Meet the New Jeff, Same As the Old Jeff

Attorney General & perjurer Jeff Sessions

After contentious Senate confirmation hearings during which he denied being a racist and dismissed his own record of opposition to civil rights as both an attorney general and a state senator from Alabama, the real Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III is finally materializing out of the political mist like some kind of cultural vampire.

His first and middle names, which should be familiar to Civil war and history buffs, evoke the Confederate heroes his family has idolized for three generations.

The memorandum from the Department of Justice released to the public on Monday outlining Session's plans for a comprehensive review of the various federal consent decrees with police departments accused of racially-biased policing practices suggests that America's controversial attorney general fully intends to live up to the philosophy of his Confederate namesakes.

It's a striking move by a chaotic presidential administration already facing widespread criticism for its pursuit of government policies that are overtly xenophobic (Trump's Wall) and virulently anti-Muslim executive orders - like the Muslim travel ban that was recently overturned by federal judges.

By now it's clear that the Trump administration's pursuit of radical policy changes based purely on extremist conservative ideology are intentionally designed to both provoke, agitate and more importantly to distract from the larger picture of the numerous White House ties to Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Trump and his minions seem almost obsessed with undoing every one of the accomplishments of the Obama administration, regardless of the impact on the economy, foreign policy, human rights, justice or the environment.

Yes, Trump allowed Alaskan hunters to shoot and
kill a bear hibernating in a den with her cubs

For crying out loud, as TheHill.com reported, on Monday Trump and the GOP Congress revoked a ban on hunters using reprehensible tactics against bears and wolves like shooting them from airplanes and killing them while they're hibernating inside their dens with their cubs in winter in Alaska's national wildlife preserves - a rule that was passed by the Fish and Wildlife Service under Obama.

One of the first rules Trump targeted was an Obama-era rule protecting rivers and streams from waste from coal mining.

But what's to be gained by challenging the 14 federal consent decrees the Department of Justice entered into with some of the 25 different police departments it investigated for civil rights violations under the Obama administration?

Remember these weren't just random politically-motivated fishing expeditions to make members of law enforcement look bad, these were federal probes that were undertaken in the wake of flagrant cases of racially-biased policing that resulted in deaths, serious bodily injury or serious violations of suspect's, prisoner's, or in some cases innocent people's Constitutional rights.

Was Jeff Sessions in some kind of coma when 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a member of the Cleveland Police Department in 2014?

Or was he on another planet when Freddie Gray died as a result of a broken neck while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department in 2015?

Ex-AG Loretta Lynch announcing the release
of the DOJ report on the CPD in February

Remember the night before Thanksgiving back in 2015 when the Chicago PD finally released the dash-cam footage of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke as the kid was walking away from six police officers with a 6-inch knife in his hand?

The autopsy showed that nine of those bullets were fired when McDonald was already on the ground.

But Van Dyke's actions were not an anomaly.

The results of the Department of Justice investigation into the Chicago Police Department, which were released on February 13th just days before Trump took office, reported that:

"it has found reasonable cause to believe that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) engages in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution...the pattern or practice results from systematic deficiencies in training and accountability, including the failure to train officers in de-escalation and the failure to conduct meaningful investigations of use of force."

By all accounts local community leaders, political leaders and some members of the police were in support of the consent decrees in cities like Cleveland, Chicago and Baltimore - so why would Jeff Sessions conduct a "sweeping review" of these consent decrees which were the result of months of investigations and thousands of man hours?

To reflect the "vision" for American policing of a president with no law enforcement, political or municipal oversight experience - a man who shared his arcane views of the U.S. as being some kind of apocalyptic crime-ridden wasteland during unhinged speeches at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and at the Inauguration in January.

Judge James K Bredar

Fortunately, as journalists Kevin Rector and Luke Broadwater reported in an article for the Baltimore Sun earlier this evening, U.S. District Judge James dismissed a Department of Justice request for a 90-day delay in a hearing that is scheduled for tomorrow in which citizens of Baltimore will be allowed to publicly express their support for the federal consent decree between the DOJ and the Baltimore PD in the interest of enacting meaningful systematic reforms to prevent the kind of egregious civil rights violations that resulted in Freddie Gray's death.

Baltimore citizens will be allowed 3 minutes apiece to address the court from 9:30am to 5pm tomorrow to express their views on the decree and the need to reform the BPD.

It says a lot about Jeff Sessions and his vision for the role of the Department of Justice that he dispatched two DOJ lawyers to try and delay that hearing.


Particularly given the widespread unrest that gripped the city in the wake of Freddie Gray's death in police custody - community outrage that boiled over after years of excessive use of force by the Baltimore PD.

But the judge's ruling is not likely to stop Session's efforts to use the power of the DOJ to block the consent decrees, so time will tell if the city moves to willingly adhere to the terms set out in the decree - terms and conditions overseen by a judge and a court-appointed monitor.

As Hal Dardick and Katherine Skiba reported for the Chicago Tribune yesterday, that's a question facing the city of Chicago as well even though Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson along with local city political and community leaders along with citizens have expressed a desire to follow through with the difficult tasks of enacting meaningful systematic police reform to improve community relations and prevent unnecessary deaths.

With the huge catalog of challenges facing the Department of Justice, is undoing consent decrees meant to improve public trust between the community and the police really the priority for Jeff Sessions?

Given the epidemic of so many citizens of color dying at the hands of American law enforcement, Sessions' announcement on Monday has obvious racial overtones and political ramifications for the Trump administration and the Republican Party as well.

How Sessions handles Trump's simplistic desire to portray himself as a "friend" of law enforcement and ignore issues related to racially-biased policing will reveal a lot about what the Department of Justice's priorities are going to be for the foreseeable future.

