Antwan Rose, Diante Yarber & Jeff Sessions' Blind Eye

Michael Rosfeld (left) charged after killing unarmed
teenager Antwan Rose by shooting him in the back

Last Wednesday, 30-year-old East Pittsburgh PD officer Michael Rosfeld turned himself in to be arrested and arraigned on one count of criminal homicide in the death of 17-year-old Antwan Rose back on June 19th.

And so begins the slow wait for justice and accountability that has become all too familiar for those American families who've lost sons, daughters, sisters and fathers to unjustified killings by overzealous members of law enforcement.

The circumstances surrounding this latest unarmed American teenager's death are at once familiar, murky and unsettling on many levels.

As journalist Tom Cleary reported in an article for Heavy.com, Antwan Rose was a passenger inside an unlicensed "jitney" cab that was pulled over by East Pittsburgh PD officers because it supposedly fit the description of a vehicle that had been involved in a drive-by shooting in the nearby area of Braddock, PA just a few minutes earlier.

When officers removed the cab driver from the vehicle and handcuffed him to question him, Rose and another passenger opened the passenger side doors and tried to flee the scene.

Almost immediately, Officer Rosfeld pointed his handgun and fired three shots, striking both passengers - take a look at the cell phone video captured by a witness posted on Youtube and watch how quickly Rosfeld starts shooting.

The video is only a few seconds long, and it's not bloody or anything, watch it a couple times - it's pretty clear that the two are running away, not towards the officer, they weren't threatening his life.

Rose was hit in the back and died at the hospital later that evening. The driver of the cab was later released after being questioned - his vehicle had not been involved any kind of shooting as officers suspected before pulling him over in the residential neighborhood where the shooting took place.

Hundreds protest Antwan Rose's shooting in front
of the Allegheny County courthouse on June 22nd

During a press conference held the day after the shooting, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala said of Rosfeld's decision to fire his gun:

"it's an intentional act and there's no justification for it. You do not shoot somebody in the back if they are not a threat to you."

The shooting sparked outrage, and protests and acts of civil disobedience have been taking place since the shooting took place eleven days ago.

While Rosfeld's attorneys are certain to try and use the defense that the officer "felt threatened" by two young men running away from him, the officer's competence has to come into question as he had literally just been sworn in as a part-time East Pittsburgh PD officer an hour and forty minutes before he shot an unarmed teenager running away from him.

He'd also been fired by the University of Pittsburgh campus police for undisclosed reasons prior to being hired by East Pittsburgh PD.

Antwan Rose wasn't some thuggish, violence-prone juvenile delinquent as some American police departments try to retroactively portray young men that are shot on sight because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity in order to try and justify an unjustified shooting.

From the numerous accounts of those in the East Pittsburgh community who knew him have noted publicly in the wake of the shooting, this was a good kid from a good family who was well respected.

He took Advanced Placement (AP) classes and was headed into his senior year with a strong academic record.

Antwan Rose (center) in an undated prom photo

According to the Woodland Hills School District Superintendent Al Johnson, Rose "was an excellent student." 

He also had lasting impact on his local community outside of school as well.

After the shooting Gisele Fetterman, the wife of Braddock, PA Mayor John Fetterman wrote on her Facebook page that Rose had volunteered for a local non-profit charity called Freestore 15104 that she runs when he was just fourteen-years-old.

During his summer vacation no less.

As Fetterman observed, "His life was just starting, he was part of a wonderful family and he was SO LOVED by so many and he didn't deserve this."

This was a motivated kid whose self-discipline is reflected not only in his academic record and volunteer work but also in the fact that he also held down jobs to make extra money from the time that he was at least fourteen-years-old.

Pittsburgh Gymnastics Club owner Kim Ransom told the New York Times that she remembered Rose coming in for an interview on a hot summer day back in 2015 when he fourteen:

"He brought his type-up resume and he was wearing a full three-piece suit with his shiny shoes and he was sweating profusely."

How does a well-liked high school kid like that from a good family end up getting shot in the back?

26-year-old Diante Yarber and a young protester

In my view it demonstrates the massive disconnect between reality and the perception of some police officers in this country - a perception so warped by racial by bias that some cops instinctively react with deadly force in situations where their lives are not actually threatened.

In Barstow, California back on April 5th, a 26-year-old father of three named Diante Yarber was fatally shot ten times at point blank range by four Barstow Police Department officers.

He was killed in the parking lot of a Walmart during broad daylight.

Yarber (pictured above) was wanted on suspicion of car theft when BPD officers spotted his Ford Mustang, recognized him as a suspect, stopped the vehicle and approached the driver's side door.

Yarber allegedly attempted to flee the scene with his brother, cousin and girlfriend inside the car.

Police claim the shooting was prompted when the Ford Mustang he was driving hit one of the police cruisers as he attempted to back up and drive off.

Even though Yarber was unarmed, according to a statement by Barstow Police Department Chief Albert Ramirez, Jr.,  four BPD officers at the scene pulled out their weapons and unloaded about 30 shots into the car because they "feared for their safety and the safety of others".

Ten of those shots struck Yarber in the chest, back and arms, and his girlfriend, who was sitting in the backseat, was hit in the abdomen and leg, while his brother and cousin escaped injury.

Defense attorney S. Lee Merritt described the gunshots that struck Yarber as being "consistent with defensive wounds...as he was shielding himself and trying to escape the onslaught of bullets" according to the findings of an independent medical examiner hired by Yarber's family. 

Jeff Sessions during Senate confirmation hearings
for Attorney General back in January of 2017 

So he was a suspect in a car theft, was not armed, and had three other people inside his vehicle when four BPD officers opened fire at the car which was in a Walmart parking lot in the middle of the day.

Is that smart, effective policing or hair-trigger overreaction based on skin color?

Now after thinking about these two cases, my initial thoughts were actually about Attorney General Jeff Sessions - the nation's top law enforcement authority.

