supervisors looked into his use of force. However, internal affairs never formally investigated the incident. Spradlin was not disciplined for his comments because the department was unaware of his remarks until the newspaper began asking about them, the American-Statesman reports.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo told the American-Statesman in an interview this week that the department has since opened an administrative review into how Richter’s supervisors evaluated his conduct, as well as a separate criminal investigation. Spradlin’s comments are also being investigated.

“After reviewing both videos, I and our leadership team were highly disturbed and disappointed in both the way Ms. King was approached and handled and in the mindset that we saw on display in those videos,” Acevedo said. “But there is another piece, which has caused concerns as to our review process and the systems we have in place.”

Acevedo expressed regret that he did not know about the situation sooner, but said that he would be taking steps to ensure that citizens learn how to respond when they feel that they have been mistreated by cops.

“We need to help our community overcome the fear or reluctance, which I understand, to file a complaint,” he said. “This is critical if we are to weed out bad officers and bad behavior.”

King, for her part, remains disturbed by her experience a year after the fact.

“I’ve become fearful to live my life,” she said. “I would rather stay home. I’ve become afraid of the people who are supposed to protect me and take care of me.”

Read more at the Austin American-Statesman. 

Update on Shooting of Charles Kinsey - What Did I Tell You?

Well, well, well, imagine that; the officer now claims  that he:

  "was aiming at the patient, who he thought was a threat, but missed and shot Charles Kinsey."

He   thought   the  patient   was   a  threat.  

Even  though the alleged   'victim'  was   lying on the ground with his hands  high in the  air  TELLING the officers  that  the other man (who was  sitting quietly playing with his truck, from what I could see) was his patient, was not dangerous, and that he .did not have a gun or weapon of any kind.  (see picture)

Does it look like Charles Kinsey is being in any way threatened by the patient? Where are the patient's hands? (In his lap!) So, the  still unidentified cop was aiming to shoot this man sitting with his hands in his lap  talking to Mr. Kinsey?

That's problem  #1 I have with this  new story today. Here's #2.

In the original article, this statement appeared: 

"Kinsey said that what upset him most about the incident was what happened after he was shot."

“They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come. I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding—I mean bleeding...."

Flipped him over?  Faced down on the ground? With cuffs on??? But wait,  I thought the cops believed the autistic person  was the dangerous one, and the one they just cuffed was the victim?

See? What did I  tell you? 

Can Someone Please Tell Me How We Got To This Point??

This is the craziest thing yet, that a cop would shoot a man lying on the ground with his arms up in the air explaining to him who he was and what was going on! If anything  you'd think he would shoot the guy with the truck in his hand, then he could at least claim he thought it was a gun, but no, he shoots the guy with his arms up. (Sound familiar?) You know it really sounds to me, despite his claim of not knowing why he did it,  that cops just don't care about how it looks anymore. They can shoot whoever they want, (or break the rules of their own department causing someone's death, i.e. Freddy Gray case) and they will  ultimately get away with it! After Sandra Bland  I'm scared to death when I'm driving, especially on the highway, but now? I am petrified! I might get stopped for something and reach for my purse and get shot and killed, or get out of the car with my hands up and be shot in the leg for absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER, and nothing will happen! No one will be held accountable for my being shot, and it will hurt like HECK if I live!! LOL

No, it's not really funny, but I have to try to laugh because otherwise I'll cry... Here's the story.

Fla. Police Shoot Black Caretaker of Autistic Man Playing With Toy Truck 

Charles Kinsey lying on the ground with his hands held high, trying to explain the situation to officers before he gets shot. 

A North Miami caretaker was shot and wounded by police Monday as he tried to retrieve a 23-year-old autistic man who had wandered from a mental-health center into the street , the Miami Herald reports.

Cellphone video released Wednesday shows the caretaker, Charles Kinsey, lying on the ground, with his hands in the air, trying to reason with police officers as they approached Kinsey and his patient, the autistic man.

“When I went to the ground, I’m going to the ground just like this here with my hands up,” Kinsey said, according to WSVN. “and I am laying down here just like this, and I’m telling them again, ‘Sir, there is no need for firearms. I’m unarmed, he’s an autistic guy. He got a toy truck in his hand.”