It's also going to reveal a great deal about the true character of the man once deemed too racist to be nominated to the District Court.

A man who once called Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Figures, an African-American, "boy", and a man who Coretta Scott King accused in a lengthy letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee of using "the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters" in Alabama.

Based on his memorandum on Monday, so far he seems a lot like the same old Jeff Sessions.

The Guy Inside the Police Van

20th Precinct NYPD station on West 82nd street

On a scorching hot summer day back in the late 1990's, I was walking east along West 82nd street towards Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side in Manhattan when I heard this faint banging noise.

Back then I fancied myself a "serious writer" and I often left my apartment on the next block on West 81st street to take a break and walk around and think, or clear my head after long hours sitting at my desk.

Now I tend to be a bit of a cerebral creature by nature, and the linear logic of  New York streets enabled me to walk around the Upper West Side on auto-pilot while my mind was miles away; not unlike a trance of sorts.

So I was bopping along in my own world as I was walking past the 20th Precinct station of the NYPD (pictured above) when this hollow banging noise caught my attention; I was across the street from the station in just about in the exact same position from where the photo above was taken.

I turned and noticed one of those NYPD police prisoner transport vehicles double-parked in the street, and there was a group of two or three cops just standing there about ten feet behind it talking amongst themselves.

I was across the street and I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but it didn't appear as if it was anything urgent, one of them was smiling and they looked to be sort of just shooting the breeze.

Then I heard the banging again, and I stopped because I could hear that it was someone inside the back of the van banging on the metal wall; like he was pounding to get someone's attention.

Now it wasn't a "van" with windows like you see officers riding around in, it was a prisoner transport van with solid walls on the back section where the people were kept.



The vehicle seen in the photo above isn't the exact same kind of vehicle I saw, but it was very similar, except the rear section was larger; but it had a similar chassis with double-tires on the back like the one in the photo.

I searched for photos online, but it was at least 17 years ago and the NYPD is now using different vehicles to transport prisoners and suspects.

When I stopped, I noticed how hot it was outside, it was humid, there was no breeze and the sun was beating down on the section of the street where the van was stopped and the engine was off; so there was no AC or anything - the guy banged on the wall again, and I heard his muffled voice from inside.

"Yo man, c'mon, it's hot in here!" he said, his voice sounded exhausted and pleading. He wasn't rude or anything, and I could tell he was African-American. I stood there looking at the van, trying to imagine what it was like in that confined metal interior space with the sun beating down and no circulation.

For the first time, I notice a couple of other local residents nearby in front of their Brownstones listening to the man's voice inside the van too. The group of officers behind the van saw us watching and seemed to shift uncomfortably, suddenly one of the cops walked closer to the rear of the van called inside.

"Take it easy." he said, "We'll be leaving in few minutes and I'll turn the AC on."

The man inside grumbled about something, but he seemed to quiet down. I don't know how long the van was parked there, and it's possible the cops were there waiting to pick up another person to be transported - it was hot out so I don't think they were just standing there for their own health.

As I walked off towards Columbus Avenue, I couldn't get the sound of the guy's voice inside the van out of my head, even though I never saw him. Questions kept ringing in my head, What had he done to be in there? Where were they taking him? Had he eaten, or had something to drink? Did his family know he was in there? 

Even though I was only there a couple of minutes, I never forgot his voice or the sound of him banging on the wall of the van; a faceless human being in distress. Not life-threatening, but distress none the less.

Baltimore PD Officer Caesar Goodson

As you may have figured, I share that brief story because I'm still troubled about the news that Caesar Goodson, the Baltimore PD officer who was driving the van that Freddie Gray was fatally injured in, was found not guilty and acquitted.

My point in sharing that story, was simply to try and illustrate that an individual who's locked in the back of a police van has his or her life in the hands of the police.



So if that person is hot, or cold, or needs to use the bathroom, they're at the whim of the police.

Or, in the case of Freddie Gray, if someone is injured and needs medical assistance, and they weren't injured before they were placed inside the van by the police, then that's the responsibility of the police as well - so from a legal standpoint, I'm confused as to how the court doesn't hold any of these officers legally responsible.

If you're reading this you've probably already heard the news reports about the acquittal, so I only want to say that there's something deeply troubling about the fact that it appears none of the police officers in this case are likely to face any kind of legal repercussions for the death of Freddie Gray.

Freddie Gray wasn't rich, or famous, or perfect for that matter; he certainly had a police record.

But on that day back on April 21, 2015 he hadn't done anything to warrant his arrest and there's still no adequate explanation for why he was actually detained and put in the van in the first place.

But while he was in the van his neck was broken, not because of an accident, but because the BPD officers who arrested him failed to secure him in the seat belt in accordance with proper procedure, and the driver intentionally gave him what's known as a "Rough Ride".

It's well known that if a suspect or individual is uncooperative, rude, or acts up with police, they'll arrange for him or her to get a "rough ride" to the station.

It's also known as a "joyride", "cowboy ride" or a "screen test" in reference to the fact that the unsecured individual will get slammed into the metal screen that separates the back of some police transport vehicles from the front where police officers sit.

Freddie Gray

It means the driver of the police van will intentionally slam on the brakes, jerk the wheel, run over potholes or accelerate in such a manner as to cause the person in the back to be thrown around into the walls - that's why Freddie Gray's neck was broken so severely he went into a coma and died.

That's not some kind of administrative error, an accident, or a mistake - it's an intentional act, and an innocent man died because of it while he was in the custody of the police.

The fact that there will be no legal repercussions because of that is troubling on a number of levels, and as Jean Marbella and Scott Dance wrote in an article for the Baltimore Sun on Thursday, this case has much larger implications for community policing, officer conduct and the ability of the judicial system to hold police officers accountable for intentionally injuring or killing innocent people in custody.