Given that he defended himself against multiple charges of racism that were leveled against him during his tenure as a federal prosecutor in Alabama during contentious Senate hearings for his failed nomination to the federal bench back in 1986, one might think one of Session's first major public announcements as Trump's AG might be something conciliatory.

Something to demonstrate that he's not the bigot his own words and actions showed him to be.

But no, once he managed to squeak through the hearings process and was sworn in as AG, one of his first major initiatives was to announce that the Department of Justice was "reviewing" the various consent decrees that President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder signed with various police departments around the country.

While many around the country saw those consent decrees as a reasonable step to address the rampant, unchecked abuse of police power used overwhelmingly against people of color, Sessions and Trump viewed the decrees exclusively through the narrow lens of the right-wing ideology that drove Trump's presidential campaign.

And of course Trump's bizarre obsession with trying to undue as many of President Obama's executive and legislative achievements as humanly possible; even when they're in the interests of the vast majority of the American people or the environment.

Baltimore City Council members proposing legislation
that would give them oversight over Baltimore PD

Despite the fact that the consent decrees were put into place by former Attorney General Eric Holder (only after exhaustive research conducted by by the DOJ itself) that proved the existence of of racially-biased police practices on the local level, during his Senate confirmation hearings Sessions said the consent decrees:

"undermine the respect for police officers and create an impression that the entire department is not doing [it's] work." 

Even as Sessions moved to delay and roll back the decrees in the spring and summer of 2017, some police officials and city leaders, as in Baltimore, voiced support for remaining committed to the decrees signed with DOJ.

Remember, Freddie Gray was arrested for having what Baltimore PD claimed was "an illegal knife" and he ended up dying of a broken neck while in the custody of BPD officers.

Not one of the six officers charged with his death were held accountable for Gray's death in a police van. Not one.

And Jeff Sessions claims consent decrees that would establish reasonable federal oversight of the BPD would "undermine the respect for police officers"? Really?

Those consent decrees, voluntary agreements signed between local police forces with proven patterns of entrenched, racially-biased policing practices and the Department of Justice, were intended (in part) as a remedy to bring a measure of federal oversight to try and address the wave of instances of excessive use of physical and deadly force against people of color.

And address rampant police misconduct in those departments where it's shown to be systematic.

Not 1 of the 6 Baltimore cops responsible for
Freddie Gray's 2015 death were found guilty   

Under the Obama administration, the DOJ signed consent decrees with at least 12 different metropolitan police forces with troubled histories of racially-biased policing - including Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans and of course, Ferguson, Missouri.

Sessions and the Trump administration tried to frame the decrees in the all-too-familiar conservative light of "federal overreach".

But as a June 12, 2017 Op-Ed in The Baltimore Sun noted, the consent decrees were not forced upon local police forces, rather they were intended as:

"legal agreements between themselves and the DOJ to implement specified reforms. The agreements are the penultimate step, short of a protracted trial, that police departments can take to correct problems such as rampant racial discrimination, stop-and-frisk abuses, and inadequate accountability mechanisms."   

As I've often said, I'm no expert on policing, but it seems to me that unjustified shooting deaths of both Antwan Rose and Diante Yarber would at least indicate that there is still a clear need for at least some kind of pathway or room for reasonable federal oversight of police departments when it's warranted.

Sessions' decisions to revoke those consent decrees between local police departments and the Department of Justice are questionable at best - and at worst, indicative of the deep-seated racial bias that he's been accused of for years.

There's no certainty that any of the officers who took the lives of Antwan Rose and Diante Yarber will ever be held accountable for their deaths - the only thing that's certain is that they're both now members of The Counted.

And while the attorney general turns a blind eye to the reality of biased policing in America, the slow wait for justice and accountability continues.

FEMA & The Elusive Sanctity of Home

Two of the thousands of Puerto Ricans displaced by
Hurricane Maria temporarily living in U.S. motels

As I was getting ready to go to work early Tuesday morning, I heard a news segment on WNYC public radio about the approaching deadline for the approximately 2,300 Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane Maria last fall.

If Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials in Washington don't extend an emergency aid program known as the Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program in the next two days, thousands of hurricane refugees could face eviction this Saturday June 30th.

As a real estate professional who works in the industry, there's nothing more heart-breaking to witness, or be a part of than an eviction - even if a resident has done something to deserve it.  

In the same way that separating immigrant children from their parents and incarcerating them is a violation of the very principles the United States was founded upon, the idea that an agency of the federal government could be responsible for a mass eviction of U.S. citizens who fled an island nation ravaged by a hurricane is simply outrageous.

And just as outrageous as the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding Trump's overtly racist and discriminatory travel ban earlier yesterday in a closely-watched 5-4 decision.

Even as thousands of Americans prepare to attend mass protests against the Trump administration's heartless immigration policies this Saturday June 30th in Washington, New York and other cities, it could be a really shitty weekend for many of the 2,300 displaced Puerto Rican families currently depending on vouchers from FEMA's TSA program to live in motels around the U.S.

Given Trump's full descent down into a dark, racist, unhinged obsession with scapegoating and vilifying non-white immigrants in a desperate effort to rally the conservative supporters who applaud his vile bigotry and concocted rage, it's not surprising that mainstream media coverage of his repugnant tweets, repeated lies and conflicting statements on immigration is overshadowing so many other important news stories.

Like the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico and the looming expiration of FEMA's TSA voucher program.

Maria Baez-Claudio and her 5-YO grandson who
has cerebral palsy wait for his school bus to arrive

But not all mainstream media content producers have moved on from reporting on the lasting effects of Hurricane Maria.

For example, "The Disaster Is Not Over", an 8-minute digital documentary produced by NBC News' NBC Latino, looks at the story of Maria Baez-Claudio (pictured left).

She's a healthcare professional from Puerto Rico displaced by Hurricane Maria who currently lives in a Super 8 Motel in Kissimmee, Florida with the help of a TSA emergency rental subsidy voucher provided by FEMA.


She's a the sole caregiver of her 5-year-old grandson Christian Dariel, a wheel-chair-bound special needs child with cerebral palsy who needs constant supervision to eat, and dress - he must wear diapers because he is unable to use the toilet on his own.

