A woman accused of cutting in line at a Wal-Mart, shoving merchandise and assaulting police officers will plead guilty to disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors. Under the plea agreement, which was reached after the jury received the case for deliberations. Heather Ellis will plead guilty to disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. She will serve a year of unsupervised probation, attend an anger management course and serve four days in jail before the end of the year. Ellis, then a college student with no criminal history, has said that some white patrons shoved and hurled racial slurs at her when she switched checkout lines. Store employees refused to give her her change and called police, she said. As she left the store, Ellis told the Dunklin County Circuit Court, a police officer told her, "Look at this stupid bitch. Take your ass back to the ghetto. Ellis was also charged initially with assaulting a police officer" She did not resist, but said her body was "flung around" by officers. She screamed loudly for help as officers "choked" her and pulled her hair, but she did not hit or kick them, she testified. I don’t know whether she did any of those things or whether this is a racial issue or not according to CNN.com a camera from above the cash register appeared to show Ellis' arm shoving merchandise to the side on the register's conveyor belt. Another camera showed her being led out of the store by police, with her arm in the air. A third, from the parking lot, showed her being handcuffed and put into a police car. It appeared to show Ellis kicking backward at police, as authorities allege. Her defense maintains she did so after police had assaulted her.
A Louisiana justice of the peace who drew criticism for refusing to marry an interracial couple has resigned the secretary of state's office earlier this month. Keith Bardwell resigned in person at the Louisiana secretary of state's office. The state Supreme Court will appoint an interim justice of the peace to fill Bardwell's position, a special election will be held next year to fill the position permanently. Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, refused to perform a marriage ceremony for Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend Terence McKay, 32 because he was concerned for the children that might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don't last. The two were married by another justice of the peace. Bardwell also stated I'm not a racist," he said. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."
‘It's kind of hard to apologize for something that you really and truly feel down in your heart you haven't done wrong," he said. There is the problem right there too many people still feel like this and have positions of power. I’m not one to pull out the race card on a whim, I am honestly not sure is this man is a racist or just plain ignorant. I know black women and men, who do not believe in dating or marrying outside their race. Are they racist? Or is it just keeping it real when we say it? As far as Heather Ellis goes, not everything is black and white or racially charged sometimes people just act like asses and have to the pay the price.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Death Row..what a brother know!!!
Charles Manson has spent more than half his life in prison for masterminding the notorious Helter Skelter killing spree that left actress Sharon Tate(wife of Roman Polanski another blog altogether) and six others dead in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969. While his appearance has changed significantly from the wide-eyed cult leader who appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1969, Manson continues to wield influence over some who consider him a wizened messenger. According to CNN.com Prison officials say Manson still gets lots of mail and spends most of his days singing and playing guitar in a high security unit. This crime happened 40 years ago yet Charles Manson is still alive and actually has followers. He just celebrated his 75th birthday, he is able to celebrate and enjoy his birthday albeit in prison, but he is still aboveground and in reasonably good health. After the Manson Family killings probably the most notorious serial killer would be David Berkowitz , otherwise known as The Son of Sam. The twelve months of terror that David Berkowitz inflicted on the people of New York that culminated in 1977 was such a huge event that it became known as the Summer of Sam. Berkowitz confessed to killing six people and wounding seven others in the course of eight shootings in New York between 1976 and 1977; also this week John Allen Muhammad was executed by the state of Virginia on Tuesday night. During three weeks in October 2002, Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, Muhammad’s step son then 17, killed 10 people and wounded three, while taunting police with written messages and phoned-in threats and demands. During two trials and in years of appeals, Muhammad professed his innocence. One of his trials included testimony from Malvo, whose youth excluded him from consideration for the death penalty.