As Ebony Elliot, a 39-year old resident of the Sandtown neighborhood of Baltimore where Gray was killed told Baltimore Sun reporters in an interview:

"If everyone would care, not just in this moment for Freddie Gray, but for human life itself, the world would be a better place."

Unfortunately Officer Caesar Goodson didn't see Freddie Gray as a human back on April 21, 2015.

To Goodson, he was just a guy inside the police van.

'Nothing Wrong?' Nero Walks - Symone Marshall Died In a Texas Jail

Not Guilty - BPD Officer Edward Nero

In the wake of Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry William's finding BPD Officer Edward Nero not guilty on all accounts for charges related to his role in the death of Freddie Gray earlier today, the joint statement released by his defense lawyers was interesting.

After criticizing the prosecutors, Nero's attorneys Marc Zayon and Allison Levine suggested their client being found not guilty means the prosecutors should re-examine the case and charges against the other five should be dropped.

As they concluded in their statement: "Like Officer Nero, these officers have done nothing wrong."

Since the facts presented in this case make clear that Gray was chased and arrested without legal justification (a small knife was found on him only after he was stopped and searched), and was in police custody when he died,  I think it's pretty clear that something did go very wrong.

With all due respect to Officer Nero's lawyers, someone did something wrong.

The only question is whether the judicial system is going to hold any of the five other officers involved with Gray's arrest and transport in a police van responsible for his death.

That said, from a legal standpoint, it's questionable whether Nero should even have been arrested and charged.

Lt. Brian Rice (left) & Officer Garrett Miller (right)

While the BPD never produced a valid reason for stopping Gray in the first place, it was actually Lt. Brian Rice who initially began to chase Gray.

Nero and his partner Officer Garrett Miller responded to Rice's call for help.

Miller testified in court that it was he, not Nero who handcuffed Gray; Nero was off retrieving their police bicycles after a foot chase.



Legal experts have questioned States Attorney Marilyn Mosby's decision to charge all six officers rather than focusing on the individuals most directly involved with not securing Gray in a seat belt in the police van while he was handcuffed; and the driver, Caesar Goodson, for repeatedly accelerating and braking the vehicle intentionally.

Goodson will face trial in two weeks for second-degree murder and other trials will follow, but in terms of perception, what's troubling is the lingering sense that six different members of a police force with a notorious reputation for the mistreatment and unfair targeting of poor suspects of color were all involved in the death of a young man who hadn't actually broken any laws.

But collectively, none of them are legally responsible for his death. That's what bugs me about Nero's defense lawyers saying none of the officers did anything wrong - they don't seem to think anything is wrong with what happened.

Gray's neck didn't break itself, and our nation continues to see highly questionable deaths of people of color while in police custody.

Symone Marshall and her daughter

In the months since the death of Sandra Bland under mysterious circumstances inside a Texas jail cell after she was pulled over for an illegal lane change, other women of color have lost their lives while in custody in jails across the United States.

While 22-year old Symone Marshall's name never rang across mainstream media headlines, her death in a Huntsville, Texas jail back on May 10th nonetheless raises the question of how racial bias impacts the way police treat people taken into custody.

If you want to read a succinct account of Symone Marshall's death, check out the article Taryn Finley wrote for the Huffington Post last Thursday.

Marshall and her friend Amanda Arnold, 26, were in a car that flipped over three times after another driver ran them off the road in what Marshall's sisters say was a road rage incident.

When the police arrived at the scene, instead of taking them to the hospital, police claim Marshall couldn't produce a valid driver's licensed and officers claim to have found some cocaine in the car - they were both taken into custody on drug charges.

Arnold was released on bond, but Marshall couldn't pay her $5,000 bail and was kept locked up for two weeks. Marshall's sisters say she repeatedly complained that she didn't feel well and that her head hurt - the Walker County Sheriff's office claimed to have had a doctor and a nurse examine her eight days before she died, but they ignored repeated requests from Marshall's sister that they take her to the hospital.

On Tuesday May 10th, fourteen days after being taken into custody, she suffered a seizure and died from a blood clot in her lung that had gone untreated - she leaves behind a three-year old daughter.

Obviously this case is still under investigation, but like Freddie Gray, it illustrates how some people of color are treated in custody by law enforcement in this nation, even without having been convicted of any offense.

As I've tried to touch on a few times this month on the blog, Marshall's case also points to how bail requirements for local and state courts around the nation routinely keep non-violent offenders who haven't been convicted of a crime locked up in custody.

Sometimes, as in the case of this young mother who'd just moved from Detroit, had never been in trouble and had a good job, the consequences can be deadly.

Just as they were for Freddie Gray.

Time And Time Again

Baltimore cop William Porter must testify 

It was a mixed day for the growing nationwide grassroots movement to curb the systematic excessive use of force against unarmed African-American citizens by members of law enforcement.

Trials for the six Baltimore Police Department officers charged in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray last April had been held up over the second court case involving William Porter.

The 26-year-old BPD officer was the first of the six cops to be tried in Baltimore back in December over his failure to properly secure the unarmed Gray into the back of a police transport van with a seat belt according to police training and guidelines.

Porter faced charges of second-degree assault, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office, but after two weeks a divided jury failed to reach a decision and Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams declared a mistrial on December 16th; he'll be retried in June.

Prosecutors had sought to compel Porter to testify against the other five BPD officers charged in Gray's death and the case went to the Maryland Appeals Court - today they ruled he must testify, opening the door for the other five trials to begin.