As the short NBC documentary shows, Baez-Claudio applied to FEMA for an extension on the emergency rental subsidy she receives, but her application was denied because FEMA officials now claim that Puerto Rico is now "livable".

But as CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reported back on June 1st, on the first official day of the 2018 hurricane season, a staggering 11,000 customers of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority who lost power last fall after Hurricane Maria hit, are still without electricity.

And many of the homes that are still partially standing, particularly those in hard-hit rural areas, still haven't been repaired and have roofs and walls covered by blue plastic tarp at a time when Puerto Rico's hot, muggy season stretches from May to October - temperatures in July are expected to average in the upper 80's and low 90's.

Activists in Florida are currently urging the passage of some kind of humanitarian intervention by Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott and the Republican-majority Florida legislature - but that's the same state legislature that has diverted $1.3 billion over the past decade from state funds earmarked for affordable housing to the general fund to spend on other programs.

Tamara Rivera-Santiago & Marinelys Cartagena in front
of the Lancaster, PA motel where they've been living

Barring action in the next few days, like the 610 other displaced Puerto Rican families currently being housed in motels around the state of Florida, Maria Baez-Claudio and her grandson will be forced to vacate the Super 8 motel where they currently live by Saturday June 30th.

With no clear idea of where she and her grandson will go, or how they will live.

Try and imagine having that on your mind as you look across a motel room at your 5-year-old grandson.

An innocent child afflicted with cerebral palsy.

That same haunting uncertainty is also being faced by hurricane-displaced Puerto Ricans in 30 other states including Lancaster, Pennsylvania where Tamara Rivera-Santiago and her three children, and Marinelys Cartagena (pictured above) and her four children have been staying in the Budget Host Inn just outside Lancaster with the aid of temporary emergency vouchers provided by FEMA's TSA program.

As reporter Tim Stuhldreher reported for Lancaster Online back in April, both women fled their respective towns in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria last fall due to lack of electricity and long lines for  basics like food, fresh water and gasoline. 

According to Stuhldreher's article, Rivera-Santiago had a job in Puerto Rico working at a bakery, but the business closed when it could no longer get supplies from the U.S. mainland to operate - so she had to flee the island with her children.

While Stuhldreher reports that various local charities in the Lancaster area have organized to try and assist some of the hundreds of Puerto Ricans who arrived in the local area after Hurricane Maria (Lancaster already had a fairly large Puerto Rican population before the storm), at least seven families temporarily being housed in the Budget Host Inn with FEMA assistance could be forced to leave this Saturday.

Embattled (and reviled) DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen

While Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson is one of many politicians appealing to FEMA to grant another extension of the TSA housing program, the prospect of help from a federal agency in the Trump era isn't good.

Remember, FEMA is under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security which is currently headed by Kirstjen Nielsen - a heartless, right-wing Trump sycophant whose become the face of Trump's vile anti-immigrant bigotry.

Nielsen spent much of the past two weeks defending a widely-reviled border policy that criminalized people seeking asylum in the U.S. and separated their children from them.

Nielsen was famously confronted by protesters who booed and shouted "Shame!" at her at a DC-area Mexican restaurant last week, and according to Yahoo News, last Friday morning, a large group of protesters stood outside her townhouse in Virginia and played audio recordings of unaccompanied immigrant children crying for their parents and chanted "How do you sleep at night?" 

So even though Puerto Ricans are in fact American citizens, in the narrow lens of a Trump administration rooted in racism, xenophobia and bigotry, they are non-white people - the likelihood of DHS extending FEMA's TSA housing voucher program is slim.

In addition to insisting that Puerto Rico is now "livable", FEMA (under Nielsen and Trump) is instead contacting some of the 2,300 displaced Puerto Ricans currently housed in motels around the U.S. and offering them one-way plane tickets back to the hurricane-ravaged island as hurricane season gets underway.

NJ Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy visits a shelter
 in San Juan, Puerto Rico back in December

Given the grim reality that that's how the Trump administration is treating U.S. citizens, the burden is falling to individual states to take action.

Here in New Jersey, back in February, two months after visiting the island of Puerto Rico with other state politicians to inspect the devastating hurricane damage, newly-elected Democratic Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order creating an 18-member, three-month commission tasked with finding ways to help the 30,000-plus displaced Puerto Ricans currently living in the Garden State.


Back in March, I listened to a segment on NPR's The Takeaway documenting the many difficulties faced by some of the many Puerto Rican Americans still living in motels around the country six months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island - where hundreds of small business that residents depend on are still closed on an island that was already facing an economic crisis.

I heard some of those stories first-hand from displaced Puerto Ricans in months following Hurricane Maria.

One of the most difficult aspects of my day job managing the leasing for a residential apartment community in Hamilton, New Jersey is having to be the person responsible for delivering bad news to anxious people in transition desperate to get an apartment.

It's especially hard when you have good people whose applications are denied due to circumstances that they had nothing to do with; like a messy divorce that torpedoed someone's credit because of an ex-spouse's poor financial decisions.

Or an applicant who works two jobs and has solid income who's application is denied because they were injured on the job and the reduced pay from workman's compensation caused them to be late on their rent four times in a 12-month period before they got back on their feet again.

The Quinones family in their Queens, NY hotel room

But it's even harder when potential applicants can't meet the screening criteria because a natural disaster upended their life and finances.

And the difficulties and stress of the transition made it extremely difficult to find work, and arrange for child care while adjusting to living in a new city or town.

As reporter Alexandra Starr reported in a segment for WNYC back in January, the plight of Christopher and Charline Quinones (pictured left) is a perfect example.

As Starr reported, they're the parents of two young girls and they managed to find temporary shelter in a Extended Stay America hotel in Queens not far from LaGuardia Airport with the help of a FEMA TSA housing voucher.

Both parents wake early for an almost 2-hour commute into Manhattan where they search for work - they're lucky enough that grandmother Rosa can stay "home" and watch the girls during the day.