Kinsey said he was trying to calm his patient, who can be heard in the video screaming at Kinsey to “Shut up,” before Kinsey gets shot.

“Rinaldo, please be still. Rinaldo, sit down. Rinaldo, lay on your stomach,” Kinsey can be heard on the video telling his patient.

Then Kinsey is shot in the leg by a police officer.

“I’m like this right here, and when he shot me, it was so surprising,” Kinsey said. “It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, ‘I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No I just got shot! And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.’”

“My life flashed in front of me,” he added. “When he hit me, my first thing I’m thinking, I’m thinking about my family.”

According to WSVN, Kinsey said that what upset him most about the incident was what happened after he was shot.

“They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come. I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding—I mean bleeding—and I was like, ‘Wow,'” he told the news station.

On Wednesday evening, a group called the Circle of Brotherhood, which works to solve problems in the community, stood outside the North Miami Police Department, demanding answers in the shooting. Kinsey is a member of the organization.

Kinsey’s lawyer, Hilton Napoleon, slammed the police for what he said was an unjustified shooting.

“There’s no justification for shooting an unarmed person who’s talking to you and telling you that they don’t have a gun, and that they’re a mental-health counselor,” Napoleon said.

According to WSVN, the North Miami police have not revealed the officer’s name, or released any update in the investigation. However, the news station notes, the police did say that the state attorney is involved with the investigation.

Police say that they had gotten a 911 call about a man in the street with a gun threatening to kill himself.

Kinsey in the video can be heard clearly identifying the man as his patient and telling officers that the alleged gun was a toy truck, which also appears to be clearly visible to police.

“I was really more worried about him than myself. I was thinking as long as I have my hands up … they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking, they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong,” Kinsey said.

Despite his injury, Kinsey was expected to be home by Thursday, the Miami Herald notes.

His wife, Joyce Kinsey, told WSVN, “I’m just grateful he’s alive and able to tell his story.”

Is This What the Country Is Coming To?

Are We Going To Be Seeing More Cases Like This?

Each morning we rise to find another ugly headline, or another news report complete with video about a demonstration, a shooting, a death…. For so long we’ve kept silent about the symbols we see around us (i.e. the Confederate flag, the stained glass panels) that are humiliating and degrading to the history of black people, but now when we are fed up and can’t be silent any more, suddenly we are not black men and women who are trying to make a way for themselves, we are suddenly ‘hate-filled’, ‘violent thugs’ who are trying to ‘divide this country’.

Mr. Menafee committed a crime, but why did he do it? Perhaps he got tired of coming to work every day and seeing depictions of black slaves carrying baskets full of cotton for the ‘massa’. Some will say he should have just quit, and you’re right, but have you never suddenly become completely fed up with something which for years you had just shrugged off? I’m sure that everything that has been going on in this country in recent times helped to make the already bad feelings he worse. Not that that’s an excuse, nothing can excuse what he did, but what I’m wondering if we’re going to see more and more of this type of act, as more people become fed up and act out….

Black Yale Employee Arrested, Loses Job After Smashing Stained Glass Panel Depicting Slaves Carrying Cotton 

Corey Menafee, who works as a dishwasher, said that he was tired of looking at the “racist, very degrading” image depicted in a panel in Yale's Calhoun residential college dining hall.

An employee at Yale University is out of a job and now has an arrest record after smashing a stained glass panel in the university’s Calhoun residential college dining hall that depicted slaves carrying cotton, the New Haven Independent reports.   

Panel of slaves carrying cotton

Corey Menafee said that he was tired of looking at the “racist, very degrading” panel and decided to take a broomstick and knock the panel to the floor.

Menafee, 38, was arrested and now faces a felony charge.

According to the Independent, Menafee’s actions are the latest element in a debate over the display of racially charged symbols around the undergraduate housing structure, which was named after slavery advocate and former U.S. Vice President John Calhoun.

Last summer, there was a petition demanding a change in the name of the residential college. The petition has since grown to include all the slavery-themed paintings, artifacts and stained glass tiles around Calhoun College.

“When I walked into this job, I wasn’t aware of none of that,” Menafee said. “And then you know, being there, you start hearing different things.