BPD officer Caesar Goodson, top right, on trial next

With the court's ruling today, first up will be the trial of 45-year-old BPD officer Caesar Goodson, as the driver of the van most directly responsible for the "rough ride" that caused Freddie Gray's spine to be almost severed, he'll face the most serious charges including second degree depraved heart murder and two different charges of manslaughter by vehicle.

If not for Porter's attempt to avoid testifying in court against the other five officers, Goodson would have faced trial in January.

There's no question that, like anyone else in this nation charged with a crime (or crimes), each of these officers deserves their right to a fair trial by jury; but the city of Baltimore needs some kind of closure in this case in order for the rebuilding of trust between the police, city government and the community to begin.

It's not just Baltimore either, the country needs closure in this case too.

Remember, Freddie Gray was an unarmed citizen who was never actually charged with any kind of legal infraction or crime.

Plus the attorneys for the six BPD officers had already delayed these trials with frivolous efforts to move the trials out of Baltimore based on the shaky claim that their defendants couldn't receive a fair trial in Baltimore due to the publicity generated by the actions of the defendants themselves.

LAPD's finest 

An absurd legal assertion, one based in large part on race, that's often been used by police officers facing trials or charges in order to lessen the likelihood of their being found guilty by trying the case in front of a "more sympathetic jury."

The change of venue was successfully used back in 1992 in Los Angles to move the trials of LAPD officers Laurence Powell, Stacy Koon, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind (pictured left), who were charged with the severe beating of motorist Rodney King, from LA where the beating occurred, to the predominantly white community of Ventura County; where their acquittal set off some of the most horrific riots in U.S. history.

Powell and Koon later faced trial in federal court on charges that they violated Rodney King's civil rights and we found guilty in a trial that was held in the city of Los Angeles.

But at least they actually faced a trial.

As was widely reported earlier today, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara issued a statement that federal prosecutors would not seek criminal charges against NYPD officer Richard Haste in the 2012 shooting death of  unarmed black teenager Ramarley Graham.

According to Bharara's statement as reported in the New York Times, NYPD officers from the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit of the 47th Precinct became suspicious of the 18-year-old Graham as he was walking near a bodega in the Bronx because of the way he adjusted his pants.

They followed the teen to his home in the Bronx, and pulled up to the door as he was going inside; he saw the cops and slammed the door.

NYPD officer Richard Haste

The officers forced their way inside and officer Haste confronted Graham in the hallway of the house with his gun drawn and demanded the teen put his hands up.

The scared teen ran into a bathroom and Haste, claiming he felt fear that the teen had a gun, fired a single shot into the bathroom killing Graham.

Graham didn't have a gun, but there was a bag of weed in the toilet he'd desperately tried to flush.

The teenager's grandmother and six-year-old brother were both inside the house when the shooting occurred.

Today on NPR I listened to an interview with Ramarley Graham's mother Constance Malcom as she reacted to the news that no charges would be filed against the police officer who killed her unarmed son.

It wasn't easy to listen to.

She understands that her son died not because her son had a gun, he died because a police officer says he thought her son had a gun - and that thought, that erroneous belief based on fear, is enough for him not to face any legal consequences for taking the life of a teenager who was running from the cops because he had a bag of weed on him.

As far too many cases have taught us, that's a scenario that's played out far too often in this country; the things an officer fears, be it true or not, grants an almost limitless legal discrepancy for violent, even deadly behavior.

This decision not to file charges against Richard Haste illustrates the importance of the decision of the Maryland Appeals Court today to compel William Porter to testify in the trials of the officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray.

It's an important legal point sure, but the larger point, and more importantly the message it sends, is a judicial system saying that legal technicalities, or comparatively obscure points of law cannot be more important than members of law enforcement taking responsibility for taking the life of a person who was unarmed and not committing a crime.

During the interview earlier, Ms. Malcom had some pretty choice words for the NYPD Police Commissioner and the NYPD's police culture - she called the decision not to file charges against her son "a slap in the face".

Her words were a haunting echo felt by many around the nation and the world:

"Time and time again, you see it over and over, this officer walks free, they get a pay raise, they get a promotion and nothing has been done to them. This is sending the wrong message. Even in your own home you're not safe anymore."

Slap-Downs, Real and Political

Too little too late? Mittens takes on Trump

Was it determination or desperation that prompted the Republican party to dispatch 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to deliver a public take-down of Donald Trump during a speech earlier today?

The transcript of Romeny's comments were posted on the New York Times Website if you didn't get a chance to hear the whole thing.


Politically speaking it was a pretty good speech aimed straight at the collective conservative conscience that challenged the GOP to decide pretty quickly just what kind of party they really want to be in the 21st century.  

Romney may have delivered the speech, but there's little question that he spoke for the entire Republican establishment, and what remains of a dying American species known as the moderate conservative.

The only question is whether the GOP waited too long to wake up and address the fact that they've allowed the angry Tea Party extremists and Trump to drag the party down to the lowest common denominator of politics, ethics and class.

It should make tonight's Republican presidential debate that much livelier.

Regardless, Romney stepped up to the plate and delivered an old-school slap-down to a buffoonish loud mouth who's been asking for it.

Mittens' political slap-down of Trump was nothing  compared to the actual physical slap-down delivered to the face of an as-yet unnamed 16-year-old black high school student in Baltimore by a uniformed member of the Baltimore School Police.

According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, the two officers were called to the REACH Partnership School in Clifton Park after two unidentified young men (later determined not to be students) were reported on school property.

The two officers removed the two from the school grounds, but at some point, one of the two officers got into a violent confrontation with a 16-year-old male student in the hallway of the school.

At least some portion of the officer slapping and kicking the student was caught on video tape and posted on Facebook before it was broadcast on a local TV station; the story then blew up and went national.