But the stress of trying to find a job, living in cramped quarters with five people and being far from their relatives who are still back in Puerto Rico weighs heavily on the family - multiply their story by thousands and you get a basic sense of the ongoing humanitarian and housing crisis that's happening to American citizens right.

Back in late November and December of 2017, more than a few people from Puerto Rico who'd been forced to flee the devastation of Hurricane Maria called or emailed my office desperately looking for affordable housing.

Unfortunately, the income and residency requirements that the privately-owned real estate management company I work for uses to screen applicants made it impossible for the displaced Puerto Ricans I spoke or emailed with to get approved for the 2-bedroom apartments they were usually seeking.

Displaced Puerto Ricans in a temporary shelter in
Orlando, Florida days after Hurricane Maria

Decent, affordable 2-bedroom apartments are hard enough to find in the Princeton, Lawrenceville, Hamilton area as it is, and with rents as high as they are these days, it was almost impossible for most displaced Puerto Ricans to find housing in this area.

That's not the case for all, a number of displaced people from Puerto Rico already had family ties or friends living in the U.S. - some were lucky enough to able to temporarily shack up with loved ones, find work and save enough money to get their own place.

But for many displaced people, meeting the application screening criteria, including income and credit checks, plus coming up with the application fees, first month's rent and security deposit (some properties also want last month's rent up front too), just made finding a decent place too steep a hill to climb - even when they had already managed to find work here.

It's not like anyone called me in tears or anything, but I could hear the tension in the voices of Puerto Ricans who called me; they called me from New York, Florida, New Jersey and I even got some calls from as far north as Boston and Connecticut.

To a degree, these were some of the lucky ones, people who'd been able to get flights off the island to reach U.S. cities like Miami, Atlanta and New York relatively soon after Maria totally devastated Puerto Rico - many were able to find temporary shelter with relatives who already lived here.

By the time most reached my office they were coming to grips with the reality that most apartment applicants need to show proof of monthly income to get an application approved.

Trump throws paper towels with thousands of
Puerto Ricans without power and many missing

And these were folks who'd had to flee their homes, loved ones, communities and jobs in a country that was already spiraling into an economic crisis.

It's not easy telling desperate Americans devastated by a natural disaster doing everything possible to get back on their feet that they can't qualify for an apartment.

The Trump administration's handling of aid to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria was epic fail.

And questionable at best (who can forget Trump throwing paper towels to displaced residents seeking federal assistance?), so in my view FEMA at least bears a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure that Americans displaced by that natural disaster have decent housing while they find a way to get back on their feet.

FEMA provided housing subsidies to victims of other U.S. hurricanes like Katrina for two or even more years - it's only nine months since Hurricane Maria and the federal agency under Kirstjen Nielsen and Trump are already trying to yank housing vouchers out from under the feet of those who still need them.

A decision that's clearly linked with the heartless ethnic and racial bias that's defined the Trump administration's approach to, well, pretty much everything.

FEMA has two days left to grant an extension of the TSA program.

But with the White House currently obsessed with deporting non-white people (even American citizens like Puerto Ricans), this Saturday when the TSA deadline expires, the sanctity of finding a home even could become even more elusive than it already is for those still in need of a helping hand.

Art All Night: The Iron Pipeline Flows Into New Jersey

Police tape still surrounds the Roebling Wire Works
in Trenton after last Sunday's shooting at Art All Night 

As an American fed up with Trump and the do-nothing Republican-majority Congress, it was encouraging to hear billionaire Michael Bloomberg announce that he will personally donate $80 million to help Democratic candidates retake the House of Representatives this fall.

Since 2014, Bloomberg has put his money behind ending gun violence by bankrolling Everytown For Gun Safety; the non-profit that campaigns for gun control laws across the U.S.

With the Republican-majority House and Senate refusing to draft legislation to strengthen gun laws and control the loopholes that put illegal guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them, the need for grass roots organizations like Everytown For Gun Safety, and it's associated groups Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has never been more urgent.

By now, the standard script for leading Republican politicians in Washington following horrific mass shootings is all too familiar; meaningless "thoughts and prayers" followed by the pious insistence that new laws restricting access to firearms aren't needed in America - "we just need to enforce the existing laws."

Laws which Republican politicians constantly undermine at the behest of the NRA and the gun lobby.

But with a staggering 6,795 Americans having been killed by firearms this year already, it's clear to most people that those laws are not being properly and consistently enforced.

Case in point: the terrifying shooting that took place at the annual 24-hour Art All Night festival in Trenton, New Jersey early last Sunday morning; one of the preeminent arts festivals in the Delaware Valley area that attracts as many as 20,000 people from 3pm Saturday when it opens, to 3pm Sunday when it closes.

I snapped this photo of an artist creating
glass designs at Trenton's 2017 Art All Night

While I make it a point to post statistics on gun violence in America on this blog as often as time permits, last Sunday's horrifying shooting in Trenton, which took place in the midst of hundreds of people, hit a little too close to home for me.

After moving back east from Los Angeles in 2011, my mom originally told me about the 24-hour festival that celebrates creativity, art and brings diverse crowds of people and a much-needed safe and engaging sense of nightlife to downtown Trenton - and I've been attending Art All Night since 2012.

Last year, after touring the hundreds of paintings, murals, sculptures and displays featuring crafts like live metalworking and glass blowing, I left the festival just after 2am clutching a styrofoam container full of takeout Caribbean food from one of the many food trucks and vendor stands parked just outside the massive Roebling Wire Works building where the event takes place.

My last memory of being at Art All Night last summer is still vivid - a warm, humid evening with the sounds of a band playing onstage filling the area, as I strolled out through the crowds (some still coming in at 2am) to the parking lot with a light rain starting to fall.

Not to be overly dramatic, but over the past few days I keep thinking about the fact that last year I was leaving at just about the same time that the shooting last Sunday morning took place.

This past Saturday night I actually had every intention of going to Art All Night, but I had problems with my internet service after installing a new cable modem I purchased.