“I took a broomstick, and it was kind of high, and I climbed up and reached up and broke it,” he said. “It’s 2016; I shouldn’t have to come to work and see things like that.

“I just said, ‘That thing’s coming down today. I’m tired of it,’” he added. “I put myself in a position to do it, and did it.”

Menafee faces a second-degree misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment and a first-degree felony charge of criminal mischief. He said he regretted his actions, which cost him a job that he loved.

“It could be termed as civil disobedience,” Menafee said. “But there’s always better ways of doing things like that than just destroying things. It wasn’t my property, and I had no right to do it.”

Below is one of the stained glass windows that students have had to see every day. It was altered because originally one of its panels depicted a shackled, kneeling slave at his side.

John C. Calhoun

For more information about Yale’s ties to slavery and to John C. Calhoun, a slaveholder after which one of its colleges is named, click here.

Originally posted in The Root 

 by Breanna Edwards

Didn't This Cop in NC Take the Same Training?

Nowadays it's beginning to seem as if the majority of the police officers across the country are taking the same training course somewhere, the one we could call ‘If the skin is black, shoot first, cover up later, and never ask any questions’.  It doesn’t matter if the person is already pinned on the ground with officers on top of him, he was “reaching for a weapon” so shoot him in the head and kill him. Doesn’t matter if the person is in the car with another passenger and a 4 year old child, when he turns to get his ID he might be going for a weapon so shoot into the car multiple times and kill him. After all, in both of these cases I’m sure the officer was in fear for his life despite there being no weapon in sight! So what’s the difference in North Carolina? Are the officers given different training? Do some officers have more common sense or just more balls? I don’t know, what do you think?

In the past two days, we’ve seen two black men—Alton Sterling and Philando Castile—fatally gunned down by police officers in two different states while legally carrying, but not holding or pointing, a firearm.

And then there’s William Bruce Ray of Raleigh, N.C., who was safely apprehended after pointing a pistol at a Wake County sheriff’s deputy this week.

According to WRAL, the incident unfolded Tuesday after Sheriff’s Deputy D.R. Farmer stopped to question Ray after receiving reports of a man pointing a shotgun at passing drivers. Ray reportedly became combative and pointed a gun at Farmer.
“The deputy luckily grabbed the barrel and pushed him back,” Sheriff Donnie Harrison said. “The man says, ‘I got something for you’ and reached in his pocket and came back with a pistol.”

As Deputy Farmer pushed the .22-caliber weapon aside, the gun went off.
“Luckily, nobody got hurt. That’s the good thing. God was looking out for us,” Harrison said. “[Ray] was very fortunate that he didn’t get shot, very fortunate that anybody didn’t get shot.”

Fortunate indeed.

It is unclear why Ray was allegedly pointing a shotgun at passersby, but Harrison said the 62-year-old had been drinking.
“He was very angry about something. We’re trying to piece it together. He’s not being real cooperative with us,” he said.

Tommy Manning, Ray’s attorney, said that he has known the defendant for 26 years and that Ray suffers from mental illness. Manning requested a lower bond, explaining that Ray poses no flight risk and has to support his family, but a judge denied the request, setting bail at $150,000.

Ray is facing charges of assault on a law-enforcement officer with a firearm, which could likely be upgraded to attempted murder, a prosecutor said in court Wednesday.

The 62-year-old is also charged with injury to personal property after allegedly damaging a surveillance camera in the sheriff’s office.

“We had him in interrogation room where we talk to people. We try to film it and record everything for investigative purposes. He got angry and snatched the cameras off the wall,” Harrison said.

I have a question for Sheriff Donnie Harrison:

According to WRAL,
“It is unclear why Ray was allegedly pointing a shotgun at passersby, but {Sheriff Donnie}Harrison said the 62-year-old had been drinking.
“He was very angry about something. We’re trying to piece it together.”

Why is it that after this man fired his weapon at Deputy Farmer you’re ‘piecing together’ what he was angry about, rather than drawing a chalk line on the sidewalk and trying to decide how to tell his family? What is the difference between William Bruce Ray, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile?