These are just a few instances where I’m perplexed by the justice system. Charles Manson and his followers brutally slaughtered 7 people yet he gets to remain alive and basically living off of tax dollars for 40 years and counting. John Muhammad had so little regard for human life that Prosecutors say he intended the killings to provide a smokescreen to cover up his real goal -- killing his ex-wife Mildred and gaining custody of his three children. Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection 7 years after the fact. David Berkowitz was sentenced to 365 years in prison. Since being imprisoned, David Berkowitz has undergone “religious” conversion. He has become a writer and evangelist, his supposed strongest desire is to repair the evil that came out of him during his madness. While redemption and repentance are things that I do believe in, I still think after killing people there has to be some type of retribution by the justice system. Some states don’t have the death penalty and others such as California spend more than $130 million a year on its capital punishment system -- housing and prosecuting inmates and coping with an appellate system that has kept some convicted killers waiting for an execution date since the late 1970s Forty executions have occurred so far in 2009 in 10 states, all by lethal injection. That total is up from 37 for all of last year, but less than half of the high of 98, from 10 years ago. The Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
The Death Penalty Information Center study found that death penalty costs can average $10 million more per year per state than life sentences. Increased costs include higher security needs and guaranteed access to an often lengthy pardon and appellate process. The group is an information resource on capital punishment, and opposes its application as unworkable, inefficient and prone to mistakes. Many death penalty proponents say part of the problem is that states have added unnecessary, time-consuming delays, and have been reluctant to carry out the death penalty that their own legislatures have enacted. They say states should carry out the wishes of judges and juries that weighed evidence and imposed death on the worst murderers. In states with the death penalty, the average county obtained sentences of at least 20 years in almost 51 percent of cases in which the defendant was charged with murder and convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter. Those sentences were reached through a guilty plea in about 19 percent of the cases. In states without the death penalty, sentences of at least 20 years were obtained in 40 percent of those cases, but only 5 percent were guilty pleas, about one-quarter of the number in the death penalty states. That study relied on U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 33 large urban counties. When it comes to worst murders, who is worse someone that shoots his victims or someone that stabs his victims? Does it matter no of course not murder is murder and if someone is sentenced to death then they should be put to death. There are mitigating factors in certain instances, and yes some innocent people have been put to death (mainly minorities), and that’s not to say that the death penalty is used disproportionately against us. My point is that when you have serial killers and admitted murders …KILL EM
These are just a few instances where I’m perplexed by the justice system. Charles Manson and his followers brutally slaughtered 7 people yet he gets to remain alive and basically living off of tax dollars for 40 years and counting. John Muhammad had so little regard for human life that Prosecutors say he intended the killings to provide a smokescreen to cover up his real goal -- killing his ex-wife Mildred and gaining custody of his three children. Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection 7 years after the fact. David Berkowitz was sentenced to 365 years in prison. Since being imprisoned, David Berkowitz has undergone “religious” conversion. He has become a writer and evangelist, his supposed strongest desire is to repair the evil that came out of him during his madness. While redemption and repentance are things that I do believe in, I still think after killing people there has to be some type of retribution by the justice system. Some states don’t have the death penalty and others such as California spend more than $130 million a year on its capital punishment system -- housing and prosecuting inmates and coping with an appellate system that has kept some convicted killers waiting for an execution date since the late 1970s Forty executions have occurred so far in 2009 in 10 states, all by lethal injection. That total is up from 37 for all of last year, but less than half of the high of 98, from 10 years ago. The Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
The Death Penalty Information Center study found that death penalty costs can average $10 million more per year per state than life sentences. Increased costs include higher security needs and guaranteed access to an often lengthy pardon and appellate process. The group is an information resource on capital punishment, and opposes its application as unworkable, inefficient and prone to mistakes. Many death penalty proponents say part of the problem is that states have added unnecessary, time-consuming delays, and have been reluctant to carry out the death penalty that their own legislatures have enacted. They say states should carry out the wishes of judges and juries that weighed evidence and imposed death on the worst murderers. In states with the death penalty, the average county obtained sentences of at least 20 years in almost 51 percent of cases in which the defendant was charged with murder and convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter. Those sentences were reached through a guilty plea in about 19 percent of the cases. In states without the death penalty, sentences of at least 20 years were obtained in 40 percent of those cases, but only 5 percent were guilty pleas, about one-quarter of the number in the death penalty states. That study relied on U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 33 large urban counties. When it comes to worst murders, who is worse someone that shoots his victims or someone that stabs his victims? Does it matter no of course not murder is murder and if someone is sentenced to death then they should be put to death. There are mitigating factors in certain instances, and yes some innocent people have been put to death (mainly minorities), and that’s not to say that the death penalty is used disproportionately against us. My point is that when you have serial killers and admitted murders …KILL EM
Friday, November 6, 2009
Back to The Future
“Well we did it!!! I have to tell you this was beautiful. Now we as black people can really look into our children’s eyes and tell them that yes you can aspire to be anything you want to be in this country, yes you can!!! It was beautiful in more ways than one. The first person to call me when they announced that Obama had won was my daughter. My 19 yr old college sophomore. The first thing she said was "We did it Dad and my vote counted!!" I told her "Yes your vote counted". See what we can achieve if we all work together for the common good? It was also symbolic because the first people I called were my grandparents; to tell them how happy I was that they got to see this moment in their lifetime. See they are in their 80's and have lived through Jim Crow in the south. So they know first hand how much of a triumph this was. We have to savor the moment, but remember that there is still much to be done. We can't rest on this, but let's build on it.”