After about 30 minutes on the phone with an Optimum Online tech support guy, he figured out the issue and reset my internet service, but I had to disconnect the new modem I'd bought and installed, and then reconnect the old one.

At that point I was frazzled and just wasn't in the mood to get dressed and drive into the city because I'd worked that day, had gone to the gym, and was just feeling too turfed - I figured I'd try and go Sunday morning instead.

Art All Night Shooting suspects Tahij Wells, 32,
and Amir Armstrong, 23; Wells was killed by police

So, I opted to just stay in and work on the blog I published last Sunday and then watched Netflix; and I'm glad I did.

The shooting outside Art All Night made national headlines, and while the incident itself is still under investigation, some strange information about what happened before the shooting has surfaced.

According to news reports, Mercer County prosecutors are investigating a Facebook post that appeared hours before the shooting warning people not to go to Art All Night because "They will be shooting it up."

On Tuesday afternoon I watched a TV news update on the investigation on WABC-Philadelphia while I was at the gym, the reporter said that the woman who posted that message is a school teacher here in Hamilton, NJ where I live.

Apparently, she'd left the area and driven down to North Carolina before the shooting happened, but it's still not clear how she knew there might be a shooting at the festival - she did speak with the Mercer County Prosecutor's office and has also apparently retained an attorney.

Like many, I'm curious to know why a school teacher wouldn't contact the police (or the organizers of Art All Night) if she had some kind of knowledge that a shooting was going to take place in a crowded public place.

And how did she know about it in the first place?

My mom has been attending Art All Night for years, and she was there earlier last Saturday evening until about 10pm with my sister about four and a half hours before the shooting happened.

She said there was definitely conversation inside the venue about groups of young guys wandering through the crowded festival who looked a little suspicious - multiple reports have said Trenton PD had asked festival organizers to shut down the event earlier than usual because the mood was supposedly turning dark.

Investigators are now saying the shooting was some kind of local neighborhood beef over gang territory, and that's really sad because Art All Night is one of the bright spots of a sadly-neglected city with a rich history that's been decimated over the years by loss of a once-vibrant manufacturing sector that used to support a thriving middle class in Trenton.

The Roebling Wire Works building in Trenton
where Art All Night is held each year

As I've blogged about before, Trenton's gradual decline is a story familiar in places like Detroit, Michigan, Youngstown, Ohio, Gary, Indiana or places like Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

So-called "rust belt cities" where the decline of  middle class communities was brought about (in part) by the closure of large industrial manufacturers who required vast pools of labor - employers like the massive Bethlehem Steel operations in the Lehigh Valley.

In the same way that steel produced in Bethlehem, PA helped to fuel America's war effort during World War II (Bethlehem Steel's 15 shipyards around the country produced 1,121 ships for the U.S. Navy in WWII, more than any other company), Trenton's Roebling Wire Works also had a lasting footprint on American industry and culture.

The Roebling Wire Works building where Art All Night takes place (pictured above), was originally one of seven different buildings that made up the massive Roebling Steel Co. complex in Trenton.

The enormous strands of woven steel wire strung between the massive towers of the Brooklyn, Golden Gate and George Washington Bridges were all manufactured by Roebling Steel in Trenton.

From a geographic standpoint, Trenton was well positioned to become an industrial hub with it's proximity to the more than 130 miles of nearby canals offered by the Delaware & Raritan and Delaware Canals - and of course it's position right next to the Delaware River.

As Kelsey Wojdyla reported in an article for the Trenton Times, starting with the first gristmill built by Mahlon Stacy in Trenton back in 1679, the city forged a reputation as an industrial hub that eventually produced everything from iron, steel, and rubber, to flour, pottery, fine ceramics, cement and candles.

The influence of Trenton's industrial manufacturing sector expanded well beyond the Delaware Valley region and northeastern United States to impact the country as a whole.

Steel manufactured in Trenton is in the dome of
the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

For example, weapons for the Revolutionary War were manufactured in Trenton in the 1700's.

As were components for the cockpit of the American-made P-51 Mustang fighter plane which helped turn the tide of WWII for the Allied effort to defeat Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan - one of many items produced in Trenton for WWII in the 1940's.

The Trenton Iron Company, once the largest iron manufacturer in America, produced wrought iron beams for the U.S. Capitol dome, as well as the Treasury building in Washington, D.C.

So the five buildings that remain of the Roebling Steel complex aren't just structures, they serve as remnants of a past era when Trenton supported thousands of manufacturing jobs - monuments to America's days as a global industrial power.

The fact that one of those buildings has now been repurposed as a public events space where thousands of people from all over the Delaware Valley can come to celebrate art and bring a much-needed sense of life back into the city is one of the things that makes the shooting last weekend such a tragedy.

Something as petty as a senseless feud over gang territory overshadowing the efforts that go into making Art All Night a success is an unfortunate blow to the ongoing efforts by citizens, politicians, business owners, clergy, teachers, police officers and volunteers to transform and revitalize Trenton as a city worthy of being the state capital of New Jersey.

A city with access to mass transit that can start to lure working professionals back to the inner city, and with them the critical tax revenue that's essential for funding the kinds of city services that are that are the basis for any successful and thriving urban center.

A photo I took around 1am inside Art
All Night back in June, 2017 

The success of Art All Night is proof that art can serve as a catalyst to urban renewal as it has in New York City, and frankly it's a miracle more people weren't killed and injured in the shooting last Sunday morning.

According to the latest data from GunViolence.org, as of June 23rd there have been 142 different mass shootings in the United States.

But the number of bills passed by the Republican-majority Congress to control gun violence stands at zero.

Republican politicians who refuse to pass new federal gun control legislation argue that existing gun control laws need to be enforced.

But New Jersey already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, and as Democratic Governor Phil Murphy noted last week in the wake of last week's shooting, the "iron pipeline" continues to bring a flow of illegal guns to New Jersey.