Video still of Baltimore officer slapping 16 year-old student

The shocking video of a Baltimore School officer slapping and kicking a young high school student is a disturbing reminder of the propensity of the American law enforcement community to treat young people of color with a level of physical violence that is disparate and totally out of proportion.

It's reminiscent of the incident in McKinney, Texas last summer when police corporal Eric Casebolt violently threw 15-year-old Dajerria Becton to the ground while breaking up a pool party - BBQ at a community pool.

If you look at either of those videos, it's important to ask how you would feel if that was your 15 or 16 -year-old son or daughter, niece or nephew?

Would a student misbehaving in the hallways of a high school in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Potomac, Maryland, Beverly Hills, California or West Windsor, New Jersey be subjected to that kind of physical abuse?

The officer's conduct is repugnant.

Especially considering that his job was to keep the school and its students, safe - not physically abuse them.

As Maryland's highest court weighs the critical question of whether BPD officer William Porter can be compelled to testify against the other officers charged in the April 25, 2015 death of Freddie Gray while in the custody of BPD officers, the investigation into the conduct of the Baltimore School Police is an unfortunate and disturbing reminder of the disparate treatment of people of color by some members of law enforcement.

Donald Trump may get slapped around at this evening's GOP presidential debates, but certainly not like that 16-year-old boy in Baltimore in the hallway of his own school.

Mistrial for William Porter & Jayvis Benjamin's Wait For Justice

Mistrial for Baltimore PD officer William Porter

It was a rather sobering day for those interested in seeing at least some measure of justice meted out by the Baltimore court system for 25-year-old Freddie Gray's gruesome death while handcuffed in the back of a Baltimore PD prisoner transport van.

Earlier today judge Barry G. Williams declared a mistrial after the jury remained hung on whether or not Baltimore police officer William Porter could be found guilty for charges including misconduct, manslaughter and assault for failing to respond to Gray's request for medical assistance and neglecting to properly fasten Gray into a seat belt to secure him in the back of the police van.

As Robert Lang and Tyler Waldman reported for the WBAL radio News 1090 Website:

"Porter testified that he did not put Gray in a seat belt, for fear he might grab his gun, even though Porter said that when he discovered Gray on the floor of the police van, he was having "an adrenaline dump," and was unable to move. Porter and other officers who testified described Gray as having suffered from "jailitis" where suspects try to fake an injury, hoping to be taken to the hospital instead of jail."

While I'm not a police officer, I doubt I'm the only person skeptical of a cop claiming he was worried about his weapon being ripped from his holster by an unconscious injured man laying on the floor of a police van.

Christie trashes Black Lives Matter on Face the Nation

Don't hold your breath waiting for conservatives like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to offer thoughts on what a mistrial in the Gray case might mean for the larger issue of the lack of trust between large segments of the public and police departments caused by the lack of accountability for officers who take the lives of innocent and unarmed people in custody.

Opportunistic reactionaries like the Christies and Trumps of this nation delight in embellishing their conservative street cred by unfairly and wrongly characterizing all protesters aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement (or anyone who protests the rampant abuse and killing of American citizens by police officers) as "anti-police" agitators who advocate the murder of police officers.

As Christie did on CBS during an October 25th interview on Face the Nation when he also clumsily tried to link President Obama to ongoing nationwide protests against illegal police killings in one of his many awkward efforts to pander to the right and prove his conservative credentials by trashing the President over - well pretty much anything.

The six Baltimore PD officers charged in Gray's death

Given the extent of the protests that gripped the city of Baltimore in the wake of Gray's death it's understandable that police are erring on the side of caution to prepare for any possible public reaction to the news of the mistrial.

As I write these words, NPR reports that protesters are gathering in front of the courthouse in Baltimore and chanting "No justice, no peace."

Which of course is their right to do under the Constitution.

But it's my hope that protesters in Baltimore remain peaceful and remember that beginning in January five other officers (pictured above) will face charges in court in Gray's death.

So at least there's still a chance that at least someone will actually be held legally responsible for a man's death while in police custody - a man who hadn't actually committed a crime.

Viewed in a larger context, the fact that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby actually brought charges against the six Baltimore police officers within months of the incident has to be seen as a positive step.

It took well over a year for Illinois State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to file charges against Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke; which she finally did hours before the release of the video footage of Van Dyke emptying his pistol into 16-year-old Laquan McDonald as the teen was walking away from police officers.

Here in "the worlds leading Democracy", the wait for justice for African-American and Hispanic victims of excessive police violence can take even longer - if it happens at all.

Consider the case of Jayvis Benjamin, a 20-year-old college student who was shot and killed by Avondale Estates Police Department Sgt. Lynn Thomas back on January 18, 2013.

Jayvis Benjamin, killed by police in 2013

As an article in the New York Daily News by Shaun King reports, Benjamin (pictured left) was accused by police of having stolen a car when he allegedly ran through a red light and crashed into the yard of a home.

In what has become an all too familiar refrain in America, police officers claim Benjamin tried to attack an officer and Sgt. Thomas was forced to shoot Thomas in the chest, killing him.

But Benjamin was unarmed at the time.

His mother Montye Benjamin says the car he was accused of having stolen actually belonged to his grandfather and he had permission to drive it.

Benjamin also had no police record - so given these circumstances why no charges in the case?

Benjamin's mother says police have videotape of the incident, but they still refuse to release it.

DeKalb County DA Robert James

As King's article details, the prosecutor, DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James (pictured left), and police are coming under fire for dragging their feet in an investigation that's now stretching into almost three years.

For over a year James has been assuring Jayvis Benjamin's family and the media that a grand jury will review the case so what's up?

Is he hoping the case just goes away?