Here's a hint:

Philando Castile

William Bruce Ray

Alton Sterling

The First 'Shock Jock' of the Radio - "Nothing But a Con and a Thief"

Please excuse the references to doing things 'today'; this post was supposed to have been published  yesterday, July 3rd.
Warning: Very Long Post 


I watched a movie today on the Bounce Channel called Talk To Me. I didn't recognize it, other than to identify that it was sometime in the 70's. Although not a big time fan of the 'Blacula' era movies I began to find myself interested in this one, which was about a young radio DJ and the radio station he worked for. The DJ had become very popular in that city; very well-liked, respected, and listened to when he spoke. He was always quick to tell his audience though that he was "nothing but a con (someone who'd done time in jail) and a thief".  It didn't matter to them, they loved him all the more.

The city was  Washington, DC., and the radio station was WOL 1450 AM. The movie was based around the time of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, and the DJ was heralded as being a voice that calmed down the angry mobs who surged through the streets vandalizing and looting the businesses there. They were pulling people out of their vehicles (white people) and beating them unmercifully with whatever weapon came to hand. The DJ, instead of fleeing as most people were doing, went back into the radio station and began a broadcast vigil that lasted for hours. During this time he was able to calm some of the emotions that were threatening to bring down the city, to talk some of the residents down from the precipice of anger and hate which they found themselves perched on. The man's name was Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene.

Petey Greene

Earlier today I also read an article about a certain FOX newscaster's reaction (and the video she made) to Jesse Williams' speech at the BET Awards. (Of course her opinion wasn't good!) How she ran on, showing just how unintelligent she really is! (IMO) Of course there were many comments; very few agreed with her. Mostly the comments were people railing against her and her nerve to say anything against Mr. Williams. Here's an exchange that really struck me: evidently the  first poster was in support of the newscaster's video.

You said:

    " What would happen if whites had a white entertainment award? Or white Emmy award?  Or white music award? Or white history month? Or even a white miss America pageant??? Well we don't have any of these things...."

<quote>How old are you? I'm asking because obviously you don't remember the Miss America Pageant years ago, from when it first began in Atlantic City right up until 1970. Eleven months out of the year our children are taught American History in school, with no mention of the things that the children learn about during Black History Month. Now who is it that decrees every year (since 1976) that February is Black History Month? Oh yes, the President... and it hasn't been Obama! Now why would all those Presidents have made that decree if somewhere along the line the disparity had not been obvious? Or is it only those who refuse to see beyond someone's color who cannot admit that there HAS been a time when blacks couldn't do any of the things you mentioned because they were still being 'downtrodden'; they couldn't vote, they couldn't sit in the first seat they came to on the bus, they couldn't even walk into a carry-out and order a soda like everyone else! Just as you seem to have forgotten about the Miss America Pageant being all white for the first 30 years it was in existence, there are many other people who have not forgotten how things 'used to be', and for years have tried to retain their so-called white supremacy through use of the KKK and other organizations like it. When they couldn't be that open about their feelings, many of them have found whatever ways they can to let that hatred out.
What I really find hard to understand is how so many people who claim not to be prejudiced still cannot see that the disparity which has always existed is STILL HERE! And it's a shame that so many refuse to see it; I think we'd go a long way toward healing the breach if first we acknowledge that there IS one. All this constant back and forth does is make it worse, with everyone pointing fingers at everyone else.
What was that old punch line from a few  years back? "Can't we all just get along?" No one says we have to like each other, but we shouldn't be killing each other either. </quote>
                                          
Watching that movie, and watching that video and reading the accompanying article made me look at the two periods in our history; comparing the times and comparing the reactions of people. Do you realize how similar these periods are? Times in the 70's and  80's were the same as they are now in 2016. Events happen, people object and/or protest, and still others wonder what the big deal is, there's no problem... What do you think about what's happening to our society, our children, our businesses, our self-respect? Is racism 'better' than it was? (What constitutes better?) A lot of people, black and white, are saying that we really should just relax and enjoy what strides we've made; we should stop making something out of nothing!!

Brothers and Sisters, how can we not worry about what is happening when so many of us are being beaten and/or killed and everyone is telling us that there's nothing wrong? smh