As the editorial board of the Newark Star-Ledger observed in an editorial back in May after Murphy held a press conference with Gabby Giffords announcing new measures to control gun violence in New Jersey, 77% of the guns used in crimes in this state come from other states - particularly Pennsylvania where gun control laws are far more lax.

Those guns arrive via the "iron pipeline" that brings weapons purchased in states with lax gun control laws (and Republican-majority state legislatures) like Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania up the I-95 corridor where they're then sold and purchased illegally without any kind of federal background check or oversight.

As the Star-Ledger editorial reported:

"Just this month, New Jersey cops arrested a Pennsylvania man for trying to sell an AK-47 [assault) rifle, three AR-15 rifles, high-capacity magazines and more than 100 rounds of ammunition to buyers here."

Fortunately, with a Democratic Governor now in office, New Jersey politicians are working on bipartisan measures to close the loopholes in gun control laws put into place by former NJ Governor Chris Christie to improve his standing with conservative American voters in other states.

Gabby Giffords with NJ Gov. Phil Murphy (right)
announcing new gun control measures in May

For example, Christie remarkably spent years obstructing a bill to limit access to firearms to people convicted of domestic violence or who are under restraining orders.

And he only reluctantly signed S2483 into law in January 2017 in the final months of his last term in office after the Democratic-controlled state legislature threatened to override his veto of the legislation supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

But in the meantime, Republican lawmakers in Washington refuse to act to close gaps in gun control laws.

As long as they refuse enact to pass legislation to close loopholes that put illegal guns in the hands of those who shouldn't have access to them, people will continue to be killed and injured.

And remember, a staggering 6,795 Americans have been killed by firearms and 12,858 injured this year already - and it's only June.

In the wake of these horrifying instances of terror, one of the most common reactions heard from bystanders, witnesses, relatives of the victims or members of the community where mass shootings have taken place is both sad and prophetic:

"I never imagined that it would happen here."

But within the past year, especially among some of the students whose schools have been the site of mass shootings, more and more the phrase being heard is, "I knew it was only a matter of time." 

There's something deeply troubling about that kind of grim resignation that extreme gun violence is now simply a part of the American landscape.

People enjoy some of the paintings at Art All Night

As if it's perfectly normal for thousands of American civilians to be killed by firearms in  homes, schools, streets, malls and churches across the country.

Personally speaking, those kinds of thoughts have passed through my mind as I watched or read news coverage of the Art All Night shooting - incidents which occur with such startling regularity these days.

As a current resident of Hamilton, New Jersey, and as someone who's lived in the Mercer County area on and off for 33 years, I have no illusions about the challenges facing Trenton.

With limited tax revenue for properly-funded public schools, after-school programs, youth job initiatives and even libraries, it's not surprising that shootings and gang activity have been an unfortunate part of the landscape of the city of Trenton for decades.

But those incidents don't have to define Trenton, or the people who live and work in the comunity.

And neither will right-wing assholes like NRA-TV host Grant Stinchfield - who had the nerve to theatrically (and Trump-ishly) dismiss Trenton as a "hell hole overrun by gang violence" in a video commentary after the shooting last week.

The enduring success and popularity of Art All Night is proof positive that art can be a catalyst for meaningful positive change in a community facing so many socioeconomic challenges.

In five months the midterm elections take place, and Americans will have the chance to elect politicians to Congress who will have the courage to pass laws that will shut down the kinds of loopholes that currently allow illegal guns to flow into Trenton through the "iron pipeline" along the I-95 corridor that runs along the east coast.

That would be an important step towards revitalizing Trenton and helping it to once again become an attractive destination to live, work and play - to help it to thrive in the way it once did years ago. 

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, people will be able to look back and point to Trenton as an example of how art can be both transformational and healing.

For both the city, and the people who live there.

In Bocca al Lupo: Italy's Resurgent Nationalism

Fall, 2017: Dejected Italian players after losing 1-0 to
Sweden to miss Italy's 1st World Cup in 60 years 

Last Thursday night I stopped by my local pub after work to have a couple beers and catch some highlights of the first World Cup match and the first round of the U.S. Open.

Apparently it had been a lively happy hour so I came in on a "customer shift change" when a number of people who'd been there since late afternoon were getting ready to take off, and a couple regulars, like myself, were just stopping in.

I was still sipping my first beer when my friend Franco came in and took a seat at the bar next to me.

Franco is first generation Italian-American, he was born in a small coastal town in Italy and his parents emigrated here to the U.S. when he was still very young; if you met him in person and heard him speak, you wouldn't know he speaks fluent Italian.

Franco and I lamented the fact that both Italy and the U.S. failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, but given their long soccer tradition, it's a much bigger deal that a World Cup power like Italy isn't on the pitch this year.

The Italians have won four World Cup titles (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006) and they played in the finals in 1970 and 1994; for perspective, perennial power Germany has four cups, and Brazil has five.

As someone with an interest in both history and cinema, over the past couple years I've used this blog as a platform to reflect on both the broader impact of World War II on Italian society, and the lasting influence of the Italian neorealism film movement.

Stunned Italian soccer fans watch as Italy loses to
Sweden and fails to qualify for the 2018 World Cup

Such as my October 4, 2016 blog on PTSD and director Roberto Rossellini's 1946 film Paisan, the second film in his masterful trilogy on WWII. 

So I genuinely both sympathize and empathize with how many Italians must be feeling as the excitement of the 2018 World Cup gets underway in Russia with their beloved "Azzurri" not taking part in the planet's most preeminent soccer tournament for the first time in 60 years.


In a country where reverence for soccer takes on an almost religious fervor, Italy's heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Sweden back in November, which eliminated the Azzurri from World Cup contention, still reverberates across the nation.

Especially in a politically tumultuous country that is still reeling from the repercussions of the 2008 global financial crisis, a fragmented European Union, and the divisive, ongoing debate over the undocumented immigrants that have poured across Italy's borders over the past few years.