There's a hope that increased public interest in the case driven in part by the national media attention on the prosecutions in Chicago and Baltimore can function as leverage to motivate the DeKalb County DA to make a decision on bringing charges against Sgt. Thomas in the death of Jayvis Benjamin.

Time will tell but there's a sense that the longer they wait in DeKalb County, the more suspicious the absurd length of the investigation seems - two years and counting?

In the past, the refusal of police and the prosecutors they work with to release the video tape of Benjamin's death and the lack of charges of any kind being filed for his death may have once worked as a way to shield police from facing responsibility for the death of an unarmed civilian under murky circumstances.

But given the changes that have taken place in the wake of other high-profile police killings - the lack of action on the part of the DeKalb County DA comes off as the kind of bureaucratic foot-dragging that  blew up in the face of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuele and the heads of police departments in Chicago, Baltimore, Ferguson and elsewhere.

It's been an unreasonably long wait for the mother and family of Jayvis Benjamin to get some kind of closure, but in this age of the rapid evolution of social media the old adage that parents, grandparents and teachers have told generations of children rings more true than ever - the truth eventually comes to the surface.

In the interests of ethics, the public trust and the concept of justice, the DA Robert James and officials within the Avondale Estates Police Department don't want to be on the wrong side when the truth about Jayvis Benjamin's death finally surfaces in DeKalb County Georgia.  

Leaders Step Up To the Plate in Baltimore

Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby

Perhaps nothing illustrated the welcome of a quieter Baltimore today more than the strange sight of the Orioles playing a daytime game against the Chicago White Sox in a stadium with no fans in the stands.

As a New York Yankees fan, I've watched dozens of games in Camden Yards on television over the years but it was truly strange to hear the crack of a bat as the O's hit a three-run homer and not hear the crowd erupt in cheers.

Despite the gates of Camden Yards being closed to fans for another day because of safety concerns, a number of Oriole's fans did show up to line the gates which offer a view of home plate; though said gate is 600 feet from home plate.

More than a few of the orange-clad faithful were heard to complain on NPR radio that the park should have been open on such a beautiful spring day, but given the unfortunate situation on Monday night, maybe it was for the best - and the O's did win 8-2.

Earlier this evening I watched Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby being interviewed on CNN and came away impressed.

While I've been to the city a number of times over the years, I don't really know it's internal politics very well, but I can say that out of all the city leaders I've seen speak in the past few days (including the mayor and police commissioner) Mosby seems to have the most comprehensive understanding of what is actually happening in Baltimore.  

Mosby represents the city's 7th District in West Baltimore and has quickly emerged in the national media spotlight after he totally schooled Fox News television reporter Leland Vittert on the deeper socioeconomic causes of the unrest that shook the city on Monday night.

It's been so impressive to see how quickly members of Baltimore's hardest hit districts have come out in large numbers to show the nation and the world that the vast majority of the city's residents oppose the destruction of property, incidents of looting and isolated displays of violence against police that took place Monday night.

A Unity Line of citizens in West Baltimore [Photo Getty Images]

Everyday average citizens from all walks of life came out in the street yesterday to pick up debris, sweep up streets, throw away trash and perhaps most impressively; stand shoulder to shoulder in what have been called "Unity Lines" - literally forming lines of citizens creating human barriers between groups of restless protesters and the police.

I saw one woman who works as a librarian in a local elementary school standing next to her teenage daughter. The mother said she was there to lead by example by showing her students and faculty members watching on TV at home that their librarian was out there in the streets trying to bring calm to the city; and also to teach her daughter a lesson about civic responsibility and the importance of social activism.

Even though the Unity Lines were there to keep the rowdier groups of younger protesters from attacking the police or escalating violent confrontation, the librarian's daughter said she wasn't there to protect the police; she was there to protect her community.

It was something that really moved me.

"Baltimore Mom" Toya Graham stops her son's foolishness

Like the now infamous "Baltimore Mom" Toya Graham seen in the video that's gone globally viral of her chasing down her son to keep him out of the unrest taking place near a mall on Tuesday April 28th.

As my dearly departed "Gram" would have said; she "'bout snatched him bald".

In doing so this recently laid-off care giver perhaps single-handed, altered the false national media narrative of African-American parents in Baltimore (and elsewhere) as absent, unsupervising and non-caring. 

Perhaps the human condition in this nation would be a better place if more parents (of all races mind you) went "Baltimore Mom" on their wayward kids; I'm not the only one who's been out in public and seen some unsupervised kids acting the fool who could have used a "Baltimore Mom".

Maybe she should have a show?

Speaking of shows, earlier this morning Washington Post Op-Ed writer Jonathan Capeheart was a guest on a segment of The Brian Lehrer Show to discuss his observations of the unrest that's gripped Baltimore.

Among other things, Capeheart talked about something I tried to express in my previous blog entry; that the media was devoting the bulk of it's coverage to the tiny fraction of the protesters responsible for setting fires and throwing rocks at policemen and were ignoring the vast majority of Baltimore citizens who were engaged in peaceful protests over the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.

Even as six BPD officers sit uncharged on paid leave, innocent until proven guilty I guess; unlike the violent way they treated Freddie Gray the weekend before last when they began chasing him for reasons that still haven't actually been made clear.

During Capeheart's radio appearance, a couple callers made some truly eloquent observations about the situation and the segment is really worth a listen if you have a few minutes; just click the link to hear it.   

I'm gonna keep this short by my blog standards (I really need an editor...) by just reiterating how impressed I am with average citizens stepping up to take control of the city and responsibility for their community.

By doing so they're proving a lot of the mainstream media coverage on Monday wrong by showing that the vast majority of folks in Baltimore do NOT condone the destruction of property and that most people continue to be engaged in peaceful demands for accountability and justice for the death of Freddie Gray.

