Now, I can understand too crazy to stand trial; he has to be able to understand what he is facing and what his rights are. Once he stood trial though, and was convicted and sentenced to death, how could he be too crazy to be executed? He already knows what's going to happen from when they were in the courtroom, so what else is there he has to know or be able to understand? I don't agree with the death penalty personally, but it's here, people are sentenced to it, and eventually it is done; go on and do it, get it over with already!
23 years he's been costing we the taxpayers money, and now you want to say he can't be executed??
Texas Death Row Inmate May Have Faked Mental Illness
by Veronica Graves August 31, 2016
Gerald Edridge may have faked a mental illness to avoid execution.
Gerald Eldridge, death row inmate
Gerald Eldridge, 52, may have faked having an illness to avoid execution after fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend Cynthia Bogany and her daughter in Houston 23 years ago, the Associated Press reports.
Eldridge was convicted in 1993, and in 2009, when he was less than two hours away from being executed by lethal injection, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal stopped the execution because Eldridge's lawyers claimed that he was too mentally ill for the punishment. Rosenthal decided that the claim needed to be further examined.
However, in a 2013 hearing, it was determined that while Eldridge showed signs of mental illness, there was inconsistency in the extensive evidence claiming that he was incompetent because of that mental illness, raising the possibility that he had faked symptoms.
On Monday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling and moves Eldridge a step closer to execution.
According to AP, Eldridge’s lawyer, Lee Wilson, has filed a request for a rehearing before the appeals court and will continue to appeal the case.
“Mr. Eldridge is schizophrenic,” he said.
In addition to killing Bogany and her daughter, Eldridge was found guilty of shooting and wounding his son with Bogany, Tyrell, and Bogany’s boyfriend at the time, Wayne Dotson.
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.”
This story unfortunately is not different or new anymore. More and more often it is happening, or perhaps it's just that with the new technologies we are able to hear about the incidents in other parts of the world. Either way, it's happening way more than it should, and way more people are not being punished. Do the powers that be not realize the danger, the irreparable harm that is being done to these children? Or is it perhaps that those who should be punishing the offenders in reality agree with them? That's why the police don't get charged, and that's why high school teachers and coaches don't get fired....
Texas High School Coach Called Black Student Player’s Hair ‘Nappy and Nasty’: Report
Softball coach Brenda Jacobson reportedly also told a black student player, “The sun is more attracted to you because you are black.”
A Texas family is questioning the lack of serious punishment after a high school softball coach reportedly made several racial remarks about a black student player, Raw Story reports.
According to the report, over the weekend, dozens of people rallied in support of the Richland High School’s mascot name, “the Rebels,” which is a nod to the Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.
The protest was staged days after local newspaper the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that high school softball coach Brenda Jacobson was reprimanded by the school’s principal, Carla Rix, for possibly making “inappropriate comments to students based on race or skin color.” Rix ordered Jacobson to “adhere to professional communication” and not to “make references to any person regarding race or skin color,” the news site notes.
However, the coach was not suspended but was instead put on administrative leave for less than a day.
According to the Star-Telegram, the letter detailed that Jacobson was accused of saying that a black player’s hair was “nappy and nasty,” saying that a black player wouldn’t perform a drill “because there is water on the ground and black people don’t like water,” and quipping, “See, everyone is white on the inside,” after a player cut her leg while sliding to a base.
According to WFAA 8, Kenzie Wilson, who is black, and her father, Kenneth, were among the first to raise concerns about Jacobson before the fallout. Some of the alleged racially charged comments were directed toward Kenzie.
“I felt like it was enough and I shouldn’t be treated like that anymore,” the high school junior told WFAA 8.
“There is no way you say what you did to my daughter with witnesses, and you keep your job,” her father added, voicing his concern as to why Jacobson was not suspended or even fired. The Wilsons have since reportedly moved out of the district.
Jacobson, for her part, denies making the comments.
This is such a sad story. Not just sad because of the people who died, not just sad because the person who killed them got off; it's sad because what does it tell the children (and teens) coming up now? If they are anything but rich and white, it tells them that they don't mean anything. That rich white people run the world and that nothing has changed in all the years since slavery was supposedly abolished. Back then, if
a young black teenager was accused of whistling at a white woman, he was beaten beyond recognition and lynched, whether he did it or not!
Now, a white teenager can kill four people and tell the police "I'm outta here", but he doesn't even get a 'beat down'!!
What is wrong with people that they think this is okay?