As Turin, Italy resident and noted Italian soccer fan and podcaster Fabrizio de Rosa told reporter Sintia Radu last week in an interview for US News:

"There is a feeling in Italy that we are living in decline. And this was also reflected in the way we play soccer. People would always try to draw comparisons between how we play soccer and how the country's doing. In reality, in 2006, (when) we won the World Cup, people were happy and politicians were talking about the renaissance of Italy, but then that never really came. Actually, we had the (financial) crisis in 2008." 

Trump's immigration policies have sparked dozens
of protests across the US in June [Photo Spence Platt/Getty] 

That same gnawing sense of internal frustration over stagnant economic growth and flat wages for the poor and middle class that drove millions of angry white American voters to cast votes for Donald Trump in 2016, is felt across Europe  as well.

Whether you chose to call the reckless and hyper-partisan brand of politics that now define America's Republican party "populism", or "nationalism", it's rooted in the same kind of division and chaos that defines the current White House agenda.


For example, while Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and white supremacist White House advisor Stephen Miller are responsible for revoking DACA and initiating a "zero tolerance" policy on immigration that instructs U.S. Border Patrol agents to separate the children of undocumented immigrants from their parents, Trump took to Twitter to blame Democrats for the policy.

But as Miller told the New York Times in an interview last week, "It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period."

So given that Trump's own senior advisor acknowledges that the policy was a "decision by the (Trump) administration", either Trump is lying to try and deflect the growing criticism his administration is facing for incarcerating young children - or he doesn't fully grasp that the Republican Party controls both the House and Senate, and therefore Republicans are responsible for introducing and passing legislation to be sent to the president to sign into law.

In my view, Trump is lying, and his childish attempts to blame Democrats for his own racist, anti-immigrant policies is little more than a chaotic and desperate ploy to try and bully Congress into authorizing $25 - $30 billion of taxpayer funds for the construction of the "wall" he promised his supporters Mexico would pay for.

Ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and French National
Front leader Marine Le Pen at a press conf. in March

The toxic fumes of that foul political wind blew across the Atlantic in the wake of the 2016 Trump campaign, fanning an already-surging Brexit movement in Britain that saw 51.9% of participating Brits vote to leave the European Union in 2016.

Even though some recent polls suggested many later regretted the decision, and a recent CBI study suggests 18 of 23 British business sectors want to remain in the EU.

The Trump phenomenon and the UK Brexit vote arguably encouraged the rise of the right-wing (and decidedly-authoritarian) National Front during the 2017 presidential elections in France - but that ultimately ended with the centrist, pro-EU former economic minister Emmanuel Macron trouncing his conservative, anti-immigrant opponent Marine LePen (pictured above).

Two weeks ago the same anti-immigrant hysteria that Trump regularly uses as a tool to fire up his base (as if parents with young children seeking asylum represent a national security threat), prompted a strange coalition of right-wing political parities to assume control of the Italian government in a strange kind of "non-majority majority".

Neither the Northern League, or the Five-Star Movement (also known as M5S) had enough of a political majority to assume leadership of the government, but together, after some tricky negotiations, the two parties (along with other minor parties) cobbled together a coalition government that has a shaky mathematics-denying 67-seat majority in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies.

(Think House of Representatives but with 195 more seats and dozens of different political parties that must form alliances to form coalition governments to achieve a functioning majority.)

Fake resume? So what! Italian PM Giuseppe Conte

This latest "populist" coalition is essentially rooted in lashing out at the existing political establishment, pushing back against European Union control of Italian monetary policy, and stoking the fires of nationalism.

And of course, exploiting growing frustration over mass migration from North Africa and the Middle East.

The leader of this strange coalition is Giuseppe Conte, a rather obscure 53-year-old law professor.

Professor Conte has held no government office, has no political experience and is the country's 5th unelected prime minister in a row, but Italian President Sergio Mattarella asked M5S leader Luigi Di Maio and the Italian Parliament to back him as sort of a "compromise prime minster" that would be acceptable to the members of the fragile center-right populist coalition.

As The Economist reported back on May 24th, the new PM was elected despite the fact that:

"Mr. Conte had padded his professional CV with courses abroad that he had neither taken nor taught. His curriculum stated that he had 'perfected his legal studies' at numerous seats of learning, including New York University, the Sorbonne, and an 'International Kultur Institut' in Vienna. But NYU had no record of Mr. Conte. Nor had the Sorbonne. And the seemingly august Austrian Institute turned out to be a language school." 

So Mr. "perfected his legal studies" will now lead the Italian government during a critical time in the country's post WWII history.

Italy's new Interior Minister Matteo Salvini

But fear not, Conte won't be alone to tackle the challenges facing Italy.

Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, a former radio host who has made a career out of stirring up resentment over undocumented immigrants, was tapped as the Ministry of the Interior and quickly set off on a tour of the country promoting his desire to close Italy's borders and begin mass deportations.



As the BBC reported two weeks ago, at a League rally in northern Italy, he announced that it was time to tell undocumented immigrants seeking asylum and work in Italy, "Get ready to pack your bags."

To be fair there's little doubt that Italy, like other Western European nations, are facing a range of political, social and economic issues related to the unprecedented waves of undocumented immigrants that have poured into Europe in the past few years.

But I'm not sure electing the Italian version of Trump or Rush Limbaugh to handle the immigration crisis is really the answer either - after all, Matteo Salvini (like Trump) is a man who plays to stereotypes, fears and ethnic and racial hatred as a means to consolidate his own power.

It's not just anti-immigrant views either, two weeks ago global markets and bank stocks didn't react well to the news that the right-leaning 81-year-old Paolo Savona was tapped as the Ministry of Finance by both the League and M5S.

Italian President Mattarella quickly rejected him as markets panicked over the fact that Savona was a staunch opponent of the Euro who advocates Italy leaving the EU and reintroducing it's own currency - despite the fact that debt consumes a staggering 132% of Italy's Gross Domestic Product.

The question for many Italians is should such views be the basis for forming a new government?

Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler take in the
sights in Germany, June, 1940

And can such a fragile coalition government based on those ideas realistically last?