And as Councilman Nick Mosby has said, this unrest was about more than Freddie Gray.

As he pointed out, the unemployment rate in Western Baltimore is a staggering 30%. 30%.

The Baltimore Police Department also has a lengthy and controversial history of violent incidents of police brutality against communities of color; incidents which have cost the city well over $5.7 million in settlements since 2011.

Think Monday's unrest was simply about Freddie Gray?

Read Mark Puente's September 28, 2014 Baltimore Sun investigation entitled "Undue Force" that chronicles just some of the most disturbing examples of police brutality and violence against citizens of Baltimore.

Maybe President Obama should have read Puente's article before he stood at a podium at a news conference and dismissed the hundreds of outraged youth in Baltimore as "thugs."

No one is excusing arson, looting or violence against police or anyone else, but it didn't just flare up in a vacuum out of thin air - and some of the "thugs" in Baltimore are wearing police uniforms.

A Riot By Any Other Name?

The Baltimore riot of 1861

The episodes of violence and property destruction that gripped the city of Baltimore today were unfortunate for the idea of civil disobedience, but it's happened before.

Many times.

The Baltimore Riots of 1861, which broke out on April 19, 1861 when Union troops being transferred to Washington, D.C. were attacked by mobs of Confederate sympathizers and pro-slavery activists who lived in the city at the outbreak of the Civil War, left some sixteen people dead and dozens more injured.

Not only would those riots lead to some of the first deaths of Federal troops in the Civil War (four soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts Militia were killed by pro-Confederate mobs on April 19th) the ensuing disorder on the part of Baltimore officials would lead President Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to arrest and hold Confederate sympathizers and secessionists and restore order to the city.

After the violent attacks on the Federal troops (who were simply making their way to another rail station) mobs attacked and destroyed the offices of a German language newspaper, Baltimore Wecker,  as William Schnauffer the publisher was a staunch supporter of the Union; he and the editor Wilhelm Rapp were forced to flee the city for their own safety.

So in the midst of what's going on now in Baltimore, some historical perspective helps to put things in context.

Since 1807 there have been at least nine different riots in the city of Baltimore, including the aforementioned riots in April, 1861, riots associated with the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and rioting that took place in April of 1968 in the wake of nationwide outrage over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th.

And here again on April 27, 2015, a day that was supposed to be a day of mourning for the family and friends of Freddie Gray instead sparked more violent reactions just hours after hundreds attended a packed funeral service.

Too many of the television reports I saw on what were constantly labeled "the riots" today focused exclusively on the worst parts of the civil disorder that affected parts of the city; officers hurling tear gas canisters, looters pouring out of a CVS store that was later engulfed in flames and shots of police arresting rioters.
 
It's hard to tell from the images of disorder and looting constantly being recycled by mainstream media outlets, but there were also hundreds of people participating in peaceful protests across the city of Baltimore today.
 
Their demands for answers in the death of Gray while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department were largely drowned out, and their non-violent actions overshadowed by the actions of roving smaller groups of outraged (mostly young) people damaging police vehicles, causing damage to local businesses (and in some cases looting) and in several areas of the city, hurling bottles rocks and other items at police in riot gear.

But as a Twitter user named Afro State of Mind observed a little while ago, despite all these reports of rioting and property destruction, no one's spine was severed.

During the course of the day I kept hearing the same report about a Baltimore Police officer who was injured in the riots and was "unresponsive."

Yet the Baltimore Police Department's own Twitter account released this statement via Twitter within the last 90 minutes: @BaltimorePolice "We have received several media inquires asking if we have an officer who was injured and in grave condition. THIS IS NOT TRUE."

Riots tend to fuel reactionary and inflammatory rhetoric on both sides of the issue, as different groups seek to use the imagery to fit a narrative.

April 27th protests over Freddie Gray's death in Oakland, CA

Given the media's tendency to distort what's actually happening on the ground in the interest of ratings, it's quite understandable that some might see what's happening in Baltimore as anarchy, but it's actually not.

What's happening in Baltimore is part of a growing national opposition to, and outrage over the unchecked excessive police use of deadly force in this nation that too often claims the lives of poor African-American and Hispanic men and boys.

It's easy to look at a burning store, or a police car on fire and label what's happening in Baltimore as simply "rioting".

But look at the photo above, that's a photo that was posted on Twitter earlier this evening of street protests taking place in Oakland, California right now; it's early evening Eastern Time as I write this.

What you see in that photo are diverse groups of people taking part in the same organized protests going on in Baltimore. These are Americans united in opposition of unchecked police use of deadly force.

These are Americans outraged at the idea of a man's neck being severed in police custody who are demanding an end to the abuse of police power seen most recently in South Carolina and in Tulsa. 

I'm not condoning the destruction of property in Baltimore or anywhere else for that matter.

Personally, on this day when the nation's first African-American Attorney General was sworn into office, I think there were far more effective peaceful ways of civil dissent that could have been used to bring media attention to the Freddie Gray case and bring pressure to bear on the city of Baltimore to hold the officers involved in this young man's death accountable.

People from different age groups, religions, economic backgrounds, races and nationalities are tired of it.

They're tired of a nation whose political leaders used inflated rhetoric to point the finger at human rights abuses in China, Syria, Iran or Russia; while in this nation the Department of Justice doesn't even keep accurate data on the death of Americans killed by police - making it even harder to know exactly how many innocent people are killed by members of law enforcement.

Politicians in Washington wag their fingers at accounts of ISIS members killing innocent civilians in countries thousands of miles away from the United States, while less than an hour's drive from the nation's capital, members of the Baltimore Police Department are seen on tape dragging Freddie Gray into a police van as he screams in agony; only to be found with a severed neck about an hour later.