I wrote that last year after the historic election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States. I was elated and hopeful because “We were who we had been waiting on”. This was a campaign born of hope and promise. I have to admit when I first heard his name as a candidate I was skeptical. I was a Hillary backer, I figured “this guy doesn’t stand a chance and I’m not going to vote for him just because he’s black” Then something happened, I heard the Iowa caucus victory speech He said” we are choosing hope over fear, unity over division and sending a clear message to the whole world that change has come to America.” I was done after that caught up in the message and the mission. There were some roadblocks along the way. Rev Wright, ACORN, Bill Ayers the “He’s a Muslim “rumors. None of that could derail or stop one of the most flawless campaigns ever run. I have to admit I was swept up in the moment also, but was still a realist. I didn‘t expect him to fulfill every campaign promise, It would be a process, but I did think that we would eventually end the war in Iraq, that there would be more transparency in government, that we would have universal healthcare. I’m still hopeful that President Obama will set his agenda and get these things done.
The only complaint I have with our current president, I don’t want people to take this the wrong way, is that I wish he had some George Bush in him. I don’t mean “your doing a heckuva job Brownie”, while New Orleans is underwater and FEMA was days late with a response George Bush. Nor do I mean let’s start an illegal war with Iraq over faulty intelligence, that they knew was faulty, but wanted to get a dictator that threatened my father and could not use that as an excuse to go to war George Bush either. I mean the one thing I admired about Bush was that right or wrong if he believed in something he stuck to his guns and didn’t let republicans or Democrats sway him. He did what he felt was right party be damned. I want to see President Obama be more assertive and take on his own party if he feels its right. Now that is not a dig at our President according to Politifact.com of the over 500 promises that were made on the campaign trail 52 have been kept and another 134 are in the works. He has compromised on a few and almost 300 are not yet rated. I understand Rome was not built in a day and it will take time. As I said on the historic night a year ago we must not rest, but build on this. We are who we have been waiting on. It is up to us to hold our elected officials responsible and to make sure they live up to our expectations. I know that is a lot to ask with a horrible economy, unemployment at the lowest it has been since 1983.These are the cards that President Obama was dealt, lets make sure he doesn’t fold until the job is done.
I wrote that last year after the historic election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States. I was elated and hopeful because “We were who we had been waiting on”. This was a campaign born of hope and promise. I have to admit when I first heard his name as a candidate I was skeptical. I was a Hillary backer, I figured “this guy doesn’t stand a chance and I’m not going to vote for him just because he’s black” Then something happened, I heard the Iowa caucus victory speech He said” we are choosing hope over fear, unity over division and sending a clear message to the whole world that change has come to America.” I was done after that caught up in the message and the mission. There were some roadblocks along the way. Rev Wright, ACORN, Bill Ayers the “He’s a Muslim “rumors. None of that could derail or stop one of the most flawless campaigns ever run. I have to admit I was swept up in the moment also, but was still a realist. I didn‘t expect him to fulfill every campaign promise, It would be a process, but I did think that we would eventually end the war in Iraq, that there would be more transparency in government, that we would have universal healthcare. I’m still hopeful that President Obama will set his agenda and get these things done.
The only complaint I have with our current president, I don’t want people to take this the wrong way, is that I wish he had some George Bush in him. I don’t mean “your doing a heckuva job Brownie”, while New Orleans is underwater and FEMA was days late with a response George Bush. Nor do I mean let’s start an illegal war with Iraq over faulty intelligence, that they knew was faulty, but wanted to get a dictator that threatened my father and could not use that as an excuse to go to war George Bush either. I mean the one thing I admired about Bush was that right or wrong if he believed in something he stuck to his guns and didn’t let republicans or Democrats sway him. He did what he felt was right party be damned. I want to see President Obama be more assertive and take on his own party if he feels its right. Now that is not a dig at our President according to Politifact.com of the over 500 promises that were made on the campaign trail 52 have been kept and another 134 are in the works. He has compromised on a few and almost 300 are not yet rated. I understand Rome was not built in a day and it will take time. As I said on the historic night a year ago we must not rest, but build on this. We are who we have been waiting on. It is up to us to hold our elected officials responsible and to make sure they live up to our expectations. I know that is a lot to ask with a horrible economy, unemployment at the lowest it has been since 1983.These are the cards that President Obama was dealt, lets make sure he doesn’t fold until the job is done.
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