From a historical standpoint, it's disturbing that Italy, which birthed an early 20th century Fascist government (eventually led by Benito Mussolini) that aligned itself with the delusional nationalistic aspirations of Nazi Germany, now seems to be touting similar elements that birthed the Fascist Spanish government under dictator Francisco Franco starting in 1939.



In these volatile times it should be pointed out that the militaries of both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy used the bloody three-year Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) as a proving ground for some of the weapons, aircraft, munitions and battlefield tactics that would be used in WWII starting in September of 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

The countries may be different, as are the names of the political parties that have embraced a distinctly far-right agenda, but the staunchly conservative policies, including an embrace of anti-immigrant hysteria, the scapegoating of minority populations for the nation's problems and a disturbing flirtation with authoritarianism (jailing and killing writers, teachers and journalists etc.), are basically identical.

Again, while I'm not Italian and respect the right of Italians to elect who they want to office, casually dismissing the thousands of men, women and children who've risked their lives to flee famine, war, drought, poverty and repressive governments in northern Africa and the Mid-East as "violent African migrants" as some conservatives have done on social media, is a dangerous road to start down.

Time will tell whether the new fragile "populist" coalition in Rome will actually govern on behalf of the Italian people - or if it simply becomes an outlet for irrational anti-immigrant hysteria, crass bigotry and indifference to human suffering.

But it's sad to think how quickly some seem to forget the massive human and economic ruin of WWII that devastated Italy and so many other nations - a horror brought about in no small part by the rise in "populist" governments and creeping authoritarianism sewing division across the European continent today.

Sadly, for Italians, their beloved Azzurri not playing in the 2018 World Cup could be the least of their problems - depending on which direction the newly appointed leaders of their fragile governing coalition decide to take the country.

Based on Trump's chaotic year and a half in office, to the Italians I can only say, In bocca al lupo.

Marco Munoz & Republican's Ignoble Cause

39-YO Honduran father Marco Antonio
Munoz committed suicide on May 12th 

For many Americans, it's been jaw-dropping to listen to Republican Attorney General Jeff Sessions try and use border security to justify the Trump administration's heartless decision to order U.S. Border Patrol agents to separate children from their parents when undocumented families cross into the United States.

Few cases illustrate the intentional cruelty of that policy more than Marco Antonio Munoz, whose death in a Texas jail cell has sparked outrage.

As initially reported by the Washington Post, after Munoz crossed into the U.S. with his wife and three-year-old son at the border in Granejo, Texas on May 12th, he turned himself into Border Patrol agents and requested asylum for his family.

After the three family members were taken into custody and brought to a processing center in McAllen, TX, about nine miles away, Border Patrol agents informed them that they would be separated, and Munoz, understandably upset and likely exhausted after traveling hundreds of miles north from Honduras, became enraged.

Unable to calm him down, agents took him to the Starr County, TX jail where he was eventually found dead in a pool of his own blood on the floor of a padded cell with some cloth wrapped around his neck on the morning of May 13th.

That horrifying scene (Border Patrol agents reportedly had to physically pry Munoz's three-year-old son from his arms) seems totally devoid of compassion, more like a chapter from a dark dystopian sci-fi novel than a snapshot of 21st century America.

Munoz's death is so far removed from the words inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

Even Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked
Jeff Sessions to stop separating migrant families 

Scores of Democratic Senators and members of Congress (including some Republicans) called on the White House to halt the draconian  "zero tolerance" immigration policy announced by Sessions in early May.

In response, Trump had the gall to blame Democrats for a policy that he himself initiated in order to fire up the loyal right-wing base of support that feeds off his xenophobia and bigotry.

But not all conservatives are comfortable seeing children ripped from the arms of parents seeking asylum in the U.S. - or the effect it's having on the image of the Republican Party.

Last week Jeff Sessions sat down for an interview with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Knowing how much damage Trump's policy is doing to undocumented immigrant families as well as the image of the Republican Party just five months before the November midterm elections, Hewitt pleaded with the notoriously anti-immigrant attorney general to at least stop separating children from their families. 

Sessions' response was to self-righteously insist that he's bound by the law - even though there is no existing law mandating that Border Patrol agents separate families who enter the country illegally.

As if separating children from their parents wasn't already making him seem like some kind of soulless monster who crawled out of a primordial ooze, earlier today Sessions insisted that fleeing deadly gang violence or domestic abuse from a spouse or family member in another country is not grounds for an asylum claim in the United States.

DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen & Sen. Kamala Harris

Back on May 15th, the embattled Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen sat before a Senate Committee and got into a heated exchange about the Trump administration's demand that the children of undocumented immigrants be separated from their parents.

As the Denver Post and other news outlets reported, Nielsen got an earful from the no-nonsense California Democratic Senator Kamala Harris.

The former California Attorney General, whose reputation for unrelenting questions and demanding answers in Senate Committee hearings has riled more than one Republican on Capitol Hill, grilled the Trump cabinet member on the reasoning behind ripping parents from their children.

"What we'll be doing is prosecuting parents who've broken the law, just as we do every day in the United States of America." Nielsen insisted.

As if she's proud of that.

As if Border Patrol agents literally pulling Marco Antonio Munoz's terrified three-year-old son from his arms in an immigration processing center in McAllen, Texas is making the country safer.

As if immigration authorities currently housing some 11,500 undocumented immigrant children away from parents who came here to seek asylum is a noble cause that must be defended.

When in fact, she and Sessions (at Trump's behest) are in effect, twisting U.S. immigration policy to churn out death, injury, terror and heartless family separation to justify the xenophobic hysteria of a man who didn't even know the words to God Bless America at a fake "Eagles fans rally" on the White House lawn last week that no actual Eagles fans attended.

That's the guy claiming that ripping children from their parents arms in the name of  border security is a noble cause as he blunders his way through the G-7 summit in Canada by insulting our allies and embarrassing Americans with his ignorance of diplomacy and foreign affairs.

The November midterm elections can't come soon enough, and as Mr. Munoz's death demonstrates, lives are literally at stake.