So no one wants to see people venting their outrage on a CVS store, but remember there are over 7,600 CVS stores in the United States; a CVS can be rebuilt and the shelves restocked.

Freddie Gray's life was taken, that's irreplaceable.

And for many people in Baltimore and around the nation, that's unacceptable.

So perhaps a "riot" is simply a matter of perspective. Maybe those images of Baltimore being shown on television are not simply a bunch of crazed lunatics running around burning stores and police cars.

Maybe what you see are Americans who believe in the right to due process who are determined not to see Freddie Gray's life reduced to a concocted police story, a botched investigation and a bogus trial.

Maybe what you see in Baltimore and other cities are Americans determined to see that Freddie Gray's voice is heard in a court of law, even though he can't be there to testify.

After all, if the Boston Tea Party, or Abraham Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War, or Daniel Ellsberg giving The Washington Post and The New York Times copies of a classified Defense Department study of the Vietnam War, or some black students sitting at a lunch counter  teaches us anything, it's that sometimes laws must be broken.

Not to "riot" or cause chaos; but to challenge authority in order to enforce the larger concept of the rule of law.

That's what was at the heart of many of the previous "riots" that have taken place in Baltimore since 1807 - that's what's at the heart of what is happening right now.

  

30 Minutes in Baltimore - The Death of Freddie Gray

Freddie Gray, 25, died Sunday

Brooklyn. Queens. Philadelphia. Cleveland. Ferguson. Chicago. Miami. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Charleston. Tulsa.

The list of American cities where unarmed African-American boys and men have lost their lives during encounters with members of law enforcement doesn't seem to keep pace with prosecutions of those police officers responsible for unjustified use of deadly force.

Will that change with the city of Baltimore now that the disturbing case of Freddie Gray has been thrust into the media spotlight?

From the terse, guarded statements released by Baltimore PD, it's going to take time to unravel the truth.

The facts are still murky, but as you've probably heard the end result is all too clear; and shocking by any standards of a modern civilized society.

At 8:54am on Sunday April 12th Gray was arrested by members of the Baltimore PD mounted on bicycles before being transferred to a police wagon to be transported to the police station three blocks away.

At 9:24am police called paramedics to the police station of the western district where Gray was found with three broken vertebrae in his neck; a neck injury so severe it almost severed his spinal cord.

He lapsed into a coma and eventually died in the hospital this past Sunday April 19th.

So what happened during the 30 minutes when Gray was locked in the back of that police wagon?

According to an article by Justin Fenton and Jessica Anderson posted on the Website of the Baltimore Sun earlier this evening, the Baltimore police are still being vague about why they arrested Gray in the first place.

In documents filed with the district court, officer Garret Miller states that officers chased Gray after he, "fled unprovoked upon noticing police presence."

Not to be flippant, but given the recent high-profile deaths of any number of young black men at the hands of police, and given Baltimore PD's tense relationship with the largely African-American community it serves, is it really surprising that Freddie Gray ran?

Police statements offer the usual assortment of "facts" typically offered up to justify excessive use of force or a violation of a defendant's rights. We've yet to hear from the four officers involved in the incident; perhaps they "felt threatened".

In a press conference, deputy police commissioner Jerry Rodriguez stated that Gray was in a high-crime area where drug trafficking was known to occur; so not only are some Baltimore residents trapped in a cycle of poverty, their being locked by geographic and economic boundaries in high-crime neighborhoods is in itself, justification for police to stop them. 

Was Freddie Gray criminalized simply for walking around in his neighborhood?

Once he was stopped, police claim to have found a switchblade knife clipped to the INSIDE of his pants pocket; so he was arrested.

Is there any proof the knife was his? If it did belong to Gray, by the police's own statement, it wasn't even visible when they saw him.

And even if it was his knife, if you've watched HBO's groundbreaking series "The Wire" anyone walking through Baltimore's west side would probably be carrying something to protect themselves.

Regardless the police court statement goes on to state that, "The defendant was arrested without force or incident...During transport to Western District via wagon transport the defendant suffered a medical emergency and was immediately transported to Shock Trauma via medic."

Remember, he was arrested three blocks from the station; what were the police doing for 30 minutes with Gray already handcuffed and locked in the back of the police wagon?

According to members of his family who saw him in the hospital last week, Gray's voice box was damaged and his brain was swollen.

Gray's lawyer, William Murphy, Jr., speaking on behalf of the family said, “We believe the police are keeping the circumstances of Freddie’s death a secret until they develop a version of events that will absolve them of all responsibility.”

Until the truth comes out those 30 minutes Freddie Gray spent in the back of that police van are essentially "missing" in time.

At least one of the four Baltimore police officers who've been placed on desk duty knows what happened but unfortunately the wheels of justice turn slowly when it's the word of four cops against a dead black defendant in this nation.

But the wheels do turn. For the sake of justice and the rule of law, hopefully technology (video, CCTV, radio transmissions or cell phone video), science, facts and a visible public outcry will allow the dead to speak.

And while the Baltimore PD will try to vilify him and slander his character, hopefully the media will help remind the public that this victim of such horrific and unexplainable violence was a son, the brother of a twin sister and a friend; a 25 year-old guy who loved to joke around and was generous to those he knew.

The fact that Freddie Gray won't have an opportunity to testify about those 30 minutes in the back of that police wagon is not only a sad measure of the state of law enforcement in America, it offers us insight into how black humanity is perceived - and the value of black life in the 21st century here in the greatest nation in the world.

I think a quote from his distraught sister Carolina sums it up best, “If someone has surrendered and you’ve put the handcuffs on him, what is the point of you beating them?"

That's a question we can ask, but the law enforcement community and the court system in this country is going to have to provide the answer.

And it's going to take a lot longer than 30 minutes.